Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent, the forty day period of fasting which ends at Easter. Christians remember Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the desert prior to his baptism and public ministry.
The purpose of the Lenten fasting and self denial (which need not be in relation to food) is to remind us of our reliance on God, and to take some less important or distracting things out of our lives, in order to make more room for prayer, service, study, and other things which really matter.
Hundreds of churches around the world are keeping this Lent as 40 Days for Life, a focused pro-life effort that consists of three key areas of participation:
•40 days of prayer and fasting
•40 days of peaceful vigil
•40 days of community outreach
So on that subject I note with sorrow that in New York city in 2008, there were 82,475 induced abortions. This figure is only for surgical procedures, and does not include use of the ‘morning after’ pill, or any of the unknown number of non-recorded abortions.
The total number of deaths in all age groups from all other causes was 55,391.
82,475 abortions. 55,391 deaths from all other causes.
A black baby is three times more likely to be aborted than a white baby.
Every culture has its moral black spots. we look back at the Nazis with horror. Not just at the comparatively few who were actively involved in the wholesale murder of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other ‘undesireables,’ but at the vastly greater number who knew what was happening and did nothing.
Western society’s argument in relation to abortion is that an unborn child is not really human. The Nazis thought the same about Jews and Gypsies.
Future generations will look back at us with the same bewildered horror.
