In 2017, CBS traveled to Iceland to study the impact of prenatal testing on Down’s Syndrome. The title of their article revealed the horror they felt:

“What kind of society do you want to live in?”: Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing(see article here)

I felt the same horror when I heard of the New York Senate’s decision to allow abortion all the way up to full term–if the baby is no longer “viable” or the mother’s “well-being” is at risk. When the bill passed, the Senate erupted in applause. Why do I find their applause horrifying? The ambiguity of the phrase “well-being of the mother” provides an open door for unprecedented late-term abortions. Wellbeing refers to “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient.”

We are at a standstill over border protection. I value the lives of people who desperately want to get into this country. This is one reason I’ve traveled to Nicaragua, Ecuador, Honduras and Africa on mission trips. People matter to God. All colors, all tribes, all people groups. He loves none of them more than any other.

But we cannot have it both ways. We either value the voiceless life of the unborn, the sometimes muffled voice of the person with special needs, the unrecognizable voice of the immigrant who does not speak our language, and the weak voice of the aging Alzheimer’s patient who no longer knows her name–or we don’t value life at all. Throughout all of Scripture God clearly calls us to speak up and provide for 3 kinds of people:

At the end of every three years, bring all your tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 14:28-29, NIV, emphasis mine)

I am not suggesting that we go soft on the border. I have no desire to wade into that political minefield. I am saying that we must NEVER go soft on life, on its value to those who have no voice, who cannot speak for themselves either because they are resting in their mom’s amniotic fluid, or their intellectual development prohibits them from speaking up, or they cannot speak our language, or they can no longer articulate…because disease has attacked their minds. They matter to God…and they must matter to us.