Of those, 11 were pregnant women, and beside their names are the words “and her unborn child”. 

Rising high above this monument commemorating the dead, including unborn children, is the new Freedom Tower, replacing the twin towers.

However, ironically and distressingly, the spire of the Freedom Tower is to be lit in pink to celebrate abortion laws in New York, even to full term.

In New York the powers that be have extended abortion law, which was previously prohibited after 24 weeks, so that it can now include abortion up to full term if the mother’s health is deemed to be at risk, or if there is an absence of foetal viability.

Pro-abortion advocates claim that this law does not allow unrestricted abortion.

However, the reality is that full term abortions will take place since it could easily be claimed that a woman’s mental health is at stake.

One might argue that is New York, and this is Australia; but a human life is still a human life. And more, what happens in the US often makes its way Down Under. 

On ABC radio this week it was stated that one-in-three Australian women will access “abortion care” during their reproductive life.

Not only is the one-in three-accessing care indicative of the tragically large number of abortions, but also of the distress that these procedures cause. More, it was noted that abortion had a stigma attached to it.

This is hardly surprising, since abortion is no less than the taking of human life, legal or otherwise. And deeply disturbing though the New York law is, any abortion is heartbreaking. 

On the other side to abortion, many suffer the unrelenting weight of infertility, longing for children of their own.

Others weep daily due to the crushing pain of miscarriage and still birth.

And then there are children born prematurely, with survival now possible earlier than 24 weeks, and for whom enormous effort is made to preserve life.

How can it be that on the one side our society so values the unborn and prematurely born, while on the other it is all-too-ready to end the lives of similar children? Aren’t we deeply confused?

The Bible is not confused on this. In Psalm 139 the humanity of the unborn child is clear:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.