Imagine someone important is dying. Maybe a leader of a nation. Maybe a great spiritual leader. Maybe the president of a company or of a university. A critical organ of his body is diseased and it’s terminal.

Now picture a mentally challenged homeless derelict who happens to be relatively healthy.

Do you think it would be OK to kill the derelict in order to give the important guy a heart transplant?

Or suppose you could save the important leader by a transplant obtained by killing a three-year-old child. Maybe a child from a poverty stricken home. Maybe a child who has the potential for being a burden on society.

Well, what if this leader could be saved by a woman, eight months into her pregnancy, who was willing to give her unborn child to be killed for body parts? What if she really wasn’t sure she wanted a baby anyway?

Would it be any more OK if we backed up the pregnancy? Maybe six months pregnant? or three? or one?

What if the baby had just barely been conceived? Is it OK now?

So where do you draw the line?

The truth is, of course, that when a human sperm and a human egg come together to form a human zygote (how non-personal the word sounds!), all the information is in place for the development of an adult human being. At first this tiny person doesn’t look like what we think of as a human being. It doesn’t look like much of anything. It is a tiny diploid cell.

Within a few days of growth this tiny person becomes implanted in the wall of its mother’s uterus. Now it is called an embryo (how non-personal the word sounds!).

After a few weeks the heart of this tiny person begins to beat. Limb buds form which will later become arms and legs. Its brain begins to develop into five distinct areas.

After about eight weeks the person is no longer called an embryo, it is called a fetus (how non-personal the word sounds!). Facial features have begun to develop.

After about nine months the person moves out of the mother’s womb and down the birth canal. (By the way, there are, utterly shocking as it sounds to me, those who believe that if we turn the baby around so that it’s head is still in the birth canal, that it is perfectly OK to still slaughter it for essentially any reason… as long as it hasn’t taken a breath, and therefore cannot scream.)

As this little person exits the birth canal, it is no longer called a fetus, it is called a baby (Ah, that sounds much more human!). It is still has a lot of growing to do. There is a soft spot in its skull. Its head seems a bit large for its body. It can’t walk or talk or do much of anything but eat, cry, mess diapers, and sleep. It doesn’t have much practical value to contribute to the world.

It will require quite a few years of growth before it’s of much use. And, sadly, some of them never seem to be of much use.

I realize that many people will protest my use of the word “person” to describe a zygote or an embryo or even a fetus. Somehow we are able to convince ourselves that if we can’t see or hear this tiny person, that it must not really be a person.

But the obvious truth is that as soon as the sperm and the egg come together, a human being begins the process of growth. And this growth process seamlessly continues until the person finally reaches full adulthood.

Of course, the question is, “When, along this seamless growth process, is it OK to kill this person for the sake of someone else’s health?”

As a nation, we have decided that as long as the person is very young, and very tiny, and very undeveloped, and apparently of very little practical value, that it is OK to kill this little person for the sake of the health of more important people.

Just a reminder… You and I were once zygotes and embryos. Jesus was once a zygote and then an embryo.

When we begin to think of human life as a commodity, when we begin to put dollar values on human lives, we have crossed over the line from authority delegated to man to authority God reserves for Himself.

Pray for America. And prepare for judgment.