In 2019, state legislatures throughout the US have worked diligently to pass new laws related to abortion.

Four states (Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina and Arkansas) have worked to continue to place limitations on abortion while working towards making abortions illegal in their states if Roe vs. Wade is reversed. At the same time, other states have caught our attention because of their blatant disregard for the sanctity of life (New York and Virginia). These states want to allow abortion up to the time of birth. The Governor of Virginia even suggested that a baby might even be killed after birth, if the mother so chooses. While some may view what is happening as political or philosophical debate, I believe the point of views reveal something far deeper and more important. America is polarized by two opposing worldviews.

The perspective of current legislation in New York and Virginia clearly embraces a secular worldview where moral issues are personal decisions. Human rights are not rooted in an objective moral system but are totally subjective. The end result is always the same; human life is devalued. In Rome two thousand years ago, Roman citizens went to the coliseums to see human beings ripped apart by wild animals while undesirable infants and other ill or disabled citizens were tossed out on the streets. A secular worldview always ends up devaluing life and exalting death.

To understand this more fully, it is important to recognize that every worldview must answer three basic questions: How did we get here? What is wrong with us? and How can it be fixed? From the perspective of a biblical worldview these three questions deal with creation, the fall, and redemption. Even non-religious persons will ask and answer these basic questions. That’s because we are hard-wired to make meaning out of life; to posit some purpose that makes sense out of things.

Of the three, the first question is arguably the most important to answer. Depending on how we answer it, determines our ability to make sense out of life. That is vital to understand, especially in light of the fact most Westerners today accept the view of evolution by natural selection as taught by Charles Darwin as an explanation of how we got here. That theory (though treated as fact, remains a theory), removes the need for a Creator who created us in his image and likeness. It also diminishes any need to find purpose to life, since life began without any definitive purpose but was the result of an accident (Big Bang). Some have raised the idea of Deistic Evolution—that a divine being spawned life initially and then allowed the normal evolutionary processes to develop the earth. But most evolutionists today have abandoned any need for a deity and believe that life began accidentally out of the primordial soup.

Since they do not believe a Creator fashioned this world, they deny entirely the biblical truth that this world is in its present condition because humans rebelled against their Creator. Since there is no Creator, there also is no ultimate Moral Agent holding people accountable to a moral standard. Such standards are totally subjective and determined by individuals rather than objective. So therefore, they reject entirely the concept of sin. The only thing classified as sin is intentional harm done to human beings or to the environment.

Since there is no Creator mankind is responsible to and therefore no moral standards to violate; the things suggested to repair the problem are basically humanistic. Human beings determine what is right and wrong, not some Creator who holds an objective standard all must obey. We shouldn’t be shocked therefore that human life is devalued not only while in the womb, but also, as some are now suggesting, immediately after birth as well. Why should it be otherwise? After all, embracing a secular worldview really means that anything goes since human beings are free to determine the standards by which they live. And since there is no definitive purpose to life, why should human life be valued?

Believers need to understand these things so as not to engage the culture on the basis of political positions (though there are certainly political ramifications) but by exposing the falsity of the secular worldview. Unless people are transformed by means of adopting a biblical worldview there is little chance of persuading them to change their views on abortion on the basis of political appeal.