Life and Death

We recognize that death is inevitable, but the Bible cautions us against hastening death - the 10 Commandments are clear; "thou shalt not kill." God alone is the one who is the Creator of life, and human beings should not put themselves in a position of taking the life of another. In Deuteronomy 30, we can read the words of Moses:
19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;
20 that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them."

So, what was the leading cause of death in 2024?  Was it cancer?  Heart attack?   Or, something more sinister, perhaps murder by gun violence?

Well, it's certainly a very sinister action that led the causes of death last year. A LifeSiteNews article stated recently:

...as Breitbart reported yesterday, abortion was the leading cause of death globally in 2024, “with a record 45 million unborn babies killed in the womb, according to data provided by Worldometer.” The numbers are excruciating and impossible to fathom: As of 12 p.m. on December 31, 2024, an estimated 45.1 million abortions were perpetrated throughout the year. For context, Canada’s entire population is 40.1 million.

The abortion death rate – or, more accurately, kill count – dwarfs every other number, including 8.2 million dying from cancer, 5 million from smoking, 1.7 million from HIV/AIDS, 1.46 million from traffic accidents, and 1.1 million from suicide. As Breitbart pointed out, the total of all non-abortion deaths is 62.5 million, “meaning that abortions accounted for just over 42 percent of all human deaths in 2024.”

As the LifeSite article points out, this has had an impact on how well the human race can replicate itself. It relates:

Throughout 2024, the mainstream press woke up to a brutal reality: Despite decades of sinister fearmongering about “overpopulation,” the world is experiencing a critical shortage of babies that will threaten our way of life in every way imaginable.

From The Guardian: “Birthrates are plummeting worldwide. Can governments turn the tide?” From the Globe and Mail: “Fewer babies are being born around the world, and not only in the places you’d expect.” From Euronews: “Greece confronts disastrously low birthrates in Aegean Islands.” From Politico: “The political shockwaves of America’s falling birthrates.”

Here is a sobering thought: "Based on an overview of the world’s 196 countries, the average population of a country is 40.96 million. This means that every year the equivalent of an entire country is killed by abortion."  And, LifeSite pointed out that a news outlet in France was just fined for actually reporting this truth. 

One particular news outlet chose to report on declining birth rates, but chose to look at immigration as the hope for stabilization, with nary a mention of the abortion crisis. Politico reported:

For the population to stay at steady state or growing levels, the fertility rate typically has to be at least 2.1 children per woman. But after peaking in the 1960s, for decades in the U.S. and many other countries the fertility rate has been falling.

In the United States, the number of births decreased 3 percent from 2022, according to the most recent data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, bringing the rate down to 1.6 births per woman over the course of a lifetime. That’s far below the rate needed to keep the US population at replacement levels.

The agenda here was to target plans to reduce illegal immigration.  But, with the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reporting over 1 million "clinician-provided" abortions in 2023, presumably not including the rise in chemical, or mail-order abortions, this makes a significant impact on our population. 

But, let's not talk about that, the legacy media seems to say - after all, women have the so-called "right to choose."  But, that "right" has consequences on the population generally. And, I believe there are spiritual implications - concern has been expressed over how God could bless a nation that exterminates millions of its unborn children.  We must reject a "culture of death" that hides the true nature of abortion and promote the importance of life and protecting the unborn. 

So, in all this talk of reproductive rights, our nation should have a hard conversation about the number of deaths that are being taken by abortion. How our potential population has been reduced - this goes beyond the moral and spiritual, although those implications are important.  There are economic and sociological consequences of the termination of unborn life.  Because, when sin is tolerated, when we sow to ungodly actions, then we reap the effects.