The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

During the Christmas break I happened to see a terrifying program on Animal Planet called “Rattlesnake Republic.” I don’t know why I was urged to watch such tripe, but I did and on the program I saw some demented creature get in a coffin and have dozens of rattlesnakes piled on top of him. Horror of horrors!

I thought, “That coffin full of rattlesnakes must be the most dangerous place on earth.” What would be the most dangerous place to you?

After the horrific slaughter of the precious, innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT some might contend that the public schools of America are dangerous; and indeed some of them have proven to be places of peril and enclaves of endangerment.

Tracking down Al Qaeda operatives in the barren, mountainous terrain of Afghanistan would have to rank up there near the top when it comes to dangerous places. Just the mention of that should remind us to pray for our troops who are constantly placed in harm’s way in a valiant effort to preserve our freedom.

Several years ago I was driving to downtown Atlanta and saw a worker walking on a steel beam high atop the skeleton of a building under construction at Atlantic Station. A cold chill ran up my spine as I thought about his precarious position twenty-something stories above the ground. It looked like the most dangerous place on earth (or above the earth) at the time.

I thought about the tsunami that struck many of the nations bordering the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. Sri Lanka was one of the nations hardest hit by the waves that crashed ashore on that fateful day. A long stretch of Sri Lanka’s coast was devastated by those killer waves, with more than 40,000 dead and a staggering 2.5 million people displaced.

I saw videos of waves as high as 20 feet sweeping over the coast with huge force and moving inland as far as three miles and leaving in its wake a path of destruction even engulfing and destroying a train with 1,700 passengers. I would be terrified to see a wave coming at me at such a forceful and destructive pace. Surely, standing in the path of such a powerful flood of water would be the most dangerous place on earth.

And what about the Pamplona bull-running? Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” told the world about the Pamplona bull-running festival. The bull-run takes place at 8 a.m. every morning from July 7-14. Runners must be in the running area by 7:30 a.m. The actual run stretches for 825 meters and the average time of the run is about three minutes.

“… the most dangerous place on earth
… is not driving an automobile without
wearing a seat belt or flying in a commercial
airliner with a potential terrorist on board.”

The goal of each runner is to outrun the bulls or at least keep from getting gored. Every year runners are injured and often hospitalized. In 2009 a young Spaniard was gored in the neck as he tried to escape a bull by sliding feet-first under a fence separating the course from the crowd watching the run. The Pamplona bull-run sounds like more danger than I want to experience.

However, the most dangerous place on earth has not yet been mentioned. It is not driving an automobile without wearing a seat belt or flying in a commercial airliner with a potential terrorist on board. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous place on earth is in the womb of one’s mother.

January 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the infamous U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which, in effect, legalized abortion-on-demand nationwide. The aftermath of this tragic ruling is the deaths of over 53 million innocent unborn babies.

It is not hyperbole to say abortion is America’s holocaust. It is appalling to realize that every American citizen today 40 years and younger has never known a country that respected and protected innocent human life in the womb.

To put it another way, the abortion rate in this country rivals the abortion rate in Germany when Hitler was attempting to play God by creating his own Aryan race.

I cannot imagine the almost impossible dilemma many physicians are placed in when abortions are requested. Are they forced to respond to the wishes of their patients who want to terminate a pregnancy? Do they remain true to their Hippocratic Oath? Is the Hippocratic Oath even a part of the physician’s creed and code of ethics anymore? Does convenience and expediency trump the life of a child?

Dr. Mildred Jefferson was a surgeon at Boston University Medical Center and a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery with many honors and awards. She said, “I became a doctor in the tradition that is represented in the Bible of looking upon medicine as a high calling. I will not stand aside and have this great profession of mine give up the designation of healer to become that of the social executioner.”

On that fateful day in 1973, nine black-robed Supreme Court justices ruled that killing babies is legal in America. Social workers only have to make arrangements. Planned Parenthood often funds the abortions, but physicians have been given the ignominious responsibility of destroying the life of the innocent and the helpless.

Jefferson added, “Today it is the unborn child; tomorrow it is likely to be the elderly or those who are incurably ill. Who knows but that a little later it may be anyone who has political or moral views that do not fit into the distorted new order.”

The Bible asks the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer to that question is “Yes.” It is everyone’s responsibility to safeguard and preserve life. A child is a member of the human family and deserves care and concern.

I am confident that if every person in America who opposes this human tragedy, this reckless disregard for the unborn, would rise up to vehemently voice a protest and cry, “Stop killing the unborn,” we just might get the Roe v. Wade decision reversed. But we haven’t done it in 40 years; why should I think we would do it now?

How many physicians, scientists, teachers, pastors, missionaries, statesmen, musicians, businessmen, and notable contributors to society have been murdered in the most dangerous place on earth – the mother’s womb?