This month, we as a church focus on the precious doctrine of man being made in God’s image and the sanctity of human life due to that deep truth. This Sunday is widely recognized as National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, a designation that originally came about through presidential proclamation by President Ronald Reagan in January 1984. The day coincides with the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision (since overturned in 2022) and stands as a day of prayerful observance for all those who rightly oppose the abomination of abortion. Given the almost nonstop churn of national, cultural, and political debate regarding abortion in the geosphere and the webosphere (especially the social media-o-sphere), it is easy to become quite numb and desensitized to the whole conversation. To that end, here’s a shot of epinephrine to snap us back to life and sober us up while hopefully serving as a prophetic word that slices and wounds the seared collective conscience of our American culture.
Let’s start with some statistics and then move to some Bible and theology.
Abortion Stats
According to a 2025 report in the Washington Times, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. in 2024 was 1.14 million. This was up from 1.05 million in 2023 and 960,000 in 2022. According to Wikipedia this would put the U.S. eighth globally for number of abortions performed per year while according to data from the World Population Review, the U.S. would rank eleventh globally. Damning no matter which way you slice it.
Sometimes such statistics have a way of not quite landing. So let’s take a different approach by considering the cumulative generational effect. According to Population Research Institute, anywhere from about a fifth to a quarter—20–25 percent!—of Gen Z has been aborted. That’s 26 million aborted babies—enough surpass the state of Florida as the third most populated state in the U.S. And Gen Alpha is not far behind.
What lies behind abortion? We’ve addressed this question before, but here I want to consider virtually the same conclusion while putting a label on it—idolatry. And then I plunge deeper to consider even the metaphysical realities behind idolatry.
Abortion and Idolatry
While horror stories regarding abortion abound, the group-think that is American celebrity pop culture—which would include her loyal handmaiden the progressive mainstream media—(Ameri-Pop here, for short), would require you to bend a knee to the virtuous, empathetic god/goddess of abortion. To do so is to receive the approving applause and nod of all the sanctimonious constituents of Ameri-Pop herself, who already live in the unassailable temple of feminism and free choice, the banner of which flies over the vestibule reading, “My Body, My Choice!” Who is he? Who is she? Who is this god or goddess. What’s the idol? Name her—Self. And, to refuse to bend the knee or to attempt to recant and leave these hallowed halls is to incur the wrath of Ameri-Pop who metes out the only just penalty, death—socially and culturally speaking (At least at this point). The irony cannot be overstated: “Affirm us and join us in the just killing of babies or die!”
This isn’t to be brushed aside too quickly with a simple yet ever astute, “Yeah, well they’re just crazy.” I don’t make the idolatrous illustration above flippantly. The deeper one dives into the culture of Ameri-Pop’s fascination with and pedestaling of abortion the more cult-like one finds it to be. However, if we’re reading our Bibles closely, we find that this is just par for the course for fallen humanity’s affinity for idols amidst the swirling supernatural powers of darkness.
Idols, Child Sacrifice, and Demons in Scripture
In Leviticus 18:21, God issues a command to his people to not do as the pagan Canaanites do and offer their children as sacrifices to the gods of the Canaanites, specifically Molech (Milcum),
You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
However, we eventually see the Israelites do just that. And we don’t just see your everyday, run-of-the-mill average joe do it. We see the king of Israel (Judah) do it. Twice. First, we see Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28:2–3,
but [Ahaz] walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals, and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
Then we see Manasseh do it in 2 Chronicles 33:6,
And [Manasseh] burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
Notably, both Ahaz and Manasseh killed their sons as an act of occultic, pagan worship—given Leviticus 18:21, likely in worship to the Ammonite god, Molech. But why? What were they hoping to gain? Probably something. We could speculate if we wanted. However, it is interesting to note that we don’t really know specifically what child sacrifice to this god Molech was all about in a cultic sense. We just have to be content knowing that they wanted to do it, they could do it, and they did do it. Can you imagine? Burning your child for a little metal image? Oh, but there is more than meets the eye here according to Paul.
In 1 Corinthians 10:20, Paul makes clear what actually lies behind idol worship of these gods—demons. Paul writes to the Corinthians,
…I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons (1 Corinthians 10:20).
Paul’s main point in context is this—Flee idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:12). And he supports that with the shocking and sobering theological truth we just read—To make sacrifices to idols and feast of that sacrifice is to sacrifice to and to feast with demons! (1 Corinthians 10:20). To read backwards, then, both Ahaz and Manasseh did not simply offer their sons to little metal images of Molech, they offered their sons to demons. They gave their sons as burnt offerings to malevolent servants of the Serpent, Satan himself. Satan, who makes it his unholy ambition to destroy the effigies of God himself—God’s image bearing humans. And what better way to accomplish this than to metastasize that devilish will in the hearts of man—make them kill each other and make them see it as virtuous. Cue idolatrous worship practice of abortion, the destruction of image bearers that Ameri-Pop places such cultural capital on that she will cover the charges, promote you in social rank, and sing your praises. And yet if you were to listen closely, underneath the happy cheers of those self-congratulating citizens of Ameri-Pop you would hear the fell voices of the demons, with whom they participate, singing in harmony.
Conscience Cutting Conclusion
As observed, we don’t fully understand the ins and outs of why pagan Canaanites, why King Ahaz, and why King Manasseh sacrificed their children to the god Molech other than the obvious—they wanted to do it, they could do it, and they did do it. I think when history looks back on the abomination of abortion, it’ll say the same thing: “We don’t really know one singular specific reason why people did it other than they wanted to do it, they could do it, and they did it.” As Christians, we should also see behind the veil, though: Humanity did it as devotion to what they worshiped, the god, the idol of self and her demonic custodians.
See through the veil and flee from idolatry. Whether Ameri-Pop neatly wraps up abortion, veiling it in ‘virtue’, and simperingly offers it to us complete with a ribbon of self-righteous, empathy-demanding and acceptance–demanding tears because it offered the chance at a better life or whether Ameri-Pop angrily and brazenly foists abortion upon us because killing a child simply made one rich and comfortable, this theological truth remains—to abort a baby and to feast upon the ‘fruits’ of life without a child is to sacrifice to demons and to feast with demons.
