This term pictures a steep, slick hillside. Any person who stands firmly on the top of the hill will not fall. Any person who takes the first step onto the slippery hillside will lose firm footing, falling and sliding faster and more out of control until reaching the bottom of the hill, bruised and bleeding.

When this concept is applied to spiritual issues, anyone who stands firm-footed on top of the hill by following God’s Word will not fall. If that person steps away from the top (stops following The Holy Bible’s teaching), he or she begins falling down the slippery slope, farther and farther away from God’s teachings toward rebellion and error.

Abortion creates a moral and spiritual slippery slope. When a society disregards the value of the life of its most vulnerable and least protected citizens (in this case, unborn children), whose life is next in jeopardy? How long will it be until society begins to rid itself of other undesirable, weak, and vulnerable citizens? Will it be elderly persons in nursing homes? Or, severely handicapped or genetically abnormal children? Or, comatose patients? Or, some day, even you?

Consider the words of Martin Niemoller, a German Protestant minister and leader of his church’s opposition to the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis: “In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me– and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Because so few people speak up against abortion, it has flourished virtually unopposed. We have fallen headlong down the slippery slope created by Roe vs. Wade.

Abortion was first proposed to save the mother’s life or to end a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. Then, abortion during early pregnancy was extended to any woman as a “right to choose” what she does with her body. Then, abortion was extended to any woman at any time for any reason, including the horrendous practice of third-trimester abortion– partial birth abortion (which consists of forcefully holding the baby’s head in the mother’s birth canal until instruments are inserted into his or her skull to suction out the brain and kill the baby).

How much of today’s violence against fellow humans– murders, rapes, abandonment of newborn babies in dumpsters, school bombings, and other crimes– begins with the disregard many Americans have for human life? When did such lack of value for life begin? Could it have started or been accelerated by the Roe vs. Wade decision? If we disregard the value of life for an unborn child, at what age of a child or adult do we start to value life?

For a useful overview of the Roe vs. Wade decision and its aftermath, see RoevWade.org.