April 25, 2024
For more than 45 years I have either preached a sermon or written a commentary to advocate the sanctity of life. I am grateful that The Christian Index editor, Scott Barkley, has accorded me the privilege of writing a commentary on that subject at the beginning of 2019.
Last fall I had the privilege of going to the Georgia Right to Life Reach Dinner where I heard the captivating testimony of Sol Pitchon, whose mother miraculously survived the Holocaust of World War II and who said, “God has me serving Him in the Holocaust of abortion in this country today.”
Pitchon has a heritage of survival. That heritage began in Nazi Germany during the merciless reign of Adolph Hitler, who set out to solve what he called “the Jewish problem” through the process of extermination.
“In 1942,” Pitchon declared, “my mother, Garmaine, who was a teenager at the time, and her Jewish family were forcibly rounded up in their hometown of Thessalonica, Greece, and put on a train headed for Auschwitz, Poland. Her father had already been killed by a German soldier in Greece.
“After traveling without food or water for eight days the boxcar arrived at the infamous concentration camp. The youngest of Germaine’s sisters, a baby, died on the train in route to Poland, where the family had been told a new home was awaiting them.
“When she got off the train, the Nazis took her mother and two sets of younger twin sisters to the gas chambers that day, but she went to block ten, which was an experimental block.
“There were about 300 young ladies in that block and there were doctors there to sterilize them. So, there was my mother, as a 16-year-old girl, on an operating table and a Nazi doctor personally operated on her, removed one of her ovaries and was ready to remove the other one when a miracle occurred.
“The allied forces started bombing the area and the Nazi doctor along with the soldiers ran for cover and that doctor instructed the imprisoned Jewish doctor to finish the procedure and remove the other ovary.”
Pitchon continued, “That Jewish doctor said, ‘Young lady, I have got to make an incision, but I am not going to remove that other ovary, but I want you to do two things: (1) I want you to hide your cycle each month, and (2) I want you to remember me when you have children.’”
Years later Solomon (Sol) became Garmaine’s first born child, and he believes his mother’s life was spared so that he one day could spare the lives of others. Today, Sol Pitchon, a dynamic Christian, is the CEO of the Tampa Bay pro-life ministry New Life Solutions.
At the GRTL Dinner, Pitchon reminded his audience that the number one cause of death in America is not heart disease or cancer, but abortion – nearly one million a year. He stated, “Abortion is racist and targeted. About 36 percent of all abortions in America are performed on our black sisters even though the black community makes up only 13 percent of the population.
He declared, “But let’s make this more personal. In Georgia in 2016 (the most recent data available) there were nearly 166,000 pregnancies and nearly 130,000 births and approximately 30,000 abortions – about one out of every five pregnancies ended in an abortion.
“But here is the question: Who is being aborted in Georgia? Three out of five babies that are aborted are African-American, almost four out of five or 78 percent of abortions in Georgia are performed on minorities. That is twice as high as the country’s average. In Atlanta it is even worse, because 85 percent of all abortions in Atlanta are performed on minorities.”
Pitchon declared that there are 14 abortion clinics in Atlanta and that while they may not all do abortions, they refer those who come to their clinics to those clinics that do perform abortions and indicated that 18,000 babies were aborted in Atlanta in one year.
The son of the Holocaust survivor then said, “The abortion clinics and medical centers that perform abortions are America’s death camps.
“There was a time when the culture said blacks were sub-human so slavery was justified. Then the culture said Jews were sub-human so the Holocaust was justified. And in these last 40 years, the culture has said the unborn are sub-human, so abortion is justified.
“I am convinced that there are two kinds of Christians. There are cultural Christians and there are biblical Christians. But when church people don’t take a stand for righteousness and don’t take a stand for the unborn and personhood, they are not in the Word.”
The challenge that evening was clear: Christians need to stand up, to become active, and to fight the gross moral evil of abortion in our time. There is not a rational argument that can be presented for this flood of abortions that has submerged this nation into a sea of blood. God warns, “Woe unto the hand that sheddeth innocent blood.”
We must pray that this hideous blot on the escutcheon of mankind will be wiped away, just a slavery went the way of the other evils, just as the Inquisition passed away. Just as Nazism passed away, so, also must this butchery of the innocent pass away. However, it will leave a scar on the historical character of our nation.
Preachers also must fear not to address this subject from their pulpits. There was a time in the history of this republic when in every city, village, and countryside pulpits were aflame with God-anointed preaching, which shaped the moral and ethical standards of our nation. Lest those days “be gone with the wind,” let our preachers lift their voices in prophetic power to call sin by name and call sinners to repentance. If they fail to do so, they will become indirect participants in the meanness of abortion.
Is there hope? Of course, for the Christian there is always hope.
Pitchon assured his audience that God forgives those who have had abortions, and said, “We have men and women in our churches on their way to heaven, but not enjoying the journey, because of abortions in their past.” They need to remember that when God forgives us of our sins, “He remembers them against us no more” and “casts them into the depths of the sea.”
There is hope for the Christian who has never been passionate about stamping out this blight upon our land. Get involved! Remember the evil triumphs only when good men do nothing.
There is hope for the pastor who has been reluctant to address this stain upon the soul of our nation. Dare to address it from the pulpit. Call it a repugnant, revolting, repulsive sin; but don’t forget to say that “where sin abounds, grace does much more abound” (Romans 5:20).
