The news broke in the United Kingdom on March 24 that at twenty-seven hospitals they have been burning the remains of aborted babies to heat their buildings.  Fifteen thousand children tossed into the furnaces or waste disposal incinerators.

Let’s think a little bit about how this atrocity—and yes, it’s an atrocity--came to be.  There were four small steps that led here.  A direct but not so evident path. 

Step one.  There has been growing in Britain since the 1960s the viewpoint that sexual activity need not be confined to marriage.  Those were the days of free sex and “If it feels good, do it.”  And it was shocking for a time. Then the opinion leaders in the media and the arts picked it up and made it popular.  Now the majority believes that marriage is not sacred.  Why marry when we can just live together?  Or make love in the backseat of a car?  This is where it starts—in the mind, in the failing standards of morality.

Then, step two.  A man and a woman—at least fifteen thousand couples—decided that they wished to satisfy their sexual desires with little regard to the consequences, no care about the possible child they might conceive. It’s a simple case of, “Let’s get it on!”  And here selfishness takes the throne.

Then third, somebody told them that what was growing inside the mother was just a piece of tissue.  Ignore the fact that it looks like a miniature human—or that it will grow into a big human.  It’s just waste tissue.  Get rid of it.  Suck it out!  Go on with life.  Blunt the stirrings of your conscience.  “It’s my body and I can do with it what I want, can’t I?”  And so the drugs are injected, and a life is ejected.  And who cares?

And then we get to step four.  Toss the little pile of mess into the fire.  No dignity, no value.  But the loss of dignity started a long time ago.

I want to give the British hospitals credit.  At least they used the waste to good effect.  They kept themselves warm in the winter.  The Nazi’s just burned their bodies in furnaces.   All that wasted heat.  And they polluted the atmosphere  too.  You say, “Wait a minute!  The Nazi’s were much worse than this!”  Yes, they were.

In the Bible the book of Proverbs says, “The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know over what they stumble.” (4:19) It means that when you start down the path of sin it seems like such a small step.  Hardly evil at all.  And then you don’t see when you take the next step or the next.  Until you stumble and fall.

But let’s give the British some approval.  Fortunately, when the news came out, the British Department of Health ordered the practice stopped.  A spokesman said, “It’s totally unacceptable.”  Good.  It is.

It’s amazing how a little social disapproval suddenly produces a conscience.  The book of Proverbs puts it this way: “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” (v 18)

May the sun rise on Great Britain and lead her people out of the darkness into which they are stumbling.  And that is my prayer for America as well.

Dr. Rick Perrin is Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship and senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill NJ.  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..