I recently saw an interesting news item about a baby gorilla that was delivered via emergency C-section at the Bristol Zoo in England. What made this noteworthy to me was how the zoo curator and members of the veterinary team referred to the unborn gorilla. They said, “[The mother gorilla] was becoming quite poorly and we needed to act fast in order to give the best possible treatment to mother and baby, and to avoid the possibility of losing the baby. . . . We also thought that the baby in her uterus was showing signs of being very unwell and in need of delivery.”

DNA Similarities
Isn’t it interesting how this unborn gorilla is being referred to as a “baby” before it was born, not a “fetus” even though that’s technically the term for an unborn mammal? The zookeepers and veterinarians treated this unborn gorilla as if it had value even before it was born. Sadly, this dignity is withheld from millions of unborn human babies. Instead of being seen as having inherent value and dignity just for being human, babies are seen as nothing more than an extension of a woman’s body, a clump of tissue, or some other dehumanizing term. So babies are legally murdered at the hand of an abortion doctor despite their humanness. This is tragic!! (...)

(...) Sadly, for many people today, the life of an animal seems to have more value than a human life. But humans have a special kind of inherent value that animals can never have because we alone are made in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27). Animals, though created and cared for by God as well, will never have the value of humans because they simply aren’t made in God’s image. As Christians, we need to affirm the value of every human life—born or unborn. That value is so great that God’s Son stepped into history to pay the penalty for our sin so we could be redeemed! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).