In 1921, a team of archaeologists unearthed something truly horrendous. Digging near the ancient city of Carthage, the group uncovered a massive field of human skeletons.
But the graves weren’t of adults—rather, they were of children. And the field wasn’t just a cemetery, but a ritualistic burial site.
In other words, all those children had been sacrificed as an offering to the gods.
Regardless of what you might think, child sacrifice has not been a mainstream part of most cultures. It was always a fringe sect that practiced it; most societies, even in their own days, viewed it as an “oddity.”
God, on the other hand, viewed it as something so heinous that it shouldn’t even be whispered among His people. Of the few crimes that calls for capital punishment, child sacrifice is near the top of the list (Leviticus 20:2-5). And if the people didn’t execute the person responsible, God would “set His face” against the whole family.
The very first mention of child sacrifice happens in Leviticus 18:21, when God tells Israel not to give any of their offspring to Molech. The god appears to have originated with the Canaanite and Carthaginian cultures, although there is some evidence the Phoencians worshipped it as well.
That nugget makes this mention here a bit more interesting, because God isn’t referencing an Egyptian god that they knew about, but a Canaanite god that they would eventually learn. The Philistines most likely came from the Phoenicians, so the Israelites would literally be surrounded by these types of gods.
Critics will argue that God demanded it of Abraham when he offered Isaac, but we should be quick to point out that God personally stopped the sacrifice from happening. The experience was for Abraham’s faith, not as approved worship to Him.
As a parent, it’s completely foreign to me why anyone would ever willingly offer their child as a sacrifice to anything. The ritual itself would have been excruciating to watch for anyone. Depending on the source, offering a child to Molech involved either the child walking on bricks between two fires, or jumping over a fire pit repeatedly.
In most cases, the child died. If they didn’t, it was at least traumatizing.
So why would anyone do this? Unfortunately, the reason seems to center around increased blessings for the family. Child sacrifice was usually done to fulfill a vow or to ask for special favor from the gods. At other times, it was done to supposedly appease the god’s wrath, as well.
The connection between ancient child sacrifice and modern day abortion practices has been well documented. But both of them have at least one thing in common: The vast majority of them are done to benefit someone else, despite costing that child their life.
I understand that abortion advocates will argue that it’s okay when it comes to the life of the mother, abnormalities with the child, or in cases of rape or incest. Statistically speaking though, those listed reasons account for less than 5% of all abortions. The rest are all for “elective or unspecified reasons.”
What those “elective and unspecified reasons” consist of is anyone’s guess, but the real reason falls to convenience. It’s “not the right time” or “I can’t handle it now” or something similar.
But what those people fail to realize is that their convenience comes at the cost of someone else’s life. No one would dare to run over a pedestrian because they were inconvenienced by someone walking slowly through a crosswalk, and yet people go to abortion clinics every day to do something similar. It’s selfish. It’s wrong.
That “clump of cells” is a human being, and it doesn’t matter whether the executioner is a doctor or a priest—at the end of the day, someone dies. And for what? So you don’t have to pay for daycare?
This is not to shame anyone who’s had an abortion. God can forgive any kind of sin as long as we turn back to Him.
But for someone who’s reading this and considering it, I beg of you, think about the child first. There are other avenues by which you can move on while still preserving the life of a child. Adoption. Safe Haven laws. Transferring guardianship to someone else.
I beg you, think beyond the immediate solution. Killing your child isn’t the only option.
