My niece is a missionary in the Philippines and told recently of visiting a “hospital” ward for mothers and newborns. The nursery was sad – and silent – because most of the babies were stillborn.

Victims of poverty, hunger and lack of pre-natal care, their hearts stopped before they ever drew a breath for lack of nourishment. When we consider the sanctity of life (Sunday, Jan. 17) do we consider actions that would enable mothers to have food and care so they can give birth to healthy babies?

In America about 1.3 million babies are aborted each year by mothers who decide not to let them ever draw a breath because they likely have a defect, or they would be too expensive to raise, or too inconvenient.

Fully 90 percent of babies who tests show are likely to be born with Down’s syndrome are aborted.

We tend to think in terms of abortion prevention when we think of sanctity of life. Abortion has been a part of human history for thousands of years but it is a painful, ugly, dehumanizing part. Many women who have abortions say it haunts them forever.

Is your image of one seeking an abortion a teenager who “got in trouble?” In fact, most abortions are by women in their 20s and 61 percent of them already have at least one child.

According to the Guttmacher Institute which tracks such things, at current rates one third of American women will have an abortion by age 45.

Worldwide abortion rates are down, to about 29 per 1000 women between ages 15-44. In the U.S. and Canada the rate is closer to 19.4. In North Carolina, about 17. Another measure of abortion frequency is to compare the number of abortions to the number of live births. The rate in the U.S. in 2005 was 292 abortions per 1,000 live births.

According to the health ministry in Israel the legal abortion rates per 1,000 live births are 154 in Spain, 180 in Iceland, 185 in Israel, 307 in France, 794 in Hungary, 1,629 in Bulgaria and an astonishing 5,209 in Russia. (Other sources estimate a Russian rate closer to that of Bulgaria)

I’ve been in the delivery room for the live births of three babies who squeezed, blinked and bawled their way into my life. Each changed things in our household fully nine months before they arrived, but there are few things so dramatic as being present at the birth of your child.

When thinking of the sacred character of life in our society we need to remember it is aging and end of life issues will become prominent.

Are there “death panels” lurking in our future? Not in the flagrantly false and alarmist scenario raised to scuttle an attempt to improve America’s health care system. But in fact, as a Christian and minister you are and end of life counselor and you should welcome the opportunity. It is a privilege and rare treasure with which to be entrusted.

While the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission says it advocates for life “from conception to natural death” medical technology has muddied the point of “natural death” beyond recognition. When I was a child, the medical definition of death was when the heart stopped beating. Then it was discovered that a body often had measurable brain activity after the heart stopped, which implied the conscience yet lived and the body might yet be recovered.

Now with hoses, tubes, monitors and pumps doctors can keep hearts beating and bodies “alive” long after the spirit residing within might wish release. Sometimes blood is kept flowing through bodies to keep organs alive until they can be “harvested” for transplant into other persons. Where is the point of “natural death” in this scenario?

I was discussing with a friend who is 89 the recent death of mutual friend and former Baptist State Convention employee Myra Prince. Myra – who was older than my friend but didn’t want anyone to know her age – had taken her morning exercise in swim aerobics, sat down to catch her breath and died.

“What a way to go,” said our friend.

Elderly persons do not fear death as much as they fear a long, lingering, painful death.  Whether we like it or not, baby boomers will take more control over their own end of life issues. Many will not be willing to die over many years, dissipating their resources, confined alone to a bed, a blinking monitor their only companion.

Like it or not, agree or not, you need to be ready as a minister – ordained or not – to provide end of life counsel and comfort to a person for whom every day is another 24 hours of agony.

Life has sacred character on both ends. How will ministers help people through the final gate who do not believe another breath for its own sake is sacred?