Imagine this: your father commits a heinous crime. As hard as it is to think about, you know the evidence is conclusive. He willfully and deliberately stalked a woman he did not know. He picked her at random, followed her, and then he brutally raped her.

Or imagine something worse. He committed an even worse form of rape. The woman was not a stranger to him. She was your very own sister. Uggghhh!!!! It is too horrifying to even think about, let alone talk about. But you must because his crime affects you.

The evidence is conclusive. Pictures, eyewitnesses, DNA, its all there. Not even your father’s defense attorney is giving any hope of leniency, let alone being found not guilty. Nope, its a locked down deal. Your father is going to pay for his crime.

He will be sentenced to the normal 10 years for rape (national average, 117 months), and serve about five years (national average 56 months). Then his debt to society will be paid. Yes, he may be a social pariah the rest of his life, but he will be free. He will be free to live out the remainder of his years a free man.

Sounds kind of sick, doesn’t it? Less than five years for rape, incest?

Don’t worry, you live in a society that believes in harsh punishment. And while they may not make your father pay, someone will pay for his heinous crime. In fact, at your father’s sentence hearing the judge announces that your father gets 10 years, … and another member of your family gets capital punishment. That’s right, someone in your family is going to pay for your father’s crime – with his life!

As the judge brings down the gavel, he orders the court officers to go into the galley of the courtroom and take into custody … YOU!!!! You are the one sentenced to die for your father’s crime. You are required to pay for your father wicked, disgusting, morally reprehensible crime! And make no mistake, there is no appeal of this sentence. You will die! In less than 9 months – you will be put to death, and most likely in a manner that is viciously gruesome, worse than any torture imaginable. You, innocent of any crime!!!! Will be brutally tortured … TO DEATH!!!

Such a scenario is horrifyingly unjust, at least, wouldn’t you agree?

(Wait for it …)

That is what happens to the innocent child of rape or incest when he/she is aborted!!!

Are you comfortable claiming a freedom that sentences the child to die for the father’s crime? I’m not.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

I’m not sure how I could ever stand before a Holy Judge who keeps an explicit record and will not allow any crime to go unpunished – by the person who committed it! Think about it.

Yes, rape and incest are wickedly vile. But what sense is there, what twisted perverted justice then requires that we add on top of that wickedness a worse wickedness, punishing the child for the fathers crime? Think about it.

Reed DePace is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery, Alabama