The human eyeball is an amazing creation. More than 120 million photoreceptor cells help us see. Some of those photoreceptor cells even help us sleep. An evolutionary scientist, writing in the journal Neuroscience, describes it as “an exquisitely complicated organ.”

Volumes of poetry have been written about eyes and the sublime experience of looking into the eyes of a lover. The bridegroom in the Song of Solomon refers to his bride’s eyes several times: “Behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves” (Song of Solomon 1:15).

And when it is violently ripped from the body of a baby, apparently it makes some people laugh, as it did during a panel discussion at the National Abortion Foundation’s Annual Meeting on April 7, 2014. “An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross! But, I say to myself, this abortion is going well and is going safely . . .” The rest of the sentence is unclear as the audience erupts in laughter.

Like most who have seen the video, I was sickened and offended by the reaction of so-called medical professionals to the cruel destruction of a baby. But it went deeper than that for me personally.

You see, my oldest son was born without eyes. It is a rare condition, and many people will go their entire lives without meeting someone like him. And his lacking of eyes didn’t “just” make him blind. He needed multiple surgeries because of how our eyes impact our cranial-facial development. His sleep, like many who are totally blind, runs in some pretty difficult patterns. The eye is important beyond its primary function.

I longed for him to have eyes.

So, the abortionist’s light-hearted comment about an eyeball opened up memories of deep personal disappointment and hurt. For years, I perceived my son’s disability as causing useless pain, and my own hurt as having no purpose.

Then God opened my spiritually blind eyes and began to help me see the truth: “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

The intimate knitting together of little ones in the womb (Psalm 139:13), including those with disabilities (Exodus 4:11), points directly to a great purpose. We are not just his workmanship, which is incredible in itself. We were created for good works prepared by God himself!

And even suffering has an eternal, good purpose: “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18).

In light of that eternity, abortion is an insane practice. Abortion, rather than being a solution to difficult circumstances, leads only to physical or spiritual death for those involved.

Yet its defenders, blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), persist in believing their own lies. For decades we were told that abortion was nothing more than removing cells from a woman’s body, and more recently that an unborn child isn’t really a person and doesn’t feel pain. Today we see that some abortionists profit twice, first by selling the abortion procedure and again by selling the body parts of the child they just killed. These are all evidences of spiritual blindness coming from Satan himself.

I also feel deep pity for the abortionists and their defenders. They will be without excuse when they stand before King Jesus. Someday, abortion will end. But a life of unrepentant slaughter of little children will result in eternal, painful consequences beyond anything light-hearted.

It is tragically ironic that their laughing response to a slaughtered baby’s eyeball reveals their own utter blindness. In God’s spectacular grace, may it also reveal the power of Christ. Pray that the eyes of their hearts (Ephesians 1:18) would be opened to their desperate need for Jesus and his surpassing greatness.

The killing ends when heart-eyes are opened and stony hearts, which champion abortion, are turned to flesh (Ezekiel 36:26) and find the practice unthinkable.