I told you yesterday that I had googled “reasons for abortion” and had found a couple of articles, but in that post I only told you about one of them. I also found one of the most self-serving articles I have ever read with a title so long I won’t bother now to type it out, but it started, “Ten Reasons I am Pro-Abortion,” and the author is Valerie Tarico. Let’s just go over some of her statements today.
1. Abortion is “fundamental to female empowerment and equality.” What is this world all about any more except me and my rights? We fight this in the church all the time, just as Paul fought it in the first century. We are to be willing to “suffer wrong,” actually yielding our rights for the sake of others--I Cor 6,8, Rom 14, Phil 2—need I go on? The whole mentality is the opposite of being Christlike. Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Rom 15:1-3. Yielding our rights and subjecting ourselves to one another, whether male or female, is what Christianity is all about.
2. Taking pregnancy “as it happens” instead of planning it, and by inference removing what is unplanned, “trivializes pregnancy.” On the contrary, treating pregnancy like something listed on a schedule trivializes it. Babies are not some kind of item we need to remember to pick up at the market before we get home, or can toss in the trash if we don’t want them. Even when it just “happens,” the people of God have always considered …children a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:3
3. “Real people” are more important than a fetus. And there you have the perennial justification. A fetus is not a person. God says otherwise, period. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jer 1:5. But our society no longer has any respect for God or his Word, and with that perspective it can justify anything. This woman even compared an unborn child to a hamster, and the hamster came out ahead.
4 and 5. Abortion can “fix our mistakes” or “fix tragic accidents.” We now live in a society that blames our mistakes on others, or that thinks we should bear no consequences from them. Unfortunately life is not like that and trying to pretend that it ought to be is foolish. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7. Indeed this argument is not about fixing mistakes or accidents, but about making me unaccountable for my sin. There we go again—sin, a horribly old-fashioned word for something that no longer exists anyway, not to a godless society.
6. Abortion is “good economics.” And by that of course, we are talking about having the money to raise a child. I am so happy for her that she is part of a family that can eventually reach a point where they can “afford” a child. If we had waited till we could have afforded them, we would never have had children at all. Is she saying in all her wisdom that poor people should be neutered? My children survived on hand-me-downs and happiness. I do not believe either one of them feels deprived. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matt 6:25-30.
7 and 8. Abortion is “a way to form a family of your own choosing,” and not having access to legal abortion would be “a violation of our values.” Let me be clear that I am not against contraceptive measures being used by a married couple. I am not against choosing the number of children you want to have as far as you can control with those contraceptive measures. Medical science has made that possible today without the killing of conceived infants. However, notice the attitude in these two statements. It’s all about me and what I think, not about the eternal principles of right and wrong. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! Isa 5:20-21.
9 and 10. Abortion is for the sake of the “happiness of the unborn” and to “give them a healthier start.” What we’re talking about here is aborting defective babies. As someone who was born with a birth defect, let me tell you exactly how angry this one makes me. Does this writer think I am not happy? Does she think I was not loved and cared for like a “perfect” child? How dare she make those judgments for me and intimate that it would have been better for me if I had not been born! How dare she say that I was not worth the trouble and expense to my parents or society!
But folks, we will never win this argument because as Christians we will never come at it from the perspective of selfishness, materialism, and irreverence. And we have no hope against someone who claims that her views on abortion prove that she “believes in mercy, grace, and compassion.” We obviously do not even speak the same language.
At some point, our task becomes one of keeping ourselves from being infected by this insidious attitude. We must avoid anything that smacks of selfishness. We must treat all things spiritual as the priority in our lives. We must hold God and His Word in reverence, obeying every command and living a life of holiness and righteousness. We may never change the minds of the godless, but we can keep our own hearts pure, and our actions and attitudes mirror images of the Lord’s.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:11-12
Dene Ward
1. Abortion is “fundamental to female empowerment and equality.” What is this world all about any more except me and my rights? We fight this in the church all the time, just as Paul fought it in the first century. We are to be willing to “suffer wrong,” actually yielding our rights for the sake of others--I Cor 6,8, Rom 14, Phil 2—need I go on? The whole mentality is the opposite of being Christlike. Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Rom 15:1-3. Yielding our rights and subjecting ourselves to one another, whether male or female, is what Christianity is all about.
2. Taking pregnancy “as it happens” instead of planning it, and by inference removing what is unplanned, “trivializes pregnancy.” On the contrary, treating pregnancy like something listed on a schedule trivializes it. Babies are not some kind of item we need to remember to pick up at the market before we get home, or can toss in the trash if we don’t want them. Even when it just “happens,” the people of God have always considered …children a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:3
3. “Real people” are more important than a fetus. And there you have the perennial justification. A fetus is not a person. God says otherwise, period. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jer 1:5. But our society no longer has any respect for God or his Word, and with that perspective it can justify anything. This woman even compared an unborn child to a hamster, and the hamster came out ahead.
4 and 5. Abortion can “fix our mistakes” or “fix tragic accidents.” We now live in a society that blames our mistakes on others, or that thinks we should bear no consequences from them. Unfortunately life is not like that and trying to pretend that it ought to be is foolish. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7. Indeed this argument is not about fixing mistakes or accidents, but about making me unaccountable for my sin. There we go again—sin, a horribly old-fashioned word for something that no longer exists anyway, not to a godless society.
6. Abortion is “good economics.” And by that of course, we are talking about having the money to raise a child. I am so happy for her that she is part of a family that can eventually reach a point where they can “afford” a child. If we had waited till we could have afforded them, we would never have had children at all. Is she saying in all her wisdom that poor people should be neutered? My children survived on hand-me-downs and happiness. I do not believe either one of them feels deprived. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matt 6:25-30.
7 and 8. Abortion is “a way to form a family of your own choosing,” and not having access to legal abortion would be “a violation of our values.” Let me be clear that I am not against contraceptive measures being used by a married couple. I am not against choosing the number of children you want to have as far as you can control with those contraceptive measures. Medical science has made that possible today without the killing of conceived infants. However, notice the attitude in these two statements. It’s all about me and what I think, not about the eternal principles of right and wrong. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! Isa 5:20-21.
9 and 10. Abortion is for the sake of the “happiness of the unborn” and to “give them a healthier start.” What we’re talking about here is aborting defective babies. As someone who was born with a birth defect, let me tell you exactly how angry this one makes me. Does this writer think I am not happy? Does she think I was not loved and cared for like a “perfect” child? How dare she make those judgments for me and intimate that it would have been better for me if I had not been born! How dare she say that I was not worth the trouble and expense to my parents or society!
But folks, we will never win this argument because as Christians we will never come at it from the perspective of selfishness, materialism, and irreverence. And we have no hope against someone who claims that her views on abortion prove that she “believes in mercy, grace, and compassion.” We obviously do not even speak the same language.
At some point, our task becomes one of keeping ourselves from being infected by this insidious attitude. We must avoid anything that smacks of selfishness. We must treat all things spiritual as the priority in our lives. We must hold God and His Word in reverence, obeying every command and living a life of holiness and righteousness. We may never change the minds of the godless, but we can keep our own hearts pure, and our actions and attitudes mirror images of the Lord’s.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:11-12
Dene Ward
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