It was my ten year high school reunion, the only one I have ever attended. I graduated in a class of 800 so I wasn’t exactly pining to see a lot of close, old friends. I did manage to find four I had known fairly well, but even that turned into a bit of a fiasco. That sweet girl, someone I thought of as like-minded in her dress, speech, and actions, whose boyfriend became a West Point cadet, both of whom were decidedly to the right in their politics, was now, ten years later, an abortion clinic nurse. I was absolutely flabbergasted and physically ached when I heard it.
So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of. He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé. She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating. “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.
“An abortion,” she immediately replied. “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it? Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child? And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments? Her life will be ruined.”
All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch. “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.
Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly. I did. One article listed these: poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think. There it is in a nutshell: Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was. And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.
And where would we all be because, congratulations! You just murdered the Messiah.
Aren’t we glad she did not?
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42
Dene Ward
So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of. He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé. She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating. “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.
“An abortion,” she immediately replied. “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it? Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child? And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments? Her life will be ruined.”
All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch. “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.
Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly. I did. One article listed these: poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think. There it is in a nutshell: Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was. And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.
And where would we all be because, congratulations! You just murdered the Messiah.
Aren’t we glad she did not?
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42
Dene Ward
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