Pro-Life vs. Pro Abortion

This is an article I wrote on my blog on the week of the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

"Never, never will we desist till we…extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country."

This quote was spoken by William Wilberforce about the slave trade in England, but I think it applies to abortion as well. It's detestable. The fact that we (Americans as a whole) have suffered this to exist so long is sad. Fifty years ago, killing the unborn would have been unthinkable!

Acts 3:13-15
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

These people are lost. They need the Prince of Life in their lives. The One Who died to save them. We, as Christians - followers of the Prince of Life - need to be light to them.

Yesterday was Pro-Life Sunday, and I wanted to share this with you.
This week is also the 42nd anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision regarding women's right to "choose" whether to kill the unborn human, or to him/her live.

Worldwide, an estimated 1.3 billion abortions have taken place since 1980. Why? Because their mothers have chosen to end the live of the little ones.

"Let My heart be broken with the things that break the Heart of God"

Psalm 5:4-6:
For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, LORD, detest.

Romans 1: 22-24
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

We live in a world swarming in wickedness and although it boggles our minds and pierces our hearts, we must pray for the lost and fulfill the great commission unto which God has called us, which is to go out and spread the good news to all the nations, that Christ is risen and is coming again and they can be free from sin if they only choose to turn to the cross and follow Christ. Because without the blood of Jesus, we lie in wait for eternal damnation.

Last night, I started a class called Perspectives. The speaker - one of many from The Traveling Team - spoke about the promise that God gave to Abraham, that through him, all nations will be blessed.
He walked us through the Bible, explaining that the thing we call The Great Commission, is not just a New Testament idea. It is spoken of all through Scripture! Nor is it merely a great suggestion, like most American Christians want to believe. If you are a Christian, you are called to be a missionary. BUT, one does not have to go overseas to be a missionary!

Brings back to my memory, a favorite quote…
"We are all missionaries. We carry our religion with us, or we allow our religion to carry us. Wherever we go, we either bring people nearer to Christ, or we repel them from Christ. We are working for the great Kingdom of God - the time when all people will turn to Christ as their leader, and will not be afraid to own him as such." -Olympian and Missionary, Eric Liddell.

Matthew 28:19-20
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

People watch you, as a Christian, and they either see a hypocrite - one who goes to church on Sundays but does his/her own thing the rest of the week - or they see a genuine follower of Jesus Christ - one who loves Him, and has a desire for others to know Him.

Do our hearts break at the things that break God's heart, or have we become desensitized to them? When Jesus said to "teach all nations," He also included the nation that we're living in now, don't you think?

I leave you now with a quote from Frederick Buechner,
"The love for equals is a human thing–of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing- the love for those who suffer…This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing-to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich…The world is always bewildered by its saints. Then there is the love for the enemy-love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer.This is God's love. It conquers the world.

-Elizabeth

I hope to read this when I have more time. But here's a note: I don't use the term "pro-choice." That's a garbage term that people made up to sound sugary. I say "pro-infanticide."

So if someone asked me, I would say that I am not pro-infanticide–therefore I am pro-life.

Personally, I think that by having this discussion, we're letting the government decide what makes a person a person. Which opens the door to debates down the line as to what is life, and whether or not people of a certain nationality or who have a specific genetic makeup or disorder are people as well. In essence, not only have we basically given the government our lives, but we've given them a right that only God has. And that is wrong.

People are entitled to believe and live however they want. That's one of the unalienable rights that we have as Americans. Another unalienable right is the right to life, and how can the government tell us that it is alright to take that away from our children before they even know that they have that right?

Personally, I think that by having this discussion, we're letting the government decide what makes a person a person. Which opens the door to debates down the line as to what is life, and whether or not people of a certain nationality or who have a specific genetic makeup or disorder are people as well.

Good point… scary

I totally agree!!!!!

Ok, suppose you were talking about the subject of Pro-Life vs. Pro-Abortion and someone says, "What about the spiritual side of it? Because babies are inocent before they are born, so if you kill them before they're born they would go right to heaven." What would you say to that argument?
^Peter, please don't just answer this… I want to hear other options, if you don't mind^ ;) ^Edit Actually, if you have any new ideas, please share them! Lol^

I do have a question: Did someone ask you this?

Well, first of all, now that you have commented you must give your best answer. My answer to your question is, yes. I was asked by the person who was asked by the person who encountered this situation (or something like that).

Ok, suppose you were talking about the subject of Pro-Life vs. Pro-Abortion and someone says, "What about the spiritual side of it? Because babies are inocent before they are born, so if you kill them before they're born they would go right to heaven." What would you say to that argument? ^Peter, please don't just answer this... I want to hear other options, if you don't mind^ ;) ^*Edit* Actually, if you have any new ideas, please share them! Lol^

If you murder a Christian (who's obviously going to heaven), you take their influence (for good) away from those that need it most(in other words, saving others)- in the same sense, if you murder an unborn baby, you're taking away their potential influence on the world. (In a worldviews class I took once, the teacher put it this way: the cure for cancer might have been discovered by now(just one of the examples she gave))
Hope this helps!

Good thoughts! But what about the fact that by abortion you are saving the child from the horrors of living in this world of sin?

Not our choice to make. I'm not gonna commit genocide on the human race just because this world stinks. x)

Not our choice to make. I'm not gonna commit genocide on the human race just because this world stinks. x)

Exactly! You don't kill someone just because life's going to be hard for them. God has made each of us for a purpose (to be specific, for the purpose of glorifying Him), and when you kill an unborn baby, you are killing something that God made. You're acting as if you, not God, know what's best for the child.

Not our choice to make. I'm not gonna commit genocide on the human race just because this world stinks. x)

Exactly! You don't kill someone just because life's going to be hard for them. God has made each of us for a purpose (to be specific, for the purpose of glorifying Him), and when you kill an unborn baby, you are killing something that God made. You're acting as if you, not God, know what's best for the child.

Exactly. Murder is murder.

Not our choice to make. I'm not gonna commit genocide on the human race just because this world stinks. x)

That's exactly what I said!!! Like why don't we kill all the babies instead of just a few if that's the case!
I guess my biblical argument would be based on the verses in Exodus about if a man strikes a woman who is pregnant so that she miscarriages you shall give eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. It shows us that even the unborn life is important to God.

Life is best – lifeisbest.tv

This is a very interesting discussion. Good points, all! Just to probe here a little bit, I'm going to ask a rather interesting hypothetical question. It is impossible in real life, but for the purposes of hearing your answers, I want to assume it is a possible scenario. :)

Let's say you can go back in time to 1889, when Adolf Hitler had not yet been born. He is still an innocent (we agree, right, that a child in the womb is basically innocent?), but we know he will go on to kill millions - I repeat, MILLIONS – of innocent men, women, and children. Would it be all right to kill him at that point, ensuring that he goes to Heaven and saving the vast majority of those people's lives? I understand that it would still be murder, but could you view it as a "good" alternative because if the person who did it was saved, no one, or at least a far fewer number, would go to Hell? A commandment is broken, yet you increase the number of souls that come to God (that might get a little too close to Arminianism and Predestination, but I hope you can see what I am trying to get at).

Very interesting question, Jimmy!
Well, whoever killed him at that point would be mudering just like any other human being. I believe that God has put everyone in the world for a reason, the good and the bad. Remember when David was being cased by Saul, and he had many opportunities to kill him, but he didn't. And when Saul was killed (even begged to be killed), David killed the man who killed him. I think God was thinking of the people who would come to know Him because of the bad things Adolf Hitler would do. There is a purpose behind everything. (A few random thoughts for you.)

Sooner or later every one is going to die at some point in time. you might postpone it a few years by preventing the holocaust but there is no way to really say if any more of them would have gone to heaven if given more time (I'm sure for many it was a wake up call but that's pure speculation).

My current position is on it is that you cannot justly kill Hitler until he kills the first innocent person or gets the first innocent person killed.

Very interesting question, Jimmy! Well, whoever killed him at that point would be mudering just like any other human being. I believe that God has put everyone in the world for a reason, the good and the bad. Remember when David was being cased by Saul, and he had many opportunities to kill him, but he didn't. And when Saul was killed (even begged to be killed), David killed the man who killed him. I think God was thinking of the people who would come to know Him because of the bad things Adolf Hitler would do. There is a purpose behind everything. (A few random thoughts for you.)

^ Good thoughts, Sarah.

Let's say you can go back in time to 1889, when Adolf Hitler had not yet been born. He is still an innocent (we agree, right, that a child in the womb is basically innocent?), but we know he will go on to kill millions - I repeat, MILLIONS – of innocent men, women, and children. Would it be all right to kill him at that point, ensuring that he goes to Heaven and saving the vast majority of those people's lives?- Sir Walter (Jimmy)

I would respond to that question by asking another: is it all right to kill newborns? No? Ok, what about Stalin then? We would save so many lives, and we would make sure he would go to Heaven. Everyone's a winner! That just doesn't work, does it?

The question, though, is whether we can ever be in a situation where we must or can choose between one supposedly wrong thing and another. It is, in a vacuum and outside all context, indisputable that killing newborns is wrong. But if we know that our not doing so WOULD cause millions to die (assuming for the unrealistic moment that we are time travelers), wouldn't at least some of the wrongful blood be on our hands for not stopping it? All I was saying is that moral dilemmas are much less black and white than we think. I don't think we can so easily give snap judgments in really difficult situations like this.
The same question would also apply to Stalin and all mass murderers, I think. My opinion on this has altered somewhat since I last posted here, but I do think the question is a valid one to ask. :)

God didn't kill Stalin or Hitler at birth. For that matter, he didn't kill any of us even when we deserve d it. I don't think we have the right to take matters into our own hands in such a situation. Vengeance belongs to God.

^ Just what I was going to say, Joshua! (Only you phrased it way more clearly.) ;)

@aidan The things phraseology always is in complicated ways not what is easy.