On the heels of New York’s law passed last week to extend the allowance of abortion up until birth, I have felt it’s important to keep talking about the misunderstanding that drives support for the pro-choice movement, and the need for us to not stop talking about it until we have liberated a whole group of people who are not allowed to speak on their own behalf. It took centuries of bold heroes to overturn the atrocities of slavery, and I think it’s entirely right to compare that blight of the human race to the one we are facing now.
There are several points I want to make:
1. If you are pro-choice but felt uncomfortable with New York’s law allowing abortion until birth (the 9th state to allow it) there is some inconsistency in your belief. While aborting a full-grown baby certainly seems more heinous (and no doubt is physically), a life doesn’t have varying degrees of value depending on the size or ability to reason. To hold that opinion would be to say that a 5 year old is less valuable than a 10 year old, and a 10 year old less valuable than a 20 year old, etc. If you believe that one human has the right to take the life of another human, at any stage, then you shouldn’t have qualms with aborting a 9 month old. It is the logical conclusion of the pro-choice belief.
Someone I know put it this way: it is no different than changing the age of euthanasia from 80 years old to 79 and 6 months. I think whatever a person believes, it should be consistent.
2. As always, pro-choice is couched in language and argument that elicits the greatest sympathy. “I am pro-choice because I believe a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape…if she is too young…if she can’t afford to raise a baby…if her life is in danger.”
The recent NY bill camped out in the “if the mother’s life is in danger” argument. This is a moot point. Medical practices always treat the mother first, in the case of danger. She may have to have a life-saving procedure that, consequently, causes her baby to die, but there is no law necessary for that and that is not a medical abortion.
3. The other argument for distraction is to allow late term abortion if the mother finds out her baby has a serious defect.
The first problem is, what is a serious defect? Some mothers can’t stand the thoughts of having a baby born without an arm or hand, and consider that a serious defect. Or Down Syndrome. It is a gruesome thing to give someone else the authority to determine the value and existence of another human life.
The second problem is, many times the doctor is wrong, and the baby is born normal. My own OBGYN says that the test that screens for defects is 50% accurate. I just witnessed my cousin, told her baby had half her brain out of her head (by a team of specialists) and that she would likely be extremely disabled, give birth to a healthy, baby girl who only had a mass of fluid that was drained at birth, with no complications afterward. I have heard countless stories like these, without even searching for them. Some of our greatest contributors to society were born in dire circumstances and with defects.
4. New York’s governor said this: “Today we are taking a giant step forward in the hard-fought battle to ensure a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own personal health, including the ability to access an abortion. With the signing of this bill, we are sending a clear message that whatever happens in Washington, women in New York will always have the fundamental right to control their own body.”
It is the point on which the abortion debate primarily hinges. Who has the right to tell a woman what she can or can’t do with her body? I agree that no one does. And we should all be intelligent enough to discern that abortion is not about her body; it is someone else’s.
5. Feminists should be the most pro-life group in the world, if their theology is consistent (it’s not). They have built a platform of protecting women, bold speaking out against injustices, and righting the wrongs steeped in centuries of traditional misconduct. Why aren’t they shouting for the lives of the unborn, whose lives have unforeseen worth and contribution? Why aren’t they crusading against the injustice of the genocide that has robbed countless women of their own voice?
I have often wished I knew something more tangible to do other than just talk about the crime of abortion. (And yes, we would adopt her baby if a woman came to me and asked. Someone suggested that the government could fund adoption instead of abortion, and I think that’s a pretty stellar idea.) Our clinic was shut down last year making sidewalk ministry impossible. But I was just introduced (thank you Kirk Cameron) to Save the Storks. If you are looking for a way to actually make a difference and save lives, consider checking out their ministry.
I will continue to pray, speak and do what I can to overturn this awful human injustice we have embraced–and I hope you will too. I pray if you are pro-choice, that you would allow yourself to think logically and to understand the value of every human life, and stop participating by support, in the genocide of the largest people group in history. As a side note, some of the most outspoken pro-lifers have had an abortion themselves. It doesn’t make them hypocrites, it makes them closer to the subject they so passionately defend.
“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” Proverbs 24:11
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