Reclaiming a Christian Perspective on Abortion Issues

I've hesitated every other time I've thought about touching this subject, charged as it is. I've drafted a few ideas on the subject, but most of these were incoherent. I've been concerned that some very dear friends of mine might take offense at my alternative approach to this subject, and in the interest of not starting anything I have not posted my thoughts on the subject of abortion. Today, however, a group called Justice For All set up incredibly large tri-fold panels on the field in front of Cater Hall on campus. I'm guessing each panel had an area of something like 600 square feet.

These panels were filled with images of mangled, bloodied fetuses and aborted children.

I laughed when a mere thirty feet in front of these panels were tiny signs that said "Warning: Graphic Images Ahead!" I laugh sometimes to keep from vandalism or outright rage that would lead me to my first felony charge.

The title of this entry might suggest that I'm dissatisfied with current Christian perspectives on the issue of abortion. I am, and I spent an hour along with a friend of mine arguing against displays like this one with one of the men volunteering at the event. Unfortunately, I don't yet possess the intellectual fortitude to be able to figure out a good starting point for this informal essay.

Before I go into the essay itself, I want to point out that I am approaching this issue as a believer, asserting Christian theology and faith. I think it would be of practical benefit to discuss some political ideas towards the end, and finally conclude by affirming my beliefs in case, through my own inability to write, I make important aspects of my faith unclear in the body of this text.

Plainly speaking, Christians have ceased to be Christians on this issue. They have played fast-and-loose with the idea that life is sacred. They have divorced the pro-life message from the gospel. They have become "of the world," instead of independent operators within that world. Finally, they have fundamentally ignored the power of our religion's ability to change the world, opting for a political solution that really comes up to be no solution at all.

Life is sacred. The pro-life movement hinges on this principle, which it affirms to the nth degree. I agree wholly. God's first description of humanity is that it is made in his own image. Indeed, this is a huge part of the foundation for Christian ethics. My problem with the pro-life movment is not that it agrees with this idea, but that it seems to go against this idea in practice. Functionally, the life of a baby is worth more than the life of its mother, if it's mother would abort it. No pro-lifer would ever suggest that this was the case, but you can't help but notice it in the way most of them talk. Every human being is made in the image of God, even women who have had abortions. In these grotesque posters of death, no such message is found. Instead, women who have had abortions are made to appear like major contributors to a second Holocaust. If Christians are going to hope to change practices of abortion, they must hold equally high the image of God for both the unborn baby and its mother.

This is not the practice, unfortunately, to the detriment of the movement itself. There is no mention of the gospel or forgiveness in these posters. Instead, activists seem to hope that the posters will stop you with their negativity at least long enough for them to give you a message of forgiveness. When I talked to one individual today, he did not bring up the gospel until I brought up forgiveness because of Christ's sacrifice. A girl who has had an abortion does not see the gospel. She sees that she has sinned and has no hope. What kind of love is this? Not Christian love! It is program-driven social engineering that takes the moral high ground from the beginning. Pro-lifers are moral, pro-choicers are baby-killers. Unfortunately, this is leading off with the wrong foot, especially if one person is passing by and doesn't have the option of talking to a representative for the group. Women who have had abortions should not be made to go take their test without hope or love. At no point has God left us without hope! Even as he addressed Adam and Eve after their great sin, he promised a Savior! Indeed, can we call ourselves Christians if we leave others without hope? I dare say we cannot.

Christians using these practices, you might correctly guess, have become "of the world." We live in a world where popular appeals are made on the basis of emotion and psychology. When was the last time you saw an advertisement that appealed to your intellect? I've been watching the NCAA tournament, and I can't remember seeing any kind intellectual appeal apart from a Sam Adams special talking about how they brew their beers. The Christian life is not a life of emotional moralism, though. We are not supposed to leave our brains out of important matters. This failure to engage intellectually is most easily seen when a person accuses a pro-choice person of being a murderer or a killer. The rhetoric sounds cute, and Scripturally this is true. Unfortunately, the pro-choice individual doesn't see things in those terms. It's not as if they see their actions as particularly murderous. Furthermore, it's not like they actually enjoyed it. I'm guessing that 99% of women who have abortions don't become pregnant just so they can snuff out the life of a child. That is what Christian engagement is all about. It's about empathizing with the culture and then preaching the Gospel to that culture. It is not about throwing around hateful words and obscene images. Indeed, a Christian should believe that the only thing separating the non-believer from himself or herself is Christ and Christ alone. Furthermore, especially in Calvinist theology, we should not distance our sin from that of others, whether they believe or not. God is a God of our minds as well as our hearts, and we should look more into intelligent approaches to solving this important issue instead of emotional and moralizing, yet ultimately shallow rhetoric.

I don't know where to point the finger on this last one. I wonder if it has anything to do with the whole "it's a relationship, it isn't a religion," but that phrase does seem a likely culprit. Christians have forgotten Christ's bride, the church. Furthermore, they believe that the real way to change the world is through political activity. Unfortunatly, people are into doing their own thing. As a historian, and I'm pulling the weight of my education on this one, I quite honestly think that no real difference will be made if the government makes abortion illegal or not. The Christian message does not need a government-approved stamp to make the power of our religion as potent as it is. If we actually loved women who had abortions, and the women who considered having a child out of wedlock, they might actually consider having those children. Christianity doesn't need government approval for the church to provide a system of gospel-based support for sinners of all kinds, including Christians themselves! If as many politically-minded pro-lifers invested the same amount of resources and time as they did in loving and supporting a community, what a difference we would see! That is where the real numbers of abortion will go down.

I'm now turning to address some of the political issues I have with the movement, and most of these come from a friend of mine who I will credit if he wants me to do so.

One of the big arguments is that women have abortions because it is convenient to have them because of Roe v. Wade or whatever. Take away the basis for convenience, aborition becomes inconvenient, voila, no abortion! What simple ignorance. This is America, folks. And besides, when did people start thinking that raising a kid was convenient? I'm not a female, but physically speaking I don't think that I would much enjoy giving birth, either. Abortion will always be more convenient than that.

How do we overcome that convenience? By incentives, or comparable alternatives that, when coupled with moral incentives, become more attractive than abortion. The Justice For All group had a freedom of speech board. I took out a marker and wrote "Remind me of how many chidren you've adopted again?" Heavy on the sarcasm, I know. Because we all know that these guys don't adopt kids. Of course they don't. They don't use their funds to make that kind of a difference. They're just raising hell while actually doing nothing to help any kind of demand for adopted children. My friend suggested that true pro-lifers would picket outside abortion clinics, offering to pay all the medical bills of the pregnancy, and then take a kid to raise up in a proper home. This doesn't even have to be a political solution. People can start doing this now, instead of merely adding fuel to the fire of this debate.

I will remain ever-convinced as both a Christian and a historian that a mere law will not discourage women from having abortions. What we need to do is change the culture. How do we do this? By loving our neighbors! It really is as easy as Jesus said, at least in terms of words. And that's why this pro-life movement, in its current incarnation is doomed. It's not that it's doing too much, it's that it's doing to little. The pro-life movement in its current form would succeed if an amendment was made banning abortion. But that lacks any real substance until we start spending our lives for others' sakes. This is the demand of Scripture. It is the example of Christ. And we run from it because it asks too much of us, but when we find that we are stretched too thin, we simply need to ask more from God, who gives generously to all who ask him.

We do not need a law to start living like this now. How wonderful would it be if we never made a law banning abortion, because Christians had come so far in caring for others in so many ways that a law would be a mere afterthought to a reality that held high the image of God in humanity?

It may seem as if I am unsympathetic with the aims of pro-life activists. It's not that I'm unsympathetic, it just seems like they miss a lot of points. I do think abortion is wrong. I think it is sinful, just like so many things we do without realizing it. I have probably sinned by what I've said in this very posting. But we don't need to be pointing fingers or calling people murderers; we need to look to Christ who was murdered for our salvation. That is our starting point, because that is where we learn to love.