The Pro-choice vs Pro-life Debate for Christians

 

Spiritually, I'm pro-life. Politically, I'm extremely pro-choice. I'll tell you why.

Why I'm Prolife

I believe that a fetus is a child in the sight of God. It’s a child even before conception because God knows the whole future of that life. King David wrote in the Psalm 139:13-16 (NKJV), 

For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb . I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

I am one who knows that experientially because I had a prophetic dream about my second son before he was conceived. In the dream, he appeared in my lap. I said, "What is this?" I picked up the bundle and saw that it was an infant. I said, "Oh, are you the little one who hasn't been conceived yet? If you are, I just want you to know how much we're looking forward to you coming to live with us." I put the infant on my shoulder as parents do. It was in a white gown, so I couldn't tell the gender. Unlike my firstborn, this one had a head of black hair, and was just old enough to be able to lift its head a bit. I was 42 at the time and gave birth at 43 to a perfectly wonderful child who looked exactly like the infant in my dream. A friend of mine had a similar experience. Her son was seen in a vision during a prayer meeting before conception. As a Christian, I know that life is precious. 

Why I'm Prochoice

We Christians believe that life is a gift of God, but when you’re 16 and have been raped or seduced by a creep, and your whole life is about to turn upside down, pointing that out is not the best approach in counseling. If that child is born into poverty, or is born to an addicted mother, it may turn out fine or it may not. I know of cases where birth ended well for the adult, and they’re happy to be alive, but I’m sure there are homeless people suffering on the streets, addicted themselves, or others languishing in prison, who could testify that the “gift of God” didn’t go well for them, and that’s if they didn’t die by gun violence before they graduated from High School.

On the night of the 2016 election, I asked one of my church friends who she voted for. She paused a bit, knowing that a lot of us in the Lutheran Bible class she attended were rabidly anti-Trump. Then she said that she had been a nurse at a place where babies were aborted. She said, “I saw those little parts lying on the table, and I was horrified. I could NEVER vote for someone who would support that.” I get that. Even setting religious beliefs aside, pulling a human being out of a womb, especially after 20 weeks where the baby is halfway home, halfway human, and close to viable, is serious business, and should never be take lightly. It’s cruel. I admit it. There’s no “decent” way to abort a baby, especially after a certain point in development.

However, I am still politically prochoice. Here are my reasons:

Women will self-abort anyway.
I’m old enough to recall when women either miscarried or self-aborted their pregnancies and dropped the remains in a campground pit toilet or a gas station toilet. If these women had had access to judgment-free medical aid and psychological support, that may not have occurred.

We ALL hate tyranny.
The same people who call wearing a mask in a pandemic tyranny, or who claim that doctors and CDC scientists are Deep State dummies who don’t know what they’re doing and need to be resisted because, you know...freedom, don’t tread on me, I’ll never bow to that outrageous oppression...they are quite happy to tell a woman what to do with her body. I know many nice normal sweet Republicans like that. They are my friends whom I cherish. People who vote for small government candidates are happy to have the government make this all-important decision for a woman who may not share our precious Christian beliefs about how life is a gift of God.

Religion suffocates common sense and compassion.
The same people who strut around crowing about life are trying to destroy Planned Parenthood, which does way more than abort babies. They test for venereal disease, they educate, they counsel, they do mammograms, etc. They are a life source for poor women, and so many white, happy, well-fed, well-cared for Christian men and women want to destroy the organization because of the abortion factor. If that’s you, you don’t know the Scriptures. Both OT and NT DEMAND that we care for the poor and disenfranchised. Read Matthew 25:31-46. Hellfire literally awaits those who oppress the less fortunate and needy. 

The reason for a complete ban is political posturing.
The rich Republican leaders banning all abortion to impress the Christian voting block are all well-cared for and will never lack for anything, especially the corrupt ones. By the time they leave office they are millionaires. They vie for the vote by posing to support stricter and stricter regulations without thinking about how to enforce their law.

The health of the mother is also about "life."
The Republican legislatures who are banning abortion are rushing to the most extreme positions possible. There is no compassion or care for society in banning all abortion, but to the thoughtless Christian who lives in their own happy bubble, it sounds great. All life is a gift of God, right? How could anyone possibly argue with that. It sounds so…pious. It’s a guaranteed vote getter. But in a hundred different ways horrible things will happen to women who can’t abort a fetus. A 13 year old molested by her father has to give birth before her body is ready. A 17 year old may have to suspend her education and possibly have to deal with an unfit father wanting parental rights, or parents spewing venom because she “got herself” into that situation. A rapist may sue for parental rights. Years of agonizing court procedures await that mother. 

The mother was once an infant. Why abort the mother? A mother of five children may have a pregnancy that will end her life. Doctor and husband must stand by and watch her suffer and die so some fat rich politician can be reelected. A teenager who has no safety net or emotional support will find something on the internet about aborting a baby, but it will damage her body or possible even kill her. With no Planned Parenthood, a woman in great psychological and financial distress will dump that baby in a dumpster. Another may commit suicide. Unintended consequences, because some people are frightened and broken  and others have their own selfish agendas and don’t want to think past them.

You and I are not the judge .
I understand that some of the women aborting their babies are careless and and could do much better in their life choices, but there are others that have compelling reasons that we shouldn’t judge because we don’t walk in their shoes. It's not your life, your finances, your family, your trauma, your relationships, your career, your education, your reputation that is at stake. Basically, it's none of your business. If what they are doing is sin, let God judge. If you want them to keep the child, then quit voting for candidates who want to destroy Planned Parenthood, the ACA health insurance, free public education, parental leave, free preschool, Social Security, Medicaid, inexpensive community colleges, common sense gun control, and/or any safety net that the GOP can convince you is communism, which it isn't. Someone on Twitter showed a T-shirt that said, "Prolife is 20 Sandy Hook students graduating from High School." 

There will be unintended consequences with stunning cruelty.
There are 3 equal things to consider in the abortion debate. 1. The life of the baby, 2, the life of the mother, and 3. the impossibility of litigating strict abortion bans without absolutely ghoulish regulations and threat to the health of the mother. Women who needed an abortion to save their lives have already been at death's door because hospitals and doctors don't want to risk losing their license over the allegation of participating in an abortion. Women who had miscarriages have been accused of aborting their babies. How do you prove that a miscarriage is a miscarriage? How do you keep women from going to another state for an abortion? Check points at every road out of state? A registry for menstrual periods for all women between 14 and 60? What government agency adjudicates whether a woman should be charged? DOJ, the town council, the local Baptist minister, social media, a federal court? Should the witnesses have to testify in public so the charge can be in the local paper? Headline: Woman Sobs on Stand While Explaining Why She Couldn't Bear Her Rapist's Child. Or this one: After Two Years of Litigation, Rapist Earns Parental Rights. 

Summary

Church and state should be separate because Christians can be mean and stupid. Marrying politics and religion corrupts both. Legislating our faith into the lives of others is nothing but Pharisaical sharia law. We failed to win the war on drugs. Prohibition didn’t work and had to be undone. Lives were ruined when cops found small amounts of marijuana in the car, resulting in a criminal record for a young person and maybe a long sentence, especially if the perpetrator was poor, black, or brown. Some battles can’t be legislated into oblivion. Abortion is one of those things.

The same legislators who are strutting around like holy saints, or the same judges that will soon overturn Roe, are the same people who will vote for extreme gerrymandering, for malicious voting restrictions, for racist policies to make sure black and brown people, college students, the disabled, and Democrats in general don’t vote. They crow about patriotism, the Constitution, the flag and freedom, but they are craven hypocrites who will overturn our very democracy to assure that Republicans win every election. The Republican party gave away any shred of high moral ground or integrity when they birthed the Tea Party and promoted Donald Trump. They are so corrupt, they don’t dare honor a subpoena or hand over documents or call records. So don’t tell me that God supports their outrageous posturing about the gift of life.

The last thing I want to say is that overturning Roe the way the court is doing it today will open the door to other loss of rights to privacy. What is more sacred that what an individual does with their body, especially when it affects their whole future?

So in my position, I have to weigh cruelty to the growing child in the womb and the surefire cruelty of strictly banning abortion. I would be OK with a 20-week abortion ban if it waived incest, rape, and medical situations for the mother and if ambitious politicians would support the safety nets that the Democrats are trying to preserve. I think abortion is tragic in the sight of God, but I can’t vote for anyone who would shove my faith down some strange woman’s throat, a woman who may not have my resilience, who may not share my faith, who may find a way to kill that baby anyway.