As we get older, we learn things we didn’t fully understand before and as a result we sometimes change our opinions on things. Maybe I should stick to the first-person here and stop saying “we”. Maybe I’m the only person who has ever changed their stance on a subject because I was presented with new information. Yeah, probably not. The subject I’m thinking about here is the highly controversial issue of abortion. Before you stop reading, let me say I’m not going to preach the Bible here, I’m only going to preach reality, if reality can in fact be preached.
Certainly I could write volumes based on Scripture that would drive home the point that abortion is just about the biggest lie our society believes. But I want to talk to everyone out there who doesn’t want to hear “the Bible says…”. I want to talk to everyone who just lives day-to-day, trying to do the right thing, but who doesn’t necessarily look to a deity to lead them.
I recently had a chat online with an old friend on the subject of abortion and I realized something during the conversation. The debate between pro-life and pro-choice is often argued with women’s rights and baby’s rights presented as opposite sides of the issue, as if they were mutually exclusive. When one side presents their case, the other side comes back with their point without really addressing the opposite point. A conversation might go like this:
Pro-Life: “Killing a child before they are born is still killing a child!”
Pro-Choice: “But what about the woman who was violently raped and
became pregnant because of it? Should she be forced to either go through
nine months of an unwanted pregnancy and all the pain and humiliation that
goes with it or else go to some butcher to get an illegal abortion and suffer
from multiple health problems or even death?”
Pro-Life: “Abortion is murder!”
Or sometimes the conversation goes this way:
Pro-Choice: “A woman’s body is her own and she has the right to say what is
done to it and with it.”
Pro-Life: But what about the baby’s rights as a human being? Why does the
woman’s rights trump the child’s?
Pro-Choice: “It’s nobody else’s business what she chooses, it’s her body!”
In both of these examples, we see that when the tough questions get raised, instead of addressing them, the opponent simply states his or her belief louder. This is not an argument, it’s a shouting match and it’s not getting us anywhere.
Here is what I have learned over the years of dealing with this sad topic: Abortion never helps a rape victim heal or saves her from more pain and difficulty. It only trades the trauma of rape and unwanted pregnancy for the trauma of rape and abortion. Some women suffer their loss immediately but many live in denial for years, even decades before finally seeking help for seemingly "unrelated" depression, addiction, etc. only to discover that their pain and guilt goes all the way back to that supposedly simple procedure done in a doctor's office that they had thought was behind them.
It’s only through counseling and therapy that the real underlying issue can be brought out and worked through, giving the woman a chance to heal, mourn the loss of a child, and forgive herself for what she didn’t even realize she was feeling guilty for. Unfortunately, the vast majority of women who have had an abortion never get that counseling. Either they don’t think they need it or they are too ashamed to admit to anyone what they did. Pride and shame are both very powerful and too often they keep people in a broken state instead of allowing them to heal.
The lie of abortion is two-fold: first, it is a lie that the baby isn’t really a baby. By using words like fetus, embryo or tissue, we have white-washed the reality of who we are talking about: an actual human being. Second, it is a lie that abortion “undoes” a pregnancy. There is no undo button for pregnancy, there is only taking an innocent life. Whether it is done in a back alley or a brightly lit doctor’s office, a baby is still intentionally killed. We can’t keep condoning “legal” abortion because we’re afraid that women will seek out an “unsafe” abortion instead. Do we set up places where murderers can legally kill their victims so that they won’t be tempted to kill “illegally”? Do we create special stores where it’s legal to take whatever you want without paying, so that people won’t shoplift in other stores? Of course that sounds preposterous, but is it really so different from legalized abortion? Right and wrong aren’t only found in the Bible; they are what makes a civilization civilized. And the more we keep blurring the line between right and wrong with our misguided attempts to please everyone and be politically correct, the less civilized we are becoming.
PLEASE share this post with others, you can use the buttons below to easily share it through Facebook, Twitter, email, or post it on your own blog. We need to take off the blinders and see the reality of abortion. And please feel free to share your comments and thoughts!
