A few weeks ago in my American Government class we had to sign up for a topic to debate on, work with a group to get a debate together, and then battle it out in class with our opposers. I glanced at the list looking for a topic close to the top so that I could more or less "get it over with", so I wrote my name down beside "against abortion", knowing I didn't support abortion and not knowing much more than that.
When I began to research, I remember actually feeling physically sick.
If we want to look at it in a political angle, we always hear people saying that abortion needs to be legalized for the rape victims. When I began to research, I expected to see a large portion of the women who got abortions report that they received one because they were a victim of rape. That, however, is not what I found.
I discovered that less than 1% of women who receive an abortion in the US report that they got one because they were a victim of rape.
But this is what all the political gurus first go to when they try to defend abortion, I thought as I scratched my head. So why do women get an abortion? What I discovered shook me to my core. Most report receiving an abortion for 3 top reasons: They got pregnant at an inconvenient time in their life and just didn't want a baby right then, their significant other left them when they found out they were pregnant, or they had money issues. Thats right, most women are getting their abortions simply because "its not the right time". Are you kidding me?
I then began to get information as to how an abortion is done and exactly what is going on with the fetus at certain weeks and I will spare you all of those details, but I can assure you that my eyes welled as I read these things on my computer screen as I was completing my work study hours. There was and is no doubt in my mind that abortion is absolute murder.
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Last week as I was walking to my 9am, I saw large posters with the words "Warning: Photos of Mass Genocide Ahead". I thought someone must be doing a Holocaust awareness thing or something and went on to my class, thinking nothing else about it. I then heard a buzz of people absolutely livid. Apparently some pro-life activists had set up a large booth to both raise awareness about abortion and protest it. Pictures of aborted babies were posted everywhere. People were mad.
I heard one major complaint: "I shouldn't have to see dead babies as I'm walking to class!" or "I'm pro-life and everything but those pictures were just gross". And of course the really great, solid argument of "Pro-life people are dumb and shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion". That's my favorite. I even read a poster of someone protesting which read "Trust women: Pro-choice is pro-life"....what? Isn't that kind of like Hitler saying "Trust me on this one guys, the Jews gotta go, I know what I'm doing". Is that the best they could come up with, seriously?
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So, as I stated in my very long blog post from 3 this morning, I thought about doing a blogpost for all of the major issues David Platt addressed in Secret Church last night. In all honesty I'm not sure if that will actually happen, but I do have to speak about abortion. I am tired of this staying in the darkness because no one wants to talk about it, and I feel compelled.
The main argument for abortion is that within the first trimester the baby is not actually a person, but just a clump of cells. If we want to talk science, I can talk science. For my debate specifically I read the definition of life first. Webster defines life as "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity to grow, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death". Interesting, because for all but that whole reproduction part (at this stage), that clump of cells has life. If you want to argue for the reproduction part then full term babies or toddlers are free game too. From the moment that a person is conceived, it continuously is growing. Ask any woman who has had a baby before and see if they believe that a baby is a person within that first trimester.
But putting human's limited outlook on science aside, let's look at scripture. The all famous Psalm 139 tells us a lot, including that God knitted us in our mothers womb, that he saw us and knew the number of days we had, that we were wonderfully made even then. There are a number of verses that tell us God is the giver and taker of life. There is no doubt that biblically there is a person in there because God is the one who blesses us with children. He put that child there, he made that child possible, he is knitting that baby. We then can look at verses such as Job 10:8-13 and see that God made EVERYONE wonderful, even the disabled, and we as humans have no right to tell a disabled child that they were a mistake and they don't even deserve life. David Platt told us that about 90% of women who are told their baby will have a disability choose to abort. We as Americans see no worth in the life of a disabled person and there is something seriously wrong with that.
Gregory Koukl talked about a little girl named Rachel. "If a doctor came into the hospital room and, instead of caring for Rachel, took the life of this little girl.... it would be a homocide. However, if this same little girl- the very same Rachel- was inches away resting inside her mother's womb, she could be legally killed by abortion".
David Platt did address the subject of rape babies. Guess what? They deserve life too. Duetronomy 24:16 says "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers,". He told us that a woman would not be allowed to in turn murder her rapist for emotional relief, so why do we let her murder the innocent product of a bad deed? I know that it would be so incredibly hard to have that baby, I do. Do not think that I am downplaying that for one second, because that would cause me to wake up every day and pray for grace for that child, but it has to be done. Extend the same mercy to that innocent child as God extends to you every single day.
Another huge argument that advocates abortion is that making it illegal forces women to get it done with other means, including horrifying stories involving coat hangers. That sounds like a moral issue, not an abortion issue. The problem there is not that we should make it safer for them to murder a child, the problem is that we have got to change a culture. David Platt compared this to someone robbing a bank. Just because it is dangerous for someone to rob a bank does that mean we have an obligation to make it safer for them? Of course not! No one would for a second support that idea. Yet we do it in this society every day. It is time for women to take responsibility for their actions.
The main beef I have is not with the culture, honestly. It's the fact that our churches are sitting back in silence on this issue in fear of "offending someone". Churches geared towards my generation especially live in fear that if they speak out against one hot topic issue then the whole congregation will call them the go-to names (like closed-minded, hypocrites, hateful, you know the names) so they simply do not talk about it while their congregation sits there in sin. I find it interesting that the church has no problem speaking out against "normal" sins, for lack of a better term. A preacher will more than gladly talk about a man's sin of lusting or a woman's obligation to be modest while avoiding an issue that most of the congregation either participates in or thinks is okay. It's time to change our church culture, people. We can not afford to remain silent on issues such as these any longer. An abortion occurs every second of every minute of every hour of every day. We kill more people than the holocaust killed every year. Do you understand how many souls that is? Who are we to say if God's work is good enough to live or not?
If you have had an abortion, know that there is mercy and grace for you. You are fully forgiven. If you have supported abortion in the past, I strongly urge you to get on the biblical side of it. And if you are reading this, I urge you to speak out. This has to be addressed in our churches and in our government.
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