Abortion:
Slavery of this age?
There are certain subjects regarded as so untouchable, so
sacrosanct that to address them in any other manner than that which is thought
as “orthodox” is akin to committing the worst of any crime against humanity.
Whether the subject discussed is from a perspective of religious faith or
secular ethic doesn’t seem to matter. The message through the howls of protest
coming from the masses makes their intent clear; do not to attempt to change
the parameters of certain subjects lest one desires to be pilloried. As readers
of my commentaries must be aware by now, such vitriol hurled at me due to my
perspectives doesn’t much intimidate me. When we as a people can no longer
debate topics because we might “offend” someone, you might as well stick a fork
in us because we’re done. Freedom of thought and expression is how we as a
society and a people grow. A mature individual doesn’t shrink back from such
diverse opinions as a mature person is well secure in their beliefs already.
Only a child runs crying to “mommy” to make it stop.
The title of this commentary is certain to inflame and enrage many. How dare I,
after all, conflate abortion with slavery? Aren’t they two totally separate
issues? Well having studied the impact of both evils, I feel that the
comparison is not only appropriate but extraordinarily accurate. In both cases
a specific class of people are singled out for no other reason than as a
consequence of their birth and are then set apart; set on a lower standard than
those enjoyed by their fellow man with virtually no rights at all. The
perpetrators of slavery—not only in the United States but historically
worldwide—have always dismissed the rights of the individual and relegated them
to the status as mere property. In this diminished position, the owner of the
slave could do whatever they pleased to the individual. The individual’s
feelings were absolutely irrelevant and rights non-existent.
In 1857, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision regarding the matter
of a slave named Dred Scott. The Court voted 7-2 to deny Scott’s suit in which
he attempted to assert his freedom. Because he was of African Ancestry, the
Court decided that he had no legal standing to bring such a suit, to begin
with, irrespective the fact that he resided in a state where slavery was
illegal. By mere virtue of race, he was stripped of his basic human rights.
This decision resulted in an outcry which no doubt caught the Court by surprise
as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had intended to use the matter to settle the
question of slavery once and for all. As history has shown, there were far more
people of conscious residing in the United States at that time than the Court
had anticipated. Within five years, President Abraham Lincoln had set aside the
Courts decision by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, thus freeing the
slaves. Once the Civil War had been concluded, these now freed slaves were
given full citizenship. Men, women, and children who by the stroke of a pen in
1857 were regarded as subhuman by our nation’s highest court, were now legal
citizens on par with any other human being within the borders of the United
States.
Today in the United States, we look back on that time of slavery as something
totally barbaric. There is a stain of shame over the behavior of slavery which
is still visible today. It seems inconceivable that we could think of enslaving
another human being as something “God ordained” as was thought at the time by a
majority of people. And yet here we are in the year 2014 killing children in
utero and calling it something good; babies who for no other reason than as the
result of actions on the part of their parents, are sentenced to death and
summarily executed. We call it many different things, but even a state-ordered
execution is labeled a homicide on the death certificate. The irony in that
situation is that those condemned, regardless the heinous nature of the crime,
are at least accorded the dignity of having once been regarded as a human
being; the slave and the aborted child never enjoyed that luxury.
Let us get to the nugget of the argument which has been fostered by Feminists
and various Progressive Liberal Women’s groups since long before the Supreme
Court decision in 1973 which attached greater import to a woman’s privacy than
that of a human life. I word the argument in such a way because that is how
Justice Harry Blackmun worded his majority opinion. To allow the murder of a
human being, the rights of the mother had to take precedence, but only insofar
as the decisions made concerning abortion. In every other area, the woman’s
rights were subjugated by those of the state. This is nothing to dismiss
blithely. A woman’s rights to her body are not absolute in any other way. If a
woman decided that she wished to have sex with someone for an exchange of cash,
she is committing a crime. She has no right to sell herself for sexual favors.
Why is that?
If a woman desires to sell her organs—a kidney, for example, she is prohibited
from doing so. She can give it away, but she cannot sell it. The same holds
true for surrogacy. A woman cannot “rent” out her womb for cash. The workaround
is that any monies the woman receives are for inconveniences and medical
purposes. A woman cannot ingest any drug without obtaining a prescription (read
permission) from a doctor licensed by the state or by simply abridging a law. A
woman cannot commit suicide. Suicide is illegal almost everywhere in the United
States.
We place these restrictions not just on women, but on the populous at large
because not to do so has been determined to be harmful to society as a whole.
Since we all must live together in something resembling a cohesive, ordered
society, wholesale anarchy is seen (correctly, in my opinion) as a terrible
thing. Thus, we all enjoy certain rights to privacy, but when it is deemed as
harmful to society, we set limits. In the case of abortion, this restraint has
been completely obliterated. The unborn is a burden not deserving of such
rights.
As I pointed out above, a woman’s rights are seen as more important than the
rights which would be given to the unborn child. Interestingly enough, this
right the woman enjoys does not extend to the father of the child. In tailoring
the argument in the manner he did, Blackmun completely ignored not only the
rights of the unborn child but also the rights of the father. Again, this is
not something to dismiss blithely, yet we always do. But why? Why indeed.
Here is a dirty little (not so) secret: Women can be incredibly vindictive.
There is a quote from English poet William Congreve which says, “Heaven has no
rage, like love to hatred turned; Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
Very often a woman will opt to have an abortion despite the wishes of the
father. Many a young man has had to stand by while their child was murdered
simply because the woman didn’t want it. Should a woman’s rights where only
abortion is concerned (I have already illustrated that as a point of law, such are
the extent of a woman’s privacy rights) trump the rights of her partner without
whom there would have been no pregnancy, to begin with? I offer this only as a
point to ponder before I continue.
Aside from the argument of a woman’s rights over her “reproductive health” (a
euphemism since an abortion has absolutely nothing to do with promoting health,
but everything to do with murder), there is the argument that abortion is a
necessity in cases of rape, incest, or medical reasons where the life of the
mother is in jeopardy. As far as arguments go, this one alone is so exceedingly
weak, it is a shame modern feminists can bring themselves to utilize it as an
argument at all.
The statistics respecting abortion show that collectively, these three—rape, incest,
and life-threatening medical condition to the mother—comprise less than 1% of
all abortions performed in the United States. This is a chilling statistic
which was first published by a survey conducted by the Alan Guttmacher
Institute in 1989. In the 25 years since these statistics have not moved much
despite billions poured into sex education and awareness. To any rational
thinking person, one has to ask the question of why?
Here is a rationale which is promoted by feminists and others who support
abortion on demand as a result of cases of rape, incest, or medical jeopardy.
When one combines the real numbers of such incidents and then places them
against something else such as injury or death from auto accidents, one would
quickly see that there are far more incidents of auto accidents than are the
need for abortion for rape, incest, or medical jeopardy. Yet despite those
paltry numbers, abortion advocates insist that we must allow abortion for all,
on demand, without restraint. The rationale used with cars would be something
along the lines of eliminating the use of an automobile to all because there is
one person who died in an auto accident. Of course, I am aware the analogy will
not please those who are pro-abortion, but I do hope it will at least help to put
things into perspective.
In the age of the Internet, people have greater access to information than ever
before in human history. Based upon the literal flood of information available
to anyone with a smartphone alone, we should be seeing a statistical move away
from abortions performed as a form of birth control. Abortion in the United
States today should be exceedingly rare, but it is not. In fact, it has grown,
and one of the largest segments of our population to suffer under the cruel
lash of abortion are those of African ancestry. Based upon the plethora of
social networking evidence, the argument promulgated by Progressive Liberal
feminists that there is a gap in education for our teens and young adults
respecting how a baby is made is specious at best. What we are witnessing
amongst the youth is a complete disregard for human life which has been taught
to them by their parents and the newly emerging culture of Liberalism.
The founder of Planned Parenthood is little known to many of the youth who avail
themselves of the services of Planned Parenthood. This is especially true in
the inner cities where young black girls are routinely using the services of
abortion clinics. Again, I ask the question: If after all the Billions spent to
educate our youth about sex education still results in 1.21 million abortions a
year (2009 statistic), 35.4% of which were black babies, then isn’t it time we
concede the fact that the direction of our sex education is counter-productive?
In New York City in 2012, 37% of all pregnancies ended in abortion. For most,
New York City is regarded as anything but the backwoods; the most eminent
scholars of our age reside within that city, and there is a tremendous emphasis
on education with budgets to match. New York State and City are both
Progressive Liberal enclaves which make for an abortion-friendly atmosphere.
Given the startlingly high number of abortions in light of the education, one
has to conclude that the Progressive Liberal leaders of New York are actually
encouraging abortion. If so, why would that be?
This brings me back to the founder of Planned Parenthood, a woman named
Margaret Sanger. As I mentioned earlier in this commentary, most of the youth
who avail themselves of the services of Planned Parenthood know little to
nothing about its founder. I won’t delve too deeply into a biography as Sanger
can be found easily with a web search. I will offer some of her thoughts on
race and reproduction, however. I must wonder how many blacks who trumpet the
virtues of Planned Parenthood are aware that its founder thought them little
better than savages who ought to be exterminated?
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with
social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most
successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We
don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,
and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs
to any of their more rebellious members.”
- Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company,
1922. Page 12.
Sanger was an adherent of Malthusian eugenics. This from the Black Genocide
website (http://blackgenocide.org/archived_articles/negro.html)
Thomas Robert Malthus, a 19th-century cleric, and professor of political
economy believed a population time bomb threatened the existence of the human
race. He viewed social problems such as poverty, deprivation, and hunger as
evidence of this "population crisis." According to writer George
Grant, Malthus condemned charities and other forms of benevolence, because he
believed they only exacerbated the problems. His answer was to restrict
population growth of certain groups of people. His theories of population growth
and economic stability became the basis for national and international social
policy. Grant quotes from Malthus’ magnum opus, An Essay on the Principle of
Population, published in six editions from 1798 to 1826:
“All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population
to the desired level, must necessarily perish unless room is made for them by
the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and
vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this
mortality.”
Malthus disciples believed if Western civilization were to survive, the
physically unfit, the materially poor, the spiritually diseased, the racially
inferior, and the mentally incompetent had to be suppressed and isolated–or
even, perhaps, eliminated. His disciples felt the subtler and more
"scientific" approaches to education, contraception, sterilization,
and abortion were more "practical and acceptable ways" to ease the
pressures of the alleged overpopulation.
It is stunning to me that a political party which attempts to present itself as
the Party of the downtrodden and the helpless supports a movement which
exploits for monetary purposes the most helpless amongst us all. When the hard
statistics concerning the overwhelming numbers of black children being
slaughtered is then added to the mix, such duplicity on the part of the leaders
of this Party is hard to see as anything other than evil. Which party am I
referring to? The United States Democratic Party.
Now I don’t like to necessarily bring politics into a blog which is supposed to
be primarily faith-based in nature, but in this instance, I clearly see one
particular political ideology promoting this culture of death with no
allowances made ever for the life of the unborn child. To me, this is curious.
It is the reason which I first thought to conflate abortion with slavery. From
a political perspective, it was the Liberals of their day who fought hard to
retain slavery. This is a fact that few Progressive Liberals today wish anyone to
recollect, but it is a substantiated fact. Today this same political ideology
is again fighting to prevent basic rights for another segment of humanity. The
arguments behind their reasoning are startlingly similar and begin with, “Well
they aren’t really human.”
Here are some facts about humanity good, bad, or indifferent: Our bodies are
designed to propagate our species. When a male comes together with a female and
both are mature enough physically for reproduction, very often a child is going
to be the result. This is not an arguable point by any reasonable thinking
person. Becoming a parent is a tremendous responsibility, but it is also a
precious gift. Our present culture is an anomaly in the breadth of human
history with respect tour view of children as a curse. Before the 19th Century,
societies always welcomed children and the family. Today, such is viewed as a
burden and is to be avoided for the most part. We tend to denigrate families
with many children even when the parents remain together and take
responsibility for their families. This is a cultural view which has been
fostered. It is not a good thing.
With modern medicine, the infant mortality rate in the industrialized world has
dropped tremendously. In my own family lineage, my great-great-grandfather lost
his entire family of seven save for his eldest daughter to Yellow Fever between
1857 and 1864. He married my great-great-grandmother, a young Mohegan Indian
girl who had come to work for him as a housekeeper, and they together had seven
more children. Disease was a common reason for premature death in the age
before modern medicine. A large family bolstered the possibility that a family
line would survive. It also was a pool of workers from which to draw. Children
worked for their families starting at an early age. This is a good thing as it
taught necessary skills and fostered strong familial relationships.
Today infant mortality doesn’t come close to reaching the levels of just one
hundred years ago. Our society and culture have changed dramatically as a
result of modern innovation. We now see a type of idleness in our youth today
which simply did not exist back then. It must also be noted that such idleness
we see today is also a historical anomaly.
Woman and the New Race, Ch. 6: “The Wickedness of Creating Large Families.” Here,
Sanger argues that, because the conditions of large families tend to involve
poverty and illness, it is better for everyone involved if a child’s life is
snuffed out before he or she has a chance to pose difficulties to its family.
“[We should] apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation
to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is
such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.”
“Plan for Peace” from Birth Control Review (April 1932, pp. 107-108)
Article 1. The purpose of the American Baby Code shall be to provide for a
better distribution of babies… and to protect society against the propagation
and increase of the unfit.
Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man
shall have the right to become a father, without a permit…
Article 6. No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.
“America Needs a Code for Babies,” 27 Mar 1934
“Give dysgenic groups [people with "bad genes"] in our population
their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.”
April 1932 Birth Control Review, pg. 108
“Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.”
For anyone who regards themselves as champions for human rights, I must ask the
obvious question: Do you regard some humans as more worthy of life than others?
The Democratic Party long ago attached themselves to the ideology of
Progressive Liberalism which has determined that society is best served when
certain types of people are completely excised from the gene pool. When one
examines the subtext of the ideologies supported and promulgated by today’s
Democratic Party and its leaders, one can come to no other conclusion. In
addition to abortion on demand, these are a people who also embrace euthanasia.
In Europe—Belgium in specific today—this Liberal approach has resulted in
children now being targeted for death because their quality of life is deemed
as “not worthy enough” to continue living. Killing them is being presented as a
compassionate move.
So-called Ethicist Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton
University, has proposed that children should not even be granted rights as
human beings until they reach the age of one month. (There are some who have
asserted that Singer advocates for a limit of up to two years of age before a
child is granted the right to life.) Singer holds that it is the duty of an
attending physician to kill some disabled babies on the spot. He sees no
difference between a child in the womb and a month-old infant; his position is
that either should be allowed to be terminated if society is made better as a
result, or it is the parent’s desire without any legal consequences.
Singer is regarded as somewhat radical even by members of the Democratic Party
so some may think me unfair to introduce him into this argument. However,
Singers’ thoughts are shared by many within the Progressive Liberal leadership
in power in the United States today as I will quickly show. When the President
of the United States cannot even make a personal comment as to the obscenity of
partial birth abortion but instead hails the act as a “woman’s right,” Peter
Singer becomes very relevant to this argument.
In fact, when one looks at Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, and her views on
partial-birth abortion, it is difficult to separate Singer’s views from those
of the First Lady’s. In a letter, speaking of the partial-birth abortion ban,
Michelle Obama wrote, (emphasis mine)
“The fact remains, with no provision to protect the health of the mother,
this ban on a legitimate medical procedure is clearly unconstitutional
and must be overturned.”
As a Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama voted three times to oppose the “Born
Alive Infants Protection Act.” Essentially this is the now President of
the United States advocating the exact same position that “extremist” Peter
Singer has long advocated. Sadly, this is the path the Progressive Liberal
Democratic Party has decided to walk. Given the spiritual direction of my
commentaries, this most definitely sets me in direct opposition of not only the
President but his political party. But is such an antithetical position for me
as a Christian fair to the Progressive Liberal Party? Is my taking such a
starkly opposite position being … Christian? In a word, yes. Let me explain.
I had earlier written a commentary on the Christian Pro-Life movement and how I
believe that they are suffering from cognitive dissonance. (that commentary can
be found here:
http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/02/are-prolife-christians-really-prolife.html
)
As Christians, we are aware that life comes from our Creator. God is not a
bumbling, stumbling old fool as is portrayed by His detractors. Too often those
who mock God, spend the least amount of time possible putting forth the effort
to understand the subject of their ridicule. This position of ignorance does
nothing but make fools of them to others. However, such ignorance is displayed
to all with blissful unawareness. These are people who continue pontificating
to all in their profound ignorance as though they possess the wisdom of the
great sages. Sadly, however, I see this same level of ignorance and arrogance
displayed by my fellow Christians on related topics. Again, I’ll not delve too
deeply into those reasons as they have been covered in the aforementioned
commentary. However, I will reiterate that unless and until we as Christians
adopt a consistent view on Life, we will continue to lose the pro-life
argument. People do not like hypocrites.
Returning to God for a moment, it is so vitally important that Christians—and
people in general—not anthropomorphize God Almighty. God is not a human being
and suffers from no such limitations in thinking. Consider for a moment that
God exists in eternal time. What that means is that while we must suffer in
linear time, experiencing each moment as was determined by physicist Max Planck
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time ), God Almighty IS time, both eternal
and temporal. Consider that such a being has “designed” circumstances which on
this temporal plane of existence may not make much sense to us but will reap
much for us in the eternal realm. As Christians, this is the hope we are
supposed to cleave to through a little something called faith.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do
not see.”
- Hebrews
11:1
I do not expect my fellow human beings who have decided not to believe anything
of a Creator to understand this obscure concept we call faith. Truth be told,
few Christians understand the concept. They liken it to mere belief, but as the
Apostle James once pointed out,
“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and
shudder.”
- James
2:19
Faith is more than belief; faith is Supreme Confidence. When Christ said that
if we had faith, we could tell that mountain to throw itself into the sea, He
was speaking of this Supreme Confidence. (Matthew 21:21) How many of us lack
such confidence concerning the power of the Spirit? I would boldly declare that
most of us do … myself included, unfortunately. Faith is an elusive concept
while we are trapped in the temporal. It is this lack of faith which causes us
to lean upon that which we are familiar: The flesh. But the flesh is temporal
and finite. Relying on the flesh leads us to make decisions which yield a
temporal solution.
Consider you are a young girl who has given into your boyfriend and had sex.
Predictably you find you’re pregnant, but your boyfriend whom you thought loved
you wants nothing to do with being a father. He pressures you to have an
abortion, threatening to leave you if you don’t. Though you don’t want to do
it, everyone around you—friends and family members you’ve told—encourage you to
do so. Your parents have always said that they’d disown you if you came home
pregnant and now that it has happened, you can see nothing but a bleak future
if you decide to keep the baby. There seems to be nowhere to turn. Suddenly
life went from being carefree to very serious. You’re sixteen years old and in
High School. The last thing you’re capable of dealing with is a child.
You visit the Planned Parenthood clinic and are told that an abortion at your
stage of pregnancy will cost $950.00. (Source: Planned Parenthood:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/abortion/in-clinic-abortion-procedures-4359.asp)
You’re shocked at the cost, but not as much as your boyfriend who offered to
pay half the cost. You ask why there is such a price disparity as your friend
had an abortion only six months earlier and it cost her only $300.00. The woman
behind the counter explains that at such a low cost, it was most likely a
pregnancy in the first trimester. You find out that you are just into the
second trimester and thus are going to have to undergo a surgical abortion
rather than take a pill.
Now the situation has been ratcheted up considerably. You didn’t anticipate
having to get up on a table and have things put inside of you … or taken out of
you. Your friend took a pill and was given a list of instructions. You pulled
the $150.00 out of your savings account, money you intended to use for clothes.
That along with the $150.00 your boyfriend was going to contribute, and the
entire episode would soon be concluded by the afternoon. Now it was clear there
would be no abortion without a lot more money and an invasive procedure.
Your boyfriend balks at the additional cost and angrily leaves you in the
clinic alone, threatening you with a paternity test if you have the baby,
intimating that he’s not even certain he’s the father. Your life is now
shattered. You don’t know what to do as you don’t have the money for the
abortion, you no longer have the support of the only boy you’ve ever slept
with, and your parents are sure to disown you if you tell them.
You finally confide in your friends and together they help you scrape the
needed funds together to get the abortion. The entire procedure has left you
feeling dispirited and depressed. On top of having had to endure the indignity
of a stranger invading you in such an intimate manner, you find that you are
regarded as nothing more than a product by the people who had earlier welcomed
you with a smile. You find that they are unsympathetic to your plight if you do
not have the money to pay for the abortion. The depression will not lift for a
long time … if ever. You have taken a life and found out just how much you
actually meant to your “boyfriend” in the process.
It would be easy to believe that the above scenario is pure fiction, but I have
been associated with a Crisis Pregnancy Center for almost twenty-three years.
The above scenario is not only common but one of the milder scenarios. One of
the facts which are continually downplayed by the Pro-abortion lobby is that
Planned Parenthood is primarily a business. They do not give away their product
for free. To compound matters, Planned Parenthood is a government subsidized
business. In fiscal 2012-2013, Planned Parenthood received 45% of its revenues
from Taxpayer subsidies which worked out to approximately $540.6 Million.
(Source: Planned Parenthood Annual Report 2012-2013
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/AR-FY12_111213_vF_rev3_ISSUU.pdf )
A local Crisis Pregnancy Center receives no such government subsidy but must
constantly defend themselves against a government monolith with an endless
supply of cash. Given the overt racism and ageism displayed by a business such
as Planned Parenthood—a business that as part of its model discriminates
against males, calling their opinion in the matter “irrelevant,” one would
think that not only would Planned Parenthood be put out of business, but its
directors placed on trial. Sadly, this is not the case because Planned
Parenthood provides a vital service for many people of power within our
country.
As was pointed out earlier, Both Margaret Sanger and Peter Singer believe that
certain human beings are simply not worthy of life. United States President
Barack Obama has publicly declared that human life has no intrinsic worth and
should be disposed of when proven to be inconvenient. In a speech, he once
declared that he didn’t want to see his daughters punished with a child for
making a mistake. (Source: Presidential candidate Barack Obama to a Town Hall
Meeting in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, March 29, 2008) That statement alone shows
so much of the man’s base character, I still marvel at how he was elected much
less re-elected. Imagine the intimate relationship he’ll have with his
grandchildren should his daughters marry “the wrong type of man.”
At the end of the day, the entire abortion argument comes down to a matter of
the heart. We ‘re not going to eradicate abortion on this planet any more than
we’re going to eradicate other types of murder, rape, assault, theft, etc.
People are people and absent a contrary direction, they will do what feeds the
body. The body is incredibly needy. Such need without proper context seems
completely appropriate regardless of the means. The flesh does not naturally
operate from a perspective of selflessness, but rather of selfishness. Such is
as a result of the flesh understanding the finite limitations of resources and
time; the flesh well recognizes its surroundings and naturally behaves
accordingly. As the flesh is needy and selfish as a matter of natural course, a
child—whether planned or not—is seen as an intrusion. A decision then has to be
made as to whether this is to be regarded as a welcome intrusion or something
which needs to be corrected to return the flesh to its naturally selfish mode.
Under present law, the child has no advocate and is utterly helpless.
Contrast this with the position of the spirit. Our spirits do not naturally
exist in a finite, limited realm. We are eternal spirits, so the concept of
limitations is antithetical to the spiritual nature. Selflessness is actually
seen as of benefit to others as we all one in Spirit through Jesus Christ. This
is a belief which those who are not in a relationship with Christ cannot
accept, much less understand. The sad thing is that many who are suffering this
dearth of spiritual understanding claim to be Christians. This is the other
dirty little (not so) secret. Many Christians welcome abortion because they
agree with the Margaret Sangers and the Peter Singers of the world; they do not
want certain types here on earth … or in heaven.
One of the hurdles the small Crisis Pregnancy Centers have had to overcome is
the vitriol hurled at them from certain local churches. Despite my best
efforts, I cannot see how they can reconcile the killing of babies with the
love of Christ. They have tried to explain their rationale, but their attempts
fall woefully short and bespeak not a compassionate heart, but one that is
totally selfish. The local Crisis Pregnancy Center I have been associated with
is seen by these people as exacerbating a societal ill which could be best
dealt with by allowing “nature to take its course” via abortion. If young, poor
girls are getting pregnant and then having abortions, there is no harm, no
foul. But if they actually have these children, what are we then burdened by as
a society? More mouths to feed which will statistically also remain poor and
most likely drift into drugs and crime and either impregnate others or get
pregnant themselves.
Such is a bleak outcome, and on the surface, abortion could almost seem a truly
compassionate response to an ever-growing crisis. But killing is never a
solution. As Christians, we all are here for a specific purpose. To
believe otherwise—especially as a Christian—is to diminish God; to make Him
human. If we didn’t constantly seek to destroy the fabric of the family unit,
the incidents of pregnancy would surely diminish. Such true unity, however,
takes work and a great deal of selflessness. Few are willing to offer that much
sacrifice even for those they claim to love. For this, orthodoxy can claim much
of the blame. Why do I say that? Let me explain.
Along with the aforementioned mindset by many within the church towards people
they believe are “beneath them,” orthodoxy paints a portrait of God which is
one of wrath and vengeance. The god of the Old Testament loves his human
creation but at a very high cost and only a select few. All others are regarded
as a burden and are essentially extraneous. Since orthodoxy believes that this
god is God Almighty, they take a page from his practicality towards one
another. The entire concept of Manifest Destiny came out of this primitive,
juvenile understanding of God. The Apostle Paul was very clear that such
division was absolutely not the teachings of Jesus Christ, who I hasten to add
is God Almighty.
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male
and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
-
Galatians 3:28
If a Christian sees the poor in crisis, rather than killing their children,
step in and help. That help can take many forms from actually forming a
relationship and mentoring these people to teaching them life skills, to
monetary aid, to prayer. There is an almost endless list of ways upon which
those who have been given much can help those with less and who are in need.
The one whose solution is to compound the unexpected pregnancy with the error
of murder will face their Creator one day and be pressed to give an account. On
that side of the veil, any temporal explanation will faint before the Creator
of all things. “I thought they would be better off.” As an excuse might be
answered with, “So why didn’t you do the same thing seeing as it was such a
good idea for them?” But that’s the irony, isn’t it? We always seem to know
what’s best for people who are prohibited from answering back with their own
opinions.
It is far easier for humans to kill rather than create. Orthodoxy finds it far
more expedient and practical to engage in what I call “Hit and Run”
Christianity rather than invest the time in a relationship. Relationships take
time, are far too involved and can become problematic. “Saving” someone, having
them recite the “sinner’s prayer” and then sending them on their way is far,
far easier. This is what passes for righteous Christianity in today’s world. It
also is the perfect template for a soulless, uncaring world. Those same
people--who would just as soon see every Crisis Pregnancy Center closed because
they are exacerbating the situation by helping to bring undesirables into the
world--would actually be doing what Christ commanded them if they would take do
what He asked. They need to take leave of the useless mid-week Bible studies at
church and instead volunteer their time at a homeless shelter; at a Crisis
Pregnancy Center; tutoring the illiterate, teaching parenting skills on a
volunteer basis, etc. The list of Christian a substantive way is nearly
endless.
The heart is our spirit created by God Almighty. The flesh is a wall to the
heart. Killing is a selfish, destructive act which takes no skill and little
thought. Creating is a cherished skill which reaps the rewards not yet seen by
any of us this side of the veil. Creating a relationship with others has a
payoff one will not find within the cold, echoing halls of today’s empty
churches. If the church were to actually practice what Christ commanded in
Matthew 28:18-20, it is quite likely the abortion situation would resolve of
its own accord. Instead of each person looking out for themselves, each person
would have seven billion people looking out for them. In such a world, where
would the need for an abortion come from? This is the desire and lesson Christ
has for each one of us. Are we Supremely Confident enough to go, and do it?
