Abortion Religion Religious Right

Abortion: Right & Left vs Right & Wrong

1) It is repulsive to me to hear the phrase “lump of tissue” used of the developing human in a woman’s womb. You know, if it’s true of the fetus, it’s probably also true of the child and the adult.

“You are an accidentally united little lump of something” is what Tolstoy was hearing from the culture around him over a century ago. We can choose, as Tolstoy did, to reject that idea and see ourselves as more than just a “little lump of something.” Then we (and others) can be seen as worth attention, protection, honor, and development. Many of us see dogs, cats, cattle, and spotted owls as worth that much. Should we not extend that judgment of intrinsic worth to developing fellow-humans?

2) But I am at least as deeply disturbed by the way the political “right” misuses this issue to promote it’s anti-life and anti-freedom agenda. They get political power by defending the rights of the preborn, then use their power to destroy the protections, rights, and opportunities of the newborn, the recently born, the long ago born, the foreign born, etc. Then they want to spread that around the globe. Sometimes I think they intend, like the old imperial Romans, to “make a desolation, and call it peace.”

Talk about the old rock and hard place. The “left” is anti-life in an important way. The “right” is more extensively anti-life. Go left – wrong. Go right – wrong. If I sit in the middle, I’m just as wrong. It’s not convenient, but as Christians we cannot ignore anti-life behaviors of whatever type promoted by whatever group.

Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”
Proverbs 24:11,12

3) This is not easy. But I tell you, my conviction is that the “right”, including not least the “Christian right”, has become much more deeply implicated in anti-life behavior, and in fundamental dishonesty and hypocrisy, than those who have generally supported the Democratic party over the years. That’s a big part of the reason for this website and the deliberately political articles posted on it.

It’s difficult to support candidates who speak of the imaginary “woman’s right to choose;” but at least they are often doing so in good faith. Of course many pro-life activists also operate in good faith. But many do not, and the Scriptural saying has become true of them, “The name of God is blasphemed because of you.” In general the so-called “right” has been very dishonest and Machiavellian in recent years, and has a very dangerous agenda, and thus has forced a lot of us who are devoted Christians – and pro-life – to the unpleasant ambiguity of vigorously supporting “pro-choice” candidates.

“When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude
that there is something wrong in society –
so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that
either by education or circumstances
she has been greatly wronged.”
— Mattie Brinkerhoff, “The Revolution”, September 2, 1869
(thanks to Feminists for Life)

 

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9 Comments

  • Abortion is not the only option for poor single mothers, nor is it ever “for the better,” despite what some elements of the left would have us believe. It is one more sin in a radically sinful world. Anyone who thinks that abortion is the unforgivable sin is a pernicious fool, not a fundamentalist. Conversely, to pretend that it is biblically justifiable is equally abhorrent.

  • I support abortion in many cases. The baby should be young when a mother decides to get an abortion. Teen pregnancies can be a problem for poor teens, parents who do not allow abortion, and the father that does not take responsibility. Abortion is for the better in many cases. I do not imply it a sin when it comes to these situations.

  • i think they are wrong. If u want to have sex then you should wear a condom and think before you do aby thing. If u think it is right then you should know your killing a little child