When we hurt and the pain is so deep and the memory consistently fresh, we may choose to live in the grey, that space that blurs the definitive. We want to say yes to help, knowing saying no completely shuts us out from the possibility of help and healing. We live in the grey, the place of self-medication by suppression, an alternate reality we hope will protect us from more pain. In the grey we believe we delay the consequences that come from the yes and the no.
Not because of hurt or pain, some of us live in the grey just because it’s easier that way. I’ve seen this with church folk, those who seek to blur the lines of what Scripture says about abortion so they don’t have to toe the line. They are pro-abortion (pro-choice), not because Jesus is but because they say He is based on his compassion. A classic case of this comes from a sermon listed on the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) website. The sermon used Mark 5:21-43 to justify why Christians should support women who get abortions, both their choice to have one and healing for them after they have had one.
Yes, without a doubt we should help post-abortive women in their healing process but in no way do I believe Christians should encourage women to have abortions, except perhaps in extreme circumstances. Mark 5:21-43, the story about the woman with the issue of blood, show Jesus’ compassion to heal a woman in pain for 12 years but in no way support a woman’s right to kill. Nonetheless, RCRC attempts to create some grey to dwell in.
Following are statements taken from the sermon that help to lay the foundation for what I call five choice lies:
Statement #1—“As Christians who strive to follow Jesus, we can and must be both compassionate and pro-choice.”
Lie #1—“Jesus was pro-choice which means he would support us choosing abortion.” But Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39). To love God is to obey Him (John 14:15) and he says choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). And to love our neighbor as ourselves is to love the child in the womb as we love ourselves because the child in the womb is the closest neighbor anyone can have.
Statement #2—“In the 60s, horrified by the injuries and death suffered by women around the country due to illegal, unsafe abortions, religious leaders responded as people of faith and conscience must. Reverend Howard Moody and Arlene Carmen organized the first Clergy Consultation Service in New York City, a network of clergy who agreed to help women gain access to safe abortion providers.”
Lie #2—“It’s better to provide safe abortions so women won’t seek back alley ones.” This is the same notion as giving clean needles to drug addicts and condoms to sexually active teenagers. A safe wrong and an unsafe wrong are both wrong. Romans 13:10 tells us not to do wrong to a neighbor and verses 13 and 14 end the chapter by telling us this: “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (emphasis mine). We are never to provide support for people to commit sin.
Statement #3—“[A] fertilized egg is potential life but not actual life. These Christians hold that the life, health, freedom, and moral agency of the pregnant woman are more important than the potential life in her womb.”
Lie #3—“We cannot scientifically tell when life begins.” This may be okay for non-Christians to say and believe, but Christians who believe the God of the Bible shouldn’t even try to use this one to support having an abortion. Most pro-life advocates believe life begins at conception. The makings of a fertilized egg are the beginning of a baby’s life. But I would add that biblically, life begins even before the womb, in the mind of God. In Ephesians 1:4 God says he chose us BEFORE the foundation of the earth. We were alive to God before we manifested in the earth.
Lie #4—“A woman’s freedom supersedes the life of the unborn child.” 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 says, “‘All things are lawful,’” but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”
Statement #4—“Without Roe, life for American women would be thrown more than 30 years in reverse, returning them to the days when women could not fully control the number and spacing of their children. Without Roe, women will be forced to carry fetuses to full term – even when those fetuses have no brain, no limbs, no heart.”
Lie #5—“Abortion is a viable birth control method.” Family planning is something that families should decide together, but death should not be a viable means to help women regulate “the number and spacing of their children.” “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).
The grey might numb the pain or even the guilt but what’s left is a trail of darkness and deception that is hard to flee.
Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith