Did God Order an Abortion? Part III
If you have not yet read my first and second posts in this series, you can find them here: Part I & Part II. You can find the original post that I am discussing here.
In my first two posts I answered the initial question, did God order an abortion? The answer, of course, is a resounding no. Of course He didn’t! And just a little digging under the surface of the text gave us our answer. But there is more to the post than just the title. What about the rest of the accusations made throughout the post? I would feel remiss if I did not address these as well.
The very next thing you see in the post after the Biblical text is a picture with this quote: “Will you still be prolife after she’s born? Will you still apply the same vigor to your work: against war, against hunger, against poverty, against homelessness, against our planet’s degradation, against capital punishment, for human rights, for opportunities for education and jobs… that you do to your efforts to make abortion illegal? If not, please stop calling yourself ‘prolife’.” – Jay Branscomb
Oh dear… where do I begin?
First of all, the basic assumption that “pro-lifers” don’t also actively fight for these causes as well is a terribly calculated stereotype that might fit a select few, but not many. I personally speak out against unjust war, I have actively fought hunger, poverty and homelessness here and abroad. I daily try to make choices that benefit this world that God has created for us; I shudder when human rights are violated (ahem… the right to life included…) and I think you would be very surprised at my stance on capital punishment.
Furthermore, I am also against killing people (or allowing them to kill themselves) simply because they are not as healthy as we think they should be. I believe in allowing God to choose when to create life, rather than preventing life from existing; I believe also in preserving and protecting that life as soon as it is conceived and after physical birth. Not only that, but I also believe in preserving life after death, unto eternity, through God’s gift of salvation. So… am I allowed to call myself prolife yet, or have I not met all of your criteria?
Would it make any sense for me to tell you to stop calling yourself “pro-choice” unless you believe also in eliminating mandatory vaccinations, taking away the income tax and letting people choose whether or not they want to give to their money to the poor, removing any regulations on home schooling so that parents have control over their child’s education, allowing businesses to choose whether or not they want to make their products environmentally conscious, and not allowing the government to mandate to anyone that they need to buy health insurance?
No… it wouldn’t. Because those, of course, are not choices that most “pro-choice” activists seem to think we should be able to make. I could tell you that you’re not really pro-choice, but you wouldn’t believe me and it wouldn’t help my case much. More importantly, your stances on those issues have nothing to do with your position on abortion; just like my stances on your list of issues has nothing to do with my position on abortion.
It’s a ridiculous assertion in the first place, that you must adhere to a subjective, unrelated list of issues in order to be firmly planted in another. Let alone, that you must apply the same amount of vigor to all these issues lest you be a hypocrite! I don’t know any activist who can apply the same vigor to ALL of their causes… that’s a pretty tall order. In short… the quote is worthless. Moving on.
Alright, we finally get to a point where our author says something. Let’s see what he has to say: “’Abortion’ is far from a ‘cut and dry’ issue in the Bible.”
Oh really? Well… abortion is murder, as ya know… a fetus is a human (scientifically even) and killing a human without any authority or command from God to do so is murder.
So… is abortion murder? Biblically yes. Does anyone remember the 5th Commandment? Cause I just kind of assumed that anything in the commandments was a pretty clear no-no. Do you have any other textual evidence from the Bible that it might not be a cut and dry issue? Because we already went over your first example, and that was a bust.
Thou shall not murder. Period. What more do you need to know?
Next quote from our author: “Jesus said nothing about abortion. Nothing. If it was such a big important sin, you would think he would’ve at least mentioned it.”
Well, first of all, this is a pointless argument. Jesus also said nothing about becoming a Nazi or taking your neighbor’s wife out for dinner and a movie… but I think we can both agree that those are pretty bad ideas – sins even. So, the fact that the word and concept are not mentioned explicitly doesn’t mean… anything really. There are lots of grievous sins Jesus preached on that the Gospels didn’t have room or time to record.
“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25
That’s one reason why we have the Epistles! God gave the apostles the ability to teach and write infallibly (the Bible…) so that they could elaborate and record the faith that was given to them personally by Jesus. The apostles, personally taught by Jesus, outright condemn the use of abortifacient potions that were used by women at that time. And, if you rightly understand what the Bible is – namely the Word of God, you will see that these multiple condemnations in the Scripture ARE Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Don’t you see? Jesus IS God’s Word. The Bible is Jesus, written down and recorded for all generations. If the Bible condemns it, Jesus condemns it.
Final point by our author: “The bottom line is that the political and religious right have used the abortion debate as a cash cow and a rallying point for the rest of their policies of death. We’re not falling for it any longer. Neither should you.”
Whether it’s the death penalty or abortion, euthanasia or war – both the right and the left are instituting policies of death. We live in a world obsessed with and immersed in death. Stop pointing fingers; it’s not going to help. Instead, let’s focus on what we can do to get out of our leftist-rightest mentalities and return Christ to the center of our lives.
Perhaps the original author is right; perhaps there are people on the political and religious right that are using the pro-life movement as a smokescreen to hide the less Christian policies they advocate for – but the left does the same thing. Let’s not forget; we’re all human here. Move past the rhetoric and let’s talk about the real issues. It’s not about left vs. right – it’s about right vs. wrong and searching for Truth rather than settling for the lies.
