Seeing images of the March for Life this weekend renews hope for the fate of the unborn in a society that’s been okay with taking pre-born life now for the past four-plus decades. Watching our Vice President address this crowd of pro-lifers and make very strong statements in behalf of those babies is heartening. Do we dare to hope that Roe vs. Wade could be overturned in our lifetimes? Yes…Let’s!
Let’s hope in the God Who is hearing the cries of those little ones; cries which are silent screams to us, but are heard by the ears of the Almighty (Ex.22:22-24). Let’s hope in the new Supreme Court members, for whom we prayed; that they will be bold and judicious with an honest accounting to the science of pre-born life and a conscience about their individual responsibilities to stand for justice. Let’s hope that the pro-life voices that hold sway currently in our government will be voices of wisdom and boldness. Let’s hope and pray for individual state elections, amendments and proposals that can bring us closer to a day when convenience abortion will be a darkness of the past.
If there are those Christians reading who are tempted to make the old argument that, in case of a Roe v. Wade reversal, there will be just as many illegal abortions as there are legal ones today, please don’t. The idea that abortion would not be curbed by its legal banning is not rational thought. Besides, even if that were the case, righteous people should rejoice in the justice of a governmental defense of life and in the fact that murder would have to be committed in secret rather than with the sanction of our government and the celebration of the mainstream media.
If there are those Christians reading who are tempted to argue that the reversal of Roe v. Wade would accomplish little since it would merely send the decision back to the states, please don’t. Many states, including my home state, would criminalize the murder immediately. More states banning abortion means more lives saved. That’s an obvious truth.
If there are those who are tempted to argue for the practicality of ending the pregnancy (i.e. murdering the child) rather than ushering the child into a life of poverty and struggle, please consider the following:
My son taught an ethics class at the University of South Carolina while working on his doctorate. In that class, one of the topics they discussed was the morality of convenience abortion. Of course, my son had to be careful in a state university to be uncompromising in his own adherence to the Word of God, while complying with governmental regulations about exactly how much he could say from a religious standpoint in that arena.
Students inevitably would make many pro-choice arguments. Someone would always raise her hand and suggest that a baby born in extreme poverty to a single and uneducated parent—a parent who could not possibly provide the things that children “need”—would be better off to be aborted than to have to face the kind of struggle and deprivation that would follow birth.
My son said that there were many things he always wanted to say when that argument surfaced in the classroom. He wanted to point out that the circumstances into which a child would be born had absolutely no impact on whether or not abortion is murder. He wanted to talk about the responsibility, regardless of circumstances, that comes with choices made about sexuality. He wanted to say that there are many thriving adults who were born in poverty and/or to single parents or who struggled with all sorts of maladies, including extreme poverty, as children.
But he never had to make that last argument. Inevitably, some other student in the room would raise his hand and say, “But I am that person. I was born to a single mother in a very bad part of the city in which I grew up. I am the child who never had a father and sometimes did not have enough to eat. I am that child who faced incredible odds….I was not always glad that those were my circumstances, but I am glad that I was born. I have had a lot to overcome, but I am here in this college classroom. Further, though things were hard, I would even suggest that I am a better person because of the struggle I’ve had to encounter and the difficult passages I had to navigate.”
My son did not have to state the argument. The evidence was always right there in the room. In fact, it’s never very far from each one of us.
May we examine it…and hope.
