Abortion

Prayer

So we’re going to talk about another very contentious issue this morning - abortion. I want to lay out the three basic views on abortion that I believe exist in our culture today

Before I lay these out, a few caveats - because this is definitely a tough topic, in two significant ways.

This is a contentious issue, we are a nation greatly divided on this question. You can see it in the how varied the response of different states has been to Roe vs. Wade being struck down by the Supreme Court:

On the one hand, you have states such as ours, where we passed an amendment declaring that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Abortion is illegal here except in very limited cases (life of mother being endangered, rape and incest - and even these are within a limited timeframe).

On the other hand, you have states such as California and New York where abortion has been made a constitutional right, and is legal through all nine months.

If I had to guess, this is an issue where we might see a greater difference of opinion among us. And, as always, I want to emphasize that in all of this, our desire is to come to these topics as Jesus does, with grace and a desire for truth.

And this is a tough topic because this may be a very personal issue for some of you - perhaps you’ve had a friend, family member - or you yourself have been involved in some way with an unwanted pregnancy and even abortion itself.

So, the three basic views on abortion. View #1, abortion is a moral good. This is actually a very new viewpoint, that abortion is a moral good, not something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. Which is why women are encouraged to shout their abortion, to proudly proclaim that they have had an abortion.

It’s a moral good according to this view because abortion gives women the ability to get their college degree unimpeded, or focus on their career. There’s no way they could have managed these things if they didn’t have, in their words, reproductive freedom. Abortion gives me the freedom to choose what’s best for my life. My body, my choice, is the argument.

People who hold to this view generally believe that abortion should be legal through all nine months, that it should not be impeded in any way - and that we should work to ensure that any woman who wants to have an abortion has the legal and financial means to do so.

View #2 is that abortion is an absolute moral wrong. This is the primary pro-life view. That because abortion is the act of intentionally taking an innocent human life, it’s wrong. You are killing another human being.

Those who hold to this view would say that abortion should be made illegal with perhaps rare exceptions, such as a pregnancy endangering the life of the mother.

View #3 is one that most Americans hold to today: That abortion should be legal, but with significant limitations. This is kind of the middle-of-the-road viewpoint. Here people believe that fetus growing inside of the womb at some point becomes a unique human life and therefore, should not be aborted.

They want some sort of choice for women, that forcing women to bear children in such extreme cases as rape or incest - or even because they are impoverished or too young and aren’t ready to be a mother. So out of compassion for the woman they make the argument that because this is such a difficult personal decision, it should be the woman’s choice, or between the woman and her doctor - that others shouldn’t be telling them what to do. Shouldn’t impose our morals on them.

But on the other hand, as the fetus grows and matures in the womb, it becomes increasingly obvious that this is an individual human life and it would be wrong to take that life. Especially when you consider that a baby can survive outside of the womb as early as 23-24 weeks - at the end of the second trimester.

So those who hold to this view oppose abortion in the later months - so they are comfortable with abortion being legal up until say, 12-15 weeks. This is commonly what you find in many European countries, this middle-of-the road viewpoint.

What I want to lay out now is what I believe to be the Biblical view - what God says. Everything we’ve been talking about in this series on Tough Topics has predicated on the idea that the Biblical worldview is the true one - it reflects reality, as things truly are.

Everyone has an understanding of reality - what’s true about universe, how it came to be, the nature of humans (are we just animals, do we have a soul), what’s right and wrong (how do you know), the nature of God (if God exists). Your worldview determines how you see those things.

As believers, we hold that story of reality is rooted in Jesus himself. That Jesus is Lord - over all creation, everything that exists was made in and through and for him. And He is Lord of salvation, through him, his dying on the cross, God is reconciling all things to himself. That through Jesus we know what is, and we know why it is, purpose of things.

So the critical question becomes, what does God say about question of abortion?

I believe the Bible is quite clear that abortion is a moral wrong - it is murder, the taking of an innocent human life (this would be View #2). God is unequivocally pro-life (he created it, after all). What I want to do is lay out the fundamental reasons of why this is so, and then try to address some of the issues around unwanted pregnancies - because I don’t think the actual moral question of abortion is complicated, but I do believe that the circumstances of a pregnancy are often very much so. I hope that becomes clear as we go through this.

First reason as Christians that we would say abortion at any stage is wrong is because all human life has been created by God in his image. Every single human life, regardless of the circumstances, has value and is precious to God and loved by him.

It’s pretty remarkable how pivotal Genesis 1 & 2 are - fact that we keep quoting them for all these messages. How much our understanding of what it means to be human comes from understanding that God created us and how he created us.

Listen to what God tells Noah after the flood, as he makes a covenant with him not to flood the earth again, Genesis 9:5-6…I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. God is telling us here why the taking of a human life is wrong, because we have all been created by God in his image.

Here’s the critical part - our creation does not begin at birth. Human life begins long before then. Consider some of the verses that speak to life in the womb

Psalm 139:13-16...For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Note what the psalmist says about how God creates us - first, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We should be in awe of the creation of life - it’s so beyond us, only God can make it happen. The creation of life is an amazing gift.

And the psalmist is not saying that it was just a clump of cells in my mother’s womb, it was me. I was being knit together, my inmost being, right there in the womb. With plans for my life, my days all laid out by God.

Abortion cuts short what God is doing, his creative work, his formation of an individual human life. We are working against the Author of life itself who uniquely forms each and every one of us.

It’s sobering to consider that Jesus himself was a life in the womb, as was his predecessor, John the Baptist. Listen to these passages from the Gospel of Luke:

1:15, speaking of John the Baptist…He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. Think about that for a moment, what it says about human life - it begins before birth.

Again, when Mary, the mother of Jesus, goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth as they are both pregnant: When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb…The fetus (John the Baptist) is responding to what’s happening, the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb, and he responds by leaping for joy in the womb.

This is why Robert George, a Princeton professor, makes the point that a fetus is not a potential human life, but rather it is a human life with potential.

That’s a huge difference, this point - because if it’s only a potential human life then you would be destroying a something, not a someone - individual human life doesn’t exist yet. However, if it’s a human life with potential, it is a human life. A precious soul, being knit together by God, fearfully and wonderfully. Created in his image. Worthy of life. A person for whom Jesus died.

Those who are explicitly pro-choice - view #1 - ignore this aspect altogether. Their focus, their compassion, is geared towards the woman - who indeed is a precious human being as well. But the child, the baby, is an afterthought. They don’t take the life of the baby in the womb into consideration - so they argue for right to abortion.

I think that most of us are in agreement with all I’ve said so far - that human life is precious, that it begins in the womb. But now we get to harder part, place where most people struggle. When exactly does human life begin?

And here’s the reality: a human life begins at conception. From the moment of conception, it is a unique and precious human life, not merely a clump of cells, but a person. It is not a potential human life, it is a human life with potential.

As I said before, most Americans fall somewhere in middle on abortion, they certainly don’t want it in the later months, third trimester, but they think it should legal in the first months of development. Almost this sense that it’s not really a full human being at that point, and so abortion would be OK - or at least not enough of a human being to overrule the choice of the woman at this point. A common point made here is that people don’t think they should tell women what to do.

However great the compassion towards women may be, this is flawed moral reasoning. If, from the moment of conception, it is an individual human life, then to intentionally take that life is murder. Nobody gets to decide that! We have a moral obligation to defend and protect the lives of most vulnerable. We would never make that argument on other moral issues…yeah, I personally believe child abuse is wrong, but I’d never tell a parent how to raise their children.

The statement that life begins at conception is not just a religious argument, it is a scientific one. Fertilization is when a pregnancy begins. When that embryo is formed, it is a unique human life (after all, humans beget humans).

Cleveland Clinic makes this statement on their web page regarding fetal development: “At the moment of fertilization, your baby’s genetic make-up is complete, including its sex.” Everything is there. It just needs time and the appropriate nutrients (like we all do) to continue to develop. It is a human life with potential. Abortion at six weeks or 12 weeks or 18 weeks destroys that human life.

To choose otherwise - to try to make the argument that life begins with formation of heart, brainwaves, or whatever, is an arbitrary point (which is evident from the standpoint that legal limits of abortion vary so much). And really, if you’re not sure, shouldn’t we err on the side of protecting human life?

This is why our foundation that all human life is created in the image of God and is therefore precious, is so important. Because the underlying assumption here is that somehow, that child in the womb is less valuable. That it’s life doesn’t matter as much as the whatever difficult circumstances the mother may be facing.

But does Size determine the value of someone? Are tall people more worthwhile - while, as Randy Newman used to sing - short people have no reason to live? That child in the womb will continue to grow - at end of first month, it’s only 1/4”. By the second month, it’s an inch long. By the third, 4 inches. God is knitting that child together, fearfully and wonderfully - and it’s life is precious whatever the size.

What about level of development? Early in the pregnancy that child has no functioning brain, it can’t reason. It’s not conscious. But are less developed people less precious? When someone goes into a coma - unconscious, do they lose their value? (by the way, these are common arguments against pre-born child being an individual human being).

And how about the environment? Those who argue for legal abortion in all nine months are essentially making the claim that somehow that human life begins valuable only after it is birthed, no longer in the womb. I’ve known women who’ve had C-sections. The birth was scheduled. Which means that it could have happened anytime within a certain time frame. It was a fully developed baby - the only difference was whether or not it was still in womb.

Finally, some who argue for abortion make the point of viability. That somehow a baby that isn’t developed enough to survive outside the womb, still dependent on the mother, isn’t worthy of living, it’s ok to take its life. Again, this is an arbitrary point. After all, babies born in more developed countries are able to survive at much younger ages of development than in less developed countries due to medical technology available. Does this make them more valuable? And a newborn baby is just as dependent as it was inside the womb. If left to its own devices, it would die.

Here’s the main point of all this and why I said that moral question surrounding abortion itself is actually rather simple: abortion is wrong because it is the intentional taking of a human life. And an individual human life begins at conception. That is the central issue when it comes to abortion, the issue that if we’re going to address this rightly, we have to stay focused on. What clouds the issue of abortion are the difficult issues surrounding the pregnancy, whether wanted or unwanted. Let me address a few of those quickly, as I expect they may be questions in your mind.

The most difficult situation is the endangerment of the mother’s life. Because here there are two lives that are both precious and worthwhile. Live Action, a pro-life advocacy group, states that abortion - the intentional destruction of the pre-born child, is never medically necessary. An alternate solution is early delivery, which may result in the death of the child who is not yet viable. Significant difference is that you are not intentionally destroying the life of the child.

The other often cited objections are pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest. It’s hard to begin to imagine how traumatic these cases are, the suffering that a woman has already endured as a result. Such women deserve all the help, support and compassion they can get. But the answer is not to destroy the innocent life of the child. The one who deserves punishment is the rapist. As Pam Stenzel, a woman conceived in rape says, “My biological father is a rapist.  I don’t even know my ethnicity.  But I am still a human being.  And I still have value.  And my life is not worth less than yours simply because of the way I was conceived.  And I don’t believe that I deserve the death penalty because of the crime of my biological father.”

There’s so much more to say here, we’ve just scratched the surface. This, like all of the issues we’ve covered in our Tough Topics sermon series, is one that deeply divides our nation. As those who are committed to following Jesus Christ with all that we are, my hope and prayer is that you will consider seriously what the Christian worldview is here - what God would have us know and believe and do regarding the issue of abortion, which I’m convinced is thoroughly pro-life.

Spiritual Development - I want to encourage you to ponder life this week

Read and reflect and pray on Psalm 139:13-16, or birth story of Jesus in Luke 1...

Or take some time of quiet, prayerfully solitude - observe life - vibrancy of children, animals you might see, life within you. Thank and praise God for it.

Let me finish with this…Often Christians are criticized about only caring for children in the womb, they don’t care at all after the child is born. But that’s simply not true, Christians around the nation offer care and support to mothers during and after pregnancy at pregnancy crisis centers such as Woman’s Choice Pregnancy Resource Center - for whom the offering at this Thursday’s Community Thanksgiving Service will go.

An interesting note that one of the most effective tools for pregnancy resource centers has been the ultrasound machine - it turns out that enabling pregnant women who are wrestling with the question of whether or not to abort their child to see their child in the womb, growing, developing, moving - 9 out of 10 times they will choose to carry the child to term.

Because they see reality of what’s happening - it is an individual human being - their child, growing within them.

As I was preparing this message, I was thinking about the video that was taken during the birth of my nephew, Austin (nothing graphic shown) - but it did show my twin brother, Alf, and more importantly, capture his response to the birth of his firstborn child.

You could feel the emotion in his voice as his child emerged from his mother’s womb - his voice was trembling in utter awe of being there, in that moment. It’s funny, I can’t remember what he said, but I can still hear the emotion in his voice. It’s a vivid reminder to me of the miracle of life - that’s what he was responding to. God’s gift of life. The one who knits us together, makes us fearfully and wonderfully. Let’s be for life.