I completely stand against abortion, and with adoption - which, by the way, the church doesn't advocate nearly enough!!
But here's an abortion question that someone asked me, which I've been pondering the possibilites of. Now, keep in mind that I've not changed my mind. I still feel the same way, but yet it was something to think about!
What about a pregnancy where the child is in a terminal condition and will most likely die in the womb, and what if the doctor tells the parents that the best thing to do is to "let the baby go", so to speak.
I thought about that question, and what I would think if I was married and the doctor posed that question to me.
Here in America, Christians "let people go" all the time, meaning they pull the plug on the elderly and the terminally infirmed, and have no condemnation for doing it, because they believe that if the person cannot exist outside life support, then they're just a shell of a person anyway.
But transfer that same argument to a little baby not yet born.
I was just wondering what y'all think. I'm totally against abortion, not even considering it. But I think the point is something to think about.
I would also like to say that when the pro-choice people argue for the legality of abortion, they always say "well, what if the mother's life is at stake", or "what if the baby's going to come out retarded", or "what if it's rape or incest".
Those arguments are quite dismissable, really, because when abortion is used, statistics show that abortions in those cases only account for 1 - 2 percent of all the abortions. In other words, 98 percent [or greater] of the abortions had nothing to do with the quality of life, but had everything to do with the mother's decision to kill the baby for no other reason than that she did not want the baby after becoming pregnant.
For pro-choice people to use "the mother's life" etc, to defend abortion's legality is a misrepresentation of fact, as though these were the ONLY reasons for abortion. In fact, the main and only reasons for abortion are that the baby is an inconvenience to the mother's life.
______________________________
I have never stood out on the street on the first Sunday of October for the annual national abortion protest. I have never picketed an abortion clinic. I am not a counsellor for those considering abortions. I do not get into arguments with pro-abortion or pro-choice proponents. I have never given a public speech against abortions. I have never volunteered at the Lifeline Crisis Pregnancy Center.
Yet for all this, I stand against abortion. Allow me to tell you why.
"A." is one reason why. My friend A____ and I were talking one night on the way to Blockbuster Video to get the Jennifer Lopez / George Clooney movie "Out Of Sight" to watch with some friends. A____ was discussing events of her life of late. Somehow, up came the subject. She told me that she had gotten pregnant recently. I listened as she told a sad story of how she was in college and she had no way to take care of the child, that her boyfriend had told her that she BETTER get an abortion, and that she knew that her parents would never let her live down the unwed pregnancy.
I will never forget the moment she looked over at me in that car, and her eyes misted up. She said the saddest words I think I have ever heard human lips utter. It was short and simple, and profoundly full of grief.
She said, weeping, "Steve, I'll never get to hold my baby."
And her countenance fell. There was nothing I could say, nor had I the words to say. The weight and gravity of what had just fallen on my ears was simply too overwhelming and too poignant for any words to follow such a pronouncement of those events that had just happened one month earlier.
In that moment, I had no rebuke, no Scriptural admonition, no pithy Christian catch-phrase ["God understands"; "All things work together for good"; "Your child is in the arms of God"], and none of the usual responses. I had only the moisture and salt of the tears which coursed their way down my cheeks as she sat sobbing beside me.
I have never viewed abortion in the same way since that day.
Now, when I drive down the street on October's first Sunday, waving at the abortion protesters in my city, to say hello, I see the overwhelming number of "Abortion Kills Children" signs, and I wonder, "Where are all the Jesus Saves, Forgives & Heals signs, or the Adoption: The Loving Option signs?" The church has focused on pre-abortion prevention almost exclusively, to the sad neglect of post-abortion counseling and support. There are many many women out there who have had abortions, who drive by and see these signs, and their conscience is already screaming at them enough. They do not need more condemnation from the church.
We need post-abortion counseling for women who have grief / separation anxiety / depression / guilt and other issues. We need to let these women know there is a hope and a future, and God will reunite them with their child one day, if they will only but receive his grace and redemption. The church is so prevention-focused that we have forgotten that our message doesn't always get through. There are those who slip through the cracks, who need Jesus and his love, and who need tender arms to wrap them in the beauty of Christ, without angry vengeance and preachy sermons.
On another note, the Bush administration is the first in our history to write adoption grants for families who cannot afford adoption, to build the family and to give these children a chance to live. If the church is going to stand against abortion, it will have to join the charge to help the unwed expecting mothers.
PLEASE PLEASE READ "THE ATONEMENT CHILD" BY FRANCINE RIVERS. IT IS ABOUT A YOUNG WOMAN AT A CHRISTIAN COLLEGE WHO IS RAPED AND WHO CONCEIVES, AND HER JOURNEY TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO KEEP THE CHILD. THE STORY WILL MOVE YOU TO TEARS, AND YOU WILL HAVE A FRESH NEW PERSPECTIVE ON UNINVITED PREGNANCIES.
I stand against abortion because A____ will never know her child in this life. I stand against abortion because of all the parents who wait and wait on adoption lists, because they cannot conceive for whatever reason, only to find out that some young 15-year-old girl who is fully fertile and who can have as many children as she wants, throws away her first chance to have a child [only because she knows her mother will never forgive her]. I stand against abortion because I know in my heart there is no such thing as an "unwanted child", for somebody somewhere somehow loves or could love that child with all the love of a mother or a father. For every unaccepted pregnancy, there is a set of parents waiting with open heart and open home.
I stand because I was born five months before Roe v. Wade was decided; had it happened five months earlier, and if I had abortion-inclined parents, I could have tasted of death and never seen the light of day. I stand against abortion because when a man murders a pregnant woman he is prosecuted for double murder.
I stand against abortion because the logic goes, "Keep your laws off my body", when, it is NOT your body, for you did not make it, you do not own it, nor do you have the rights to it. "You are not your own; you are bought with a price." You were made by God, and it is He alone who can decide what to do with that body that he, the landlord, has leased you, the tenant. I stand against abortion because those same people who talk about women's rights fail to consider the rights of the FEMALES who are aborted every day; because a little girl is a fetus, is she NOT a woman also?
Abortion rights do not affect the woman. They affect the fetus. There is nothing reproductive about “reproductive rights”.
I stand against abortion because God has a purpose for each and every life, even the ones who are born retarded / deformed / infirmed, the ones conceived in rape and/or incest [which are very few statistically], and any other "undesirables". Just because the baby was conceived in a dubious origin, does he or she not have the right to breathe, to feel, to walk in the grass, to feel the ocean water between his or her little toes for the very first time, to play catch with daddy, to have a baby brother or sister one day? I stand against abortion, because when the doctor pronounces "it's the child's life or yours, you choose", we can have the guts to say "Try to save both lives".
May God grant us the courage as the church to arise with compassion and wisdom to meet this challenge with grace and dignity, so that we do not come across like the angry Pharisees, but neither do we neglect the little lives that live inside our expecting mothers. We must never neglect those who have had abortions, but must embrace them with open arms, to deal with any and all of their issues in the love of God.
Roe v. Wade must and will be overturned in my lifetime. A generation of unborn futures and souls awaits our response.
________________________________________________________________
Women say, "Boys, boys, boys, when will you learn? You,quite simply,do not have a womb,and therefore you have absolutely no choice in the matter. Period."
Read the following, and tell me if you think men have no voice in the choice. If you knew your history, you would realize that SEVEN of the 9 Supreme Court Justices voted IN SUPPORT OF Roe v. Wade, and that ALL OF THE JUSTICES WERE MALES.
If it were not for these 7 MALES, you would not have the right to choose. It wasn't a woman making this decision that women should have the right to choose. Remember that there were NO women making this decision on the Supreme Court.
I am very interested to hear what you have to say in this matter. I don't really think there is any possible plausible refutation for my contention here. Gender does not qualify one to be able to choose life-and-death decisions.
Chief Justice Warren Burger
Joined the majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Harry Blackmun
Delivered the opinion for the Court.
William Brennan
Joined the majority opinion.
Lewis Powell
Joined the majority opinion.
Thurgood Marshall
Joined the majority opinion.
William Douglas
Joined the majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Potter Stewart
Joined the Majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Byron White
Filed dissenting opinion.
William Rehnquist
Filed dissenting opinion.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/special/roewade/supremecourt.html
Anybody who thinks that men have no right in the choice process, only because they don't have wombs, has summarily invalidated the judiciary authority of the 7 MEN who decided Roe v. Wade, and thus thrown into question the entire legality of the ruling itself.
______________________
I had this in my mind recently, and I don't sit and think of these things in detail, so it's definitely something I'm not meditating on.
I believe the Holy Spirit gave it to me. As soon as I saw this, I began praying for whomever it was.
A young woman sits on the side of the bed with her bare feet hanging over. She is about average height, with light brown hair, blonde-streaked. She has a thin face and thin build. She is wearing a brownish sweater for warmth, and some white pajama bottoms. She appears to be inside a small hospital room all by herself.
And she is grieving.
She is striking her face with her palms. She has come to the point where she hates herself, and utterly regrets her decision to have an abortion. Now coupled with the regret of not keeping her child, is the news that she has become infertile due to her decision to have an abortion. She also suffers from internal bleeding.
But the worst pain and agony she feels is the awful gnawing on the inside of her. She hates herself as her palms contact her face repeatedly with force. She kicks an inanimate object across the room in rage. She cries that she wishes she had decided to keep the baby. She feels so much guilt, anger, regret, and self-loathing.
She feels that God is punishing her.
She just wants it all to be over.
"If only" has become the throbbing chant, echoing over and again deep in the recesses of her tortured mind. The torment is unbearable. The marks on her wrists tell the story of someone so awfully depressed and deprived of life, that she feels that there's nothing worth living for.
__________________________
I don't know why God showed me this, but if this is someone real, I want to ask prayer for her. Perhaps this is a wake-up call for me to share about the seriousness of not only the act, but of the after-effects.
I have never done any reading, nor had any personal firsthand experience with these after-effects in women I have known who have had abortions, so I don't even know if this stuff is accurate. But if it is, it must be a horrible way to live.
I pray God that this ministers to someone, anyone.
But here's an abortion question that someone asked me, which I've been pondering the possibilites of. Now, keep in mind that I've not changed my mind. I still feel the same way, but yet it was something to think about!
What about a pregnancy where the child is in a terminal condition and will most likely die in the womb, and what if the doctor tells the parents that the best thing to do is to "let the baby go", so to speak.
I thought about that question, and what I would think if I was married and the doctor posed that question to me.
Here in America, Christians "let people go" all the time, meaning they pull the plug on the elderly and the terminally infirmed, and have no condemnation for doing it, because they believe that if the person cannot exist outside life support, then they're just a shell of a person anyway.
But transfer that same argument to a little baby not yet born.
I was just wondering what y'all think. I'm totally against abortion, not even considering it. But I think the point is something to think about.
I would also like to say that when the pro-choice people argue for the legality of abortion, they always say "well, what if the mother's life is at stake", or "what if the baby's going to come out retarded", or "what if it's rape or incest".
Those arguments are quite dismissable, really, because when abortion is used, statistics show that abortions in those cases only account for 1 - 2 percent of all the abortions. In other words, 98 percent [or greater] of the abortions had nothing to do with the quality of life, but had everything to do with the mother's decision to kill the baby for no other reason than that she did not want the baby after becoming pregnant.
For pro-choice people to use "the mother's life" etc, to defend abortion's legality is a misrepresentation of fact, as though these were the ONLY reasons for abortion. In fact, the main and only reasons for abortion are that the baby is an inconvenience to the mother's life.
______________________________
I have never stood out on the street on the first Sunday of October for the annual national abortion protest. I have never picketed an abortion clinic. I am not a counsellor for those considering abortions. I do not get into arguments with pro-abortion or pro-choice proponents. I have never given a public speech against abortions. I have never volunteered at the Lifeline Crisis Pregnancy Center.
Yet for all this, I stand against abortion. Allow me to tell you why.
"A." is one reason why. My friend A____ and I were talking one night on the way to Blockbuster Video to get the Jennifer Lopez / George Clooney movie "Out Of Sight" to watch with some friends. A____ was discussing events of her life of late. Somehow, up came the subject. She told me that she had gotten pregnant recently. I listened as she told a sad story of how she was in college and she had no way to take care of the child, that her boyfriend had told her that she BETTER get an abortion, and that she knew that her parents would never let her live down the unwed pregnancy.
I will never forget the moment she looked over at me in that car, and her eyes misted up. She said the saddest words I think I have ever heard human lips utter. It was short and simple, and profoundly full of grief.
She said, weeping, "Steve, I'll never get to hold my baby."
And her countenance fell. There was nothing I could say, nor had I the words to say. The weight and gravity of what had just fallen on my ears was simply too overwhelming and too poignant for any words to follow such a pronouncement of those events that had just happened one month earlier.
In that moment, I had no rebuke, no Scriptural admonition, no pithy Christian catch-phrase ["God understands"; "All things work together for good"; "Your child is in the arms of God"], and none of the usual responses. I had only the moisture and salt of the tears which coursed their way down my cheeks as she sat sobbing beside me.
I have never viewed abortion in the same way since that day.
Now, when I drive down the street on October's first Sunday, waving at the abortion protesters in my city, to say hello, I see the overwhelming number of "Abortion Kills Children" signs, and I wonder, "Where are all the Jesus Saves, Forgives & Heals signs, or the Adoption: The Loving Option signs?" The church has focused on pre-abortion prevention almost exclusively, to the sad neglect of post-abortion counseling and support. There are many many women out there who have had abortions, who drive by and see these signs, and their conscience is already screaming at them enough. They do not need more condemnation from the church.
We need post-abortion counseling for women who have grief / separation anxiety / depression / guilt and other issues. We need to let these women know there is a hope and a future, and God will reunite them with their child one day, if they will only but receive his grace and redemption. The church is so prevention-focused that we have forgotten that our message doesn't always get through. There are those who slip through the cracks, who need Jesus and his love, and who need tender arms to wrap them in the beauty of Christ, without angry vengeance and preachy sermons.
On another note, the Bush administration is the first in our history to write adoption grants for families who cannot afford adoption, to build the family and to give these children a chance to live. If the church is going to stand against abortion, it will have to join the charge to help the unwed expecting mothers.
PLEASE PLEASE READ "THE ATONEMENT CHILD" BY FRANCINE RIVERS. IT IS ABOUT A YOUNG WOMAN AT A CHRISTIAN COLLEGE WHO IS RAPED AND WHO CONCEIVES, AND HER JOURNEY TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO KEEP THE CHILD. THE STORY WILL MOVE YOU TO TEARS, AND YOU WILL HAVE A FRESH NEW PERSPECTIVE ON UNINVITED PREGNANCIES.
I stand against abortion because A____ will never know her child in this life. I stand against abortion because of all the parents who wait and wait on adoption lists, because they cannot conceive for whatever reason, only to find out that some young 15-year-old girl who is fully fertile and who can have as many children as she wants, throws away her first chance to have a child [only because she knows her mother will never forgive her]. I stand against abortion because I know in my heart there is no such thing as an "unwanted child", for somebody somewhere somehow loves or could love that child with all the love of a mother or a father. For every unaccepted pregnancy, there is a set of parents waiting with open heart and open home.
I stand because I was born five months before Roe v. Wade was decided; had it happened five months earlier, and if I had abortion-inclined parents, I could have tasted of death and never seen the light of day. I stand against abortion because when a man murders a pregnant woman he is prosecuted for double murder.
I stand against abortion because the logic goes, "Keep your laws off my body", when, it is NOT your body, for you did not make it, you do not own it, nor do you have the rights to it. "You are not your own; you are bought with a price." You were made by God, and it is He alone who can decide what to do with that body that he, the landlord, has leased you, the tenant. I stand against abortion because those same people who talk about women's rights fail to consider the rights of the FEMALES who are aborted every day; because a little girl is a fetus, is she NOT a woman also?
Abortion rights do not affect the woman. They affect the fetus. There is nothing reproductive about “reproductive rights”.
I stand against abortion because God has a purpose for each and every life, even the ones who are born retarded / deformed / infirmed, the ones conceived in rape and/or incest [which are very few statistically], and any other "undesirables". Just because the baby was conceived in a dubious origin, does he or she not have the right to breathe, to feel, to walk in the grass, to feel the ocean water between his or her little toes for the very first time, to play catch with daddy, to have a baby brother or sister one day? I stand against abortion, because when the doctor pronounces "it's the child's life or yours, you choose", we can have the guts to say "Try to save both lives".
May God grant us the courage as the church to arise with compassion and wisdom to meet this challenge with grace and dignity, so that we do not come across like the angry Pharisees, but neither do we neglect the little lives that live inside our expecting mothers. We must never neglect those who have had abortions, but must embrace them with open arms, to deal with any and all of their issues in the love of God.
Roe v. Wade must and will be overturned in my lifetime. A generation of unborn futures and souls awaits our response.
________________________________________________________________
Women say, "Boys, boys, boys, when will you learn? You,quite simply,do not have a womb,and therefore you have absolutely no choice in the matter. Period."
Read the following, and tell me if you think men have no voice in the choice. If you knew your history, you would realize that SEVEN of the 9 Supreme Court Justices voted IN SUPPORT OF Roe v. Wade, and that ALL OF THE JUSTICES WERE MALES.
If it were not for these 7 MALES, you would not have the right to choose. It wasn't a woman making this decision that women should have the right to choose. Remember that there were NO women making this decision on the Supreme Court.
I am very interested to hear what you have to say in this matter. I don't really think there is any possible plausible refutation for my contention here. Gender does not qualify one to be able to choose life-and-death decisions.
Chief Justice Warren Burger
Joined the majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Harry Blackmun
Delivered the opinion for the Court.
William Brennan
Joined the majority opinion.
Lewis Powell
Joined the majority opinion.
Thurgood Marshall
Joined the majority opinion.
William Douglas
Joined the majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Potter Stewart
Joined the Majority opinion.
Filed concurring opinion.
Byron White
Filed dissenting opinion.
William Rehnquist
Filed dissenting opinion.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/special/roewade/supremecourt.html
Anybody who thinks that men have no right in the choice process, only because they don't have wombs, has summarily invalidated the judiciary authority of the 7 MEN who decided Roe v. Wade, and thus thrown into question the entire legality of the ruling itself.
______________________
I had this in my mind recently, and I don't sit and think of these things in detail, so it's definitely something I'm not meditating on.
I believe the Holy Spirit gave it to me. As soon as I saw this, I began praying for whomever it was.
A young woman sits on the side of the bed with her bare feet hanging over. She is about average height, with light brown hair, blonde-streaked. She has a thin face and thin build. She is wearing a brownish sweater for warmth, and some white pajama bottoms. She appears to be inside a small hospital room all by herself.
And she is grieving.
She is striking her face with her palms. She has come to the point where she hates herself, and utterly regrets her decision to have an abortion. Now coupled with the regret of not keeping her child, is the news that she has become infertile due to her decision to have an abortion. She also suffers from internal bleeding.
But the worst pain and agony she feels is the awful gnawing on the inside of her. She hates herself as her palms contact her face repeatedly with force. She kicks an inanimate object across the room in rage. She cries that she wishes she had decided to keep the baby. She feels so much guilt, anger, regret, and self-loathing.
She feels that God is punishing her.
She just wants it all to be over.
"If only" has become the throbbing chant, echoing over and again deep in the recesses of her tortured mind. The torment is unbearable. The marks on her wrists tell the story of someone so awfully depressed and deprived of life, that she feels that there's nothing worth living for.
__________________________
I don't know why God showed me this, but if this is someone real, I want to ask prayer for her. Perhaps this is a wake-up call for me to share about the seriousness of not only the act, but of the after-effects.
I have never done any reading, nor had any personal firsthand experience with these after-effects in women I have known who have had abortions, so I don't even know if this stuff is accurate. But if it is, it must be a horrible way to live.
I pray God that this ministers to someone, anyone.
