Pro-choice: pro-isolation and despair
Northeast Indiana Right to Life recently hosted its first banquet north of Fort Wayne at the Kruse plaza in Auburn. It was a rousing success. The speaker was former NFL player and candidate for Lt. Governor Matt Birk. He asked whether the Left is actually pro-choice or whether it is in fact pro-abortion. It's not as if Planned Parenthood counsels women to keep their babies. And if Planned Parenthood were really pro-choice, I imagine they would have an adoption consultant on hand to help women make informed decisions.
Now, the funny thing is that the "pro-choice" folks often accuse pro-lifers of being only pro-birth. Usually, that argument comes down to their insistence that to be completely pro-life you have to be pro-socialist, pro-big government, as if life at any change were impossible without still more government programs.
But if you call yourself pro-choice, and not pro-abortion, why not volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center? Why not support groups that bring ultrasounds into underserved communities? Why not speak of the child in the womb? Talk about that child's development, including her beating heart and little fingers and toes? Why not publicly promote adoptions agencies as a loving option?
The answers to such questions speak to the darkness of the sinful heart. If we actually did what we could to help women make informed decisions, talking about such options as adoption, and supporting crisis pregnancy centers, we would have to say that giving birth has its advantages. And if we did that, we would have to say why that it is. And that would mean acknowledging the truth that abortion is the taking of an innocent little human life.
This is nothing other than a form of psychological denial. The problem is that it doesn't push the evil out, but wedges it ever more deeply into our souls. By denying the humanity of the child, we end up becoming ourselves less human. Denial of the child in the womb cauterizes the heart towards children, towards one another, and, of course, towards God. Abortion is the ultimate breaking of the human bond at its most intimate level.
Hell is hot and dry, but even worse, it's an island of eternal isolation. That isolation is simply God's making permanent the aim of our sinful desires. By abortion, we proclaim our freedom, not to do good, but to be free from the responsibility of caring for or thinking about someone else. We end up like Tom Hanks in Castaway, not by by accidental shipwreck, but by choice. Pro-choice is pro-isolation, anti-love, and ultimate loneliness and despair.
The Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer is chairman and professor of Exegetical Theology and director of the M.A. program at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.
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In a groundbreaking report published last month, The New York Times revealed that “at detecting various rare and serious genetic issues, prenatal genetic screening tests provide incorrect results as often as 83 percent to 91 percent of the time.” How many of these tests have led to abortion? Click here to read more.
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The dates identifying the LCRL bulletin blurbs are only suggestions. Please feel free to use any and all of the bulletin blurbs as your ministry needs allow.
The Bulletin Insert is designed to be printed and cut in half to fit conveniently inside a Sunday worship bulletin. Each month an insert will offer insight, encouragement, and information from the LCRL on the topics of Religious Liberty, Life, Marriage, or Education.
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The dates identifying the LCRL bulletin blurbs are only suggestions. Please feel free to use any and all of the bulletin blurbs as your ministry needs allow.
The Bulletin Insert is designed to be printed and cut in half to fit conveniently inside a Sunday worship bulletin. Each month an insert will offer insight, encouragement, and information from the LCRL on the topics of Religious Liberty, Life, Marriage, or Education.
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