God. Real. Right.

The pro-life position is not simply anti-abortion. Being against abortion is not sufficient to encompass what it is to be pro-life; there are, after all, still issues like eugenics and euthanasia. On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, trying to define the pro-life position in terms of enmity with abortion fails for a different reason.

Here’s an e-mail I received from a listener after a recent broadcast illustrating precisely this point. My response follows. (Oh, and the “next week” to which he refers is January 18-22, 2010, Sanctity of Life week, in observance of the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision.)

Subject: Abortion…

I thought that subject line would get your attention. I did want to get your point of view on something, though, and maybe you can comment on it next week when you’ll be on-topic anyway. I would like to note before I begin that I agree with you that abortion for convenience of the parents is wrong without question.

Years ago, my mother and step-father were newly married, and my mother became pregnant. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a tubal pregnancy, however, and threatened the life of my mother. As a result, the baby (and in a second surgery a few days later, the associated fallopian tube) had to be removed to save my mother’s life. Over the years I’ve thought about this from different standpoints trying to make sense of it Biblically. I can only conceptualize the matter by considering the hypothetical based on an alternate decision, and then compare that to what actually happened.

Had the baby not been aborted, my mother would likely have died. Had that happened, my life would be significantly different that it is now. I probably would have gone to live with my father in another state, which means that I have no idea how I would have met my wife (though I’m sure God would have figure that one out) or where my walk with God would be. I probably wouldn’t even be writing this email, and you’d have one fewer listener. I also would not have my two younger sisters (15 & 17), whom I adore.

While we all mourned for the loss of the baby, I am forced to say that, given the final outcome, I am glad for the decision that was made (even though it wasn’t mine to make). My life seems much richer than what I can conceptualize alternatively, and I feel I’m closer with God because of it.

I now understand that most tubal pregancies are “naturally aborted.” That is, the mother’s body recognizes the problem and miscarries out of self-preservation. Whether that would have happened in my mother’s case, I have no way of knowing, and perhaps with that in mind the decision could have been the wrong one (according to God’s will). But with my level of logic (though I understand that my ways are not His ways), either way the baby would not have made it, and this way we gave my mother a better chance for survival.

And finally, supposing this decision was not aligned with God’s will, it is a testimony of how He can take sin (making the decision contrary to His will) and work good from it.

Greg, in Justin

And my reply:

I deal with this very subject in my ethics classes every semester. It is not unusual. The issue is not what happened afterward in your life, of course, although I understand why you bring up that topic. [What happened as a result is not the issue in this case both because believers should not adopt a utilitarian position (explanations for another day) and because we do not rejoice in evil even though God overcomes and even redeems its consequences.] And there’s way too much technical stuff for me to explain my answer fully in an e-mail. That’s why the topic comes up in class during the last week of the ethical theorists that we deal with.

But suffice it to say this: I do not simply make claims about when abortion is right and wrong. Rather, the issue is the value of life in the womb.

There are times when we cannot save everyone in circumstances that have nothing to do with pregnancy (one donor kidney with two people on dialysis dying soon, and so on). The whole key is to give the same moral regard (respect, protection, care…) to life in the womb which we ought to give to life outside the womb. That’s the whole moral appeal to me.

There will always be moral quandaries, crises, and dilemmas; we live in a fallen world with both moral and natural evil. Our responsibility is to have the right values, live them out, then confess that we fail every day.

Well, that’s all I’ve got time for at the moment, but I’ll certainly cover this topic on the air next week, if not before. Take care,
bkc

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 9:28 am and is filed under Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.