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Here’s an e-mail I received from a listener troubled by a particular passage in the Old Testament. He says “Leviticus” but means “Exodus”. It’s an interesting e-mail because a slight shift in how one phrase is understood completely changes the implications of the passage for the issue of life in the womb. He takes it a way I have heard it taken on other occasions as well. However, as I mention below the letter, I believe both the context and wording itself point in a different direction.

Hi, Dr. Creamer:
I listen to your show almost every day on my way home, and really enjoyed the Christian perspective on various issues of our time. One of the most frequent topics that have been discussed is abortion. While I am staunchly pro-life, I have doubts whether abortion is tantamount to murder. Here is the verse that causes my doubt:

Leviticus 21:22-25 And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow; he shall be surely fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (ASB)

A couple of things I observe from these few verses:

1. If a man commits murder, he will receive capital punishment.
2. If a man kills a pregnant woman, he will receive capital punishment.
3. If a man kills only the fetus without killing the pregnant woman, he only needs to pay a fine.

So the only conclusion I can (more…)

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Among the many praster rem issues brought up in response to my adamantly pro-life position, one is that if abortion is illegal, women will go into back alleys where their health and even lives will be unnecessarily imperiled. Here’s an e-mail I received a few months ago along those lines:

I have a non-Christian friend who is from another country. We were talking about abortion. Her argument for not making it illegal is that in other countries where abortion is illegal women just have unsafe, “back-alley” abortions where the many of the women sustain permanent damage if they live. I know this is how it was in our country years ago. Also, I was reading about women’s abortion stories online and I was saddened by (more…)

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I always receive “rebuttal” email or calls when I talk about the importance of preserving life in the womb. Here is an email with comments fairly representative of what I hear all of the time. I don’t think the comments are irrational. But I believe some brief, inline replies can show why I don’t believe they are sound assaults on the pro-life position either.

Dr Creamer,
…[off topic greetings]…
Now I wanted to respond to your subject today. I am pro-life in some ways and pro-choice in other ways. [So here are] The questions (more…)

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Today, March 31, is the day many people are observing “Red Envelope Day.” They will mail an empty red envelope to President Obama with these words: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”
I have received quite a bit of correspondence about it from listeners and so have mentioned it a couple of times on air. Here is an e-mail I received from a listener in Fort Worth. I have not checked with the Star Telegram for their side of the story, but I suspect what this listener reports is accurate.

Dr Creamer,
I tried to run an ad last week to announce Red Envelope Day and gave address and what to write on the back “This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world”.
I checked daily and the ad never ran. Today I was told that it was “not appropriate” (after they took my money and sent me verification that ad was acceptable via online info).
Please reply. I may miss part of your show today. Your show is awesome and I wish I could get the word out better to others to tune in because there are “scarey” times ahead.
God bless you and your work,
Deborah from Fort Worth

If the media don’t like it, there must be something right about it.

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This bumper sticker exemplifies the empty, albeit seemingly pithy rhetoric, by which the most heinous of behaviors finds shallow justification in our culture. What the words actually mean, however, makes the case for the view opposite what is promoted by the rhetoric.
The argument is supposed to be an “a fortiore ratione” argument. (Or, it could be construed as “a minore…”, depending on how to take “unjustified” in the sentence after next.) “Trust with child” is much stronger than “trust with choice.” So whatever should be unjustified regarding “trust with choice” ought to be even less so regarding “trust with child”. But where does that actually lead? Do those pasting this sticker think there is some difficulty in us acknowledging that since we (pro-lifers, that is) do not trust them with their choice, we therefore do not trust them with their child? There is no difficulty at all. The conclusion is correct. The reason we want to protect their child in the womb from their attempt to destroy him or her is precisely because we do not trust them with the choice they have made about that child.
But a more accurate analysis regards the words “choice” and “child”. In those two words is the trick, since the “choice” is only significant insofar as it is about the child, and since the “child” in the bumper sticker is actually about whatever choices and behaviors the parent will have toward it. That is, the only choice about which we do not give parents prerogative (at least in the domain of this discussion) is the choice of whether a child’s life is worth preserving. No parent (before or after the birth of their child) has the privilege (?!) (muich less right) of deeming a child’s life not worth living.
So if the choice is for abortion, then we trust the parent neither with the choice nor the child, on both counts precisely because parents should not kill their offspring. If the choice is to preserve the child, then we trust the parent with the choice and the child with one and the same judgment.
So here’s a more appropriate bumper sticker for anyone whose vehicle, door, or wall is sporting the object of this diatribe: “If you can’t trust my rhetoric to be honest, how can you trust me with life-destroying political decisions.”
There. That’s much better.

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Yesterday I commented on the radio about President Obama’s decision to reverse the Mexico City Policy. That policy, an executive order instituted first by President Reagan, then again by President G.W. Bush, prevented federal international aid money from being used to promote abortion. My only mistake (in this particular context, at least!) was commenting on the executive order prematurely. Since his (more…)

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A caller on my radio program mentioned during a pointedly pro-life show that the Girl Scouts are apparently supporters of Planned Parenthood. Obviously we cannot run with what callers report unless we find some kind of verification. I believed at the time the caller might be right, though, so I looked up the relationship between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood. Briefly, here is what I found. The Girl Scouts’ web site responds with nothing when searched for Planned Parenthood. No surprise there.
But this 2004 story at CBN News reports the origin of (more…)

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A listener sent me the following story the day after I interacted with a caller about how abortion could be wrong even in cases of rape. There are many issues to be covered under that heading, but this letter touches on the key ones:

…
I just wanted to say that I am so pleased to read your stance on abortion in the case of rape. My mother was a 14-year-old girl who was raped, and she tried to have an abortion. The only reason I am alive today is because the doctor miscalculated her due date and thought she was too far in the pregnancy to have the abortion, when in reality he was a month off (this actually happened twice). It pains me every time I hear even die hard pro-lifers say “except in the case of rape”. I know it is traumatizing for a girl or woman that is raped to have to carry a child, but it is no more traumatizing than someone who gets shot during a violent attack and has to deal with those wounds. Counseling and therapy can help heal the trauma, but the trauma will be there whether she has the abortion or not, and the abortion could even make it worse. It has caused me so much anxiety over the years to think that many pro-lifers would have approved of my mother’s abortion. By the way, she gave me up for adoption, and my adoptive parents were never able to have children. Thank you so much for this wonderful view against abortion even in the case of rape.
…

The letter was from Christopher __________ from Vernon, who found the story and shared it with us from the website, abort73.com. Warning: It’s a pretty graphic site.

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Penna Dexter interviewed Jill Stanek on Live from Criswell today. She held living little babies discarded after abortion procedures–some for more than eight hours. She said she could not bear the thought of those little babies being left alone for hours while they were dying. Unconscionably, Barak Obama’s consistent support of the pro-choice movement leads him to believe that requiring life-giving care for such infants would endanger the standing of Roe v Wade. He is right. And he is oh so contemptibly wrong.

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If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;
If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?

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