Advocating for the Unborn

As you likely already know, this week the big news coming out of every media outlet is about the leaked opinion draft of the United States Supreme Court.  If you watch one media outlet, the focus is on the egregious breach of trust on the part of whoever leaked the draft, which is certainly unprecedented and very problematic.  If you watch other media outlets, the focus is on the audacity of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs Wade, making this an issue to be handled at the state level.  Of course this fires up the rhetoric used in media circles to amp up people's emotions, and of course it will try to be leveraged for political gain.  Such is the world we live in!  Since it does bring up the conversation, I want to be clear as to why I believe that the unborn should be protected and why this goes beyond a political issue into a justice issue.  So here are my thoughts.

First, I am going to start with Scripture.  I believe human beings are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27).  All human beings have been given intrinsic value because they are uniquely made in God's image.  To use a phrase that gets tossed around in our culture today, their "life matters".  But when does someone become a human being?  This is where my worldview will demand that I answer this question by looking to Scripture as an objective measure.  

• Jeremiah 1:5 - God tells Jeremiah that before he was born and while in the womb He knew him.
• Psalm 139 affirms that God "knits us together" in our mother's womb, and that God saw us when we were unformed, which seems like a clear affirmation of personhood to me.
• Exodus 21:22-25 affirms that an unborn child was considered a life inside the womb.

Two things I observe here that drive my thinking from a Biblical perspective:

• God sees even the unformed body and attached to it, personhood.
• The womb is where God is knitting together a human being.  It would seem logical that this knitting together starts as soon as a female egg is fertilized and the process of forming a person begins.  You know, these ancient people did not have microscopes, but they sure nailed this one.  Look at this video showing what happens on a cellular level.

This is a case in which science certainly supports the language of the Bible, and this should not surprise us.  So that is why I believe life begins at conception.  When discussing this topic with others who argue that the baby in the whom is not a life, I simply ask them two questions.  One, "When then does a life become a life?" and follow it up with "What is your objective standard by which you form your conclusion?"  The reality is that any discussion on the personhood or life of a human being from a scientific perspective is all subjective... your own opinion.  Some say it is a person when the baby is viable to live outside the womb.  Others say it is a person when it takes its first breath.  Some may say it is a person when there is a heartbeat.  It all seems so subjective to me, based on what someone feels like it should be.  Scientific interpretation does not really give a satisfying answer to this question.  However, nature itself seems to affirm the personhood of the baby in the womb, even at an unformed stage.  Ask someone who miscarried.  Even me writing that phrase likely brings up the emotions and grief that a mother and father feel when this happens, regardless of how far along they were in the pregnancy.  

Second, having established my starting point for the discussion, my conclusion is that there are two persons, two bodies, and two living beings involved when a woman is pregnant, unless, of course, there are twins, triplets, etc.  I always shake my head when I hear the phrase, "My body, my choice" because it misses at the very heart of my own objection.  This may be true if it was just one body, but it is not.  Additionally, it is heralded that men have no right making decisions involving a woman's body.  Again, if it were just her body, then that may be true... but it is not just her body.  This is why it is more than a political issue for me... it involves a real life.  This is also why I am encouraged by the movement toward outlawing abortion.  By the way, the potential ruling of the Supreme Court is not outlawing abortion but rather making the issue a state issue rather than a federal one.  But make no mistake about it, it is movement in the right direction, in my opinion of course.

I also realize that there are cases where it becomes a much more difficult discussion... rape, life of the mother, or when it is determined that a baby has zero chance of surviving the pregnancy, but those certainly are the rare exceptions and not the norm.  Those are discussions for another day.

I also hear the rhetoric from those that are just as grieved over this issue as I am.  Certainly this issue is framed often as "Abortion is murder" or even that those who have had an abortion are "murderers".   I think the phrase is not helpful and doesn't address the real issue.  Shaming people rarely is helpful.  The issue is a blindness toward the personhood of the unborn.  We live in a culture that has dehumanized the unborn in order to justify a woman's right to choose.  If it is not a person... not a viable/living human being, then they can justify "it is my body, my choice."  I believe our culture has conditioned people to think this way to the point that for many it has become fact.  I believe that if we are going to make movement on this issue, we have to be able to point people to the personhood of the unborn without inflammatory statements that carry with it connotations of judgment.  Have conversations with those that do not affirm the personhood of the unborn by explaining to them why you believe the unborn is a person/living human being/valuable image bearer of God, and ask them why they believe it is not a human being.  Challenge them to understand the process of a baby being formed in the womb.  You may not be able to convince them using the Bible, even though that is what drives your own convictions, but you may be able to help them see biologically what  is happening.  At the Alpha Care Center in Lowell (formerly Alpha Family Center), there is an ultrasound machine.  Why?  Because a picture/video with color and sound go a long way in helping a woman see that there is actually a living person there.  What I am saying is... how we go about engaging our culture on this issue matters.  Remember that our enemy is not flesh and blood.  Let the fruit of the Spirit be a good measure for how you engage... engage in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  

Finally, I would like to add that being pro-life is also more than just keeping a baby from being aborted.  It is about the support and care for mothers and their child.  In a culture with so many single moms or families dependent on two incomes, we need to think about how to care for women during their pregnancy and after as well.  We need to think about how to make things like maternity leave and child care viable for women who don't have the support they need.  Are you open to adopting?  I don't know the solution to all of this, but it would be a much more productive conversation if the abortion issue wasn't so politically polarizing.  Do you have any helpful thoughts on how we can advocate for the unborn and for the mothers who will be bringing into this world a precious, knitted-together, image-bearer of God?  I would love to hear them.