“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you …”
Jeremiah 1:5a ESV
These verses speak specifically about the prophet Jeremiah and the ministry that God ordained for his life before He was born, but it also carries on the unbroken theme of Scripture that life does not come into the world without divine purpose. Human life is not arbitrary and without inherent meaning. Each human life begins at conception and has worth and dignity before God. As Christians, we must recognize the purpose and value of every human life and understand how God’s moral purposes revolve around this foundation.
Abortion is first defined as elective. This means abortion is a willful choice that the mother makes. There are many strong influences in America today pressing for women to abort their unborn children. These range from parents ashamed of their daughters, to boyfriends and husbands not wanting to take responsibility for the child they have fathered. The power of materialism and the passion for career growth have also led many women to abort their children. Whatever the influencing reason, elective abortion is a mother deciding that she will end the life of her unborn child, instead of choosing to nurture and protect it. It takes powerful evil influence, pressure, and manipulation to overcome the natural God-given feminine nurturing inclinations of a mother’s heart.
Abortion is accomplished in many different ways in America, eliminating well over 1,000,000 children from the US population every year. It ranges from the horrific dismembering of unborn children in utero, to “failed” abortions where the infant is born not yet killed and left to die from exposure, to the most common in our time – death by mifepristone. Mifepristone is an oral medication that blocks progesterone, a hormone necessary to sustain pregnancy. Up to eleven weeks in pregnancy, it is effective in killing the unborn child and can be accomplished in a nearly anonymous way. In all these cases, the mother knows she is pregnant, God knows she is pregnant, and a willful choice is made to kill the child to not face the consequences of bearing that child.
Arguments are often made to justify abortion if rape or incest are involved. Rape and incest are themselves horrible evils that must always be condemned, and which we should work to prevent and protect vulnerable women and girls in every way possible. However, defaulting to abortion is not moral. When a child is conceived, a life has begun. It is wrong to pressure an already abused woman into committing another evil – that of killing her child. Each moral scenario must be faced separately, and compounding evils (rape + abortion) does not produce goodness. The mother may choose to place the child for adoption, but new life coming from evil can produce redemption by God’s grace.
Arguments are also made to justify abortion in light of real medical complications that can endanger the life of the mother. I argue that this situation is not the same as elective abortion. In a true medical/clinical scenario where the life of the mother and the child are endangered, there are circumstances where inducing labor to cause the birth of the child before the child is viable to live outside the womb may be necessary. This delivery is not the same morally as elective abortion. Each mother faced with life-threatening medical conditions related to pregnancy will have to make her own choices as to how far she is willing to go in the face of personal danger, but she is not morally obligated to die in a situation where the child would also die. Also, inducing labor for a pre-term baby, due to medical necessity, is not the same thing as intentionally killing a child through deprivation or mutilation. This is a hard circumstance which will be grieved but should not carry moral guilt.
I would like to turn the conversation toward the goodness and joy of children! So much of abortion culture in our day is related to a very negative view of children. Everywhere in the Bible children are viewed as blessings that come from God. Being fruitful and multiplying on the earth is a part of the original creation mandate to all humankind (Genesis 1:27-28). Children come according to God’s design and will. God has designed sex to produce children, but God designed sex to only be enjoyed inside the bounds of marriage. Children born inside the bonds of male and female marriage are born into the stable environment needed to raise children and form family. It is essential that as Christians we obey the will of the Lord in our sexual lives and abstain from all sexual relations until marriage, and only inside of marriage. If we hear and obey the will of the Lord in this, children will only be born into married families. In this context, children are a blessing to the family and the children themselves are blessed. Here the child is also a sanctifying influence within the home. In this context children become a heritage and are celebrated in a growing family.
Obviously, this is the opposite of the anti-Christian sexual culture we currently live in. As Christians, we must choose to believe and live according to the will of the Lord. We must honor the Lord by faith and choose to live sexually pure lives. Let us have courage to pursue marriage, and inside marriage enjoy the sexual design of God between men and women, that children may be born into blessing. May the Lord Jesus give us the faith to believe these things and live according to them.
May we also seek the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ when we fail and sin. There is forgiveness from God for sexual sin and abortion. None of the things mentioned above are unpardonable sins. Jesus came to forgive sinners, give new life to those walking in death, to bring hope out of despair. However, new life in Christ begins with recognizing our sin, confessing and forsaking our sin, and believing in Jesus Christ to make us new. Through the atoning work of Jesus on the cross the price has been paid for your sins! Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you can enter new life that will never end. May the guilt and sorrow of past sin be put away. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Lastly, part of the redeeming gospel work that Christians must enter is the work of adoption. The pro-life position of Christians must be both against abortion and for adoption. Every mother that chooses to not abort her child, but who cannot care for that child, must be able to find a Christian family willing to bring that child into their home by adoption. As Christians, we must ask God for the faith and strength of conviction to make the long-term commitment necessary to adopt children into our homes from these scenarios. Praise the Lord for every mother that chooses not to kill her child but give that child a chance to live. As the Christian church, we must be the first to raise our hands to brings these infants into our homes. As the church, we must help each other through the years with the great burden of raising adopted children. Together, by God’s grace, we are strong enough to meet the need in the town God has placed us!
Abortion and adoption are directly tied together as moral issues that relate to life. As Christians we are a people of life. Let us not see these things first as political issues but as life and death moral issues defined by God. May we have the faith to believe what God has declared as good to actually be good. Let us walk in sexual purity and faithfulness. Let us walk in committed sacrificial love for children that need us to love and raise them. May the desires of the flesh be put to death and the life of the Holy Spirit thrive within us individually and collectively as a church.
May you be filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit,
Pastor Vic