A Pastoral Concern about the desperation for abortion

Much can be said (and deserves to be said) about the abortion controversy.  Many consider it a political issue.  While it is that, it is far more significantly a moral issue.  God is the creator of life.  God grants the life of children through sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.  While pregnancy is not the guaranteed result of every act of intercourse, it is the means by which women become pregnant.  Both the man and the woman engage in sex, therefore both are accountable for the results.

When this is done in the confines of marriage, the resultant pregnancy is a great blessing.  At least, God thinks so.  "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.  Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them" (Psalm 127:3-5)!  Sadly, many today disagree.

This Pastoral Concern focuses on one aspect of the abortion issue: The symbol of the coat hanger by the people who champion abortion as a right and as a good thing.  The argument is that, if abortion should be made illegal, women will have to resort to a dangerous "do-it-yourself" program of taking a coat hanger and engaging in a self-administered abortion.

It is supposed to produce such a shock that we would feel compelled to preserve a safe, clinical method of aborting a child.  Well, the shock value has worked on me.

I am shocked, appalled, and saddened that any woman would think that taking a coat hanger and injecting it into her uterus for any reason is a necessary and noble act.  I am shocked, appalled, and saddened that any woman would knowingly and willingly take a coat hanger, crank it around in her uterus like an egg-beater, and believe that this is a saner option than giving birth to a child.  I am shocked, appalled, and saddened that any woman who recognizes that she is pregnant would consider the child in her uterus something to be rooted out in such a violent, unhealthy, and vicious way.

So, well done abortion activists.  Your shock tactic has worked on me.  But it has backfired.  You want me to have compassion for your cause so that you will not resort to using a coat hanger for a self-inflicted abortion.  Rather, I am shocked that you would consider doing this to yourself at all--as if the risk of self-mutilation is a superior choice to giving birth to a child, a child that others would joyfully adopt and raise if the hardship is genuinely too much for you.  

Dear women, you deserve better than this.  And I pray that you will see that aborting your child is a great evil and that pregnancy with a child is not--even if it is unintended or inconvenient.  God thinks so.  I hope you will, too.

NOTE: If you choose to do the right and noble thing (which is not to say that it is the easy thing) and carry your child to full term and deliver it, you will find people who are willing to help you to alleviate your hardships in raising a child.  Most churches have people who are willing to provide such help.  You can also appeal to pregnancy care centers, such as the Redford Pregnancy Care Center.