by: Gary Shavey at
TheResurgence.comBeing that today, October 2nd 2006, is the national day for Pro-lifers in this country to take their stand on the issues of abortion I write this little blog. I owe much to the following line of thought to a seminary class that I took from David Horner from Talbot Seminary and to the readings of a Jewish Atheist, liberal, left-wing, pro-lifer Nat Hentoff (Jewish Atheist is a special division in Hentoff’s own words).
The issues over abortion are very tricky and thick but it is safe to say that the majority of the arguments are over emotions, selfishness, inconvenience, “rights” and ultimately the truth. It seems at times, that truth is overlooked because pro-choicers do not want to face the logical outworking of their decisions on abortion. Pro-lifers on the other hand tend to deal with truth and fight for what they see as true from both the biblical position and flat out logical position. Believe it or not there are people like Nat Hentoff that are not Bible believers but have logically worked out a pro-life view, yet with some differences to the typical conservative pro-life position (i.e., views on contraceptives and the death penalty). From my perspective, I would say that Mr. Hentoff’s view comes from the fact that he was created in God’s image and still has the law written on his heart so there is this “moral argument” in which God can be proved through the Imago Dei. To say this in another way that is more blunt, there are some folks that have seen through the crap and will not take it anymore, there are people on death row that have at least limited rights but pre-born infants have no rights. Basically being pro-choice only protects the rights of the woman but an infant in the womb has no rights until the last 3 months in the womb. What?
Biblically we see that God knows the life of a person before, during and after the womb. Let us look at a few verses. Jeremiah 1:5 states, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” It is pretty clear that God cares, knows and values life even in the womb. Likewise in Exodus 21:22-23 we see, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life…” God considers the pre-born as life. If we see that in scripture that God places value on the life of those in the womb we should as well. God also places value on life after the womb as seen in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”
Logically for the pro-lifer, which maybe would not take into consideration the Bible verses just mentioned, they just know that abortion is wrong. Folks like Nat Hentoff and Mary Meehan (the latter writes for the Progressive) states, "It is out of character for the left to neglect the weak and helpless. The traditional mark of the left has been its protection of the underdog, the weak and the poor. The unborn child is the most helpless form of humanity, even more in need of protection than the poor tenant farmer or the mental patient. The basic instinct of the left is to aid those who cannot aid themselves. And that instinct is absolutely sound. It's what keeps the human proposition going." Again I think this all points back to the Imago Dei so this is common ground with the folks that call themselves pro-lifers. If logically the pre-born in the last term in pregnancy is considered human with rights then so it should be equal throughout pregnancy.
Now let us get to the illogic of pro-choice and how pro-choice is really a farce and should be named something else. For some reason the laws of this land have determined that 3 months before an infant is born there are rights for that child and the child cannot be aborted. But anytime before the last 3 months the child can be aborted. The main line of reasoning is that the baby before the last term is not really or fully a human. There is also another side of the pro-choice that states if the pre-born child were to have a severe handicap after being born there would be a high probability that it would not live a productive fruitful life or survive on its own. Therefore this would be valid reason to abort the child. Logically, if we continue to take both lines of thinking through one could say that even after the child has been born the child could not survive on it’s own till some say maybe 9 months old. This also implies that maybe this infant is not really human till at least 9 months (or there are people like Peter Singer at Princeton University that say you can terminate baby’s life up to 28 days after birth). If this is the case, then people have to start coming to the terms that they can commit infanticide with their babies after they are born. This same logic for today’s abortions can be brought to the table as valid reasons for infanticide or we must come to the opposite conclusion and choose to fight for the rights of the life of the unborn and born child.
After our look at the Reductio Ad Absurdum let us draw some conclusions. When thinking at least logically at the conclusions of someone that believes in pro-choice there are really two options. First we see that for the pro-lifer the answer to abortion is no and the answer to infanticide is no. For the pro-choicer we can now see how the logic does not hold in this position, for abortion yes but for infanticide no? Pro-choice folks are not going to like this but they really should be called pro-infanticide, if they are going to go with abortion then the logic would follow that they would also be pro-infanticide. There are your two options either pro-infanticide or pro-life. There is no logic to the position of pro-choice. Within pro-choice the lines of when an infant is deemed human or even valued are way too blurred and inconsistent, the water does not hold. It is apparent that the pro-choice position has been built on sand and at the same time very surprising that it has stood for so long. So as we commemorate this day for the life of the pre-born and born let us use our minds to show the inconsistencies of the pro-choice view then follow it up by the love and grace of God who creates life, values life and ultimately is the one that can redeem life.
For some helpful information check out
www.abort73.com this is one of the more recent websites on educating people on the issues surrounding abortion.
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Origional Article)
