Dear pastor, may the Lord bless you!
I was very glad that you talked about abortion last Wednesday. I have spent a lot of time thinking and praying about this issue. I know what I'm "supposed to" believe as a good, Bible-believing Christian -- but when I look into the Bible myself, I see something very different.
I want to comment on the points you made last Wednesday, and I'd really like to hear your responses to my comments. I pray the Lord will guide us into all truth by His Holy Spirit, and am confident that He will, because He has promised to do so.
Personally, I haven't really been touched by abortion. I have never been an actively involved party, and as far as I know, none of my close family members have had an abortion. I'm writing this because I agree with you that it's important for Christians to take a definite, strong stand with integrity and honesty. We shouldn't bend to cultural pressure--but on the other hand, we shouldn't just go along with the "party line" we hear in church.
Here are my comments:
(1) Your first point was "The first question in the abortion
debate is not: Are you pro-choice or pro-life. The first question
is: When does life begin?" I contend that this is not the question,
either. Even the most ardent pro-abortionists admit that the
fetus is biologically alive. Biologically the sperm and egg are alive,
even before fertilization --so is all birth control sin?? Animals
are alive--so should we be vegetarians? The individual cells in our
bodies are alive -- so should we hold a funeral when we scrape ourselves
and lose some skin?
By 'alive' I suppose you mean life in a "spiritual" sense.
The same question might be phrased, "At what point does a fertilized human
egg become a person?" Unfortunately I think that questions like this
are bound to lead to theological never-never land -- because the Bible
never uses the word "person". The Bible does talk about the "soul" ('nephesh'
in Hebrew) -- but animals apparently have "nephesh" too (it's
often translated as "creature" in Genesis 1:20-25)
It seems to me that for the Christian there are two essential
questions, namely 'Does God HATE abortion?' and 'Does God PROHIBIT
abortion?' Virtually all Christians would agree that God hates
abortion -- but a significant number do not believe that God absolutely
prohibits it. This would put abortion in the same category as divorce--something
that Christians are not to engage in, but also not to compel unbelievers
by law to live up to the same standard.
(2) On the basis of Psalm 139:13-16, you conclude
that God created me, saw me, and planned my days before I was born.
This is undeniable. HOWEVER, God has known me and planned my days
EVEN BEFORE I WAS CONCEIVED. There is plenty of Scriptural
evidence for this. God knew all about Samson BEFORE he was
conceived (Judges 13:5). The same goes for John the Baptist
(Luke 1:13-17). Jeremiah 1:5 says, "BEFORE I formed you in the womb,
I set you apart, and called you …" Ephesians 1:4 says that He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world. Revelation 3:8
says that our names were written in the Lamb's book of life before the
foundation of the world.
Hence if you use Psalm 139:13-16 to conclude that abortion
is murder, inexorable logic also dictates that birth control is also
murder. So where is the Christian hue and outcry against birth control??!!
There is the story of Onan in Genesis 38.
Should we conclude on this basis that birth control is murder? I
think you'll agree with me that the proper conclusion is not, "Birth control
is sin", but rather, "Stubborn and selfish resistance to God is sin."
In summary, I don't see how you can use Psalm 139
to conclude anything about the nature of life in the womb. God has
always been my Creator, He has always known me, He has always had a plan
for me: His knowledge didn't just begin after I was conceived.
(3) You quoted Exodus 21:22-23 as establishing God's
protection of the life of the unborn. You claimed that the
passage refers to premature birth, and not to miscarriage. I checked
NIV, NRSV, and NASB: both NRSV and NASB translate as "miscarriage",
while NIV gives "miscarriage" as an alternate reading. On this basis, I
conclude that the meaning is not at all clear (there is a lively debate
on this subject on the Internet). If God truly wanted to establish
the "right to life" of the unborn, He certainly would have said more about
it, rather than making it rest on a single verse with problematic translation.
There is a solid Scriptural principle: Out of the mouths of two or
three witnesses shall all matters be established. The moral or social
laws which God establishes all have multiple Scripture references.
Where are the multiple references to the unborn's right to life?
When you come right down to it, the Old Testament says
precious little about the rights of children born or unborn. There
are no laws against a parent abusing his/her own child, for instance.
On the contrary, the Old Testament gives the cumulative impression that
the child was considered to be the parents' property. Abraham's offering
of Isaac is not treated as attempted murder; neither is Jephthah's offering
his own daughter to the Lord in Judges 11. 2 Kings 6:26ff.
tells of a mother who openly confessed to eating her own baby, and apparently
was not afraid of being prosecuted for murder. This certainly does
not mean that this was the right thing to do, or that God was pleased
with that state of affairs. However, it does imply that
Old Testament law does not give a strong foundation for a stance against
abortion.
(4) Your fourth point was that "Unborn children possess
distinctive human traits", and refer to Elizabeth's statement that
the unborn John the Baptist "leaped for joy" in her womb. To
conclude on the basis of this verse that the unborn can feel joy is dubious
at best. Compare 1 Chr. 16:31ff, "Let the heavens be glad, let the
earth rejoice … let the fields rejoice …"; Psalm 68:12-13 says, "… the
hills are clothed with gladness, the meadows are covered with flocks and
the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."
We cannot on the basis of these verses conclude that hills, fields, etc.
have human feelings of joy--neither can we conclude from Luke 1:41 that
the unborn feel joy. In fact, Ecclesiastes 6:3-5 seems to indicate
that the unborn have no knowledge or feelings: "A stillborn child
… comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, … it never saw the sun
or knew any thing."
You also cited Psalm 51:3, "In sin my mother conceived
me". I take this verse to mean that our fleshly nature is intrinsically
defective and prone to sin. It may not be clear what the verse does
mean: however, it CANNOT mean that an unborn child may sin
in the womb, for that would be inconsistent with Romans 9:11, which speaks
of Jacob and Esau: "before the twins were born or had done anything
good or bad … " Again, the verse is not at all describing the condition
of life in the womb.
(5) If abortion is truly equivalent to murder, then we must not hold a double standard. If we celebrate as heroes the Underground guerilla fighters in World War II who resisted the Nazi's attempts to exterminate the Jews, then why not celebrate the abortion-clinic bombers and abortionist-shooters as heroes and executors of God's justice? If the former are heroes, then why not the latter?
My own conclusion is that abortion, like slavery or divorce, is a societal evil which God hates but does not explicitly prohibit. I believe the most constructive way of dealing with abortion is not to focus on the act itself, but rather on the heart that leads to the action. Why is the woman having an abortion? Is she trying to escape the consequences of sin? The Bible says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23). On the other hand, is she married, and simply feels overwhelmed with the prospect of coping with another child? Then where is the Church, which God has appointed to be champion of the poor and overburdened? Such an abortion is a judgement on the Church not living up to its responsibility, Or does the woman abort from convenience, because a child would interfere with her career or self-centered life-style? Then the abortion is merely a symptom of distorted values, and focusing attention and energy on abortion entirely fails to deal with the fundamental spiritual issue.
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