When I was young, being a Christian meant that you were pro-life. God wouldn't want us to kill anybody, much less babies. It violates one of the ten commandments. Life however, is not as black and white as it used to be. And growing in this thing called "critical thinking" makes it all rather inconvenient at times.
I find the argument between pro-choice and pro-life rather moot because they're not even arguing about the same thing. Intense emotions aside, I think maybe they might even agree on certain points.
The opposite of pro-life isn't pro-choice and vice versa. The opposite of pro-life is pro-death. If you ask the pro-choice camp whether or not they were pro-death, I'm guessing they would say no. They're concerned about the right for a woman to decide what course of action to take. Pro-lifers may say that in this case it shouldn't be a choice, but I'm guessing these pro-life folks are probably big into choice in other areas of their lives. After all, a big part of the contingency are right wing Christians, and don't Christians believe in free will? Don't we believe that God gave us the ability to choose between good and bad, and then deal with the consequences of those choices?
I don't imagine that pro-choicers think that having an abortion is a great decision. Go ahead, have irresponsible sex, have an abortion. For them it may be trying to help people make the best choice based on given circumstances. I wish every decision to have an abortion could be educated and well thought out. However, that is neither the case for many human decisions nor can the educators be completely neutral.
Some might say that I'm misrepresenting the idea of free will. Maybe I am, but what I'm most concerned with is how God can enter into people's brokenness. I'm under the theological belief that the unborn babies go to heaven immediately, and I think that's a great place to be. Sometimes I long for heaven. In my longings, I want to be there already rather than deal with all the events that make feel like I'm "growing up."
God takes care of the babies. What we're left with are women who can't ever forget their decision and are deeply wounded because of it. Those who say they aren't are in denial and they would deny my assertion. In an abortion situation, my concern is not for the babies but for the women. It saddens me that they are the ones the pro-lifers end up attacking and alienating. Making someone feel worse about a difficult decision seems so far from the compassion that Jesus teaches.
I no longer know where I land on the pro-choice/pro-life debate. I guess you who are reading are along for the ride. I can see where my thought process may be taking me, and even I feel somewhat heretical.
1 comment:
I love this. Why are there no comments? I feel that this is one of those "hard issues" that Christians just choose not to even engage in discussion about for fear of judgment (peer or eternal), but the fact is we are called to live in reality, and be in relationship (and care for those who as you say are broken. I love that you shifted the focus away from the babies, whom we never can form an emotional attachment to because we don't get the chance; so what's the point in focusing on that?)to the women, who are left with all the emotional/moral baggage of that situation. When right-wing Christians scream "baby killer" it makes me want to smack them, because it's like "DUH, I seriously don't think this is a decision that anyone WANTS to make, so can we please focus on what's going on with that person and why they are having to deal with this?" Way to talk about the issue with out ranting. And you're not heretical. Maybe prophetic-cal, but definitely heretical. Your call for people to care about the person (woman) and go from there sounds like what Jesus would do (think woman at the well and the woman who almost got stoned for adultery), and if people don't think so, then they're heretical!
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