The good news, though it may indeed be an odd place to start for this topic, is that at a point in the future, Roe vs Wade will be overturned. That is a fact, as surely as Christ is risen. Why do we say that, and why start there?
Scripture tells us that Christ’s resurrection is proof of the general resurrection to come, and that at that general resurrection Christ will present his fully-ripened kingdom to his father. However, this general resurrection and kingdom presentation happens only after he has put all of his enemies under his feet, and Molech is certainly one of his enemies.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor 15:20-26)
So, amidst all this turmoil, know that the outcome is already decided, and it is just a matter of time. We start there, because as Christians we can always start from a place of advantage. The one who rejects Christ and the word of God has no coherent and consistent way to make any value judgement or truth claim, so we needn’t be afraid of anything else they have to say. Even the worst they can do; whether harm, mockery or other diabolical devices are merely accolades of ours that God will glorify tenfold in the renewed creation.
This is not a debate where there are two nuanced and valid positions. One such example would be a debate over the proper place of weapons, including guns, in a society. Should they be legal at all? If so, is a licence required, and who decides on the eligibility criteria?
No, the only question in this debate is whether or not the entity inside a pregnant woman is a human being or not. If it is not, abortion is a trivial thing, like an apendectomy, and should be available to all. If it is human, then abortion is murder, and should therefore be illegal.
The first mistake a Christian can make in this debate is letting her interlocutor define the categories. This goes back to one of our earliest reflections. If they broach the topic, framing it as a ‘woman’s choice to decide whether she wants to become a mother or not’, do not play their game. The position you are being encouraged to take is one with implicit coercion. You are being encouraged to say ‘no, a woman should not have a choice in whether or not she becomes a mother, the fact is that she has become a mother!’ At the core, you have the facts properly considered, but both rhetorically and strategically speaking, you have already lost.
Take another example. A defence against abortion that says ‘it is immoral because the baby can feel pain’ is a defence that cedes control of the castle for control of the tool shed. Yes, there are things in there you can use as weapons, but no boiling oil, no cannon emplacements, and certainly nothing that a shrill band of university-educated children can’t mock. Often we get derailed into a conversation about permitting this murder at 8 weeks or 12 weeks or until there is a heartbeat or until the brain is fully formed or until late term, or until the baby is delivered, or (as it is today in many places) even after the baby has been delivered alive.
So, remember to stay on the high ground, where you belong. These are children, they became children and full of value and dignity and made in the image of God at the moment that their life was started (conception), and this is not a debatable point. Any credible biologist can confirm that at conception is when the new biological information is written, and already from that moment many factors about that boy or girl have been decided.
Keep in mind one or two other things. Most people out there aren’t unaware that what grows in the womb is a baby, and that abortion is murder. They just don’t care. They want the right to murder their children, and many of them will say so. Some are still fooling themselves about the facts of biology, but that should be no surprise, because Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn’t know what a woman is. After all, she isn’t a biologist.
So, what’s next? Well how about this chestnut: ‘if you make abortion illegal, that will only make it more dangerous, and it will still happen’. To see why this argument has less integrity than a house of cards in a tsunami, try it with slavery. ‘If you make slavery illegal, that will only make it more dangerous for the people who want to practise it, and it will still happen’. Watch as everyone loudly and rightly yells, ‘that doesn’t matter, it should be illegal because it is wrong!’ Though it is true that illegal abortion does not equal no abortion, less murder is still better than more murder.
Let’s go through just a few more slogans and some brief engagements with them, flat-packed and microwave ready.
“My body, my choice.”
A: “Thankyou for that pro-life argument. I also believe that every person should be able to choose what happens to their body, including that little boy or girl in your womb.”
“No uterus, no opinion.”
A: “I didn’t realise that having a uterus made murder legal.” (For bonus points, you could thank them for acknowledging that women have uteruses. In this day and age, this is not a given in many circles.)
“I can’t afford a baby / my family would kick me out / the baby has a debilitating disease.”
A: “You can’t kill a living person that has been born just because they are poor, or disabled or homeless. Why should a living person that hasn’t been born be any different?”
“This baby came about as the result of rape. Why should I be forced to be reminded every day of this egregious violation of my rights?”
A: “Rape is a serious sin and crime. God’s word teaches that the wicked man should be executed, but you are arguing that the innocent child should be executed. What’s more, the solution you propose to this unimaginable sin against your bodily autonomy is an even more heinous crime against a little person that utterly depends on you.
So, having discussed some of the foundational and strategic matters, let us turn our attention to what is happening in that interesting place they call America. Though this author makes no effort to stay fully on top of all the news, it appears that the Supreme Court in the U.S.A. may soon overturn a controversial court opinion that came from the Roe vs Wade case, which made it far easier to procure an abortion. We speak here in generalities, because law is not this author’s strong suit. The idea of Roe (as we shall henceforth abbreviate it) being overturned is hard to imagine, but not for the reason you think.
It is the sheer wickedness, the sheer volume of bloodguilt, the utter and complete rejection of God and his word and his world over the last however many decades, that has this author surprised. Not the wickedness itself, but the concept that instead of finally charging our national sin-debt to us, and exacting a punishment more severe than that of Sodom, that the gracious Lord God might instead bless these nations, and potentially remove Roe. But again, why should we be surprised? It is grace, grace upon grace, that we are shown in Christ. God shows grace, because he is who he is. So, whether or not this does come to pass, let us thank God with deep sincerity that he has given us another day to pursue peace and justice in the land, because we are living on borrowed time, and God would be committing no breach of fair conduct to end it all now.
This author considered making a Facebook post simply celebrating this development, but refrained because he couldn’t be bothered interacting with the backlash. It is to his shame that he says that, because that is self-censorship, and that’s just what they want. We have reached the place where we care what they think of us, and we want a seat at their table. So, please pray for boldness. Not only for yourself and this author, but for all people who find murder revolting. It is not ok that babies are being murdered. History is watching us, and everytime we ask how the Auschwitz guards could have stood by and watched as the Poles, Jews and gypsies were murdered in the millions, remember that we pay doctors to murder 10x more babies than Jews that were killed in the Holocaust, and this is supposedly ‘peace time’.
One of the saddest things that we are now seeing (aside from the unrelenting slaughter of the pre-born) is men and women who call themselves Christian coming out in support of Roe / abortion. It is sad, but they are doing us a great service, because they are making it much clearer who belongs in the kingdom and who is seeing themself out. There is no acceptable way to be pro-choice. This is not a field for Ecumenical bridge building. This is a mission field. Those who have submitted to the Lordship of Christ have submitted to championing the creational and biological categories of Male and Female, and to opposing and stamping out the murderous and idolatrous practise of abortion.
Many have wisely identified abortion as the worship service of Molech, a false god in the culture of death. It has seen many faces over the centuries, but the baby-murder has always been there. God help us. After all, we know he will, because we know how the story ends. Let us pray that we will be on the right side when the sorting happens. Let us pray that we would be the William Wilberforce of our day. So, let us celebrate Mother’s Day properly, encouraging and honouring the calling of motherhood, and defending the precious image-bearers that those women are called to bring into the world.
Distilled Orthopraxy 