Before you click “like” or “share” for Pro-life. Are we doing Pro-life right?

Arguably one of the most divisive issues in modern American politics, abortion is not only a hot topic in the media but an extremely heated one among our own friends and neighbors. And while we’ve all chimed in on our share of Facebook threads passionately defending life in the womb (or we’ve nodded our heads and submitted our “likes” as approval), many Christians aren’t doing themselves a favor in how they approach the topic of abortion.

For some Christians, even the well-meaning ones, the Bible is (inadvertently or intentionally) used as a club: both the “beat them over the head with it” sort of club and the “No ____’s allowed” sort of club. I’ll admit I’ve done my share of bible-thumping, and I’m not proud of it.

For many Christians living in our post-modern society, the Bible has become the holy grail of unshakable arguments, an object to slice apart every non-believing opponent with ease. 

But, the truth is, God didn’t intend for that.

Do you think that God inspired and preserved his word for thousands of years just so that, someday, his people could google “Bible verses about abortion” and copy/paste what they found into the comment section? 

When God says in Hebrews 4:12,

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,

he did not mean that God’s word is a deadly weapon to be used to cut others down. No, the writer to the Hebrews is using this imagery to demonstrate how powerful God’s word is in the hearts of believers! Just before, in verse 11, this is made clear:

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest (heaven), so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” 

God is calling us, heaven-bound believers, to use the sword of His word against our own sinful natures. Its purpose is not to inflict mortal wounds, but to cut to the heart, exposing sin and calling all to repentance.  

Christ came to bring a sword. Did he ever call us to do the same? 

Never does Christ say “take up your sword and follow me” or “take up your keyboard and prove that you follow me” but “take up your cross.” 

Christ, at the time of his capture in Gethsemane, called out his disciples for using swords in his defense and just as quickly healed the wounds his men had inflicted upon the enemy.

Take up your own sin, dear brother or sister, deny yourself, lose your life for Christ’s sake, and walk the narrow path, which leads to heaven.  

God doesn’t call us to be “keyboard warriors,” and though there is admittedly nothing sinful about online discourse, Christians ought to exercise caution and care when discussing with strangers, whose life stories, hurts, struggles, and sorrows are all reduced down to their profile photo and name. After all, each face and name you scroll past is a soul, fully known, and fully seen by God. Christ died for each of them, for their sin as well as yours.  

It’s hard to look away from the comments section.

It’s hard to avoid gut-reacting when there are so very many defenseless lives at stake. It’s hard not to fixate on what is wrong in the world, living in despair, rage or fear due to the barrage of tragic information that is always at our fingertips.

Too often, I come to see those “other” faces on the internet as a little bit less human because they believe that the unborn are a little bit less human. I seek to respond and defend myself more often than I go out looking for someone to listen to, someone to broaden my perspective, someone to minister to and serve.

In his years of ministry, Christ never shied away from controversy. He stirred things up everywhere he went. But Christ also knew the stories of each and every person he spoke to. We are remiss if we do not strive to do the same. 

Many make the pro-life argument to be one of belief only, leaving behind the finer details of human ethics and morality and failing to apply universal truth and sound moral reasoning. In the same way, abortion advocates often mistakenly paint the abortion issue as a matter of religious freedom.   They believe that the Pro-Life perspective stands or falls based on what the Bible says alone. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

What, then, should a pro-life Christian do?

On the one hand, Scripture is the magnet for our moral compass, our ultimate source of truth. Yet, when we bring our ethics, founded in Scripture, to an unbelieving world, we can not expect the world to be convinced of our view based on the Bible alone. Our responsibility to protect life is the result of our citizenship on this earth. Our heavenly calling is to make disciples. How can a Christian reconcile these two roles?   

A Fresh View

“The abortion-choice advocate does not deny that human persons have a right to life.  He just believes that this right to life is not extended to the unborn…”

 “…the pro-life advocate does not eschew “liberty.” She believes that all human liberty is at least limited by another human person’s right to life.”

Francis Beckwith

In Defending Life: The Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Francis Beckwith brings a fresh view to the Christian pro-lifer. He argues that the most effective abortion view is grounded in a clear understanding of ethics and laws.

viagra properien By the time he was joining the Las Colinas Baptist Church, which started off with only 150 members in a rented building, would soon become Fellowship Church with more than 20 dishes whose taste is simply out of the world! In fact the dishes have been described as plates of magic. To get the full 6-hour impact of the Tadalis is mainly on improving the viagra buy online blood supply to the penis. Masturbation is one of the most common side effects for erectile dysfunction medication include headache, upset stomach, muscle pain, diarrhea, blurry vision and an erection to buy generic levitra click for more info be easily achieved. On the other hand, premature buy brand cialis ejaculation exists when a man is sexually aroused.

He sites Nathan’s confrontation with David following the latter’s adulterous and murderous affair with Bathsheba: David, who fully grasped that a rich man stealing a treasured lamb from a poor man is a punishable offense, was unable to see the shadow of those sins in his own life. Nathan could have appealed to the law. He could have carefully constructed his arguments based on Scripture alone and would have been justified in doing so. However, he chose, instead, to appeal to David’s sense of morality and allow David’s own moral compass to condemn his actions.  

The Call for Mercy

The same is true of the woman caught in adultery who faced stoning for her sins. We do not see Jesus formulate a point-by-point theological rebuttal to deliver to the men who stood around her. No, he says “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Jesus appealed to them– their shared humanity, their struggle with sin, their overwhelming need for salvation– and called for mercy.  

Likewise, to any woman who finds herself facing a crisis, we ought to go to any length to extend mercy and love. “She is like you,” Christ says, “A person, a soul, a sinner. You may not understand her struggle, you may not agree with her choices, but you share in her humanity. Her sin may be different than yours, but she has the same right to my mercy and love.  She needs me just as you do.” Here is our answer to the call to “make disciples.” It is in our extension of mercy and love to those who are in need, our open hands to serve, our open ears to listen.  

Beckwith’s Defending Life

is a book that I believe that everyone with a foot in the abortion debate ought to read and take time to digest. This text deals very closely with abortion specifically but touches on other topics related to humanity and the defense of human life such as birth control, IVF, human cloning, and physician-assisted suicide. Beckwith spends significant time discussing moral relativism, dives into the history of abortion legislation, statistics, and methods, and makes a case for the humanity and intrinsic value of the unborn scientifically, legally, and ethically. 

Readers would be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and compelling exploration of the topic.  

Much of what I read in Defending Life was over my head on the initial read and I spent a lot of time making notes, highlighting, and re-reading. I felt that Beckwith’s writing gave my beliefs more substance than they’d ever had before, but I also had a tough time keeping up with the breadth of topics he covered and the depth with which he dove into them.

I won’t pretend to be more of an intellectual that I truly am: I definitely skimmed some sections, especially those where Beckwith goes back and forth refuting those who’ve refuted his arguments. He spends quite a lot of time splitting hairs and examining clever hypotheticals. So, while I’ll be adding a copy of this book for my home library for the sake of reference, I doubt I’ll ever read it cover-to-cover again. It’s just not the sort of book that is fun to take in, partly due to the disheartening subject matter and partly due to the length and density of the text. It is arranged quite well for reference, and Beckwith goes to great lengths to direct you to relevant information in other chapters if you were to read it piecemeal. 

Beckwith provides a more in-depth description and defense of early life than any I’ve ever read, getting down to the specifics of cell division, sentience, brain waves, embryology, and the small steps that tiny humans make as they develop in utero. He does the same for the legal history of abortion, describing Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions with knowledge and expertise. I benefited most from this section since I, like many young pro-lifers, didn’t live through the early years of abortion legislation and have never taken the time to fully understand abortion legislation historically. 

While I don’t feel that Beckwith’s arguments are unheard of in pro-life circles, I found that the way he expressed them was the most clear, consistent, and comprehensive Pro-life perspective I’ve read. No stone is left unturned in Beckwith’s defense of pre-born lives, and I was surprised to find simplicity hiding behind an often-complicated and widely misunderstood issue. If there were a chorus in Beckwith’s song it is this: 

The unborn are undoubtedly members of the human community and therefore deserve full protection under the law.  They have a right to life, regardless of their circumstances (excepting that the child and mother would die should the child not be aborted). Any assertion made by those who defend abortion “begs the question.”  If the unborn are full-fledged members of the human community and therefore have intrinsic value, it is prima facie morally wrong to kill them.  

Beckwith takes apart many common justifications for abortion choice (tolerance, personal liberty, privacy, poverty, rape, etc.).  However, his ultimate response, invoking Socrates, is certainly a solid place to stand on the matter, especially considering the often-tragic circumstances of women facing crisis pregnancies:

Though it may be rather harsh to accept, it seems fundamental to correct moral reasoning that it is better to suffer evil rather than to inflict it.

These words seem to echo scripture as if written by Solomon himself.  However, this is the point where the Christian, as a citizen of heaven, can bring something more to the abortion debate. Here we go beyond moral reasoning, trusting by faith that our suffering will end in singing. For our suffering here on earth, whether the result of our own misdeeds or inflicted by another’s hands, is not for us to overcome alone. I find that these words of Christ, recorded by John, bring a bit more solace and a whole lot of hope to our absolutely desperate situation:

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Defending Life certainly won’t offer any sort of reprieve from the dark stain of sin upon humanity. However, in the end, reading it encouraged me in my interactions with those of differing worldviews and led me back to the promises of my Savior.

And finally,

because I know that these words may make their way into the hands of those who would call themselves pro-choice, I’d like to address an incredibly important matter: 

Ultimately, if you advocate for abortion, the burden of proof is on you.

There has never been conclusive evidence denying the humanity of the unborn at any point in their development. So, if you’re wrong about this, that is, if the unborn are someday afforded the same legal rights as the born based upon their intrinsic value and membership in the human community, then the smallest and most defenseless among us have been subject to a genocide of greater proportions than any minority group in history. 

Finally, you’ve found it permissible, either because you believe that their intrinsic value and therefore their right to life ought to be based on their wantedness or because you were taken by the false premise that they somehow “become” an intrinsically valuable human at an indeterminate and ever-shifting point in their development. 

Take a careful look at what you are truly advocating for.

For, as Beckwith says, “Unwillingness to endorse unjustified homicide is no lack of compassion.”