I wondered how far our post modern, post Christian culture has come as I watched the cheering and rapturously happy crowds in Ireland at the success of their voting on whether or not to repeal strict abortion laws in that country.
Now abortion is a hugely inflammatory topic and one that has great passion on both sides of the debate…..so let’s not get into that here….instead let’s just take a step back from the debate and think about abortion….Here is the reality…..A life doesn’t get to be lived (whether you think a foetus is human or not….abortion stops a person entering the world and being alive). Secondly there is often pain associated with abortion. (I have been in Ministry 28 years so I speak here from Ministry experience). Emotional pain for the woman involved:- For some its a massive emotional decision: Others have the decision forced on them by circumstance or indeed others in their world…..but no less emotional. For some there is the regret of the decision in years to come.
Whatever you believe about abortion…..I don’t think its something that should be celebrated by cheering crowds.
I feel sad for the women who feel that abortion is the best way forward. I feel sad for the people who don’t get to experience this amazing thing called life.
Last year I had a guest blogger (Claire) share her story of her abortion. Click here to read Claire’s story
I feel sad for our western culture in general.
Anyway…that’s what I think.
Peter
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Categories: Controversial
peterpilt 
I an sad too, Peter. I had an inconvenient pregnancy. We didn’t have the money and we had a 5 month-old baby boy. But I am so glad that abortion was not a consideration or we would have missed the most delightful, intelligent, amazing son, who now has 3 beautiful children. It is always worth it.
This issue is a really controversial issue. Do those evangelicals who oppose abortion care about the black or poor white woman in the ghetto who is forced to give birth by law but care little in supporting her to raise that child. Take away her health insurance and have no support to raise the child. It is a fact now that the birth rate has been dropping in the US. Is that because of abortion? It has been found that where sex education (not just abstinence education) has reduced the number of teen age pregnancies.What do you do if the father of a girls child is also her grandfather or her brother? Hilary Clinton (“crooked Hilary”) said abortion should be “legal, free and rare” Can abortion be banned even when it involves the life of the mother and leaves the siblings without a mother? The research among Christian churches has reveal that youth in these churches do indulge in premarital sex. Among Catholic and Mainline Protestant youth in is over 50% Even among Evangelical youth there is a significant minority of youth to have premarital sex. I use to a guy who was a teen in Brisbane during the second World War. He said the American soldiers would line up and in one hand they would get their pay and in the other a bunch of condoms. The taxcuts in the US will increase debt immensely. Will they cut medicaid and social security? Why don’t Christians get angry about this? In some countries the debt is greater than the countries GDP
Well I have blogged lots about the mistreatment of women both in Australia and abroad. I can’t speak for other Christians, I just do what I can. Global Care, the organisation I run has made over 1150 Microenterprise loans to women around the world to assist them get out of poverty and improve their world. We have also purchased over 800 pigs and gifted those in micro enterprise rural programs again to assist 800 families to get out of poverty….I could go on but then I would be accused of blowing my own trumpet. I just think Noel, you have a good go at Evangelical Christians, but I think you would find alot of them are working in developing nations around the world: and we are each doing our bit
I was thinking of this matter further. You consider the fertilized egg a life? In the IVF program I hear they produce embryos outside the mother and they are kept in deep freeze. They place one inside the mother hoping it connects and it grows and produces a baby. They decide that after one or two successful pregnancies they do not require any more embryos.Do you consider those unused embryos as a lives that should be preserved?
It’s an interesting idea to ponder whether they are celebrating to be part of their “tribe” or celebrating the abortions themselves or simply celebrating the empowerment that they now have to make their own decisions for their health.
To address one of your points. re: A life that doesn’t get to be lived.
While emotionally it makes sense to visualise the person that zygote could become, if you look at it practically you’d end up worried about a lot of other lives that missed out too. The several billion sperms that didn’t manage to get into the ovum. The liaisons that could have happened but didn’t.
Imagine what it would be like to have been born just as you were but with an XX chromosome. Would that be you but a girl. Would that be an entirely other person because it’s a girl? Do I mourn the female version of myself that never was?
When you are a parent your child seems so important and special for exactly who they are, but the truth of the matter is that this child could have been a million different people and they’d still end up feeling just as special to the person that had them. Our minds aren’t really developed to deal with that sort of idea. The emotions kick in too fast. So feeling like a life is lost at that point seems more important are rare than it actually is.
Dan, your hypotheticals are no more worth discussing than the car crash I might’ve had if a person in a stationary car was in my way at a certain point, but in truth I am driving where the lane is currently clear. Reality is what counts – the fact is a person exists and they have just had their “empowerment” removed. I was unplanned and yet my mother knew I was already alive and deserved full human rights, no different than anybody else.
The heart starts beating about 3 weeks after conception, yet this change of law treats human life with contempt. It is absurd to speak of “empowerment” in such a context; health assumes life pre-exists – dead people don’t make “decisions for their health”.
I am not visualizing what a fetus could become…..fetus’ become people. It happened to you….and unless there is either a miscarriage or an abortion…..a person happens….That’s my point.