The problem is apparently the ways traditional Christian teaching disagrees with the teaching of our culture. When we allow the schools, the media, and the internet to disciple our children, we shouldn't be surprised when their beliefs differ from ours. Now it's necessary to address their specific objections to the teachings of traditional Christianity, and no issue seems to be more important to them than abortion.
I'm putting this out after the election intentionally. While I want more voters to be pro-life, this isn't not about votes; it's about girls letting this issue draw them away from Jesus. I hope they will one day be fully pro-life, but in the meantime we want them in church hearing the gospel and learning to follow Jesus.
So below is my attempt at answering a commonly raised objection. I'm not always the most diplomatic person. Think about how you would answer this, how you would phrase things better. Think about the tone of voice you'd want to use in this conversation and what would make a helpful setting for it. And think about a young woman in your life that may need to hear this. How can you bring this to her?
"Why do Christians want to tell women what they can do with their bodies?"
Quite simply, we don't. We're not worried about what you do with your body. We're concerned about what you do with someone else's body.
At the moment of conception, a little piece of the woman's body and a little piece of the man's body come together to begin a new body. This little body has a unique genetic code. It grows its own fingerprints. It can have a different blood type from its mother's body.
That body is not the woman's body. It belongs to someone else. This tiny human being has her own right to bodily autonomy.
That little life's presence inside her mother's body can be quite inconvenient. All her plans may have to change. That seems wrong to some. But is the mother's right to her plans more important than that little human's right to live, right to her own bodily autonomy? We argue that it is not. So we argue that you do not have the right to end that little life except to literally save the life of the mother.
Christians do not oppose abortion because we want to control women. We oppose it because we value human life. All life.
"What about rape and incest?"
When something horrible like that happens to a woman or, worse, a young girl, all of our hearts naturally go out to her. But that little human being is still there. Killing that new innocent human being will not make what happened to her one bit better. All it will do is add evil on top of evil.
Many women have carried their rapist's child to term and then given the child up for adoption. Some have even raised that child, saying that it was the one good thing that came from that horrible experience.
Do we want to be a people who kill a child because of her father's crimes? Of course we don't. But that is what happens when an innocent unborn human being is aborted because she was conceived due to rape. That child deserves better, even as the rape victim deserves all the support we can give her.
It's natural to look for a way to make a difficult situation better. It's natural to want to look for a way out. But there is another option besides ending the life of this little human being. God can make beauty from ashes. The most difficult things can be turned into monuments of the grace of God in your life. We encourage these women, rather than do something terrible and irreversible, to trust in the God who loved them before they were born and who can see them through it all.
And we remind those who already made that decision, who did choose to end that innocent little life, that there is forgiveness available in Christ Jesus.
Debates over abortion can get pretty rough. Emotions run high. People say things that they would never say in any other context. Even when the things are true, they aren't necessarily helpful.
If you're having the opportunity to discuss this with a young woman who's on the verge of rejecting Christianity over this issue, this is not the time to go into the horrors of abortion or the immorality of extramarital sex. Don't make abortion about "consequence-free sex". Don't talk about people who may use it as flippantly as birth control.
Focus on the value of the innocent unborn human child as well as the value of the mother. The woman in this situation is precious to Jesus and should feel that she is to us. But we have to make it clear that there is another human life on the line.
Because when we teach our children to sing "Jesus loves the little children", that includes the ones who have not yet seen the light of day.
Please add any thoughts you have on the topic below.
Suggested reading:
The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture by Scott Klusendorf
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation by Ronald Reagan
Image via Unsplash
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