If you haven’t, read Part 1 and Part 2.
In today’s political world, pro-choice is often equated with being pro-women. If you are pro-choice, then you are for a woman’s right to privacy, for a woman’s reproductive rights, and for a woman’s advancement.
However, in a bit of historical irony, Alice Paul who helped get the 19th Amendment passed (giving women the right to vote), called abortion the “ultimate exploitation of women.” Why does she call what today is deemed a “right” exploitation?[1]
In summary, the legalization of abortion came about as a result of men who convinced leaders of the women’s rights movement in America that equality with men in the workforce would only come about when the inconvenience of pregnancy was solved. Their solution: abortion on demand.
We need to understand that abortion rights began as a movement to betray women by telling them that to achieve equality with men professionally, socially, and educationally they had to not be pregnant.[2]
Fundamentally, this robs women of the God-given dignity they possess as being made in God’s image and as a co-heir with men in the Kingdom of Jesus (1 Peter 4:7).
Perhaps Alice Paul foresaw the sick logic of abortion as actually devaluing women because it devalues a fundamental, God-given female capacity for pregnancy. Abortion follows the sick logic of “her body, her choice; her problem”, telling a woman that after the abortion her “problem” will be over.
Abortion has created a sick and false dichotomy that it is EITHER the woman or the child.[3]
Another effect of the exploitative abortion logic is that it actually encourages less responsibility among men. Men do not have to bear the responsibility of fatherhood and can easily begin to see (and relate) to women as a sexual commodity. If sex results in pregnancy, get an abortion; and if she won’t … well then, he doesn’t have to stay and bear responsibility, he can simply leave her … after all, it’s her body and therefore, her problem.
So while we should not encourage sexual promiscuity or sex outside of the bounds of marriage, we should look at women who have unintended pregnancies with compassion and love. Pregnancy—no matter under what circumstances conception occurred—must be celebrated as something that occurs under the sovereignty of God. Life is not a mistake.
Church, we must take a stand for LIFE for the rest of our lives.
Abortion will not go away simply because a pro-life president is elected and a constitutionalist judge is appointed to the Supreme Court.
Protecting, promoting, and valuing life is a constant posture for the Christ-follower.
But we can begin to assume this posture at the ballot box by voting for the unborn.
[1] “The Feminist Case Against Abortion,” America Magazine, last modified January 7, 2015, accessed February 22, 2016, http://americamagazine.org/issue/feminist-case-against-abortion.
[2] “Feminists for Life | Women Deserve Better® than Abortion,” accessed February 22, 2016, http://www.feministsforlife.org/.
[3] Ibid.