Still Not Perfect

Look out – sweeping generalizations and rhetorical language ahead.

Hey you, Christian.  Yeah, you, with the moral monopoly.  You know that favorite cause of yours?  The pro-life one?  The abortion issue?  You’re approaching it all wrong.  You’re part of the problem.  Every time you give a mother in a tough spot a disdainful glance or gossip judgmentally about their situation you push them (and your own daughters) towards the very option you find so abominable.  Just because your sins are easier to hide than a bulging pregnant belly doesn’t give you the right to judge.  That’s not your place.  Neither is it yours to heap shame upon them.  The shame tactic hasn’t been working for centuries.  People have sex because they like to.  They’re practically programmed to do it – hormones, be fruitful and multiply edicts, etc.  Get over it.  It’s part of life.  It’s the very source of it, in fact.

If you really believe what you say you do about the preciousness of the life they carry, then put your money where your mouth is.  Celebrate the potential of that life they carry.  Love them and support them.  Surprise them with your compassion.  And do it unconditionally, with no prerequisites.  Don’t require parenting or finance classes.  Don’t require statements of faith.  Don’t require their personal reform.  Offer support.  Offer friendship.  Offer options and resources.  Do it as Christ would have – with love and compassion.  Your daughter, or at least a close friend of hers, will need that kind of willing and open support someday.  Start practicing it now.

That doesn’t mean you have to stop working for legal reform if you believe in it.  But, if you don’t reform your own attitudes towards women in need, legal reform won’t make any difference.  Abortions will still occur, legal or not – they always have.  The most effective defense you have against abortion is to make it a legitimate option for the mother to keep the baby (or at least keep it alive).  That’s work you do with your hands, your hearts, your spare rooms, and every resource you’ve got, if you really believe life is as precious as you claim it is.  [Then again, if you really believed that, would you generally be as pro capital punishment / pro torture / pro war as we've seen you been?]