How can I claim this is a "Devotions on the Edge of Life" blog without talking about the most edgy subject of our time: abortion? I checked through the blog and I have yet to address the subject. So, with this post, I hope to correct that oversight.
In addressing the issue of abortion, one needs to first examine its history. And the history is very clear for those in the Church: that abortion is the taking of a life and is a denial of God's created design. What is that created design?
Very simply at the very beginning of our civilization, God created man and then to be a compliment to man, because man could not find anyone suitable as a mate among the animals, He created woman. In Genesis 2:24:
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
"Therefore," is a key word which links what this states as describing what marriage is with what had gone on before. Which was what we described above concerning the search for a mate and the creation of woman. But not merely the creation of woman for the purpose of being a mate, but more specifically the manner in which she was created. For the verse which precedes verse 24 is naturally 23, which says:
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Why did God do it this way? Essentially he didn't want to make a new creation apart from man, as all the animals had been, He wanted to link the creation of woman with the creation of man into one, organic whole so that she could be an adequate mate for the man.
So when you look at verse 24's "therefore," it makes more sense what is being discussed, because it then says in that verse that, "and they shall be one flesh."
But hold on, Rick, I thought the previous verse already declared that they were one flesh when man says that woman is "flesh of my flesh?"
You are assuming that the "they" in verse 24 is only speaking of the couple, but in reality, by having sex with one another you do create children, in some cases. Actually, that is the purpose of marriage: for a man and a woman to separate from their families, to join with each other in order to have children. That is to create a new family unit. Children are the literal fulfillment of "becoming one flesh." So that the "they" includes the children that will be born from the union of the man and woman. They are the "one flesh" mentioned above.
Now before we go on, I must address a subject that isn't related directly to the topic of abortion. Does this understanding of creating children as the "one flesh" then mean that a couple who cannot have children, are they not married? The answer to that is, no, it does not mean that. What I understand is that when a man and woman come together for the purpose of having a child, they are intending to have a child. They are mixing the sperm with the egg to hopefully create a child. Consequently, that is what sex accomplishes, and so it is the potential to create a child by having sex that creates the one-flesh bond. No potential for that to happen, no marital bond can be created.
Because for most of human history, having sex always resulted in the possibility to have a child who contained the DNA of both the woman and the man, therefore becoming one flesh. Even back during the 1970s, I learned that it was commonly called the "consummation of marriage" to have sex. I didn't fully understand what all that meant until much later in life. However, I rarely hear it mentioned by that term anymore.
Let's just say that the concept of an abortion was and still is incompatible with that view of reality as God has laid it out. Now that science knows more about what happens when a baby is created in the womb by the mixing of the parent's DNA, genetically making it a different person from the mother and father, it should make abortion even more incompatible with God's plan. Yet it doesn't in our culture and society. Why is that?
It is the immorality of man which distorts the created order. Or to put it more plainly, God created marriage for a specific purpose, to create a family and for the propagation of our species. Abortion runs counter to that purpose. So that is a sin because sin is whatever corrupts God's design specs.
"But Rick, doesn't everyone corrupt God's design specs?"
Exactly. It is similar to the ideal and reality of our attempts to reach an ideal. Our failure to not be able to reach an ideal in no way invalidates the ideal. In the same manner, the fact that we sin in no way invalidates God's design specs. However, that is what people tend to think about abortion, that because there are times when a body will naturally abort a baby, or a baby's continued existence threatens the mother's life, they take those exceptions as destroying the "ideal" of God's design specs.
How did that happen in regards to abortion? Allow me to count the ways.
1. The first thing that people did, primarily through secular philosophy, is the divorce of the primary purpose of marriage, to create a family unit and having children, from marriage and replaced it with a supportive purpose: when two people love each other. This started, who knows when, but it appears to have been popularized sometime during the 1920s through the 1950s. Hey, it takes a while to change a culture. But by the time that the 60s and 70s rolled around, partly through the advent of TV to get the message out on a wide scale basis, that the culture had replaced the idea that marriage was primarily about having children and a family with the idea that it was primarily about two people who loved each other.
2. That secular culture, having effectively done #1, was now free to divorce the primary purpose of sex, a means to having children, from sex, and ended up replacing it with one's own selfish enjoyment. Which again, was a supportive role of having sex with someone. Because God knew that we would rarely want to do it unless it was extremely enjoyable. The route of divorcing kids from sex was two fold as well: contraceptives and abortion.
Contraceptives came on the scene during the 60s and became widespread used during the 70s and 80s. So much so that by the end of the 50s, most religious groups were against their use; but by the end of the 80s, it was commonly accepted as a way to "plan" your family among Christian churches. What this accomplished, however, was one could, if they were careful, to enjoy sex without "fear" of having children. So the primary purpose of even having sex and marriage itself was replaced as "having a good time," but in reality ended up resulting in destroying God's intended purpose of having sex and marriage, to have children and create a new family unit.
Then, in those times where one's desire to have sex free from the worry of not having children, resulted in a child anyway, the other option was to have that baby aborted. That is to kill it, to tear it limb from limb while it resides in the womb, in some cases, moments before the child would have been naturally born.
3. One can also understand the change in the wording that people use. In regards to when it is called a "fetus," as if that means it isn't a living human. Or the debate about when life begins, whether it begins at conception, as the science would indicate, or when it becomes viable--which basically means it could survive outside the womb if it had too--all the way to when it pops out of the birth canal, as if some magical zap of "life" hit the--until then a lump of cells--turning it into a living baby within seconds! That divorces the person-hood of the baby from the baby itself.
The fact is that the point where it can be officially considered alive is barking up the wrong tree. For that is not, in reality, the dividing line. Rather it is simply the likelihood that any one person will be created.
Consider, for instance, when I (or you could substitute yourself) was created. Prior to the event of my creation, there was very little chance that I would have been created. I don't know, but it would be some astronomical number like 1 out of 1 billion or even trillion chance of me being born. But once that specific egg unites with a specific sperm, that chance goes from that giant number to something more akin to 9.5 out of 10.
In other words, before conception, it would be astronomical the chance that I would have been born. But once my DNA formed, it was a sure thing that I would come out. So even if I could not be considered a living human being at the point of conception, the fact is if my mother had aborted me at that point, I would not be typing this right now after nearly 63 years of living. I would be as dead whether you aborted me at my conception as I would be if you had cut my head off fresh from the womb, or even if you shot me at age 6. The only difference is how long I got to live between these scenarios.
So in either case, if conception has happened, then a person's, or even a "clump of cells'," DNA is set. And if it is set, then it will create a specific person if no one interferes in the natural process of a baby growing in the womb, no matter when someone claims to know when actual life begins. It is the termination of a life that in most cases, would have been lived if no one would have actively decided to terminate that "clump of cells" otherwise known as a baby.
That, in my opinion, and apparently God's as well, makes the argument of whether a fetus becomes a person or not, is irrelevant to whether abortion ends a person's life, even if it didn't become a person until it exited the birth canal. The conclusion is that once that new person's DNA is set, so is their future.
4. Another way that the Pro-choice crowd attempt to redefine their terms is to spin words into their favor. Everyone wants to tell what they are for rather than what they are against. So on the one side you have the Pro-choice vs the Anti-choice folks, and they will tend to frame it in terms of having a constitutional right and using "my body, my choice" rhetoric.
Well, the fact is there is no constitutional right to have an abortion. And the Row vs. Wade decision, most reasonable lawyers on both sides of the aisle tend to agree, was based upon a very shaky connection to the constitution.
As far as your choice, you had your choice when you decided to have sex with a man. You knew what the one of the potential consequences of that act would be. Your "choice" happened much earlier when you participated in an act that is designed to produce children. It is not your right to play god like that. The fact is that you have foreign DNA inside of you because of the choice you made. You don't then get the choice to terminate the life you already chose to create.
Your creation, your responsibility--including the father.
On the other side, you have the Pro-lifers vs the pro-abortionists. Yes, they use spin to talk about themselves as well as the other side. Just as I did above. Wording matters because it is one side or the other's attempt to frame the truth as they believe it to be. Those on the other side are obviously wrong, so one tends to frame it that way--unless you aren't being dishonest and you have ulterior motives, always on the other side, of course.
That is how we have corrupted God's design specs over the previous 100-125 years. To be clear, I'm am not claiming that one cannot enjoy sex with your wife or husband, or that at specific times that it changes its primary purpose to be a boding of two people instead of to produce children. So, after a woman goes through menopause for instance, she in the majority of cases cannot have children after that. It isn't impossible, but highly improbable. So a couple in that situation has generally had all the children they will have and so sex for such a couple is done more for the bonding and, yes, for the fun.
But until then, that is a secondary purpose of sex, a supportive purpose of sex for the primary purpose: to have children and create a family. After all, most would agree that the best environment for a child to grow up in is a family that has a loving environment between the father and mother rather than in a family where it is obvious the parents don't love each other and are staying married for the kids. But that still isn't the primary purpose of marriage or sexual union.
In other words, you may think it is "Your body, your choice" if it was true that it only involved your body, it would be--but since your choice created a distinctly new "body" in you, it is no longer just your body we are talking about. Instead, you should say:
My creation, my responsibility--including the father.
