Abortion Mind Change

I'm not sure how I came across this article - but found it interesting, especially this statement:

Sex that is void of relationship, honor and respect is why we’re here, be it the woman who is raped or the teenager who gets pregnant. A misguided shaping of a healthy sexuality is precisely why we find ourselves in this circumstance. This is egregious. By tolerating or celebrating male sexual dominance in the media, in our homes and in culture we are passively promoting violence against women. We get upset when a child is raped, and we should, but our anger should be extended to a cultural of disordered sex, because all of these things are connected. The teenagers who engage in sexual relationships that are selfish and not wholly honoring of the person they are consorting with, or themselves, are an inseparable part of the same systemic problem that outrages us. Sexual violence is present in nearly every case of disembodied sexuality, male sexual dominance, and the denial of sexual consequences, and this violence includes abortion.

How I Changed My Mind about Abortion

by Julia Herrington

Abortion was not an issue that I had ever imagined I’d become remotely passionate about. I am a bona-fide feminist with extreme ideas and boisterous opinions. A sarcastic eye roll from me at the mention of anything that could be interpreted as insensitive to the plight of women is a good indication to all who know me that my soap box is nearby. So when I started working at a Pregnancy Resource Center, folks looked at me quizzically. And to be honest, I was just as befuddled as they were, maybe more so.

My thoughts and feelings on abortion have almost always been rather laissez–faire. I felt apathetic because the topic is so abrasive. Secretly, I’ve always felt that abortion wasn’tideal and maybe not even right. But it’s complicated to believe that when you’re a feminist, and it’s certainly not something you profess publicly. Who am I to presume to know what is right for another woman? Am I, as a feminist, willing to assert that abortion isn’t right? Would I not be robbing women of authority over their own personhood, something women have fought arduously for, for far too long? A year ago, I would have rather been caught barefoot in the kitchen, in an apron with red lipstick on my mouth, baking for all the boys, a caricature of the “problem without a name” rather than to be found in close proximity to the pro-life camp.

Working at a Pregnancy Resource Centerchanged all of this. This organization exists to offer women alternatives to abortion. The ultimate goal of a resource center is to see abortion made unthinkable to society. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my co-workers were kind, compassionate and thoughtful. They weren’t crazy, right wing fundamentalists. But I still found myself in apparent conflict with my values. As someone who defends women’s rights so definitively, wasn’t working at a place like this somehow backwards? I knew that working in a space that seemed antithetical to my ideology would not be sustainable. I’m not as naïve as I used to be; I don’t sophomorically aspire to love every aspect of what I do for work, but I can’t conceive of being in direct opposition to my values either. It all felt like an ethical dilemma. Every day, I thought, read, researched, pondered, inquired and conversed as I sought answers to my questions about abortion. I needed to know if I could truly support the organization I found myself a part of.

As I considered these issues in the last year, my perspective changed dramatically because I determined that abortion does not actually benefit women. I think that the first thing that we need to recognize when we engage the conversation surrounding the topic of abortion is that the dialogue has been very concretely set within the last forty years. We need to understand what is foundationally framing the issue before we interact with it. First, it has been engendered as a women’s issue. Second, it is highly politicized. Abortion is assumed to be predominantly political, it has been conversationally constructed to assume legislative discourse. Lastly, it is absolutely polarized. Individuals regarding this issue align themselves (politically) as pro-choice or pro-life. There is very little room for any wishy-washy in between.

I became convinced that when we acknowledge the way the abortion debate is framed in our culture, then we can understand why the debate is defined by so much dissonance. A person who is pro-choice is pro-woman and a person who is pro-life is pro-baby. And so depending on how you align yourself you’re either anti-baby or anti-woman. If you don’t situate yourself in either of these camps, you’re likely afraid of the abrasive nature of the discussion, or you’re bone-tired of the issue and an apathy-induced coma is how you masterfully avoid the topic.

But with an awareness of the framework we’re dealing with, we have the opportunity to start a new dialogue. Actually, I think it is incumbent upon us to change the conversation, addressing the topic from new and varied points of view. The conversation need not be first and foremost political. And the friction enshrouding abortion needs to be diminished. This requires that we really examine the nuts and bolts of the issue, turn it on its head and find new angles as entry points for discussion. The more I thought about abortion, the more it seemed possible that the shaping of abortion as a strictly women’s issue might be misguided. If the infrastructure that has been a crucial springboard for discourse is not sound, the entire conversation changes consequently, and for me, it began to dismantle.

In so much as this is a women’s issue, it seems that abortion actually oppresses women. Procedurally what abortion requires is the silencing of a woman’s body and the unmitigated dismissing of her gender. We’ve accepted abortion as a right that celebrates a woman’s ownership of her body. But the procedure necessarily requires that a woman deny her gender by silencing and disallowing a natural and distinguishing result of womanhood. In every other facet of feminism, we celebrate a woman’s body, we honor her identity as a female. But abortion ignores her femininity by demanding that a woman disregard her sex for the duration of the procedure. Do we, in actuality dehumanize women by propagating abortion as a choice while failing to recognize the inherently oppressive nature of the procedure?

What’s more, the reason a woman finds herself seeking out an abortion is that society holds her solely liable for pregnancy. What we’re really saying when we propagate “choice” is an unjust burden of absolute responsibility. The only choice being proffered is how to “deal with” the blame women, and only women incur for getting pregnant. Are we not further wronging women by viewing them as solely culpable with regard to the reproductive process?

Why are we letting men off the hook? Why are we comfortable with nullifying their responsibility in sexual engagement? Our society is not demanding that men take sexual responsibility, so we offer women a perceived “right” when in reality we hold her justly chargeable, thus allowing for men to be easily released from sexual obligation.

It also seems to me that abortion has a lot more to do with sex than we might have thought. Pornography, sexual crimes, and abuses against women cannot be disconnected from the issue of abortion. We cannot delineate between these things as easily as we always have. We have believed a lie that sex without consequences is a possibility. Don’t hear me saying, “You had sex, you got pregnant, you made your bed, now sleep in it.” That is notwhat I’m saying. What I am saying is that a sexually unhealthy society produces sexual misguidedness, violence and abortion. We learn to engage in disembodied sexuality which allows us to more easily dismiss our own holistic personhood, as well as the body of a child in the womb.

Sexual liberation has made slaves out of women, it has only perpetuated and glorified their objectification. The worst part is, these women think that they are free. We think that being subjugated sexually is our wild and provocative prerogative, when the sad fact is that we’re willingly giving our bodies to men who do not deserve them. We think that the “right to choose” is about deciding what happens to our bodies when really, the responsibilities of pregnancy are placed upon women. Pregnancy is often seen by culture as an inconvenient burden and an indicator of irresponsibility. This cultural perception results in the likelihood that women feel shamed over their potential loss of autonomy and blamed for their apparent carelessness.

Sex that is void of relationship, honor and respect is why we’re here, be it the woman who is raped or the teenager who gets pregnant. A misguided shaping of a healthy sexuality is precisely why we find ourselves in this circumstance. This is egregious. By tolerating or celebrating male sexual dominance in the media, in our homes and in culture we are passively promoting violence against women. We get upset when a child is raped, and we should, but our anger should be extended to a cultural of disordered sex, because all of these things are connected. The teenagers who engage in sexual relationships that are selfish and not wholly honoring of the person they are consorting with, or themselves, are an inseparable part of the same systemic problem that outrages us. Sexual violence is present in nearly every case of disembodied sexuality, male sexual dominance, and the denial of sexual consequences, and this violence includes abortion.

So, what do we do? First, we need to stop operating under the assumption that we know which lives are and which are not worth living. The child born to the drug addict or into a loving, healthy trust fund are equally deserving of opportunity. I’ve walked by mothers speaking cruelly to their children and felt sad for their children. I’ve thought that these people shouldn’t be parents. But just because a child is born into tragedy does not mean that his or her life is destined for a tragic ending. Regardless of circumstance, we as Christ followers must possess hope that any situation is redeemable. That’s what Jesus does, He redeems things.

And we get to be a part of the redemption. We are privileged to participate in the Kingdom of God by being bringers of hope and healing. To be honest, I’m a fledgling where this conversation is concerned. I have really only just opened the door on this issue, and while my thoughts have evolved with relative rapidity, my perspective on how we can be involved in the redemptive process is still being formed. My encouragements here are presented as just a beginning of a larger conversation. We can start by talking about the communal implications of sex and the concentric circles of sexuality that impact our culture. Let’s do this by more fully, educating our children about their whole personhood, sexuality included. Let’s examine how our sexuality impacts those closest to us, as well as our communities. Let’s get proactively involved in all the issues of life. We cannot be advocates for life and absent from the foster care system. We cannot advocate an abortion-free society and condemn unwed mothers. Let’s mobilize our churches to support young mothers and families. We must be bringers of life to the unborn and to the born.

This is a critical conversation because we have misguidedly adopted a polemical framework for how we discuss abortion. Maybe it’s time to begin questioning all of the assumptions surrounding this issue that have been made since its conception: that it’s a women’s issue, that it’s necessarily political, or that apathy is an acceptable response. This matters because it’s all life. The man whose sexual formation is incomplete and ridden with cultural values which ultimately dishonor his sexual wholeness directly impacts the woman with the similar disadvantages. And they both directly impact the children born into tragedy as well as the children who do not ever get a chance. We cannot disregard this issue. We can no longer allow for the continued unquestioned oppression of women to persist. We need to reclaim healthy sexuality for ourselves, our children, our communities and our culture. And we must defend the weak, the defenseless; the children who might not be born.

Should Christians Refuse to Pay Taxes When They Are Used to Finance Abortions?

FROM R.C. Sproul Jr. Jul 14, 2012 Category: Articles

It is one of my great passions, the desire to see me, and the evangelical church take the evil of abortion more seriously, to have our hearts more deeply broken, and our actions more faithful. We have all, I fear, come to accept the status quo. We are content to vote for Republicans hoping they will give us justices that will slow down the horror. What we are generally unwilling to do is go through any kind of hardship to stop abortion. When I am asked about this, should we stop paying taxes, I am at least heartened to know that there are some willing to pay dearly to win this battle. Not paying taxes rarely ends up comfortably for those who won’t pay.

That said I can say with confidence that Christians should in fact pay whatever taxes they owe even when that money ends up financing abortions. The Christian who pays such taxes has no need to feel guilty, while the Christian that refuses to pay, however well intentioned, ought to feel guilty.

Theologians have long understood the principle that must be applied here- we are responsible for our own actions, not the actions of others. In this instance, the Bible is quite clear about our obligation to pay our taxes (Mark 12:17). It is also clear that the proper function of the state is not to finance evil, but to punish it (Romans 13). Their failure to do what God calls them to do, however, does not mean I am free to not do what I am commanded to do. That they have so horribly misused the taxes that I have paid doesn’t mean I am guilty of what they have done. I have been taxed, and when those taxes are paid, they are no longer mine. What the state does with them may be something I should speak against. It may be something I should condemn. But I am not guilty.

Remember that the same Caesar to whom Jesus commanded taxes be paid used those taxes for what may be the only thing worse than abortion. Those tax moneys financed the judgment of Pilate. They paid the salaries of the Roman soldiers. They purchased the nails that held our Lord on the cross. Those taxes crucified the Lord of Glory.

Read more -->HERE.

The SCIENTIFIC Basis for Defending All Human Life

By Kristi Burton Brown, Published February 20th, 2012

If you are around young children very often, you’re probably familiar with the Olivia the Pig series.  My niece loves those books.  But you’re probably not as familiar with Oliver the Egg.  Let me tell you about him.  Christopher Franceschelli has written a cute book about Oliver, who is really a chick growing inside of an egg.

Since I’d really not enjoy being sued for copyright violations, I won’t quote this entire six sentence book.  Suffice it to say that Mr. Franceschelli describes the very few things that Oliver could do as an egg.  He says, “But he was simply an egg and that was that.”

This little book (while very cute) completely misses the boat on science.  It’s final pages say, “until one day” (with a picture of an egg) “everything changed” (with a picture of a chick).  While rather entertaining for a small child, this book lacks any scientific or accurate value.  It’s patently untrue to say that, before hatching, a chick is “simply an egg.”  Uh, no.  It’s an unhatched chick inside an egg.

Oliver serves to illustrate the general lack of scientific and medical knowledge that many people and some pro-lifers have about the beginning of human life.  When exactly does human life begin?  Is there such a thing as a “fertilized egg”?  What’s the accurate term to call a new human being at the earliest stages?  Can we really prove from science that we should defend all human life?  What do medical experts say about this issue?  Pro-lifers  need to be more knowledgeable about what we are for and why we believe what we believe.

1.  When exactly does human life begin?  What do the medical experts say?

Well, the very simplest way to answer this question is to say “at the beginning.”  What a novel thought.  Honestly, though, pick up any embryology textbook (yes, doubters, please go do this), and you will find that these textbooks teach that a new, unique human being (i.e., not the potential for life, but an actual life) begins at the moment of fertilization; the moment the sperm meets the egg.

To clarify even further, an egg or a sperm are “potential life” because, under the right circumstances, they can combine to create a new, unique human being.  However, once that combination (fertilization) occurs, we are talking about an actual human being.

Human Fertilization

Don’t want to take my word for it?  I don’t blame you.  Read from these experts:

“(Fertilization is) that wondrous moment that marks the beginning of life for a new unique individual.” Dr. Louis Fridhandler, in Biology of Gestation Volume One

“A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile ovum, or egg.”Encyclopedia Britannica

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception….I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life….I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty…is not a human being.  This is human life at every stage….”  Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni—professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the U. of Penn

Read more -->HERE.

What Women Need

Note: This article relates to how careerism and *free* sex contributed to the abortion on demand.  The article is worth reading in its entirety.

Three Bad Ideas for Women & What to Do About Them

by Frederica Mathewes-Green

Few book titles have had the sticking power of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences. Even people who have never read it find the blunt title instantly compelling. Weaver’s thesis was that the ideas that we absorb about the world, about the way things are or should be, inevitably direct our actions. Though the book was published in 1948, before many current bizarre ideas had fully emerged, the thesis is an eternal one. It sets people to wondering which ideas were the seeds that sprouted our present mess and which new ideas might be helping us out of it—or further in.

Ideas about the nature of life combine in a framework that can go by many names; the word paradigm, popular a decade ago, has through overuse become almost as irritating a schad. Some call this framework a worldview, mindset, outlook, ideology, cognitive framework, or reality grid; a New Testament term is phronema. Whichever term you choose, it means that mental assumptions link together and result in actions—ideas have consequences.

A few decades ago some people got a bad idea. Or perhaps the bad idea got them, and shook and confused them till the right ideas came to look strange. We might trace it to the Supreme Court’sRoe v. Wadedecision in January 1973, but even that document grew out of prior ideas. It didn’t stand alone, and it cannot be combated alone. I’d like to explore three interlocking, mutually supporting bad ideas that sprouted during that era, and then look at some ideas about how to fix things.

The Feminist Bloom

It’s hard to pin down exactly when these bad ideas sprouted, but I can point to the moment when I first encountered them in bloom. At the time, I thought they were inspiring. I thought I had discovered liberation.

It was September 1970 and I was standing at the public information desk in the Student Union at the University of South Carolina. I was a brand-new freshman, pretty shy, and had been given the advice that I could meet people by joining organizations. So I joined the college paper, and was immediately given an assignment: “Find out what all this stuff is about women’s lib.”

I was baffled as to how to do that. Feminism had just begun impinging on public consciousness, usually in the form of a joke. It was called “women’s lib,” and wasn’t taken seriously, carrying no more weight than an offhand comment on Johnny Carson about “bra burners.” I didn’t know how to research the topic, but the editor had a suggestion: Go to the Student Union and page “anyone who knows about the women’s liberation movement.”

I can’t imagine what would happen if I went to that same desk and had them make the same announcement today. But 30 years ago I had a short wait, then saw two women coming toward me wearing the fortified expressions of pioneers. Kathy and Rosa steered me into the student lounge, where we sat for a long afternoon while they opened to me the hidden knowledge of women’s oppression through the ages. As they expounded this mystic wisdom, I made notes, and nodded. I liked what I was hearing.

I use the language of religious conversion intentionally; just as conversion to Christ confers an entirely new way of looking at life—the phronema of the Spirit—feminism offered me a new worldview in a form that was similar to a religion. I had rejected my childhood Christian faith, but feminism offered membership in a parallel enlightened community, one that had sacred writings and advanced leaders able to instruct neophytes in the vision. Initiates met in ritual gatherings—consciousness-raising groups—where we spoke in a vocabulary unique to insiders. We had distinctive clothing and grooming styles, analogous to religious habit and tonsure.

When my first campus byline appeared a week later, it was over a story that cautiously endorsed the “libbers.” I continued my catechesis under Kathy and Rosa, and eventually became a leader and teacher myself, a member of the inner circle and a guru of campus feminism.

Read more -->HERE.