Pro Life--Pro Choice

By Belinda

A conversation with some friends on the issue of pro choice versus pro life, left me thinking. A couple of friends surprised me with their point of view. One friend said he thought that if a woman was the victim of a brutal rape, she should have the choice to end the pregnancy. He said he was pro choice--"God gives us freedom of choice," he said.

"Freedom of choice to kill?" I asked.

The group of us, all believers, talked it through long and hard; me, still surprised that it would even be a question.

But I wondered later if I was being hypocritical.  Would I compromise if the issue was closer to home--not so hypothetical? Would I be tempted by the ability to erase the result of an unthinkable assault if a grandchild was the victim?

It's easy to be so sure when it isn't you in the situation.

In the next room Paul was discussing the same question with another group of friends and afterwards he said, when I shared our discussion, "We don't condemn."

It's one of the reasons I love him. He steadfastly refuses to condemn, without being blind to injustice and wrong--a fine balance to strike.

As I tidied away the dishes I wondered why I hadn't thought of her sooner, during our conversation--my great grandmother Adriana. She who was raped, and bore my grandmother Kaatje. I don't know if choice ever entered her head but there are six great, great, great grandchildren of hers that I love dearly and it's hard to imagine that I and they would not be here at all, had she had a choice and made it differently.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Of all the choices that we have in this life, the choice that others have is not ours to make. Yet to call abortion a free choice is nothing short of a lie. Bring a young woman to a pro choice clinic is assisting in the death of yet another unborn child.
But the Love of Jesus is far greater then all the sin of all the world. Yet few seek Him for the forgiveness of such sins and are left with a life of shame and bitterness.
This world is ruled by the king of darkness and to bring the fight on his ground is just where he wants to fight. It is our calling and place to preach Christ crucified and I crucified with Him. Then we are able to Glorify God and bring Him pleasure. To bring our efforts to tackle social issues will only take our eyes of the saviour and onto the works of the enemy (with the exception we are always to pray against our advasiary knowing the Our Father who loves us will interseed. also we are to ask the Father to rebuke him who our Lord has already defeated ).

lovejamie
Anonymous said…
I too thought of it as I left. I know personally two situations where rape was involved. Both young women had their child. One put her child up for adoption. From all accounts, he is in a fine Christian home and is doing very well. The second, kept her child, and what a blessing she was to her mother. Lost contact with them a few years ago. It was a joy to see the mother who had become a Christian after this event develop in her Christian walk. One day as she was shopping she turned to see the man who had raped her years before in the grocery line. She was able to extend the hand of forgiveness to him.
For both, the rape was not a choice. The pregancy was not a choice (it was God's choice that she conceived at that time). But in the end, it was their choice to have the child.

J
Susan said…
Paul is right. We don't condemn. But though I wouldn't condemn another for the choice they make, I would have a difficult time making that choice myself.

God very often asks us to do the hard thing in the short term - and to trust him for how it turns out in the long term. It's not what happens TO us that is so important in determining the measure of blessing that rests on our lives - it is our RESPONSE to what happens TO us. If we respect his ways and disdain our own short answers, he never, ever, ever lets us down. Ever.

But he is also a God who forgives. And we have ALL fallen short - thousands of times in a myriad of ways. I would never think I was better that someone who felt they had to make a different choice...
OK, now it's me being judgemental, the rapist in the grocery store may have needed forgiveness but he needed incarceration and treatment even more. I'm not sure I'm OK with forgiving some for a crime that is likely to happen again and again ... rather than calling 911 and having him arrested. But, of all the choices we have in this lif... to quote an earlier post.
Belinda said…
Dave,
I too, struggled with that--forgiving an offender, but I wonder if justice and forgiveness have to be mutually exclusive. And I believe that forgiveness sets the forgiver as free as anyone. All so complex.

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