Abortion, Yet Again

MON., JUNE 1, 1992, 6:13 AM
FARM, STUDY

Richard tried valiantly to offer you, the congregation, some preparation for your denomination’s General Assembly and its consideration of the report on abortion and problem pregnancy. He used some rather appropriate Scriptural passages, and was sincere in the organization of the sermon, and, generally, in what he preached. It is a difficult issue for you Christians, as it is for Me, the Holy Spirit.

If you take a narrow look, at just the abortion of a living, growing embryo or fetus, it does seem like unjustifiable killing. And if you assume that I want nothing but human life, and that more abundantly, then it seems as though I would be opposed to this sinful human action. If I am the Creator of all forms of life, not just human, then I should be against the taking of any life, even for human food. Now this obviously isn’t so in the Scriptures, for there certainly was eating, of both plant and animal products, during Biblical times. The concept of sin is made very fuzzy if you sin each time you eat… and if you don’t eat you die, in a form of suicide, which is a “bigger sin.”

The proposition that abortion is sin, however, is not a bad one. Stopping the development of a potential human life for reasons other than purely unselfish (and motivations are nearly always quite mixed in these circumstances) is a sin. So if the perspective is a narrow one, electing to abort is a sin. Yet carrying an unwanted or potentially damaged child may also be a sin.

As you know well, I can look at issues like this in a limited, narrow way, and Scriptural passages to approve or disapprove an action can be isolated and quoted, with some sense of righteousness. You also know, however, that My more natural and preferred way of viewing and commenting on “the earth scene” and human action is a broad and deep one. I see relationships that you, or any human, can never see. I see relationships clearly that you can be aware of only dimly.

So let’s broaden the issue to the woman who must carry an unwanted child and the potential life of such an unwanted child. Carrying a child and giving birth should be a blessing, not a curse. To force a woman to use her body in this uncomfortable and hazardous way could be deemed a form of slavery, and most Christians now view slavery as a sin. To deny a woman the right to have this procedure done in a safe, medical way, endangering her life or her capacity to have wanted children later in life is not justifiable in your medically sophisticated society.

I’ll broaden the view even more and consider unwanted children. If yours was a culture in which every child was wanted by some family, in which out-of-wedlock and unplanned pregnancies were all seen as blessings, then abortion would rarely be an issue. Your culture is not such. Unwanted children are often not loved. Unloved children, often act out the frustration of life without love. This acting out disrupts school classes and makes learning for all less possible. Lives develop in warped ways, requiring counseling which is rarely available as needed. Unloved children are more apt to commit crimes and, more importantly, to have more unwanted children. There are exceptions, of course, but, generally, I see unwanted children as more of a curse than a blessing.

The even wider view is the familiar one I lay on you. The earth is presently overpopulated and becoming more so. This blessing of human life is becoming a curse because its needs and desires are disrupting My beautiful creation of the whole web of life. Children born in your culture, even to the poor (which is quite relative), will use more of the earth’s resources than children born in simpler cultures. In this view even having more wanted children is a sinful act against My creation.