Iron Shaping Iron

I've been challenged this week about my "pro-life" views and strategies, and I admit I needed it...to a degree.

I know many Christians don't understand my urgency and need to fight for the unborn. I don't blame them, really. Most people think I'm putting unborn babies or the issue of abortion before God, when the truth is just the opposite. It's my faith in Jesus that's motivating me, and the more I absorb the Word of God and let it really transform my beliefs and thinking, the more urgency and compassion I feel for the unborn. My perceptions of the unborn are changing, and I am coming to see the unborn through the eyes of God and love them more and more.

I guess it's hard to understand what I mean. When I look at Leila, I picture her as a 1 1/2 inch fetus, with the same features, yet immature, the same eyes, nose, mouth, fingers, toes, ears, and the head that would have a form, but still be growing, hardening, and developing. I imagine how she sucked her thumb, made faces, and even cried in the womb when she was startled. I picture my precious baby Elam...I see his face, his open mouth, his eyes, his tiny fingers, his heart through his transparent chest, and I picture Leila when she was that size. I look at Leila now, and I don't remember just when she was a newborn babe, but I remember her as a fetus, no less than who she is today. -Just less developed. If I could have seen her then or held her, would I love her any less than I do now? ...Did God?

God is first for me, and fighting for the unborn comes as a natural response to my relationship with Jesus. This may not be for everyone, but it is reality for me that I have no power over. I may be able to keep it all in, but I'll never be able to stop feeling so outraged and hurt about it all. I'll never be able to speak about it as if it were any less than what it is -murder. I'll never be able to stop picturing their little tiny faces during the inhumane abortion procedure.

What I did need to be challenged on was how insensitive I've been to post-abortive women, which I have never intended to do. I hold no bitterness against them. I see most of them as victims of a deceptive society which portrays the unborn as non-existent entities. It is only by the grace of God that I have never had one. When I was pregnant at 15 I was blessed with the support of my mother. I don't know what I would have done if she would have pressured me to get an abortion. I am also very aware that though I never walked into a doctors office and intentionally had my unborn child killed, I have been strung out on drugs, binged on alcohol, went without eating and sleeping, and all the while practicing "unsafe sex". The chances are pretty good that in those years my bad behaviour and lifestyle caused at least one spontaneous abortion that I never knew about. Not to mention that my first miscarriage was most likely due to my lifestyle, and my last probably because I was letting myself get stressed out and wishing I wasn't pregnant again.

I'm just saying that to God, I would be no less guilty than the woman who deliberately did it.

However, while most others see a lack of mercy and outreach for women who've had abortions, I see a disconnect in the Christian "pro-life" movement in another aspect. I see Christians speaking out against abortion, and showing potential abortive and post abortive mothers mercy, which is good, but I don't see a genuine compassion for the unborn children. I don't see people's reality merging with their theology, as Beth Moore would put it.

Abortion does hurt women.

But, abortion also hurts unborn babies.

To say that we should only approach the abortion issue on one angle, the angle of the woman, is to dismiss the reality of the unborn child and the child's suffering. It is precisely this notion that has allowed abortions to continue unabated in our country to the demise of millions of unborn children.

Abortion does not just concern the woman. There is also the very real issue of the child and we should not forget that.

So while I believe there needs to be programs for mothers, and support and love for abortion minded women, it's not enough. It's not enough to only focus on the women, and abortion will never be ended using only this strategy, though it is vitally important.

And it's not fair to say we shouldn't be trying to make abortions illegal, or that we should not push our "morality" on the rest of the country. It's not enough to only focus on the church because the Lord tells us to pursue justice, and women - and even born children- are being deprived of justice all over this country because abortion is legal with no restrictions or laws.

In order to maintain the fictional conception that the fetus is non-existent, we deprive women of justice when their unborn children are murdered. There are absolutely NO penalties for killing someone else's unborn child against her will. How's that for justice? Should we still keep our religion out of the public sector? Are potential and post-abortive women the only focus we should have?

In Canadian hospitals babies are being born alive and left to die because of our abortion minded society. Should we still only focus on the women and not get too political over it?

Most unborn babies with down syndrome are being aborted. It looks as though sex selective abortions are becoming more common now too.

There are late term abortions happening in our country.


The unfortunate truth is that abortion impacts the rest of our country in countless ways. Our laws, our justice system, and our health care system, not to mention the fact that we, the tax payers, are footing the bill for abortions.
Not to minimize the pain and suffering of post-abortive women, but the issue goes so far beyond the women.

So what's my point??

My point is that although I will not stop highlighting these issues, I will do it with more caution and regard for the sufferings of post-abortive women. While this issue can never be discussed truthfully without feelings getting hurt, I can make it a point to bring it all back to the grace of God through Jesus Christ, Who also died for women who've had abortions.

I apologize to anyone I may have hurt with my insensitivity.

As far as the pictures go...I dunno. It was the pictures that moved me to take the issue seriously, though I know that's not usually the case. That one's gonna take some prayer and Bible reading before I know what to do about that.