I just read an EXCELLENT post over at Gospel Coalition Blog…a must read by all college students. It addresses the issue of Abortion “rights” head on with clear and convincing truths!
Read the whole thing HERE…below is the outline filled in with a few quotes.
I hope this helps us all “think more clearly on the most pressing moral issue of our day!”
1.) Clarify the nature of moral reasoning
Consider the popular bumper sticker: “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!”Pro-life advocates don’t oppose abortion because they find it distasteful; they oppose it because it violates rational moral principles. Imagine if I said, “Don’t like spousal abuse? Don’t beat your wife!”
2.) Clarify the one question that really matters
Every pro-life advocate that I know is vigorously “pro-choice” when it comes to women choosing a number of moral goods. They support a woman’s right to choose her own doctor, her own school, her own husband, and her own career—to name just a few.But some choices are wrong, like killing innocent human beings simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves. We shouldn’t be pro-choice about that.
3.) Clarify the scientific and philosophic case for life
Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you had no right to life then but you do now.
Stephen Schwarz suggests the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:• Size: You were smaller as an embryo, but since when does your body size determine value? Large humans are not more valuable than small humans.
• Level of Development: True, you were less developed as an embryo, but why is that decisive? Six-month olds are less developed than teenagers both physically and mentally, but we don’t think the former have less of a right to life.
• Environment: Where you are has no bearing on what you are. How does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from a being we can kill to one we can’t?
• Degree of Dependency: Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but since when does dependence on another human mean we can kill you? (Consider conjoined twins, for example.)
4.) Clarify the path to forgiveness.
Post-abortion young people do not need an excuse. They need an exchange: Christ’s righteousness for their sinfulness. Indeed, the starting point for human healing is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out, you can never preach it enough.
