The Pro-Life Movement Is Not Pro-Life

Are we really Pro-Life?

A couple of years ago, on Sanctity of Life Sunday, I preached on…well, the sanctity of human life. With this, came the strong denunciation of abortion. However, in this message, I told the congregation that abortion would never be ended in our country until we truly believed it to be murder. To which, any thinking Christian should respond with an immediate, “Duh?” Isn’t this the whole the point? Isn’t this why there is a pro-life movement, because they are, well, pro-life? I would say, yes and no.

My point in saying this wasn’t to state the obvious, like murder is wrong, but rather, my point was to draw out what should be obvious to all, but has been so perverted and distorted and manipulated by pro-lifers. Though they may be well intended Christians, they are too compassionate for their own good. They believe they are going to kill the world with niceness, thus winning every soul to Christ through the sheer power of their niceness, but given that they are also so magnificently humble, we are not supposed to notice how nice they are.

Anyway, back to the sermon. If murder is wrong which it is and we can all agree that it is and we can all agree that the murderer should be punished according to the law of God, and we all agree that abortion is murder which it is, than until it is punished as such we will never end abortion. This is where many start to get squeamish and noticeably uncomfortable. However, many of these squeamishly uncomfortable people would say, “yes, the doctor should be punished.” Ok, well and good, but what about mom? Is not mom the one that willingly offered up her child to be sacrificed? Isn’t she the one that signed off on all the paperwork?

We have so bought into the lie that every single woman who has had an abortion is a poor victim and that she was just doing what she had to do, and that she had no other options. Many in the pro-life movement even speak this way, “We just want the woman to know she has options.” We have spent so much money caring for woman and their babies after convincing them they should actually have their baby, and this is well and good.

However, it can (notice I said can) further perpetuate, the mother is always a victim mentality while also further removing father from the equation. Just as an aside, we are so twisted up and backwards and perverse. We treat men as nothing more than sperm donors with the accompanying legal rights, while at the same time treating all women as though they are victims.

Anyway, back to the sermon. As you can imagine, holding women legally accountable for anything is a pretty bold stance today, but saying that they should be held accountable for killing their baby, well, that is a stretch too far for most. After the sermon, I found out that there were at least three women in attendance that Sunday that had abortions that I was previously unaware of. They all thought the sermon, or at least that portion of it was, shall we say, a bit too hard.

These were all women who willingly choose to have abortions, and to make things simpler for you, none of them were the result of rape. They would all say that abortion is murder. They would all say that abortion should be ended. They would all say that they have repented of their decision, while at the same time saying that mothers should not be held legally responsible for killing their unborn child. So even though, all of these women are willing to say that abortion is sin and that abortion is murder they would be quick to say that they should not have gone to jail as a result.

Let me just ask, what I believe to be a very reasonable and practical question. Do you believe that abortion will ever be abolished, if moms are never held responsible? If there are no repercussions for women when they have an abortion do we really see abortion as murder? Many would say it’s not that simple and that abortion is a complex moral issue, but it’s not.

All of the circumstances surrounding the decision to have an abortion may be complex and messy, no doubt, but the abortion itself is not a complex moral issue. It’s actually quite simple. Abortion is murder. That murder is justified or unjustified, period. The argument of the “pro-life” movement is that abortion is the unjustified murder of the unborn. Therefore, to say that mom shouldn’t be held accountable in any way is moral double speak.

Let’s just be honest with ourselves. The pro-life industry has a huge financial incentive to keep abortion going. It’s disgusting, but it’s true. It’s the pro-life movement that is responsible for railroading most abolition bills. Idolatry is always profitable for the ones selling the idols, and those in power often have a vested interest in the idolatry industry.

That coupled with our exaltation of women believing them to all be inherently virtuous, like a mixture of the Virgin Mary and every angel in a country music song, either way, we know they don’t fart and when they do, it smells like roses. This coupled with the desire to hedge our bets… “I would never do it, however, if that was the only option available to me I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for my actions.” That coupled with our greater fear of the courts of man than the courts of God, i.e. “I may be a sinner, but I am not a criminal.”

Yes, the alters need to be torn down in the high places, but they also need to be torn down in the low places and this will never happen until they are torn completely down in our hearts. Until we get there, all of our abortion laws will be like the drinking age in Mexico. There is a legal drinking age in Mexico, but nobody much cares because it’s not enforced. Right now, the church is like a teetotalist that stinks of alcohol. Cheers.