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I've considered myself "pro-life" (against abortion) for many years now, but only recently have I truly began to get a good grasp of the deeper and very logical reasons for holding to the pro-life stance. So, I wanted to link to a few pro-life resources that I have found incredibly helpful lately in thinking through why I choose life. Some are general while some are linked more tightly to a particular political move. I'll try to give a brief synopsis of each so that you can read the ones you think might interest you the most.
Why Your Friends Are 'Pro-Choice' (And What to Do About It). October 31, by Scott Klusendorf.
This post is helpful for contemplating a common mix-up when discussing abortion: mixing up moral claims with preference claims. For example, Klusendorf gives a strong rebuttal to this common stance:
This post is helpful for contemplating a common mix-up when discussing abortion: mixing up moral claims with preference claims. For example, Klusendorf gives a strong rebuttal to this common stance:
"I'm against abortion and will never have one. If one of my friends gets pregnant and wants an abortion, I will do everything I can to talk her out of it. But I don't want the government involved in taking away a woman's choice. I guess that's why I'm against abortion and am pro-choice."
If you are unsure how to answer a person with a similar concern, check out his explanation in the post above.
Pro-Life Resources. August 31, by Kevin DeYoung
Kevin DeYoung recommends two useful books as excellent pro-life resources in this post. Here is an example of one of the arguments against abortion {quoted from one of the books he recommends}:
Use the acronym SLED. Size: are big people more human than small people? Level of Development: Does self-awareness make us human? Are older children more valuable than infants? Are those with dementia less valuable? Environment: Do your surroundings determine your humanity? How can a journey eight inches down the birth canal change the essential nature of the child? Degree of Dependency: Does viability make us human? Are newborns or those who need dialysis not deserving of human rights? (28)
And I also thought this was a helpful comparison in considering why the fight against abortion is so important:
This is not the time for pro-lifers to slacken in their efforts from fetus fatigue. Between 1973 and 2005 American women procured an estimated 48, 589, 993 abortions. The bloodiest single-day battle in American history was at Antietam in 1862, where 23,000 Americans lost their lives. It was an mind-boggling loss of life. Now imagine another Antietam every five or six days for 32 straight years. That’s how many unborn children died from 1973 to 2005. And they did not die for the abolition of slavery, nor for the preservation of the Union.
Questions for our Pro-Abortion Friends, Church Leaders, and Politians. August 29, by Kevin DeYoung
This post has much more of a prose feel, and it is full of thoughtful questions with logic that (seems to) issue forth from the books he recommended in the other post (above). Here is a sample:
If the unborn life is human life, what can justify snuffing it out? Would it be right to take the life of your child on his first birthday because he came to you through sad and tragic circumstances? Would you push an 18 month old into traffic because she makes our life difficult? Does a three year-old deserve to die because we think we deserve a choice?
What do you deserve now? What are your rights as a human person? Did you have those same rights five years ago? What about before you could drive? Or when you used training wheels? Were you less than fully human when you played in the sandbox? When you wore a bib? When you nursed at your mother’s breast? When your dad cut your cord? When you tumbled in that watery mess and kicked against that funny wall? When your heart pounded on the monitor for the first time? When you grew your first fingernails? When you grew your first cells?
What shall we call the child in the womb? A fetus? A mystery? A mistake? A wedge issue? What if science and Scripture and commonsense would have us call it a person? What if the unborn child, the messy infant, the wobbly toddler, the rambunctious teenager, the college freshman, the blushing bride, the first-time mother, the working woman, the proud grammy, and the demented old friend differ not in kind but only in degree? Where in the progression does our humanity begin and end? Where does life become valuable? When are we worth something? When do human rights become our rights? What if Dr. Seuss was right and a person’s a person no matter how small?
Why celebrate the right to kill what you once were? Why deny the rights of the little one who is what you are?
Exceptions for Abortion? October 26, by Justin Taylor
This is an excellent and thoughtful piece by Taylor which handles the specific incident where Richard Mourdock {running for Senate} stood behind his statement that rape was not a legitimate reason for abortion. As usual, Taylor pulls together this post with many helpful snippets from others to address Mourdock's statement. He also addresses where Christians should fall on the issue of whether or not exceptions for abortion should be legally allowed as well as helpful ways to discuss our worldview regarding abortion with others. It is definitely a helpful piece in more ways than one.
5 Ways Presidents Affect the Pro-Life Cause. November 2, by Joe Carter
And if you weren't convinced yet that who is elected as President of the US matters significantly in the fight for the sanctity of every human life, check out what Joe Carter has to say.
All of these posts (and probably more) can be found on The Gospel Coalition's website: http://thegospelcoalition.org/
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