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issues: abortion - 3
issues: abortion - 3
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Misconceptions about abortion
1. Abortions are obtained mostly by teenagers and unmarried women.
It is a mistake to assume that abortion is solely the province of unmarried women or
teenagers. Women between the ages of 20-29 obtained 55% of abortions. 20% of
abortions were obtained by married women. 1
2. Abortions are obtained by women primarily out of a desire for convenient
birth control.
The most common pattern is that abortion arises in the midst of one of the most severe
crises a woman will face, not as a casual means of birth control. 2
“the central driving force behind abortion resides in the network of relationships in
which women are embedded. Put simply, if a pregnant woman cannot find in her
intimate circle (parents, friends, siblings, spouse, boyfriend, etc…) the love and support
the she needs to carry her pregnancy to term, she is likely to seek an abortion.” 3
• The point is, women who find themselves facing a crisis pregnancy are
desperate to find a resolution. For at least a period of time, the abortion option can
look like the “least worst” possibility.
• To quote one woman “I know I shouldn’t consider an abortion, but in this crisis I
feel so trapped and alone; abortion seems like my only way out.”
• The question for Christians is not “how can we win the abortion argument, but
how can we best be pro-life?”
• Abortion is an issue that touches the lives of real people in real pain. What
should our response be to people?
Importance of Compassion
Read Mark 9:36 and Mark 10:21.
How would Jesus look on a person in crisis?
“Support, encouragement and compassion for the real women who face crisis
pregnancies – this is the starting point of any Jesus-centered response to the abortion
problem. Such compassion is a far cry from screaming ‘baby-killer’ at women as they
enter abortion clinics.” 4
Importance of compassion becoming action
Read Luke 10:25-37 – How does this demonstrate active compassion?
In addition to compassion, what needs would a woman in a crisis pregnancy have?
Spiritual
Emotional
Health care
Nutrition
Counseling
Instruction on fetal health, development
Parenting training
Adoption info
Room and board
Help with schoolwork / tutoring
Childcare
Financial help while in school
What should the church be doing?
Teaching and modeling sexual purity and marital fidelity
Creating a faith community that eliminates the causes of abortion
Quickly offering active compassion for women in crisis
• We must stop operating under the delusion that the abortion issue will be settled
by winning the argument. Women need Christ-centered care from the church more
than they need the church’s anti-abortion debating points.
• I am convinced that the best way to be pro-life is to deliver people from the
causes of abortion itself.
• So, what would be required of us as individuals, as the church, and as a society
to change the circumstances that now drive many to choose abortion?
• “We can value life at its mysterious and miraculous beginnings by rescuing
women (and thus the babies they carry) from those pressures that lead them to choose
death rather than life.” 5
Notes
1. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract 2000, table 113.
2. Stassen, Glenn and Gushie, David. Kingdom Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: IVP,2003 p.
228
3. Mathews-Green, Frederica. Real Choices: Offering Life Affirming Alternatives to
Abortion. Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1994.
4. Stassen and Gushee. 229
5. Stassen and Gushee. 236