Roe v. Wade Is Over
The cost: 63 million unborn babies in less than 50 years
If a politician wants to bury a story, they announce it on Friday afternoon so it gets lost in the weekend news cycle and disappears by Monday.
Something tells me today’s ruling will be different:
The Supreme Court of the United States just struck down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion and led to the termination of more than 63 million infants.
This article will almost certainly lose me a few non-Christian subscribers, and I’m okay with that— I write first and foremost for an audience of one.
That said, I subscribe to dozens of writers with whom I regularly disagree, sometimes vehemently, but I want to stay open-minded and consider diverse viewpoints.
If that’s not you, might as well click Delete now!
With that caveat, let’s dive in…
1. Life begins at conception
Jesus-followers shouldn’t doubt this fact for a second.
The Bible says so in breathtakingly beautiful terms: Psalm 139:13-16. Christians certainly shouldn’t build a theology on a Psalm (that would be silly), I’m just pointing this one out in particular because it's so gorgeous.
That said, you can easily build a pro-life theology from Scripture, and we should. The Bible is packed with pro-life imagery and theology. (Here are 24 verses to get you started.)
That list doesn’t include Luke 1:39-45. A pre-born John the Baptist rejoices at the arrival of pre-born Jesus… from the womb!
And then above this, we have Imago Dei theology. Christians ultimately uphold the sanctity of life because each abortion destroys an image-bearer of God.
2. There may be some gracious nuance here
If someone euthanizes a person to stop their pain, that is murder. But if providing pain relief causes someone to die, it's not murder.
The same may be true for abortion. If a baby's life is taken to save a mother, that is murder. But if a baby's life is lost while trying to save a mother's life, that is another story.
I've met enough trafficking victims who've endured abortions to know how fraught this issue is.
So please catch the nuance here: If a baby's life is lost while trying to save a mother's life, that is not abortion. The goal should always be to preserve as many lives as possible. Sometimes trying to save a life doesn't work out. God knows our hearts and motives, and his grace for this fallen world is massive.
3. From a purely legal perspective, overturning Roe v. Wade is a good decision
There is really and truly no reasonable constitutional right to kill an unborn baby.
If Congress wants to pass an amendment to the constitution to make it a right, they can go ahead and do so, but it is hilariously faulty logic to say that the so-called “right to privacy” >>which is not actually mentioned<< in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution = you have the right to kill your unborn baby.
So what, exactly, happened to pretend to it does?
Well-paid lawyers built a house of cards scaffold of precedents that made a mockery of the spirit of the law in favor of its letters, much like Pharisees in Jesus’s time. “…Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” = abortion?
No.
It is, frankly, an embarrassment to reason.
The nation absolutely has the ability to amend the constitution to include the right to end the life of unborn babies, but the current constitution does not guarantee that right. Certainly not the Fourteenth Amendment (read it), and certainly not the phrase “…Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
(But if this isn’t proof we live in an upside-down world, I don’t know what is!)
Several states have already outlaws abortion in all circumstances, and my hunch is that there will be many Supreme Court battles in the years to come, and certainly many more people will become one-issue voters going forward.
4. From a Christ-centered perspective, this is a good decision
Christians believe in the Imago Dei, that each individual bears the image of God and is therefore worthy of life and love. Abortion destroys an image-bearer of God.
But there is a major challenge to this worldview: America isn’t a Christian nation. It’s a hyper-individualist anti-culture that prioritizes bodily autonomy above everything except money.
Liberal church-goers will be quick to point out Numbers 5:27 and Exodus 21:22-25, suggesting the Bible condones miscarriage as a punishment, and says that a fetus isn't a life, but they’re wrong on both counts.
It’s funny how church-goers patently ignore the Old Testament until it suddenly fits their agenda.
But re-read the Exodus 21 passage-- it actually has nothing to do with abortion.
Now re-read the entire Numbers 5:11-31 passage about the Jealousy Offering in any translation except for the wretched 2011 NIV (which, fun fact, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, along with the New King James Version, New Century Version, International Children’s Bible, Expanded Bible, and The Voice.)
The passage never mentions abortion, miscarriage, or even pregnancy.
(Here's a primer for Bible nerds who are interested in this strange Scriptural quirk.)
The reality is that no one in church history has been able to make a serious theological defense of abortion. Ours is a received faith, handed down from Jesus and the apostles. (I should note that my personal opinion is a tad laxer than I see in Scripture, but as Francis Chan said, "When I read the Bible and I disagree, I automatically assume I'm wrong! Then I say, 'Lord, help me trust your word more than my own ideas.'")
5. This is a fight about autonomy, not freedom
The apologist Abdu Murray put it best:
“We talk about freedom all the time, but we’ve stopped talking about freedom a long time ago. Now we’re talking about autonomy. Freedom is different than autonomy. Freedom has boundaries. Truth is one of those boundaries. And morality is one of those boundaries. Autonomy is the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want in whatever way you want. The problem is this: If I’m autonomous and another person is autonomous, and I have preferences and those matter more than the truth, and that person has preferences and their preferences matter more than the truth, when two autonomous preference-seeking beings come together and their preferences don’t match, who is going to win? If truth is on the bottom shelf, truth won’t decide. What will decide will be power. And isn’t it ironic that in our quest for “freedom”, someone gets enslaved?”
Or, in this case, when the bodily autonomy of a woman comes up against the bodily autonomy of the child growing inside her.
It’s not a fair fight.
6. Being pro-life doesn’t immediately stop once a baby breathes its first breath
Being truly pro-life means being pro-affordable-healthcare (yes, even for people with zero money) and pro-affordable-shelter (yes, even for people with zero money.)
I'm probably more pro-life than anyone most people have ever met (but never in a picketing way), from conception to death, including anti-abortion, anti-gun, anti-war, anti-nuke, anti-deforestation, anti-monarchy, anti-rent-seeking, anti-interest, anti-corporate profit, anti-inflation, anti-pollution, anti-porn, anti-prostitution/trafficking, anti-slavery/serfdom, anti-death penalty, anti-unsustainability, and anti-overpopulation.
(This is easy for Enneagram Eights because we love to be against stuff, and we also love kids.)
“You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.” -Dave Barnhart
7. Going forward, the father of each child should be identified by DNA testing
It takes two people to conceive a child.
The burden of parenting a child should not fall solely on the mother.
Justice dictates that fathers must then be required to pay child support and/or assume all parental responsibility if the mother so chooses.
8. There are only three nations in the world that permit full-term abortion: China, North Korea, and wretched-but-with-the-veneer-of-politeness Canada
The moment I realized Canada was fundamentally a vile nation was a few years ago, when the House of Commons rose in a standing ovation for the “moral” “right” to murder the unborn.
Canada is the only nation on earth with absolutely no criminal restrictions on abortion. 70,000+ abortions are executed in Canada each year and they are publicly funded with taxpayer dollars.
In fact, when America’s Supreme Court decision was leaked months ago, Canada immediately announced expanded access to abortion services. When America’s announcement was made today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it “horrific.”
Canada’s official defense of abortion is remarkably similar to the one struck down in America: R v. Morgentaler ruled that it violates a Canadian woman’s right to “life, liberty and security of the person”… but not the baby’s. (Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
In order words, the Abdu Murray autonomy quote applies just as well here. The life, liberty, and security of the baby’s life is irrelevant in Canada.
9. The job of Christ-followers isn’t to force non-Christians to act like Jesus
Though we certainly stand up for the weak and poor and vulnerable and those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8-9), we also practice radical live-and-let-live tolerance and radical pluralism (Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43) which means we will NEVER hate or mistreat a woman who chooses to have an abortion.
We don’t force; we bear with.
We are in some sense simultaneously the most pro-life and pro-choice people on the planet, and our duty is to inspire the world to choose life in every facet of existence, not just when it comes to unborn babies.
10. Christians must be prepared to adopt
It is not enough to say you love the unborn—Christ-followers must be willing to put their time and money on the line and stand in the gap to adopt all the babies that will now be delivered but remain unwanted.
If anyone reading this ever feels they absolutely must get an abortion at any point in their life, please reach out to me.
Michelle and I will either find a way to adopt your baby or find someone to adopt your baby— zero questions asked, zero judgments passed.
11. Some women will still get abortions
Whether it means going to other states, other countries, or visiting one of the thousands of doctors who will likely deny the law of the land and continue to execute abortions, some women will always find a way to terminate their children’s lives.
But whether abortion is legal or illegal, the mortality rate for aborted babies is 100%. (Sadly, they never factor into the equation.)
By overturning Roe v Wade, at least some women will think twice before having unprotected sex.
It’s like drunk driving laws: Some people will still drive drunk, but some will think twice before getting behind the wheel.
The reality is that abortion rates will fall, the question is "by how many?"
12. Prevention is so important
The New York Times reported a few months back that that 75% of abortions are executed by women living in poverty.
At least 63,459,781 babies have been aborted since Roe v Wade came into effect in 1973. 19 million of these babies were black—over twice the prevalence of white babies.
It’s also amazing how profit-hungry corporations like Disney, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Kroger, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, United Airlines, and Zillow will fight tooth-and-nail to keep their employees from having a living wage or worker rights, but all have announced they'll pay thousands to let their female employees take time off to travel out of state and overseas to get abortions.
If society focused on prevention and actually deal with poverty, gross inequality, rape, incest, and female inequality, far more people will choose life.
Ultimately, what the world needs is to be flooded with the presence of God so we all choose life in every area of our lives.
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