Micah 6:8

Thoughts on a Recent Comment

I had a comment on my post "Why I am a Pro-Life Activist". I want to share it, and my response, with everyone. It defintely fueled some good thought for me.

I am very torn on the issue of perspective.

On the one-hand you have, as you say, the life an unborn child. On the other hand, you have the woman's freedom to carry or not carry the unborn child.

I think to argue that "life" should be given priority over "freedom" is over-simplistic. For example, thousands are dying in Africa for basic lack of water, food, etc. Should we send America's rich people to prison unless they all of their money to these causes at least until those people are no longer dying? Why is a woman who is impregnated through rape any more responsible for the life of another than, say, a millionaire who gives nothing to help the starving in Africa?

So, I'm on the fence on this one, putting me in an extreme minority of Americans. The one thing that I think pro-life and pro-choice should agree on however is that the number of abortions should be minimized. If pro-lifers want to meet that goal, they ought to spend less time picketing and more time letting young unwed mothers know that, if they have the baby, their needs and the needs of their baby will be adequately met. I'm amazed how the "religious right" cares an awful lot about the lives of babies up until birth, but after that, do not expect any handouts.

Thank you for your feedback on this issue. I'm definitely open to having rational conversations with people about this topic.

I think that the problem with your argument is that there is a difference between neglect causing death and active killing. Our laws acknowledge this as well. With abortion there is someone actively taking the life of another human being. How would you feel about someone arguing that mothers had no responsibility to feed their babies? They could argue that it wasn't their body and therefore they could just be grossly neglectful of their children. Obviously most people would think that this would be insane. Interestingly enough, though, we would convict someone who is grossly neglectful of a dependent and inadvertently cause their death with a different crime then someone that actively does it. I think that abortion is a situation where someone is actively taking the life of another person. While I think that all abortion is wrong, I also think that there are different levels of guilt for those who have abortions based on how much they know of what they are doing and how pressured they are by life situations. In this regard, I don't think that abortion is directly parallel to someone who sneaks up on an unsuspecting child and shoots them in the head. Both kill a child but one assailant is likely more aware of what they are doing.

Personally, I also think that people should be willing to sacrifice their comfortable lifestyles for the sake of those that are starving in other countries. A big part of my blog is trying to encourage people, but especially Christians, to do just that. While I know that you're not a Christian I want to point out that this is what the Bible instructs people to do. Jesus says that we are to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. How are we loving others as we love ourselves if we live in luxury while other are starving? 1 John 3:17 asks, "if anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?". I think that the calling of Christ is to do as much good for others as we possibly can. Out of appreciation for what God has done for me and in recognition that I am no better then anyone else I seek to love others as he loves us.

The more that I think about it the more I realize that neglecting charity is essentially gross neglect causing death. If someone left a child on my doorstep and I left it out in the cold to die this would essentially be no different then refusing to help others across the world. I guess that this situation also comes down to ones level of awareness of their crime although I don't think that is why the crimes are handled differently by the law. I think that the reason that we have laws against the one and not the other is that our laws are set up to protect our society rather then people. This is why we have tax funded social programs, which are basically mandated charity, but we only give a token for international aid. This is why we have minimum wage for our people but our happy inflicting sweat shop labour on other people. In my opinion, this is also why we have legal abortion but illegal homicide of other people.

Posted by rose at July 10, 2006 11:46 AM