“Women Obama ‘08″ – Contradiction?

I saw a bumper sticker this morning that read “Women Obama ‘08″ (meaning women who support Obama). Because of President Obama’s stance on abortion, I see this as a contradiction. His defense of the legality of abortion is that women should have the same sexual rights as men. Implicitly, his argument is that women should have the same right to sex without consequential pregnancy that men have. Therefore, he argues for and believes in legalized, on-demand abortion in the name of gender equality.

First, due to the intimacy inherent to sex, there are emotional consequences even when there is no consequential pregnancy. While there is such a thing as “pregnancy-free sex” and there is such a thing as “ending a pregnancy by abortion,” there is no such thing as “consequence-free sex.” . Defending “consequence-free sex” allows both sex and women to be handled cheaply. So, it is in direct opposition to women because most of the negative emotional consequences of “cheap” sex fall on women.

Secondly, women bear all of the emotional and psychological consequences of abortion, in addition to the physical ones. Sex always has consequences; abortion does not change that. When a woman becomes pregnant there are physical, emotional, and psychological connections between the mother and her baby.  Abortion does not change that she is already a mother; it merely takes her baby’s life, and leaves her with emotional and psychological consequences just like any other time a mother loses her child.

Therefore, both ”consequence-free sex” and abortion are damaging to women; and “Women Obama ‘08″ is a contradiction.

What Does It Mean to Sin Against God?

What does it mean to sin against God?

Imagine a little boy in his back yard, sitting on the ground before a large, flat rock, and holding a hammer extended above his head. Imagine that this boy brings down the hammer as forcefully as he is able upon a leaf that is laying upon the rock. While a leaf is a living organism, or at least was before it was untimely ripped from its mother-plant, this is not a huge problem.

Now, imagine a caterpillar in the place of the leaf. Now, a puppy dog. And finally, a baby human. The image of the boy bringing down the wrath and fury of his hammer becomes more evil as the worth and value of his victim increases (thanks to my bro, Dr. Sucka, Jim Hamilton, Jr. himself for the analogy!).

Similarly, sinning against the God who created, sustains, and will judge us, is as infinitely greater than sinning against a mere man as the heavens are higher than the earth. God owns us as our Creator, our Sustainer, and our Judge; and He knows our every thought, our every word, and our every action.

Surely our standing before God is the most extreme embodiment of the word “hopeless.”

Moreover, as the Bible often compares our relationship with God to a marriage, let us see if using the analogy of a marriage helps us to understand the significance of sinning against a just and righteous and holy God.

Imagine a husband who communicates to his wife with his every thought, his every word, and his every action that he does not love her, that he does not want her, that he does not need her, and that he wishes that he did not have a wife. Just as such a husband communicates to his wife that she is worthless and greatly offends her, so we communicate that God is worthless to us and we greatly offend Him when we communicate with our every thought, word, and action that we do not love Him, want Him, or need Him, and that we wish that there were no God. And we do this every time we sin-in thought, word, and action.

This is what it means to sin against God.

I Have a Dream

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream.  He had a dream, “that the sons of former slaves and the sons of slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”  He had a dream.

He had a dream, “that little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” He had a dream.

Sadly, 16 million sons of slaves have been aborted since 1973.  16 million little black boys and little black girls have been aborted since 1973.  In 1963, Dr. King said he would not be satisfied as long as a Negro could not “gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.”

In 1973, ten years after he told the world of his dream from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., and five years after he was murdered by a white man who represented everything he stood against, the gavel of the Supreme Court fell like a guillotine on Dr. King’s dream.  Because of Roe v. Wade, 16 million African-American babies have been denied the right to live Dr. King’s dream. While a Negro can now “gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities,” 16 million Negroes have been unable to gain lodging in their very own mothers’ wombs.

We cannot live Dr. King’s dream as long as African-American abortion doctors and African-American mothers and an African-American president are uniting to do a better job of killing off the African-American race than white supremacists ever could have dreamed.

I share Dr. King’s dream.  I have a dream that the sons of former slaves and my sons will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream. I have a dream that little black boys and black girls will join hands with my little boys and girls as sisters and brothers.  I have a dream.

Come dream with Dr. King and me!

Abortion: Only One Valid Defense

There is no valid defense for the legality of abortion, save one.  The heart of the abortion debate is the personhood of the unborn.  The defense of the legality of abortion, therefore, rests on the argument that the unborn are not persons.  Aside from this argument, all the others in defense of legalized abortion fall apart.  Let me demonstrate.

The common “back-alley, coathanger” argument falls apart if you grant personhood to the unborn.  In this country it is illegal to commit murder, regardless of the location.  The fact that murder is illegal in, say, libraries, surely causes more murders to take place in back-alleys.  This does not mean that we should allow murder so long as it takes place in libraries, on the basis of the argument that allowing it in libraries would cause a decrease in back-alley murders.  So it is that, if we grant personhood to the unborn, then our only recourse is to criminalize abortion, both in clinics and in back-alleys.  Just as back-alley murders do not justify library murders, so back-alley abortions do not justify clinical abortions.  If the unborn are persons, then abortion is murder, both in the back-alley and in the clinic.

Therefore, the “back-alley, coathanger” argument is not a valid one, because it rests upon the argument that the unborn are not persons.  If the unborn are not persons, then we are merely talking about a “part of the woman’s body” or a “blob of tissue,” and the argument that “clean and safe” abortions by “licensed and experienced professionals” is valid.  But, if the unborn are persons, then legalized abortion in clinics is as absurd as legalized murder in libraries. 

Similarly, all other arguments in favor of legalized abortion rest on denying the personhood of the unborn.  The mother’s rights, abilities, desires, etc. do not allow her to end the life of her born child, and, if unborn children are deemed persons, they should not allow her to end the life of her unborn child either. That a mother was raped does not allow her to end the life of her child after birth, so even rape should not allow her to end the life of her unborn child- once again, if her unborn child is a person. That a child has a disablity, is unwanted and unloved, or merely inconvenient does not justify ending his life outside of the womb, and if he is a person, these circumstances do not justify ending his life inside the womb.

This leaves us with only one valid argument in favor of abortion, that being that the unborn are not persons.  However, that an argument is valid does not make it right.  My purpose here was merely to simplify the issue and to identify its heart.  Those who are pro-choice identify themselves as such, at the end of the day, because they deny the personhood of the unborn.  Those who are pro-life identify themselves as such, at the end of the day, because they affirm the personhood of the unborn.  This explains why each side’s arguments seem absurd to the other.  If the unborn are persons, then pro-choice arguments are absurd.  And, if the unborn are not persons, then pro-life arguments are absurd.

Now that we have identified the heart of the issue, the next step is surgery.  Now that we have identified the heart of the defense of abortion, let us cut it out.  Two-hundred and fifty-five years passed between the institution of slavery in this country and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Another hundred years passed until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech and the civil rights movement, where, for all intents and purposes, the Declaration of Independence was ammended to read, “all men, both black and white, are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights… namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” How many years will pass between 1973 and the day when all men, both black and white, both born and unborn, enjoy the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

It is sad but true that it was necessary to clarify that both black people and white people possess these inalienable rights.  It is sad but true that it is now necessary to clarify that both the born and the unborn, as persons, possess these rights.  Just as white people had to be denied the “right” to “choose” to buy and sell and own black people in this country, because black people are indubitably persons; so a mother must be denied the “right” to “choose” abortion, because the unborn are indubitably persons as well.

Mrs. Mary Mohler with a Beautiful Book Review

Many people know who Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is and read his blog.  Less know who Mrs. Mary K. Mohler is or that she is quite the writer herself.  In a world where womanhood and marriage and motherhood are undervalued and underappreciated, I present to you a glorious woman and wife and mother.  In a world where her husband’s beliefs- Biblical Christianity- are accused of “squashing” women, I encourage you to value and appreciate Mrs. Mohler along with me, and to read her review of “Does Christianity Squash Women?” by Rebecca Jones.

In this review, you will see both that Christianity does not squash women and that Mrs. Mohler is certainly not squashed herself.  Enjoy!

(With more writing like this from Mrs. Mohler, Dr. Mohler might soon become known as “Mary Mohler’s Husband”!)

Word to the Wise

Any time you see foolishness like this:

“…practiced in Islam before Mohammad’s time…”

do not listen to what they have to say about the Bible! Pregnancyoptions.info gives advice to women who have become pregnant, and it is as poor as their understanding of religion. Just as there was no such thing as “Islam before Mohammad’s time,” there is no way to both read the Bible with an iota of intellectual honesty and conclude that any part of it condones abortion.

We must fight the notion that God is okay with abortion. Yes, the grace and mercy of God are big enough to forgive even the evil of abortion, but only because the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to cover even the greatest sins.

The only valid advice to a pregnant woman, before God, is not to abort. The only valid advice to a woman who has aborted, as with all sinners, is to repent and believe in Jesus, who alone can save her (and the rest of us). In Christ, the grace of God is free, but it is not cheap. The price for God was His only Son, and the price for us is that we acknowledge truth as such- including but not limited to acknowledging abortion as evil- and that we submit to Jesus Christ as Lord (which is itself merely acknowledging truth as such, for He is Lord whether we acknowledge it or not).

Pro-Choicers Cannot Condemn the Killing of Abortionists

I condemn the recent murder of an abortionist in Wichita, Kansas. However, those who identify themselves as “pro-choice” cannot stand with me in opposition to his murder. To do so would be inconsistent. Here’s why.

Because there is no way to define personhood in a way that excludes the unborn, the fact of the matter is that pro-choicers believe that one person’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (the mother’s) extends as far as ending the life of another person (her unborn child).

Therefore, when one person (the murderer) decides to end the life of another person (the abortionist), pro-choicers are hypocrites if they condemn the murder of an abortionist- or any murder for that matter.

Let me say again that I condemn the murder of the abortionist in Kansas. I also condemn his practice as murder. To do so is to be consistent in believing in the inalienable right of every person, born or unborn, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

May God grant our government such consistency, so that our citizens do not feel that they must take justice into their own hands by repaying evil with evil. May our government abolish abortion.

Dr. King on the Recent Murder of a Kansas Abortionist

What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. have to say about the recent murder of an abortionist in Wichita, Kansas? I think the following two quotes give us a pretty good idea.

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” -August 28, 1963 in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech

And,

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” -in a radio broadcast while in India to visit Ghandi

Abortion is morally indefensible, but so is the murder of abortionists. The recent murder of a Kansas abortionist was both wrong and damaging to the pro-life cause, and should be condemned as such. We cannot fight for the right of the unborn to live one moment, and then take the life of an abortionist the next. The same God who will avenge the blood of every unborn child who is murdered will also avenge the blood of every abortionist who is murdered.

How then shall we fight? Let us fight abortion first by being God-honoring men who know how to take a wife, not in the passion of lust like those who do not know God. Let us be men who reject the lies of the world- that marriage, parenthood, and family are burdensome and curses- and let us hold fast to the truth that these things are among the greatest blessings this world has to offer. Then, let us teach other men to reject these lies and cherish these truths. And finally, let us fight against abortion in both the best and the right way. Let us fight this filthy and false evil with holy and true righteousness. Let our fight, and its fighters, be marked by love and compassion- for both the unborn baby and his or her mother. Let our weapons be words and money and time spent toward the nonviolent abolition of abortion.

Or, as Dr. King might say, “we must conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,” and, “we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force,” in this case abortion, “with soul force,” by using nonviolent resistance, which is “the most potent weapon available” to us.