My faith teaches that God created us in love, His Inspired Word guides us with love, and the free will he gave us was given in love. He loves us so much He did not create us to be robots to follow His law thoughtlessly. He wanted us to choose to love Him and recognize His Truth in our hearts. To be Christian, it is said, is to aspire to be Christ-like. Christ endured torture and death because of His love for us. I struggle every day wondering if I could die a martyr’s death for my faith. The love in this context is not passive or lustful, it is a completely selfless devotion to the welfare of others. For me, at least, complete selfless love is a goal I aspire toward but fail to live far too often.
Abortion is the voluntary killing of a human life that requires, in my opinion, turning away from God and His love. No intelligent believer can seriously consider that God gave us free will because He accepts abortion as a reasonable problem solving choice. Whether abortion is legal or illegal, it is immoral.
When I was young, and early in my medical training, my understanding of God and my faith was not strong. I accepted the teaching of my professors as reasonable and rational. Abortion was, of course, undesirable, but unwanted pregnancies were tragic and might ruin lives. Abortion was the difficult decision of a woman in crisis and a private decision between her and her physician. It was not a public affair. The law should not intrude. Was it not obvious to the great thinkers of thirty years ago that abortion ruined lives? The aborted baby’s life was surely ruined and he or she had no effective advocate in the decision. Did anyone consider the emotional and spiritual health of the expectant mother? What did she believe? What did she believe she was doing? Did she have dreams? Did she ever imagine her unborn child as a living child? What were the short and long term consequences? Was she being coerced by circumstances, by her boyfriend, or by her parents? Was her “Informed Consent” truly informed and truly consensual?
As is the case in so many life conflicts, the short term solution creates worse long term consequences. Abortion is a clear example. There is an enormous body of evidence that the risk of emotional distress following abortion is significantly increased, that the risk of suicide and even violent death is substantially increased, and, importantly, that the risk of premature labor and premature birth in subsequent pregnancies is significantly increased. The mainstream media and the mainstream medical literature have largely ignored this evidence for decades but there is now some recognition of these consequences appearing in major journals. The early deceptions that abortion would reduce unwanted pregnancies and reduce child abuse and reduce the stress on families have clearly not proven true. Child abuse has increased 7 fold since 1973, half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are “unwanted” (by who?), and divorce has topped 50% in recent published data (lower in Christian households).
But, most importantly, abortion is not only a foolish and false shortcut to happiness, it is the death of a human person. If all the falsehoods of the pro-choice movement proved to be true (remember they are not true), abortion would still be the deliberate killing of a human person. When is it ever ok to kill someone? Maybe if they are clearly trying to kill you, but remember Jesus did not take that track, and remember that the unborn child is an innocent.
Whether or not abortion is ever again outlawed, our mission to inform and change hearts is not over. Our mission to inspire faith and our mission to teach the love of God are not over. Abortions were performed when abortion was illegal. Those hearts were broken. Murders occur today and they are illegal. Our job to spread the Word of God and share His Love with anyone and everyone who will listen will not end with a reversal of Roe v. Wade. Our job is to change hearts through the inspiration of souls to see the perfection that God calls us to and the sanctity of human life from conception to death from natural causes. Our job is to truly teach that the unborn child is more important than our convenience or our comfort or our plans. The Pharisees taught the Law of Moses quite well, but fell short in their hearts. We cannot imitate their failure.
Pray with me that we never fail to share the joy of God’s love with anyone who has or is contemplating abortion.
God is love.
Dr. John Seeds practices fetal medicine & maternal medicine and obstetrics & gynecology in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Seeds graduated with an MD 38 years ago.
