“Our reproductive rights are
being erased. Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot
risk pregnancy. JOIN ME by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back.
I’m calling for a #SexStrike. Pass it on.” Alyssa Milano
With the conservative
bent on the current U.S. Supreme Court, there’s been a barrage of legislative
action related to abortion on the part of the States. States like New York seek
to protect their “abortion rights.” Others like Georgia, with their new stricter
laws prohibiting abortion, hope a lawsuit will make its way to the Supreme Court
to see Roe v. Wade re-addressed and even overturned. In the midst of this
political maneuvering, there’s often been more heat than light from both sides
of the moral debate.
Yes, Alyssa Milano actually did tweet that. Unbeknownst
to her, she was suggesting exactly what those who hold a biblical worldview believe
and is the solution for abortion – abstinence. The Bible teaches that
sex outside of marriage violates God’s standard for sexual morality. Let’s not
forget that single professional football star, Tim Tebow, was ridiculed for committing
to his own personal “sex strike” until marriage. The rationale of those opposed
to abstinence is that we’re little more than animals with no hope of restraining
ourselves and must succumb to our more carnal urges.
There’s
also blatant hypocrisy on the part of those who promise to boycott states like
Georgia which have passed new pro-life laws. Here are just a few examples: Sophie
Turner won’t film in Georgia, but she filmed Game of Thrones in Northern
Ireland which bans abortion. Mark Hamill and Natalie Portman have both said
that they’ll no longer work in Georgia, yet both filmed Star Wars in
Tunisia, where it’s illegal to be gay. Tunisia has arrested people for just
appearing to be gay.
The most imprudent protest against new pro-life legislation has been from
Disney. Yet, Disney has been filming in Bolivia, where abortion is illegal, Croatia,
where abortion is illegal after 11 weeks and the UAE where abortion is illegal
and being gay is illegal. Disney has no problem filming in any of these
locations, yet suddenly Georgia is the enemy. It doesn’t take a genie to see that
this is a big marketing blunder. How can one promote themselves as a “family place,”
yet support what exterminates their customer base – families? In light of Disney’s
defense of “reproductive choice,” can we
expect them to shut down production in China, including the shuttering of their
theme parks on Chinese soil? China has draconian anti-LGBT discrimination
and one of the worst records for human rights abuse. If Disney truly cares
about human rights, how can they do business in a country with nearly Nazi-like
laws against their own citizens?
Moral
ineptitudes make strange bedfellows. The spirit of Margaret Sanger still lives.
White Supremacists also oppose the new anti-abortion laws. Why? “Only reason
Blacks here in the US have only grown by a few percent each year is because of
Planned Parenthood and abortion.”
Apart
from the moral issues, the pro-choice position is fiscally naïve. Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with her obsession with climate change suggests
that young people should seriously consider even having children. No one seems
to see the end result of such fuzzy thinking: “Who will pay the bills?”
Americans and politicians are insatiable for more government programs, but
there’s no free lunch. When was the last time you heard of a budget cut being proposed,
much less passed?
A
few weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report,
concluding that the U.S. is in an official baby bust. It’s been declining for four
straight years, but last year the number of babies born in this country fell to
a 32-year low. There’s a term called the “replacement level” when you’re
talking about fertility. To maintain our current population a woman needs to
have 2.1 children, but we’ve been below that level since the early 1970s. Some
outcomes of our population decrease will be greater labor shortages and school
closings. Taxes must increase. The need for elder care will increase with fewer
available to step into those roles. The more that the birth number falls below
the replacement level, the weaker our economy will become, especially as a
homegrown workforce decreases and more retire. Already-strained programs like
Medicare and Social Security will suffer. Fewer workers, i.e., taxpayers, means fewer paying into the system that
supports the growing number of retirees. We’ve come a long and dark way since Hillary
Clinton’s 1990’s comment that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
What’s
the solution? Obviously, it’s not another government program but none
of these problems are new. Ours is a post-Christian age. The early church faced
a pre-Christian one with far worse atrocities; slavery, religious prostitution,
infanticide, etc. As the gospel, remedied old world problems, it can remedy contemporary
world problems. It’s the gospel that can transform someone’s life, changing
someone with no life values to someone who values life and willingly sacrifices
for those who can’t defend themselves, the pre-born, disabled, infirm and
elderly. We have examples within our own church of grandparents who’ve stepped up
to care for a grandchild or an elderly parent.
It’s the gospel that transforms culture, not
social programs, jobs or education. Those are outcomes of the gospel. A
Christian who is living out a biblical worldview is a better spouse, parent, student,
worker, and citizen. It’s one reason that at Grace we’re committed to planting churches
in places like South Chicago (Tom Kubiak) and Nepal (Bishnu).
The gospel is not just a ticket to heaven. It’s
a lifestyle. Living it out means that we’re unapologetically pro-life, but it’s
much more than just babies. We’re also
pro-living. We want that unaborted child to grow up healthy and safe into
adulthood, and to have a quality life filled with opportunity. Yes, we are
pro-life – we are pro-life from the first heartbeat to the last breath. That’s
what it means to be a Christian. That’s what it means to have a biblical worldview.
Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.
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