This blog deals with
Christian living, disability, ethics,
Life Issues, a wonderful miracle,
and faith in Jesus Christ.
“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup
Sunday, April 24, 2016
ALWAYS CHOOSE LIFE!
A number of years ago, my wife and I were
contacted by the mother of a sixteen year old girl who had a positive pregnancy
test. I will call the teenager Katie
(not her real name) and her mother Joanne
(not her real name).
Katie was obviously
in a crisis pregnancy: It was a crisis
because Katie is so young, still in high school, and unmarried. It was also a crisis pregnancy because she
intended to have an abortion to solve her “problem.”
Katie was ignorant
to well established yet unpopular objective knowledge about prenatal life. Poor
Katie, she is a victim of modern public school education that’s been ravaged by
the emotions of political correctness. This political correctness has even invaded
the former objectivity of many biology classes. Katie only knew the unscientific yet fashionable propaganda
of the so-called “pro-choice” mindset so prevalent in today’s culture that refuses to recognize well-established knowledge of the unique humanity of life in the womb.
What’s the
choice?
In such a climate,
the choice remains unstated because it is the choice of death for another life,
through abortion. No matter how it’s packaged or presented, abortion is
offensive.
The stark choice in ‘pro-choice’ is far too
visceral to articulate in polite or fashionable company. Choosing between life
and death for one’s offspring is hardly the mark of a civilized or enlightened
society. The “pro-choice” mindset rarely identifies the choice. Instead it
directs the chooser away from the stark reality of what they are choosing
between. Situational ethics reigns supreme and moral absolutes have been
banished from the culture.
Fortunately, the
banishment of former moral absolutes has not been complete, other than in the secular media and academe.
Many ordinary people
can still feel the tug of conscience from the
residue of a previous time when
the culture knew some things were absolutely right and other things absolutely
wrong. We know that taking human life is absolutely wrong. For some of us, the
memory of a Judeo-Christian moral consensus still burns deep within our chests.
We are beneath the snobbery of academe. We are unwelcome in the lofty corridors power and ivory towers where modern philosophers, sociologists and bioethicists mingle
far away from us common folk.
Like the 17th
century adulteress banished from the town with her illegitimate child, the
object of insults and contempt, and branded with a scarlet letter ‘A’, we wear a scarlet ‘A’ too. It stands for Absolutes. And
like the adulteress of old, we are unfaithful. Our unfaithfulness is to the 21st
century’s culture of choice and moral relativism. We, too, are subjects of
contempt.
Katie’s mother,
Joanne, wore a scarlet ‘A’. Joanne
knew what was at stake in making the wrong choice. She was acutely aware of the
threat to her unborn child and then, years later, her grandchild. There was nothing relative about their
situation. The threat was real and absolute! Katie was in danger of making a terrible mistake and the new human life within her was in grave danger.
When Joanne was in the same position as Katie. The authority figures
in Joanne’s life advocated that Katie’s brother be aborted (He’s a full-grown
man now). Joanne was told ― like so many other women facing crisis pregnancies ―
that she was too young to be a mother. A baby would ruin her life and
aspirations! Joanne was told abortion
would solve her problem. Joanne knew
instinctively that her “problem” was a human being portrayed as a blob of
tissue, like a tumor.
Before Joanne gave
herself over to an abortionist, my wife and I
had the opportunity to show her
the stunning photography of prenatal life taken by renowned Swedish
photographer Lennart Nilsson, during the 1960s.
Nilsson was ahead of his time, using the emerging technology of endoscopic
photography to capture images of a developing child before birth.
The images spoke
for themselves. Joanne realized that the life within her was not a ‘blob of
tissue.’ It was not ‘potential life’ … it was actual life. It was the life of her child! She rejected the naysayers
and cynicism that would have led her down the dark path to an abortionist’s
door. Joanne needed someone to hope and believe in her life and the life of her
baby. My wife and I tried, in our pale and uncertain way, to show Joanne there
was always hope wherever there is life. Joanne canceled her appointment at the abortion
clinic.
We found ourselves in a similar position with Joanne's daughter Katie. Once Katie was given the full information about prenatal life and life-affirming alternatives available to her through a local crisis pregnancy centre, Katie cancelled her abortion too.
Today her happy child runs and plays, skips and peddles her bike in the fresh spring air, with the sun warming
her shoulders. That little girl will grow up to be her own person and take her
rightful place in society.
What’s my point? Never
give up on any life. Do not listen to the pied pipers of choice who lead the
parade of North America’s procession for the new culture of death.
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