With the imminent rescission of Row vs Wade I’ve watched and heard numerous conversations on the matter of abortion, ethics, and law. I’ve heard the good, the bad, and the ugly. But probably the most difficult for me to endure are the conversations in which a person invokes the Bible to justify such a hideous dehumanization as abortion.
I was reminded of this short passage from an almost 200 year old novel- Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Stowe was a Christian woman with a conviction to use her writing talent to bring light to the horrible dehumanization of slavery- and put to the test those who claim Jesus Christ as Lord for their acceptance of something so ungodly. She says so in the preface to the book, that her intention was to “awaken sympathy and feeling” for slaves and bring about repentance from those who call themselves Christians but participate in the evil. She notes that many of the stories in her fiction were based on real experiences.
In this dreadful chapter, a clergyman traveling by boat casually justifies slavery and racism with a misinterpreted scripture- the Curse of Canaan (Cain). I imagine conversations before the Civil War were happening all the time like this. And as the group continued, a tall young man chimes in with the golden rule- a very clear teaching of Jesus.
It amazes me the lengths people will go to justify their evils and the helplessness felt by those who know better. Every time I drive by a Planned Parenthood, where I know very well they are chopping up babies and selling their bodies to researchers, I wonder if maybe some other man in the past felt like I do when he rode past the slavers auction- or walked by Auschwitz and saw the ash.
But what can I do to awaken sympathy and feeling for 62 Million children who never got a hug or a first birthday. I don’t know but to pray, vote, and speak the truth. They’re babies. There’s no such thing as an unwanted baby. Adoption is a beautiful alternative. God wills that we shall not kill one another. Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.
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