Abortion Excuses
Rev. Wayne Mueller
1. The fetus is not life. “Why do you kill it if it is not life?”
2. The woman has a right to do what she wants with her own body. “Who cares what the father thinks? Who cares what God thinks? Who cares what the baby thinks? I’m going to do what I want to with my own body.”
3. Job, money, lifestyle – “My job demands that I be here full-time, and I’m on my way up, and I will lose my place if I take off time to have this baby (3 months of pregnancy leave). I won’t be able to develop my job – if I have to take care of a sputtering, whimpering kid at home, changing pants. My job demands that I get rid of this baby.” This materialism is the Nth degree. Many are unafraid to state these reasons.
4. Shame and embarrassment – The woman who is not married and is pregnant has enough on her conscience. People are going to find out about it. She wouldn’t listen to her family, her friends, her pastor – who all told her not to live with a man until she was married. She wouldn’t listen to them – she was smarter – now she is pregnant. And she cannot bear to have people tell her “I told you so.” It is bad enough on her to have it on her conscience, without having to have her carry it right out in front of her and advertise her foolishness and her sin. That is terribly degrading. Everyone asks her, “What does your husband think about this?” and she has to explain a million times over that she doesn’t have a husband. She has to explain that as soon as the guy found out that she was pregnant he ran off. We all like to hide our sins. We have plenty of our own, so when we talk to people like this don’t curse them as being worse than you are. I don’t like to have you know what my sins are either and you certainly don’t want me to know what your sins are. We hide them. We are ashamed of them. Remember Adam and Eve? What did they do when they suddenly found out they were naked? Well, that’s the way a pregnant lady feels when she is not married. And there is no place to hide.
5. It is unfair – I was raped. Women rarely get pregnant from a rape. According to National Right to Life, about 1% of all abortions performed for pregnancies result from rape or incest. Another excuse involves the issue of “date rape.” The young woman dates a man, and he goes too far. Who is she going to convince that she was raped? It is terribly embarrassing – even to go to the police. You have to live with your own shame, and then you have a pregnancy. It is unfair. We have to be compassionate. We have to have a genuine, legitimate empathy with these pregnant women.
6. Unwanted child. The issue to abort is always complicated by other things such as poverty. If impoverished women had the money, they wouldn’t come into crisis pregnancy centers. It is complicated. The issue is complicated by money problems, alienation, separation from their families, separation from their churches and separation from their friends. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone left. They feel unwanted. Now they have a baby. It is not surprising that their unborn baby is also unwanted.
7. It’s okay, it’s legal! “The government approves, everybody does it – why shouldn’t they do it? Who is going to say it is wrong?”
8. Deformity. “I just had an ultrasound of my baby,” she tells you, “and it is definitely going to be deformed. My boyfriend is a heroin addict. Obviously the genes themselves are mutated and we can see that the baby is going to be deformed. It certainly is not fair to me that I should bear such a child into this world.”
9. Husband and wife wants abortion. “I really don’t want the abortion, but my boyfriend says I have to. He doesn’t want the kid. My boyfriend doesn’t want to pay for it.” “My husband doesn’t want any more children.” There is always someone else to blame — look back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam said, “The woman you gave me did it.” The woman said, “It was the snake in the garden.”
Running down the list of the Bible, these passages contradict all of these excuses:
1. The fetus is not life – The Bible says life is present at conception. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5).
2. The woman has a right over her own body – “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The Bible says specifically that the Christian does not belong to himself or herself. No one has a right over his or her own body.
3. Job, money, lifestyle – “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
4. Shame, embarrassment – “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
5. Unfair, rape – God’s final justice is what the Christian trusts in. We have to suffer many things during this earthly life. For the believer in Christ it becomes a chastisement by the means of which our faith is drawn closer to him. A woman who has been raped but does not profess to Christianity will not understand that kind of love and justice from God. She will be too impatient. “I want something done and I want it done now! The man is gone, who can find him? I’m innocent – somebody has to suffer! Somebody has to die for this injustice done to me. It has to be the baby!” God says, “Vengeance is Mine”!
6. Unwanted child – “God is love.” “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). “If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). How can we say that we love God, when we have not seen him? We don’t love our fellow man whom we have seen. How in the world can you love a God that you can’t see at all?
7. It’s okay, it’s legal, the government approves. When faced with a conflict between what the government said and what God said, Peter was quick to assert: “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
8. Deformity. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28). In John 9:3, the account finds Jesus and his disciples encountering the man who was blind. And the disciple said to Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man [before he was born – at conception] or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Jesus healed the blind man who became a fantastic witness for the Lord.
9. Man/Husband Wants Abortion. Ezekiel 18:4 says, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” Not only will the husband be held accountable for wanting his wife to have the abortion, but she is the one who makes the final decision. She is the one who has to sign the paper. “Yes, I agree to kill my baby.” And she is also the one who will answer to God on the day of judgment.
