Pages

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Abortion and the Evangelical Australian response

Last year a pro-life group in America, conducted a series of video stings of Planned Parenthood, an organisation founded by the racist Margaret Sanger, who among other services provides abortions. The sting reveals across ten horrific videos how Planned Parenthood aborts babies at various stages of pregnancy and then profits from the organs harvested. You don't need to watch all the videos to realise that the bottom line is that babies look like unborn children while they're being killed.

There has been a range of nonsense in response, which I surveyed briefly last year when the videos first started being released, ranging from 'it's fake like the moon landing footage' through to 'who cares, we all knew abortion was horrific and that doesn't mean we should stop it'. Here in Australia abortions are partially subsided through Medicare. Over 50,000 babies were 'surgically' aborted in Australia in 2016 (Medicare Item 35643) and it's reliably suggested that up to 80,000 unborn children are killed in Australia each year (The linked paper suggests 84,218 in 2003).

Two quick reminders, about social justice and personhood. Firstly social justice. God calls us to act justly (Micah 6:8), to show compassion (Romans 12:20) and care for the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3). The most excluded, the most vulnerable and the most unjustly treated are the unborn who are killed, then the next most mistreated group are those women coerced into abortions. Any Christian response should be motivated to care for other human persons. We then need to care for both the unborn and the mothers, removing the stigma for having children out of wedlock and loving those who have had abortions.

Secondly, philosophy. Assuming that the world can be rationally understood it's arguable that human persons exist. Humans are a unique animal species with an observable beginning, called conception. Human persons are individuals with a discernible start and a number of characteristics including an inner moral life, imagination and rationality. Human persons can also be observed as grown ups, in groups and producing culture but it's important not to reduce Human persons to mere genetic material or athletic twenty somethings.

Australian Evangelicals should do the following.

Purchase and read:

Write to their local Politicians about

  • Medicare funding for abortion, support for new and young mums and the right to calmly protest against abortion

Support groups who provide pro-life counselling and who support mothers


Encourage their ecclesiastical leaders

  • to include the unborn when they publicly talk about the caring the vulnerable
  • to allow pro-life groups to flourish amoung their congregations
  • to oppose pro-abortion nonsense from other Evangelicals, for example the argument from the Melbourne Anglican Diocese that abortion is allowable in some circumstances because human life begins in some sort of sliding scale. 

Pray

  • For the protection of calm kind protesters and that angry unkind protesters stay away
  • That pregnant women find support
  • That their local congregations support mums with kids
  • The public discussion about abortion is allowed to continue in Australia