Tag: Abortion

My Body, My Choice: The Argument of Autonomy

On July 6, 2022

My mom always told me that my first full sentence was (with all the attitude a two-year-old can muster), “I can do it myself!”

You could say that the rest of my life has been one big lesson in precisely the opposite: I cannot, actually, do it myself.

Sometimes I can’t even keep a grip on reality. There are times in extreme anxiety when I’ve told Gil or a friend, “When I feel this way, you need to tell me this truth.” Without other people, I wonder if I would even be sane.

Children raised with minimal human interaction are underdeveloped mentally, socially, emotionally. Our very existence is dependent on others.

So isn’t it ironic that in America, we idolize autonomy? Americans love choices. Whether it’s frozen yogurt toppings, owning a gun, getting a vaccine, wearing a mask, or determining your gender, we champion individual decisions. Follow your heart. You be you. Your body, your choice.

Independence is such a part of the air we breathe that we might not realize that it’s not a universal value.

Did you know that when compared with other countries, the “Individualism” score for the United States ranks the highest in the entire world? Autonomy is not a universal value. With few exceptions, every country in the world values connection to family and society more than we do.

I asked a friend from Europe what he found unexpected about American culture. He said, “Going into a sandwich shop and choosing your own toppings.” In Europe, they choose the toppings for you. But here, you can have it your way.

In America, we hand babies a spoon at six months old. We praise the three-year-old who puts on his shoes. “You’re such a big girl!” is the ultimate toddler compliment. But I’ve met Tanzanian mamas who still breastfeed at three and Indian mamas who are still spoon-feeding their four-year-olds. They are in no hurry for their children to gain independence.

Autonomy is not a universal value. So should we step back and evaluate it?

Slavery and the Inequality We Continue to Ignore

By Amy Medina

On January 8, 2017

In Race and Diversity

It was eerie, really. I was reading about William Wilberforce’s fight to end the British slave trade, and I just couldn’t help but think that the language sounded exactly like today’s fight to end abortion.

Wilberforce was a politician who fought hard for almost 20 years in the British parliament to end the slave trade. His primary argument was in proving the humanity of slaves. And he based that argument on biblical principles.

This ticked off a lot of people. “One of [abolition’s] most dedicated opponents, Lord Melbourne, was outraged that Wilberforce dared inflict his Christian values about slavery and human equality on British society. ‘Things have come to a pretty pass,’ he famously thundered, ‘when one should permit one’s religion to invade public life.'”

Hmmm. Sounds familiar.

Wilberforce was certain that proving the equality of every kind of human life would ensure the abolition of slaves. In one impassioned speech he proclaimed, “I have already gained for the wretched Africans the recognition of their claim to the rank of human beings, and I doubt not but the Parliament of Great Britain will no longer withhold from them the rights of human nature!” But the fight was still years away from being won.

Even non-religious doctors and scientists will readily admit that an unborn child is a human life. It’s just not a person with equal rights. However, this assertion is not based on any kind of science, because no one can agree on when a fetus becomes a person other than when that fetus suddenly becomes wanted.

Think about it: The egg is not a human life. The sperm is not a human life. But when the two form an embryo, suddenly: Human Life. In fact, that Human Life can be formed in a test tube, frozen for a couple of years, and then placed in the womb of a non-biologically related woman, and yet what will happen to that embryo? In nine months it turns into a child. So if that embryo is not a Human Life, then what is?

Sometimes people accuse Christians of caring only about eliminating abortion, but not caring about the people those babies grow up to be. Of fixating on abortion and ignoring poverty, slavery, abuse, racism, and other forms of inequality. It’s a valid accusation, no doubt. Christians need to get their act together about other social injustice issues.

However–and this is a big however–I want to make the point that caring about social justice issues, but justifying abortion–well, that’s an enormous contradiction. Because if social justice is all about caring for the voiceless and the powerless….then how is it possible to ignore those human beings who are the most voiceless and powerless?

Either all people have value, or they don’t.

Either all people are equal, or they’re not.

It shouldn’t matter what they have to contribute to society, or how poor they are, or how disabled they are, how dependent they are, or how much of an inconvenience they are.

You can’t pick and choose.

In Wilberforce’s day, there was no general agreement about the equality of human beings. In fact, Wilberforce himself had a enormous part in helping western society come to that conclusion. We owe a lot to him. If it’s a no-brainer that slavery is wrong, that has a lot to do with Wilberforce. Yet much of our society is unwilling to consider how the exact same arguments apply to abortion.

Last week, WORLD magazine reported, “The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released its final report today, calling for an overhaul to the abortion and fetal procurement industries, including defunding Planned Parenthood and a federal 20-week abortion ban.”

In the early 1800’s, Wilberforce pleaded, “Sir, the nature and the circumstances of this Trade are now laid open to us. We can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is not an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of the way, but we cannot turnaside so as to avoid seeing it. For it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences…the principles of their decision. Let not Parliament be the only body that is insensible to national justice.” (Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas)

This is Why I Am Pro-Life, Not Just Anti-Abortion

By Amy Medina

On August 6, 2015

In Other

Start with the Right Argument

Guess what? This generation, everybody knows that a fetus is a human life. Pro-Lifers need to stop thinking it’s a convincing argument against abortion.

Pro-choice advocates no longer try to convince people that a fetus is just a blob of tissue. 3-D ultrasounds fixed that notion long ago. Maybe there’s some uneducated 15-year-old girl out there who still thinks that, but not the abortion advocates.

Science has proven that life begins at conception. It’s not contested anymore.

The real question at stake today is whether the unborn child is a person. This is where the real debate begins.

“‘The question is not really about life in any biological sense,’ intones Yale professor Paul Bloom….’It is instead asking about the magical moment at which a cluster of cells becomes more than a mere physical thing.'” (***see below for source of this and all further quotations)

“Princeton ethicist Peter Singer acknowledges that ‘the life of a human begins at conception.’ But ‘the life of a person–a being with some level of self-awareness–does not begin so early.'”

If our universe has materialistic origins, then the human body is nothing more than a disposable, yet complex machine, and our personhood is a mysterious entity that is separate from the body. This split worldview began in the Enlightenment and has been subconsciously absorbed by most westerners. Our biological body can be manipulated like any other machine to match up with our unseen person. Just because a human is alive doesn’t mean he’s a person. Thus, the pregnant woman, an established person, should not have to sacrifice her well-being for the sake of a non-person, the fetus.

Ask the Right Question

Pro-Lifers….you’ve got to stop using the argument, “It’s life, so therefore it’s murder.” It’s falling on deaf ears! The real question is, “What makes a person?”

And that question, right there, is the best one to ask in an abortion discussion. Because guess what? No one really knows the answer. And that’s dangerous. “Once personhood is separated from biology, no one can agree how to define it.” It won’t just stop at unborn children.

“James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, recommended waiting until after birth [to call a baby a person] and giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether it should be allowed to live. For Singer, personhood remains a ‘gray’ area even at three years of age.”

If an unborn baby is not a person, then what about anyone who is a burden on society? What about children born with disabilities? What about terminally ill people? What about mentally ill people? What about the poor? What about the elderly? Who gets to decide who is a person with a right to life?

Why I Really Must Stick My Nose Into Other People’s Business

A political candidate’s view on abortion is, unequivocally, the most important issue for me in any election. Not because it’s the only important issue in our society, but because it’s the most vital indication of worldview. How does the candidate define a person? If he won’t defend the most vulnerable members of our society as having the right to life, then how can I be sure he will defend anyone else’s rights?

“Liberals sometimes say, ‘If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. But don’t impose your views on others.’ At first, that might sound fair. But what liberals fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like–on a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it. That’s why abortion is not merely a matter of private individuals making private choices. It is about deciding which worldview will shape our communal life together.”

What Does the Pro-Life Position Have to Offer?

The pro-life position is by far the most humanizing worldview out there. A human is a person and a person is a human. There is no dichotomy. If I become disabled, I will still be a person. If I am in a coma, I will still be a person. If I become elderly and frail with drool coming out of my mouth, I will still be a person. If I become pregnant, a new person forms inside of me with an equal value of personhood. Whether or not I choose to raise that person, he or she has a right to life.

“The pro-choice position is exclusive. It says that some people don’t measure up, don’t make the cut. They don’t qualify for the rights of personhood. By contrast, the pro-life position is inclusive. If you are a member of the human race, you’re ‘in.’ You have the dignity and status of a full member of the moral community.”

Are You Pro-Life or Just Anti-Abortion?

Listen, Pro-Lifers. This is where our passionate arguments often fall flat. It’s got to be more than a political position. It’s got to be a lifestyle. Don’t just be anti-abortion. Pro-life means pro-foster care. Pro-adoption. Pro-hospice care. Pro-Pregnancy Center. Pro-Single Mom Ministry. Pro-job training. Pro-Special Needs Ministry.

Picketing only does so much. Voting on election day only does so much. Are we just anti-abortion? Or actually Pro-Life? Are we willing to carry these “burdens to society?” We are asking women with unplanned pregnancies to make a huge sacrifice. Are we willing to walk alongside and sacrifice with them?

Ah, sweet boy, they tell us that now you know that you are getting a family, and you are so excited! We can’t wait….hopefully any day now!

***All quotations are taken from Saving Leonardo by Nancy Pearcey, who has been the most influential voice in my life on this subject. Read her brilliant book.

When You Became Mine

By Amy Medina

On March 18, 2015

In Adoption

On the day you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. (Ezekiel 16:4-5)

I find it interesting that so many people are shocked that some African women would dump their newborns into a pit latrine.

My last post quickly shot up into my #1 most-read post, with over 7000 hits. (I realize that’s small potatoes in the blog world, but it’s a lot for my tiny corner of the internet.)

It certainly was not my most inspired piece of writing. So all I can figure is that it was sensational enough to shock people into reading and sharing.

But why?

Why is it so shocking that women in Africa leave their newborns to die?

Is dumping a baby into a toilet more barbaric than jabbing a scalpel into a baby’s neck, suctioning out her brains, and crushing her skull? Or simply vacuuming her life away, piece by piece, as she struggles to get away?

After all, that’s what happened to over a million babies in America last year. Legally.

At least Tanzania has the sense to make child murder illegal.

In Tanzania, there’s not a lot of hope for unwanted babies, when adoption is so culturally unacceptable. But in America, there’s tens of thousands of couples who wait months….years….for the phone call that there’s a baby waiting for them. Yet still, we throw away a million babies a year.

Listen. My heart breaks for these mamas. I can’t imagine the despair, the hopelessness, the fear, that compels a mama to dump her newborn into a toilet pit. Or to pay money for someone to suck out her baby’s brains. I think of the 17-year-old who is terrified she’ll be kicked out of school. Or the prostitute who doesn’t see a way out. Or the desperate mama who just doesn’t know how she’ll feed one more child.

It goes against a woman’s deepest instinct to turn her back on her child. The heartache that leads her to that point must be unfathomable. Yes, Christians, let’s be known for advocating for the babies. But let’s be known for advocating for the mamas too.

But don’t just weep for the African babies who are thrown away. Weep for the American ones too–and those all over the world, for that matter. (Ironically, one of the few (only?) similarities between the United States and North Korea is that they both permit abortions past 20 weeks–two of only seven countries in the entire world that allow them.)

Yet

There is redemption for a baby lifted out of a toilet pit and given life and love.

There is redemption for the adoptive mother when that child fills empty spaces in her heart.

There is redemption for the birth mother who sacrificially gives her child a chance at life. And there’s even redemption available for the one who doesn’t.

Because in that picture, there is the reminder that we all are in the toilet pit, until the Day when we are lifted out and made Sons or Daughters.

Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field….I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. (Ezekiel 16:6, 8)