It's the silly season again. Election time. Negative ads. Sloganeering. Sound bites. Single issue voters. Fundraisers. Push-Pull polls. Pontificating pundits. Charges and counter charges. Yard signs. Position papers. Information glut. Misinformation glut. Fried brains.
One perennial issue, common to most elections, looms large again this year (at least in some sectors of the electorate.) Pro-life vs Pro-Choice.
I don't propose to elaborate on the relative merits of either position. Let's just say that I see some justification for both.
Me? I think I can say that I fall into the Pro-life camp. Now, this does not necessarily mean I am anti-abortion per se. I have been thinking about whether it is possible to be anti-abortion but not pro-life. I believe that it is possible, if one takes a pro-life political stance. In politics, stand alone issues abound, and this is just one of many. It is not really inconsistent to be politically opposed to abortion and support capital punishment and preemptive war. Politically, these are separate issues.
But, if one is pro-life from a Christian perspective, pro-life cannot be broken down into its respective parts. Life is more than a few cells inside a mother's womb or a full-term infant in the birth canal. Life in all its fullness is not merely a biological state of being. Life is the second greatest gift of our Creator, and from what I read in scripture, it is much more than biology. We were called to be stewards of this gift; to tend it, to protect it, to nurture it.
So a Christian is called to live a pro-life life. What does this life look like? What does it entail?
Good question. They way I see it, a Christian pro-lifer would work to eliminate the need for abortion;work to alleviate the situations which force women to make this choice. He/she would work to prevent state sanctioned killing and preemptive war. He/she would insist on quality pre- and post-natal care for mothers and their children. He/she would work to see that everyone had sufficient (and good) food to eat. He/she would help provide the means to provide clean water to those without. He/she would oppose policies that valued money over people. He/she would insist on quality education for all children. The list goes on and on. Are there any limits to this? I don't know. I haven't been able to find where the pro-life life stops.
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