By Randy Blackaby
The ancient prophet Isaiah, speaking of the evils of his day, described our own when he wrote, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).
What better words to describe the “pro-choice” advocates of today, who avoid admitting the evil of their bloody practices by cloaking the issue in terms of freedom, choice and the “good” to be gained by parents who don’t want the responsibility of a child to raise?
The cutting, chopping, dissection and sucking to death of tiny lives is not described for the evil that it is — murder — but in terms that generate feelings of good.
Sadly, a huge number of Americans have succumbed to this reverse logic and have become virtually blinded to reality — a reality that sees millions of infants slaughtered each year.
But those who defend such practices under the “pro-choice” banner are selective in their use of this logic.
If moral issues such as murder and sexual practice are wholly matters of individual choice, why do we hire police to protect us? If a man wants to kill us, why not be consistently pro-choice and allow him to do what he deems best for him?
If there are no righteous standards for sexuality, why do we condemn incestuous fathers and pedophiles and rapists?
This dilemma has not escaped those who would excuse the murder of infants. So, they have redefined life and tried to legally establish that a person isn’t a person until near birth. If a doctor aborts the fetus it isn’t a person, but if an angry husband punches his wife and kills the fetus, he’s guilty of murder. Pro-choice logic is nothing if not inconsistent.
Abortionists also have argued that as long as the baby is in the womb it is a part of the mother and thus within her prerogative to amputate, disembowel, or excise. The fetus is treated like a fingernail that is clipped and discarded.
But all this must be done by ignoring the fact that the baby in the womb is genetically and, in many ways, metabolically distinct from the mother. For instance, how can a male child with a different blood type being pumped by a different heart under the direction of a different brain be called a part of a woman’s body?
Also ignored in the pro-choice rhetoric is the factual difference between ability to make a choice and the right to make a choice. God has given us all the ability to make wrong choices, but the guidance to make right ones. I have the ability to choose to pick up a gun and shoot you, but I don’t have the legal or moral right.
Joshua, the successor to Moses as leader of ancient Israel, put the choice issue before his people thousands of years ago. He said, “Choose you this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The choice issue is no different today.
Moses had set a similar choice before his people, as recorded in Deuteronomy 30:19. Moses wasn’t talking about abortion, but the words are hauntingly meaningful in the abortion debate. He said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before your life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.”
Don’t be fooled by perverted terminology. Those who favor “abortion rights” need to be more concerned about choosing right than their right to choose.