Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 6 Apr 1992 10:42:49 CST
From:         CXKJP%UTXDP.bitnet@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject:      abortion
X-To:         CHRISTIA@ASUACAD.

Marty & Liz--

  Both of you expressed an interest in knowing how a Christian
could be pro-choice. Here is my perspective:

   This is a situation where there are so many wrongs going on
that to isolate one of them (abortion) is unacceptable to me.
consider a pregnant woman. she is dependant on another person
Most likely a man) because she cant get maternity leave at most
workplaces. If the man leaves her, she is in major trouble. Once
she has the child, she can go to work, but child care costs more
than she would get if she just stayed home and collected welfare.
It seems that people who vote against abortion also vote against
social programs, and educating teenagers about sex. If she is
uneducated, she will probably have several more children not
meaning to, and become more and more poor, and probably abusive
to her children, who, from lack of attention by their parent,
do poorly in school and grow up with a total lack of respect
for any authority, and thereby become juvinile delinquints.
  What if she were a teenager raised in a church? she made a
mistake, and having heard all her life how terrible it is to
be an unwed mother, and how evil abortion is, she cannot face
her community. Abortion is the the better choice because no
one will know. It may be evil, but it is better than facing
the judgement of her church and parents, who would probably
send her off to some home for misbehaving teenagers. (or so
she imagined, in her panic.)
   Now consider another woman. She was molested by several
different people as a child. As a young adult, she is date-
raped. Her church and p arents treat the incidences with
complete silence. She is advised not to bring charges on the
man who date raped her because in all probability he will get
off because there is not enough evidence. Besides, she does not
want to, she is already mortified and feeling that somehow it
is all her fault, since it is a pattern, and because no one
wants to talk about it. Later in life, she is horrified to
think that her government is debating whether or not she can
have an abortion. As a christian, she would never consider it.
But as a woman, she feels her helplessness about her body
and how here again men are taking control of her body. She
wants the right to sin. She figures if men had babies, Abortion
would not even be debated. They would get maternity leave with
pay, social assistance, and abortion on  demand. Contaception
would be free.  And sex education would abound, at home and
school.
   Other thoughts:  if children are a blessing, celibacy douses
the flame surely as abortion.
   Is abortion playing God? Genesis 3:22, God calls Adam and
Eve "like one of us."
   Is abortion murder? Exodus 21: 22-25 shows that the woman
and her fetus have different legal status.  Also Numbers
5: 5-31.

  Abortion makes me sick. But, since my sister is the second
example and I am the third, I am terrified that my uterus is
under someone elses control. I only give that control to God.
I will not protest abortion alone; I protest the whole system.
And I believe , as Kurt said, that if we take away the demand,
as as church welcome women in trouble, it would go away.
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