Today is the thirty-seventh anniversary of Roe v. Wade. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a link to get you caught up, but in short, it’s when the Supreme Court ruled “that a woman may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the ‘point at which the fetus becomes viable.’ The Court defined viability as the potential ‘to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid,’ adding that viability ‘is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.’” The court also added that, “after viability, abortion must be available when needed to protect a woman’s health, as defined in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton.”

I’ve already posted my thoughts on this subject back in May of last year (What’s More Important? – Religion Sucketh), so I don’t want to rehash them when you can just click the link are read them. But I read a post today from Jared Wilson and couldn’t resist sharing a couple points and the link to his full post – in my opinion, he nails it.

As Jared said of himself, if the government put overturning Roe v. Wade to popular vote, I’d be in line as soon as the polls opened. However, like Jared, I don’t believe legislation is the answer. Jared has a lot of great ideas, but I don’t want to just copy and paste them here because you wouldn’t have a reason to read his post. But one idea that really sticks out to me is throwing more support into crisis pregnancy centers. One popular belief as to why abortion statistics are dropping is the increase and advancement of technology. Thirty-seven years ago ultrasound wasn’t available until months into a pregnancy – now it’s available just a few weeks after conception. Women and couples are now able to see their child earlier than ever before, which makes them realize that’s not some “pre-human thing” on the screen – it’s a human child. So if technology is helping decrease abortions, why aren’t pro-life organizations and churches throwing money at crisis pregnancy centers to help them get this technology (since it isn’t cheap)?

I know when I lived in Atlanta I didn’t see one crisis pregnancy center. I know there was at least one because I had a co-worker who was doing a fundraiser for it, but the fact that I didn’t even know what part of Atlanta it was in, yet I can tell you where several Planned Parenthood offices are located is sad.

Even sadder – a friend of mine manages a crisis pregnancy center and has told me the hardest part of her job is getting support from churches. Yet I see churches all the time who donate large sums of money to political groups who claim to be the “pro-life voice in Washington”.

I’m not saying it should be either/or, but I’ve actually heard lay-people argue that legislation is the only option – that abortion reduction is an “admission of defeat”. Ten years ago, George W. Bush ran on a platform which included ending abortion (unless the mother’s health is in danger). Ten years later NOTHING has changed in legislation.

Anyways, this is getting a bit long, so here’s the links for Jared Wilson’s post, my original post and a post by ChurchRelevance.com.

A Missional Way For the Pro-Life Passion – Jared Wilson

What’s More Important? – Religion Sucketh

Abortion Statistics Are Changing – Church Relevance

There’s a really cool site you should check out called ChurchRelevance.com and Tuesday they posted an article called “Abortion Statistics Are Changing”. Basically it stated that according to Gallup 51% of Americans now consider themselves to be pro-life and 42% consider themselves to be pro-choice (I guess the other 7% are undecided).

Anyways, the article goes on to compare the traditional Christian solution to abortion with newer, more holistic solutions.

Just to be clear, the traditional Christian viewpoint is that the shedding of innocent blood is a sin, therefore abortion is a sin and the only way to decrease abortions is to make abortion illegal. For many Christians there is no alternative – it’s either all or nothing. Abortion must be illegal and they’ll do whatever it takes to make it illegal.

As the article quotes Donald Miller, “It’s a great bit of idealism. But it is a pipedream, and I think we need to face that now twenty years in. We need to face that, and we need to be able to work together to come up with other solutions. And so many people will disagree with that. They will say, ‘No, we have to win a moral victory,’ and actually, the moral victory will cost many, many lives.” It’s this point that really stood out to me. The rest of the article is very good and you should read it for yourself, but I want to use my blog to expand upon Miller’s statement.

Making abortion illegal, as Donald Miller pointed out, while being the ideal solution it is highly unlikely. The pro-life side may “winning the fight” at the moment, but not by much. I mean, we’re not talking about a landslide here – two years from now another poll may show those numbers have flipped. Now, I’m not saying Christians should give up the legislative fight, but to rely on it as a means of ending abortion is a pipe-dream.

I grew up in a church that was a leader in the local Right To Life movement. If there was a rally, we were hosting it. If there was a march through downtown or midtown, we were leading it. If there was a telethon on the local Christian TV station, our pastor was the co-host. I remember being so excited as a child when I got my first box of tithe envelopes and it even had a section titled “Anti-abortion” where you could designate funds. Where did those funds go? That’s a good question. Same for the funds raised at pro-life rallies, marches and telethons. What’s worse, just after the political conventions of 2000 (the year I turned 18, so it was my first time to vote) my church hosted a pro-life rally where, if you gave to support the Right To Life group that was represented you received a bumper sticker that read “I Vote Pro Life!”. Don’t misunderstand – I believe abortion is a sin and that it is my responsibility to keep that in mind when deciding on who to vote for. And many people voted for Bush because of his unashamed pro-life stance. But what happened to the money that was collected that night? It ended up in Baton Rouge and Washington, D.C.

Nine years later, what has changed?

Some will say, “But we’ve kept partial-birth abortion from being legalized”; I won’t argue that (even though President Obama has already stated he does not support partial-birth abortion, so I doubt we have anything to worry about for at least the next few years). But here’s my point: we’ve spent billions of dollars trying to make abortion illegal, yet there is still an average of 2,000 abortions performed daily in the United States. Think of it this way: many pro-life organizations like to use words like fight, battle and war when talking about their cause. They say things like, “We’re fighting to end abortion” or “We’re in a war with the liberals”. So let’s look at this from a military standpoint. The pro-life movement loses an average of 2,000 people per day to “the war”. Pro-choice supporters lose nothing. Zero.

Doesn’t sound like we’re winning when you look at it that way, does it?

But what if there were a better way? The world has Planned Parenthood; what if there were faith based organizations that, instead of offering abortion assistance, offered financial assistance, counseling and even adoption assistance? There are some ministries that offer these services, but they are few and far between (definitely not as widespread as Planned Parenthood). Life Choices is a great example in the Monroe area. Sadly, they’re the only example in Northeast Louisiana.

Better yet, why doesn’t the church do it’s job and offer assistance? I realize most churches cannot handle operating a full service crisis pregnancy center, but they can support ministries such as Life Choices or even pool together with other area churches to start a joint effort crisis pregnancy center if one is not in existence. Oh, wait, that means churches would have to work together. Ooops.

All I’m saying is we’re spending billions of dollars on a stalemate. Why not use that money to offer a viable alternative to abortion?

A recent report showed that 25% of women who had an abortion did so because they wanted to postpone child bearing and another 2% because of the mother’s health. The other 73% got abortions for reasons such as low income, fear of family reaction, religious shame, relationship problems, age and convenience (career women). What if those 73% had assistance from the church and ministries such as Life Choices? Will Life Choices and others like them end abortion? No, but they’ll get us a hell of a lot closer than we are today.

So what’s more important – winning an argument or saving babies?