While I was in high school, I knew girls who'd gone to Mexico to have abortions, and several who had serious complications. At this time, I was not sexually active, but I knew that if I ever became pregnant, I would not have an abortion. I'm not sure why I felt what was wrong for me was right for others. I just knew I would never have an abortion.
At the time, I didn't understand what conception really meant other than the sperm met the egg and something happened. I basically thought it was a lot of blood and tissue and nothing more. Also at that time, the church I became involved with did not take a stand on abortion because they preached karma. It was the "karma" of the fetus that ended it's life. How sad is that?
In 1973, I was 19 when Roe V. Wade passed into law. I thought it was a woman's right to decide if she wanted to have a child and I supported Roe V. Wade. Now, this was during the bra-burning era when women were fighting for their rights. I wasn't very experienced with woman's rights, but it seemed, since I was a woman, I should go along with it--and I did hate bras.
A legal abortion seemed a better solution than going to Mexico, but (harsher still) I was of the opinion women who became pregnant with an unwanted child weren't very smart women...and well, I didn't want children running around from people who weren't very smart. Unwanted children shouldn't be born, I thought, since they'd just grow up being unloved and in some kind of horrible situation, advance to criminals, likely at the tax payers expense.
My opinion about abortion changed a little when it became obvious I couldn't conceive a child. I thought quite a bit about the unwanted babies that friends had aborted. Still, I continued to believe in Roe V. Wade, and I continued to accept that the courts had no say in what a woman did with her body.
When I finally became pregnant with my only child, that blood and tissue growing inside was very precious, indeed. Still, I supported abortion, and even made crass remarks about women carrying to term a child that was defective, or having "more" when they couldn't afford them. My Eastern religion church continued to take the stand that abortion was a karmic event, and that we should not take a stand on either side.
I would like to think I've always had my own mind, but that's not true. I thought I had my own mind, but it was on loan to popular culture.
When I became a Christian, I didn't have a revelation about Roe V. Wade. I still didn't want to take a stand. I knew I couldn't agree with the methods "right to lifers" conducted themselves at abortion clinics, nor did I want to side with groups that committed violence against abortion doctors. Neither was I comfortable with the way Planned Parenthood managed their affairs, paid for through government monies.
I continued to sit on the fence and struggled with the government being involved with our health issues. Is abortion a "health issue?" For a 13 year old, yes. For a 21 year old, no.
I had girlfriends who would talked up their abortions without any emotions or regrets. One woman bragged she'd had several. I remember cringing through these conversations, even though I continued to support choice.
Now, I realize, the holy spirit was at work. A fetus is a human being.
Abortion is a safe and legal way to murder an unborn child. I'm taking a stand, right now, here.
So, what changed the mind of this enlightened one? As I grew older I became less indulgent, since liberal ideas seem idealistic. The free thinking ideas which I once believed...never happened. Looking at the world in 1964 and looking at in 2009, doesn't seem too different. People are still arguing over the same things, though en mass, thank you Internet, and wars continue, there's so very little peace.
I could post many references in the Bible that refers to life, but I'll let you do your own homework. God thinks life is precious and He cares about every hair on our heads. But even if you don't believe in God, you have to agree that the fetus's they abort (pictures above) are little human beings. After all these years, a picture told a story to me for which nothing else could.
We must pray for the women who made the decisions to have abortions, and never condemn them but show mercy. Surely it was not an easy procedure to endure and somewhere throughout life they might wonder, "what if." We must pray for those who rush women through the process of having an abortion without sharing with them photos of babies who are just 8 weeks old inside their womb, such as these above, or who refer to it as a choice rather than a life.
Finally we must pray for the new souls lost when they should have been protected in their mother's wombs. Though they may have been unwanted here, they are not unwanted in heaven. That is where they are restored and cared for by awaiting arms of angels.
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