LEARN (1/2) - Lament - Lead
Would you force a woman to have a baby even if it endangered her life?
Isn’t is compassionate to allow a terminally ill person to end their life peacefully when they only have 6 months to live?
Would you want a vulnerable, pregnant woman to be prosecuted for having a late term abortion when she needs help and care?
What about cases of rape and incest - surely an abortion is necessary then?
We let dying people die all the time by withdrawing care or not resuscitating. What is the difference in assisted dying?
These are just some of the questions that Christians - or those broadly ‘pro life’ in general - might face when speaking up within the abortion or assisted suicide debates. And none of these questions are without credibility or compassion. They all require an answer. However, answering them first is rather like trying to put the windows in on a house before it has its walls properly built: they break and dangerous fragments fly everywhere! As a result, many of us choose the path of silence or tacit agreement with the prevailing cultural winds. I want to suggest there is a better way, a more loving way and ultimately a way that better loves God and people.
Learn - Lament - Lead
Learn 1/2: the Bible
As a church we have sought to develop a deeper shared language and culture of discipleship. One of the three ‘up’ values exhorts us to learn to ‘delight in God’s Word and put it into practice’. When seeking to understand how to live as a follower or Jesus, our priority it to look ‘up’ and ask the ‘Word’ ‘who was God and was with God in the beginning’ (John 1:1-2) what he reveals. We don’t first ask ‘what do I think?’, ‘how do I feel’ or ‘what do the majority say?’ but what does God say and think as revealed in his Word. We are not the center of the universe: God is. ‘In the beginning, God’ (not me! Gen 1:1). ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28)
A study of the Bible reveals the following key truths, all of which can be expressed with grace:
Every human is endowed with inestimable value and bears the image of God
Gen 1:27 ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’
God is concerned for everyone including the most needy and vulnerable (often summed up as the alien, fatherless, widow and poor in the OT.) We are all of equal value, not because humans have evolved to form human rights (an adaptation of the Christian revolution anyway) but because our Creator says so. The unborn, the disabled, the single mother, the person dying of a terminal illness, the absent Father: each is of utmost and equal value to God, not because of their productivity, beauty or morality but because God made them and set his image upon them.
And we know just how much God cares about the taking of the life that he’s created in his image when he says to Noah in Gen 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.” The punishment is severe because the victims are precious to the God who created them.
Human life begins at conception
According to the wisdom of our Creator, life begins at conception, and every human is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13–14), crafted by the Lord in the womb and granted the glory and honor of being his image-bearers (Ps. 8:5). God knows of every life that will be conceived and pronounces it sacred: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5).
I find it fascinating that at the very heart of the Christian story - the incarnation, the nativity - is both an unwanted pregnancy for Mary and an unexpected pregnancy for her cousin, Elizabeth.
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. (Luke 1:39-41).
Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant (v36) and her baby is described as just that: a baby. Not a foetus or a clump of cells or a potentially viable life. A baby. And even before the recent abortion legislation a baby this age could be legally aborted in the UK (24 weeks). What’s more we know that brain function is present in a baby at about 6 weeks after conception and that responses to tactile sensation (skin tightening, bending, fist forming) can be observed at seven to eight weeks gestation.
To say life begins at conception is both beautifully simple and also far more logical than the current cultural assertions. For example, are we really going to say that a 16 week unborn baby is a baby if it is wanted by the parents (and therefore we should mourn miscarriage) but only a foetus or a potential life if the baby is not wanted?
Suicide vs pain alleviation
One passage jumped out to me the other day in reading 1 Sam 31 and 2 Sam 2. King Saul is badly wounded in battle and asks his armour bearer to end his life. The armour bearer refuses, ‘for he feared greatly’ (1 Sam 31:4). In case the point was in doubt, when another man claims that he did indeed end Saul’s life at his request, David has him killed for taking the life of the Lord’s annointed (2 Samuel 1:14-16). (I should add that a discussion on capital punishment is for another time!)
Furthermore, notice how when Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), Job (Job 3:21 and Jonah (Jonah 4:3-4) despair of life itself and ask God to die, they never comtemplated suicide. Suicide is a complex and sensitive issue to put it mildly. A young man jumping off a bridge with addiction and mental health frailty is clearly very different from an 85 year old woman with a terminal condition, in full control of her faculties and requesting a pain free death. However, many people in scripture find themselves in desperately dark places but not once is the taking of one’s own life endorsed. (Abimilech’s euthanasia at the hand of his armour bearer is painted as the culmination of a deplorable life, not a noble act Judges 9:54).
Paul’s paraphrased comment ‘your body is not your own, you belong to another’ (1 Cor 6:19-20) gets to the heart of the matter. A Christian stands apart from the cult of the autonomous individual and instead trusts the God who numbers their days, inhabits their body and promises them a glorious new one in eternity.
It is worth pointing out that scripture doesn’t mandate extraordinary means to extend life. The Bible teaches that God has numbered the days of our life (Psalm 139:16) and it is ultimately the Lord who gives and takes away life (Job 1:20). Humans are not called to have total control over the circumstances of our deaths (one of the leading reasons for euthanasia). We do what we can to care for the sick and suffering – and there have been huge advancements in palliative care doing just this – and entrust the timing of the death to the Lord. Indeed the Bible, in places like Prov 31:6 endorses compassionate pain alleviation.
God’s care for vulnerable women
Time and time again we see God’s compassion for those that find themselves in dark places. When Hagaar - a pregnant and desperate outsider - flees to the desert to die with her unborn son she encounters God’s loving attention and grace in such a way she is moved to say “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Gen 16:13).
Think of Sarah and Jochebed and Hannah and Rahab and Ruth and Elizabeth and Mary. God meets women who aren’t supposed to be in the centre of things, who are facing loss or infertility or exclusion or a shock pregnancy. He redeems, blesses and heals them and partners with them in his purposes with all of the dignity and honour that goes with that. In God’s economy, no pregnancy is hopeless and no situation is beyond being turned for his good, redemptive purposes. “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37).
In simple terms, for 2000 years Christians have understood their responsibilities to their Creator and Redeemer as follows:
To steward the creation entrusted to them, most especially it’s pinnacle: God’s image bearers
To understand life as that which begins at conception, is of equal value and whose days are ultimately numbered by their Creator and not by us.
To defend and uphold justice and mercy especially for the most vulnerable including the unborn and the elderly.
Christians have always sought, like Jesus, to move towards the hurting, the weak and the oppressed; to help alleviate pain, conquer injustice, bear burdens and honour the gift of life. To comfort, to mourn and to protect. Until recently they have never stood silent as vulnerable life was taken and death encouraged as a medical option.