AP

Upholding the Sixth Commandment without Breaking the Ninth

Like many Australian Christians, I am less aware of and less active in working against abortion than I wish to be. An extended season of raising my own children has meant I have been limited in the resources needed to lobby against legislation or directly support women who are dealing with unexpected pregnancies. I am trying to become more familiar with the work, but I am the awkward sign-holder at the Walk for Life.

I was raised by a single mother in a strained situation, and I have grown to be a mother of quite a few children. God’s word reached me in both of these positions, and he has taught me two things relevant to the abortion conversation. The first is the cost and privilege of welcoming babies, and raising them to adulthood. The second is the superlative provision given by the Father, Son and Spirit to undertake that cost.

There seems to be two main kinds of work against abortion in Australia: lobbying for (or against) legislative change; and community-based support for women who have inconvenient pregnancies. Each is done by different people with different personalities, different skills, different knowledge and different opportunities. It seems like we could benefit from more of all kinds of effort. Amid the variety, I wonder if Reformed Protestants have a distinct contribution to make. 

Several times as I’ve heard pro-life advocates speaking to crowds, their message to women considering abortion is along the lines of “You don’t have to kill your baby in order to have everything else you aspire to”. It is cousin to the worn-out message that a woman can have it all. Even many secular feminists have discovered this is not true (I remember reading Virginia Haussegger’s book, “WONDER WOMAN: The Myth of Having it All”  twenty years ago). At least, the sentiment is not true for most women. Some women do get to have children and a soaring career, but the conditions in which that can happen are not common to all women (and not necessarily good for the children and people who support those women). Everything costs, eventually.

Whatever the circumstances, motherhood is hard. Choosing life is choosing to welcome a costly blessing. It is more than a conglomeration of cost, but it is costly, nonetheless.

The pro-abortion position has an interest in amplifying the cost of having children. Disagreeing with their proposed solution (abortion) does not mean their assessment of the difficulties is entirely wrong. Their problem is a materialism which sees only the cost, with none of the gain and none of God’s provision. The pro-choice position, in principle, comes from unbelief; it has no place for the unseen God who is involved in his world. It is unimaginative and hopeless, having no prospect of surprising supernatural help. It cannot see a sovereign God who is supremely trustworthy, the God to be feared and the God who comforts.

The pro-choice position honours abortion as a necessity if a woman is to exercise sovereignty over her own body and life. To author and edit her own life, she needs to be able to include all the parts she wants (like sex) and remove all story-altering events (like babies), or at least to choreograph the arrangement of the parts to suit her own story arc. Since the Garden, humankind has been claiming authorship over all things, striving for lives self-composed and self-published. Lives without subjection to God, man or child. As long as men and women think they are lords in a hostile material world, they will want abortion as an (supposedly) easy, safe, accessible option. It is an essential editing tool.

So, what does it take to want something different, to want to do a hard, disruptive thing? Successful legislative lobbying might (hypothetically) make abortion less accessible, but more is needed for abortion to become redundant in the imaginations of men and women.

It might save some babies to say, “You can have it all! have the baby and your career!”, but from the mouth of a Christian—especially a Reformed Protestant—is that helpful in the long run, or truthful? It might appeal to the zeitgeist of self-sovereignty, self-authorship, and the supremacy of emotional fulfillment; but self-lordship is contrary to the gospel. It is the embryo of sin from which Jesus calls us to repent. Promising actualised ambition is not the answer to the abortion problem. Our pro-life message must be true. It must cohere with the gospel. It is not safe to break the ninth commandment in our attempt to uphold the sixth.

We Reformed Protestants, of all people, can afford to be honest about the difficulties, costs and sacrifices of welcoming children. We’re not meant to overstate the brilliance of life with children in order to persuade people to have them. We are to proclaim the brilliance of Christ Jesus who is brilliant in all things.

The answer to the interruption and sacrifice that motherhood brings is not to deny the fact of interrupting sacrifice, but to show and tell the stunning, generous, providential Lordship of Jesus.

I’m grateful to the men who have preached God’s strong, effective, sovereign grace to me over the years. Robust preaching by faithful pastors has dislodged my own fear and changed my imagination for persevering in the daily difficulties of being a fatherless child and (later) an overwhelmed mother. Substantial joy has come, not from life being the way I’d write it, or from how adorable my children are (and they are marvels), but from the surpassing greatness of the Lord Jesus. He’s not just lord of my heart, or lord when I let him. He is really Lord, over all things, all the time. Jesus is the Lord who has decisively dealt with my sin. Jesus is Lord of the circumstances I would not have chosen.

The men and women tempted by abortion need to know that, when we belong to Jesus, we are not alone in doing hard things. The transcendent Lord Jesus is near, God with us, by his Spirit. In the Lord Jesus, we are welcomed by the God who sees (Gen 16:13), the God who hears (Gen 21:8-21), the God who actively helps. When we come to revere the Lord Jesus, his Spirit teaches us to stop fearing frightening things. Knowing Jesus as Lord changes our imagination, even for unexpected parenthood.

Perhaps a modest step towards undermining abortion is for Christians to regain our alertness to the comforts of—and submission to—the Lordship of Jesus. Our own imaginations need to catch up with what we profess. As Christians believe, live tunefully with Jesus, and proclaim him as Lord, unbelievers hear and come to repentance. As Christians walk in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, their number multiplies. (Acts 9:31). If the Holy Spirit would revive the church’s delight and confidence in the Lordship of Jesus, if he would revive our vision of doing hard things (like welcoming and raising children), we might be better positioned to tell that life-interrupting, resurrecting truth to our neighbours who are thinking about abortion. The fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit are two truths that men and women need if they are to be persuaded to keep their unexpected pregnancies and raise their unexpected children.

As we re-learn the brilliance of the Lord Jesus, the Author and Finisher of all stories, we’ll have more of him to proclaim, then, “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:3b).

Abortion might become unthinkable.

– Catherine McKay