Allow
me to be frank with you. If you know me or have read my blog posts, I guess
you’d expect nothing else. I’ve been around abortion statistics quite a bit
working in the pro-life movement. Apart from the sheer number of abortions,
there is no statistic as sobering as the religious breakdown of women that have
them. Well over half of abortions are performed on women who consider
themselves Christians. “Protestants” (as I’ve said previously, this is a very
wide range of beliefs) account for 37% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholics account
for 28%. That is a combined 65% of
abortions that are performed on women who fall under the umbrella of
Christianity. Sixty-five percent.
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Sarah Mae, who was forced by her family to have an abortion at age 16 to "defend" their reputation |
“Well
not all of them are devout in their beliefs.”
Alright.
There are over a million abortions performed in the U.S. every year. Multiply
that 1.1 million by .65, we have 715,000. Divide by four – meaning I’m granting
that only a quarter of those women that consider themselves Christians are
actually practicing their faith – and we still have over 175,000.
Point
being, a solid majority of abortions are performed on women that consider
themselves Christians. (I say “consider themselves” not in judgment of these
women, but because I do not consider every branch and denomination of
Christianity Christians by the Biblical definition.) Some of these 715,000
women have to be devout, actively practicing their faith.
Our
pews are full of women, or girls, that are post-abortive. Why? Why is this such
an issue among the “most moral” of our society?
I
think it comes down to reputation. No Christian denomination condones sex
before marriage (over 80% of abortions are performed on unmarried women). But
it happens. This does not mean we give kids in church a means to do it; on the
contrary, we teach them premarital sex is wrong and give them practical advice
to avoid it. Yes, we get the argument that it’s “their nature.” Of course it’s
their nature! It’s everyone’s nature because we have a sin nature. So no, we
shouldn’t cave and just accept that they can’t overcome their hormones.
But
even so, it happens. As frequently inside churches as outside, it happens. And
the natural course of sex is pregnancy, with or without protection (especially
if you receive your “protection” from Planned Parenthood, but that is
another story).
And
what happens when Christian, unmarried women end up pregnant?

Not
a very good situation, is it?
And
so it is that so many girls and guys that have been raised pro-life and are
even disgusted by abortion suddenly find it the more appealing option. They try
to hide their sin and shame from families and fellow parishioners.
What
do we do, then? As President of CareNet Roland Warren stated, “We need to
overturn Roe v. Wade in our own pews
first.”
We
need to educate girls and boys, unfortunately at a younger age than we’d like,
about the dangers of premarital sex. The Bible has a lot to say about this, and
so too does practicality. There are many problems, even apart from pregnancy,
that premarital sex can lead to. They need to be taught the importance of
purity. This starts with a mindset. We can be against premarital sex all we
want, but no one that isn’t grounded in the Word of God and relying on Him to
deliver from temptation is going to resist that opportunity. Their relationship
with Christ is what will keep them pure, not simply a “to-don’t” list.

Children
in the churches need to be taught the value of life. Humans are created in the
image of God according to the Bible, and God places infinite value on every
individual. Evolution has become a crippling epidemic among some Christians and
even some churches, and it is teaching Christian children that human life
evolved from lower life with implications that we are simply another animal
that randomly mutated into what we have today. It’s why people
are more upset over a gorilla being killed to protect a child than they are
over something like abortion. Some
even consider an ape’s life as valuable or more valuable than a human being’s.
Legitimate
science, logic and the Bible teach otherwise. They hold human life in its
proper place. And kids need to learn when life starts – at
fertilization.
We
need to make abortion an issue in the church. Let me rephrase: abortion IS an
issue in the church – we need to acknowledge it and deal accordingly. It needs
to be condemned from the pulpit, in the Sunday School classrooms and in our
discipleship courses. As Created Equal Director Mark Harrington put it, “News
flash, American church: Jesus is against baby killing.”
When
teenagers and young adults are so worried about their reputations that they
would KILL A CHILD to protect them, we have an issue. We need to place an
emphasis on GOD’S reputation rather than our own. Abortion is a reproach to
God; the Bible
backs this up. It strikes Him directly – we are created in His image, including
preborn children. We must worry less about LOOKING right in front of church
members are worry more about BEING right before GOD.
That
way, if a couple does sin and ends up pregnant, they’ll do what is right
afterwards and carry the baby to term, rather than feeling they need to get rid
of him or her before anyone knows. The parents of the child need to step up.
Parents of the parents need to step up. Pastors, clergymen, and laymen alike
need to step up to support and forgive and work towards restoration.
![]() |
40 Days for Life has campaigns to keep constant prayer vigils in front of abortion mills. |
We
share collective guilt not just for abortion across our nation, but those that
are happening in our churches. God is not pleased, and He’s not buying the
games or the façades. I’ll reiterate: this in no way condones premarital sex.
But when there is such a focus on being squeaky clean in church that women are
even considering an abortion, there’s not just an issue with their hearts,
though there certainly is. There is also something wrong with the church and
the hearts of everyone in it.
We’re
all trying to ignore the elephant in the auditorium while we knock the broken
preborn bodies off of our usual seats. Blood flows down the aisles and we’re
concerned with how others perceive us. I guess “bear ye one another’s burdens”
doesn’t apply to us.
We’ve
all been taught that truth is truth regardless of whether one chooses to
acknowledge it. Here’s the truth:
There is a woman in your
auditorium that is post-abortive. That may have been before she was saved, or
that may have been a cover-up of her sin because of what the other women will
say about her.
There is a girl who is or
will be contemplating what to do when she becomes pregnant. She may fear too
much to tell her parents or youth pastor because of the reaction it will
illicit. She also knows that she can get an abortion, without notifying her
parents, no questions asked.
There is a child that is
already seeing images in the media, in the stores, and maybe on the internet
that are sexual. But he doesn’t know any better because his parents think that
if they don’t bring it up, or at least act like it’s wrong without stating so,
that somehow their lack of effort will suffice.
There is a congregation
that is ignorant as to what exactly abortion is, what a biblical stance on it
is, and how big of an issue it is.
There are teachers that refuse
to talk about abortion, and focus more on the commandments against sex than on
the relationship with God that will give power to follow those commandments.
So
next Sunday, bring a shovel so we can pile the torn up corpses of the preborn
in the utility room behind the stage. We wouldn’t want anything to look bad for
the service.
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a
fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something,
when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
–Galatians 6:1-3
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