"I used to be Pro-Choice"

by Tom Eads

I used to be "pro-choice". At no time do I ever remember thinking that abortion is "good", but I also didn't believe that we should take away the woman's "right" to make whatever decision she wanted to make.
Actually, I didn't spend much time thinking about abortion at all. I had too many other "important" things going on in my life to spend much time contemplating a tiny fetus, a woman who doesn't want the baby, and whether ending the pregnancy should be legal. After all, I thought, it IS legal, so there must be some really good reasons for it being legal.

I had heard the pro-choice arguments, and they seemed pretty straightforward and simple: "People may disagree about when life begins, but this is a free country and we should not infringe on the rights and freedoms of a woman to decide in what is really a private matter that involves her own body." These arguments had a ring to them that were easy to grasp. There was no need to debate, think, analyze, or prove anything about the fetus, the fact was that we are a country of freedoms and this is one freedom that belongs to a woman.
I had no desire to go any further in my mind on this issue of abortion. It wasn't important to me. It didn't affect me, either. It affected "fetuses" and "embryos" and "tissue" and "zygotes". Plus, I am a man, which doubly made this issue irrelevant to me. "Pro-choice" for me was a way to not really be involved in the whole affair and at the same time to stand for freedoms.

If you were to ask me what I thought about abortion on a personal level, I would say that I would certainly not encourage my girlfriend or wife to do it because there was something about the procedure that seemed...."wrong". I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but when I thought of my girlfriend or wife having an abortion it scared me. I had feelings of shame and fear of future regrets. These thoughts were enough to cause me to declare that I wouldn't want my girlfriend or wife to have one. But when it came down to making a declaration on what I thought others should do, that left the realm of my personal world and involved "other people".

But, something miraculous happened in my life on June 4, 1999. That was the day that I decided to live my life for God. I realized that I had used my brains to further MY agenda and MY desires. I realized that didn't get me very far, and in the end it would send me to hell. What a horrible realization! I finally saw that life is short, God is All-Powerful, and I am selfish! Thankfully Jesus died to pay for all the sins I had committed against other people and against God. When I gave my life to Jesus my life was completely changed---for the better! [You can read the details of how I came to know Jesus here] One thing that changed was my thinking....

The Bible talks about people like me when it says, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile..." [Romans 1:21] My thinking before I knew Jesus was futile. I thought I was pretty smart, but now I know that there is a difference between earthly "smarts" and godly "smarts". A mind that is grateful to God, has accepted His free gift of Jesus, and lives for Him will be able to see things much clearer than before. A mind that is hostile to God [usually by just ignoring Him], hasn't accepted His free gift, and lives for itself is clouded in its thinking. This "earthly mind" is so clouded that it doesn't even think it is clouded!

When I gave my mind and heart to Jesus, my mind was "transformed and renewed" [Romans 12:2] I could suddenly see things much clearer than before.

With regards to abortion I could suddenly see these facts clearly:

1) If it is wrong for me to advocate my girlfriend to abort a baby, why would it be OK for someone else to do it?

2) If abortion is actually the killing of a human being, then why is it OK to abort a 28 week baby, but not OK to kill a baby born prematurely at 28 weeks?

3) If a fetus is a human being, then why isn't it legally protected like all other human beings?

4) If the issue is a woman's choice, then shouldn't she also have the choice to "terminate" her newborn baby if she wants to? What is the real difference between a 40 week newborn and a 38 week late-term "fetus"?

5) Isn't abortion just another way that society can get rid of its unwanted? If we allow abortion, then we should allow euthanasia [killing of the elderly and terminally ill], doctor-assisted suicide, and infanticide. If we allow abortion, then why is suicide illegal? Isn't it all just a matter of "choice"?

Today I am proud to say that I am pro-life. I am pro-life in all its forms: the unborn, the newborn, the severely handicapped, the person in a "vegetative state", the elderly, the "terminally ill", all of them. We all bear God's stamp of IMAGE BEARER. I will not treat shamefully what God has called, "In My likeness".

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