ARCHIVE: Christians only PLEASE - abortion

[Dee Dee Warren]

That has been brought up to me before, but no, it is not something that I think is for me in this situation... thank you so much for the suggestion though. I have this idea that God has already named them for me. On another note... is Yx alright?? Ever since he was sick that one time, whenever he is not as active as usual on TOL, I get concerned... plus as usual he has ignored my email asking how he was doing. If he is fine, put a hurting on him so he feels bad

 

[agapathos]

Originally posted by Dee Dee Warren
Dear Jefferson:

To answer your question, that would be to focus on the personhood and humanity of the baby

Dee Dee,

I have just realized that some good has come from your pain. Your two little kids must be proud of their mom.

The response you gave Jefferson is the one that all of the clinic-bombing and -blockading activists need to hear.

I have long agonized over the plight of the unborn and often prayed--though, to my everlasting shame, not unceasingly--for an end to abortion (and not just its being legal). However, I felt completely powerless because the only avenues that appeared open were shaming (with posters of aborted fetuses), blockading (with our own prostrate bodies) and bumping off abortionists, which is the most hypocritical thing an abortion-is-murder-and-therefore-wrong proponent can do.

You have shown me a new way, as only a woman who had endured the passage from mother-who-had-an-abortion to Christian-who-was-an-almostmother-in-another-life could. Our focus (on the selfishness of the woman) was wrong and it took you and your painful past to teach us that.

Preach it, Mama! Tell the story!

 

[Jefferson]

Originally posted by agapathos
The response you gave Jefferson is the one that all of the clinic-bombing and -blockading activists need to hear.

You apparently didn't read Dee Dee's post very closely. I think she agrees with my methods. She wrote:

To answer your question, that would be to focus on the personhood and humanity of the baby.

That is exactly what my graphic pictures do. They focus on the personhood and humanity of the baby.

agapathos wrote:

However, I felt completely powerless because the only avenues that appeared open were shaming (with posters of aborted fetuses)

Again, I think Dee Dee disagrees with your attitude because in her opening post, speaking of women who abort, she wrote, "Who cares if they feel bad or not?"

blockading (with our own prostrate bodies)

What is so horrible about that method? I think it's great.

 

[agapathos]

Originally posted by Jefferson

You apparently didn't read Dee Dee's post very closely. I think she agrees with my methods.

No, Jefferson. I don't think she does. If any doubt exists about this, I think we should both defer to the source. Dee Dee?

That is exactly what my graphic pictures do. They focus on the personhood and humanity of the baby.

Again: no, Jefferson. They depict the personhood and humanity of the baby. Your approach--presenting them to young women who have decided to abort their own babies--focuses on shaming them for their selfish behavior, precisely what Dee Dee decried in her post.

Again, I think Dee Dee disagrees with your attitude because in her opening post, speaking of women who abort, she wrote, "Who cares if they feel bad or not?"

It was a rhetorical question. She was implying that the activists and demonstrators do not care how the women feel. For this reason, she characterizes as hypocrites all who suggest to them that they will be "sorry" if they abort their children.

What is so horrible about that method? I think it's great.

I didn't say it is "horrible". I merely stated that no other avenues appeared open to me. Since you ask, however, I don't think it to be "horrible". I think it to be, as Dee Dee suggested in her post, ineffectual. Trying to prevent women from having abortions by force--whether of arms or of prostrate bodies (which it would prove dangerous for pregnant women to try to step over)--will likely never succeed because the focus is wrong and dishonest. That is what Dee Dee said. I think, rather, that sending them gifts of booties, onesies, and other layette items would give them pause to reflect on what they were contemplating the destruction of.

Dee Dee, if I misunderstood your post, I am sorry. However, this is what I understood you to mean.

agapathos

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hi Everyone.. I guess then I will clear the air on what I do think... and it is a little bit of both. It is so easy to be misunderstood on forums..... so I hope I am not misunderstood.

Jefferson is right in this. I don't disagree with the display of the graphic pictures, because the graphic pictures are the reality. They are real pictures of real human beings who are really murdered. In fact, in the same way that I said that I feel that my denying my two children ever existed, it is like murdering them all over again, in denying the reality of what happens to these people, and prefering to be "decent" and not show it, we are accomplices in a sense. How can anyone look at those body parts and not be moved by the humanity of the baby?? So, to be honest, I do have a real problem with the objections to showing those pictures. I think every woman who is about to kill her baby needs to see those pictures so that she can see what she is about to do to another human being. In short, I don't object to shame or shock.

However, like I said how I was involved in abortion clinic defense before, I have not been involved in abortion clinic protests since. Why? Right or wrong, I don't want to be classed in with the nuts that shoot doctors and bomb clinics. Unfortunately that also is a reality and that is where I think agapathos is coming from, and i agree with her there.

On the other hand, I do agree with blockading clinics with our prostate bodies. That is the heart and core of civil disobedience. I am too cowardly to have yet to do it myself. Perhaps I will (also my husband would not approve so I have to balance competing interests).

I never meant to suggests that the protestors were hypocrites. I admire the true abortion protestors (the non-loonies who are peacefully exercising their rights).

Jefferson did in fact have it right what I meant by the focus on the selfishness of the woman. I am opposed to the current politically-correct methods of just telling the woman that they should not do this because they will regret it. Whether or not they will regret it is irrelevant. Until I became a Christian, I did not regret it, and was planning on having a third one if it ever became necessary. It is wrong irregardless if anyone ever feels bad about it.

This was kind of disjointed... and I apologize for that.

 

[firechyld]

Just out of my own curiousity... these places that are blockaded, do they perform services other than pregnancy terminations? Everyone always seems to be ranting about "stopping people entering abortion clinics". Are they places dedicated to terminations only?

firechyld

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear Fire.. please don't be offended, but I would really like to keep this discussion thread between Christians. Thank so much for your courtesy in that.

 

[firechyld]

Sorry about that... I honestly didn't mean to steer the conversation off course. My question was based on the fact that these facilities don't seem to exist in this country and I was curious. If yourself or anyone else would like to answer my question, please feel free to do so in PM. Would you like me to delete my original query?

As for the between Christians thing: completely your call. My earlier expression of sympathy is still valid, and I'll back out of your discussion now.

(Have you considered having this thread moved to the Exclusively Christian Forum?)

Again, my apologies. Be well.

firechyld

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear FC:

Thank you and no need to delete any comments. I did not post this is the Exclusively Christian Forum as that is more for strictly theological questions and this was more for fellowship and sharing amongst Christians, and this Forum is just plain more popular right now. I also knew that everyone would honor my request to keep it among Christians as you are kindly doing. Thank you again.

 

[firechyld]

No probs. I'll be over there in the corner when I'm allowed to talk to people again. (j/k)

*grin*

 

[agapathos]

Originally posted by Dee Dee Warren
Jefferson is right in this. I don't disagree with the display of the graphic pictures, because the graphic pictures are the reality.

Oops! I stand corrected.

Right or wrong, I don't want to be classed in with the nuts that shoot doctors and bomb clinics. Unfortunately that also is a reality and that is where I think agapathos is coming from, and i agree with her there.

Oh, and DD? I'm a 'him'.

agapathos

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Dee Dee, this must have been a very difficult thread for you to start (understatement of the year).

I actually think your perspective on this issue is right on target.

You are indeed a new creation and your sins are forgiven however that does not magically take away the feelings you must have, it also does not take away your responsibility to warn others of their wicked actions.

I do not think "closure" is a good idea as some have suggested.

The apostle Paul never put "closure" to the sins he had committed before he was converted. Instead Paul used his sinful past as a witness for Christ and what Christ can do for the wicked.

Therefore, I think that God is calling you to.....

2Timothy 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

1Timothy 5:20 Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.

Titus 1:13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

Titus 2:15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

I will pray for your boldness and your comfort on this issue.

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear Agapathos:

My bad. I am sorry for assuming you were a she.

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear Knight:

Thank you for your support and affirmation that I am thinking on the right track with this. I also agree that "closure" is not the best avenue... for in the sense in which I think it was meant here, I already have that. It is a "put away" issue as far as forgiveness and condemnation are concerned... but the question is, where do we do from here?? Paul never certainly "forgot" his earlier deeds, though he certainly recongized that he was forgiven. In fact, I am certain that Stephen was very often before his eyes and helped to motivate him to understand the depth of his debt to Christ.

 

[agapathos]

Originally posted by Dee Dee Warren
Dear Agapathos:

My bad. I am sorry for assuming you were a she.

Dee Dee,

Actually, I'm flattered that you thought I was a woman. It tells me (whether or not that was your intent) that you find my perspectives on 'women's issues' to be the sort that women themselves might entertain.


That in turn strokes my ego regarding my status as a 'sensitive male' who takes time to 'nurture (his) feminine side'.

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

LOLOLOL... happy to oblige!!

 

[Pilgrimagain]

Dee Dee: Right on sister.

 

[HerodionRomulus]

DD

DD

i can only echo the encouragement and support others have shown already.

I would like to share one little tidbit with you though.

You mentioned focusing on the personhood of the unborn.

One of the popular phrases of the pro-choice side is to say that it is a woman's body and she has a right to do with it as she will.
But
What about the not-yet-born child? Doesn't s/he have a right to control over his/her own self/body?

Be blessed in Jesus Christ.

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear HR:

You are absolutely right. The "child" is not part of the women's body of course, but the more sophisticated pro-abortion argument will say that the woman has the right to determine whether or not she will be a life support system and whether we can legally say that she must. This of course though begs the question. The question that first must be answered is this... is abortion the murder of another human being? If it is not, the entire question is moot. If it is (and of course it is), it is then that we must determine what rights have priority over other rights.

For example, I have a right to the pursuit of happiness. However, I cannot kill you even if it makes me happy to do so. A woman does have a right to control the use of her body, but it does not trump the child's right to life in the totality of the circumstances of pregnancy. All of our laws balance competing interests and demonstrate an inuitive "hierarchy of morals" which is absolutely not relativism despite Hank's attempt to make it so on the "Lying is Never Righteous" thread which I will summarily dispatch in due time.

 

[Dee Dee Warren]

And this may step on some toes, but another area where we Christians go terribly wrong is when we personally support an "exception" in cases of rape. Let me explain why I see it this way.

When I was a zealous pro-abortion advociate, I seized upon this mindset upon Christians (I am saying that what follows is all necessarily true, I am saying how it appeared to me back then - so don't take some of this comments as my current pov). I pointed out that this exception may unwittingly reveal at least some of some of the underlying reasons for opposition to abortion, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged baby, but everything to do with the behavior of the mother and prudish attitudes towards sexuality. To me, it seemed like this exception revealed that if a girl was "good" and chaste and was doing everything she could to remain pure but was violated against her will, then she was entitled to have an abortion. However, not so for bad, bad girls who chose to have sex (particularly outside of marriage). No abortions for the bad girls, they made their beds, and they must lie in it.

You see, there is no difference between a baby conceived by rape, and a baby conceived by consensual sex. They are both fully human, and are both fully murdered by the act of abortion. We believe as Christians in the Biblical principle that our justice systems should not put the sons to death for the sins of the father... why do some of us then accept the murder of infants for the sins of their father?? I know we think we are acting out of compassion, but it is misdirected compassion. I personally know a Christian woman who was raped and got pregnant. She bore the child and adoptive parents were found. Was it painful, yes? We weren't promised lives without pain. Our pain does not give us the right to murder another human being.