Snapshot
👀: Original post.
My Dear Friend,
I want to announce publicly today that I am pro life and pro choice. Yes, that’s right. You’re eyes aren’t deceiving you. I’m for the inviolable sanctity of life and I’m also for full freedom of choice.
Before you click off this message, or send me to the ministerial gallows as chief of compromisers, let me explain my strange declaration.
First, let’s address life. Life is the most precious thing in this world. It is a gift of God, it is fragile, and it is to be valued, nurtured, developed, and protected in every case, and neglected or harmed in none. My third grandson, Samuel Bostick Hinnant (pictured), was born only days ago, so this is fresh on my mind and in my emotions.
Nothing could be more vulnerable than a baby fresh from the womb. He (or she) must have milk, caressing, and intensive cleaning (diaper changes). He must also be protected - from falling, from accidents, from extreme temperatures, from animals, from smothering under his pillow, and, yes, from curious, grasping, 1- and 4-year-old brothers desperate to “touch the baby!” If not given intensive round-the-clock care, a baby will not survive.
When a mature human life is intentionally taken, we call it homicide and prosecute the heinous crime to the full extent of the law. When a newborn just released from the womb is intentionally left to die, the parents are charged and prosecuted without a trace of public sympathy. (Romans regularly exposed unwanted children and Christians regularly saved and raised them!) No one waves banners saying, “It’s my newborn, I can kill it if I wish!”
Isn’t it odd, then, that when it comes to abortion - the intentional killing of a baby inside the womb, everything seems so different to so many. Then, they say, “It’s my body, I’ll do as I choose!” And the baby - the most innocent form of human life - has no say, no rights, and, sadly, often no pity. If the empowered, post-modern mother feels she can’t handle the baby, it must die! Legally! With the full, assistance of medical professionals! And she must bear no health risks while destroying the health of the fetus! So it has been for fifty years now, since the US Supreme Court’s infamous Roe vs. Wade decision. Fifty years and 63,459,781 murders later, the river of innocent blood is still flowing from America’s altar of child sacrifice. And insatiable demonic, anti-lifers are rioting to shed more blood as I write!
Now that you know why I’m for life, let me explain why I am also for choice.
Every woman has a choice of having reproductive sex with a viral man. She may say yes or no. If the man violates her will and body, we call it rape and prosecute the man to the full extent of the law. I stand by this legal right of a woman to say no and am therefore pro choice.
Every woman has a right, if she so chooses, to use contraceptive devices of some kind. (The morality or biblicality of birth control is not at issue here, only its legality.) She may say yes or no. If she says yes, she prevents the pregnancy and conception of new life. Thus, the question to birth or abort never arises. I support a woman’s legal right to choose this.
If a woman decides to proceed with reproductive sexual activity without contraception, that too is her conscious moral decision. It’s her body, not someone else’s, and her decision alone to make. Here, too, I am in favor of a woman’s legal right to choose.
If the woman consequently becomes pregnant, she again has her options. She may choose to have her baby and raise him. Or if, for various reasons, she is unable or unwilling to raise the child, she may give up her baby to adoption. There are many Christian ministries eagerly waiting to help pregnant women who chose adoption. And I also support a woman’s right to choose adoption.
But here a woman’s right to choose ends and a fetus' right to life begins. It is a crucial intersection of conflicting human rights we must understand and navigate morally.
If a pregnant woman chooses abortion, she chooses murder. She is stopping a heartbeat, refusing a living soul entrance to life, and saturating her conscience in the blood of the innocents. And her choice alone has done this to her baby. And to her! Post-abortion guilt is unavoidable, rampant, overwhelming, and can be suicidal. Her pro-choice insistence has left her no choice but depression.
But if after the crime, the woman becomes grief-stricken, and acknowledges the obvious - that her abortion was murder - she has one more choice she may make: death or life.
She may choose to harden her heart, stifle her conscience, continue justifying her unjustifiable feticide and adamantly assert her selfish rights the rest of her life. I support a woman’s legal right to this choice, though it is a profoundly wrong, egregiously damaging, and unquestionably immoral choice. And one of eternal consequence. There will be no murderers in heaven.
But the God of grace and free will offers her another option. The same distraught woman may choose to come to the Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, whose blood was shed 2,000 years ago to wash away the blood [guilt and shame] of all our sins, including abortion, and robe us, cleansed in conscience and conduct, in the pristine, white robes of His righteousness.
This is the pro-life choice open to every villain-turned-victim of the pro-choice craze. And it, too, is also of eternal consequence. Jesus has forgiven, cleansed, and given a new life, fresh start, and meaningful destiny to many penitent murderers and stands ready to do so again - if the penitent abortionist will only follow her wrong choice with the right choice. Heaven’s gates stand open to receive her at life’s end if she does. And the church’s doors stand open now to receive her and help her learn to live ever closer to the Life Incarnate.
So, there it is. The issue is settled and question answered. I am for life. And I am for choice. May this piece help some troubled, confused, or convicted soul support choice and life - by choosing to not have an abortion. Or, if the deed is done, by repenting and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, and thereafter living the wonderful new life He planned for her to live in Him before He created this world.
For life, for choice,
Greg Hinnant
