When “Christy” came in for her appointment at one of my pregnancy care clinics, I immediately liked her. While emotionally burdened, she was polite, transparent, and well-spoken. She was in college, lived with her parents, had a supportive boyfriend, and found herself unexpectedly pregnant. She spoke about needing an abortion quietly, with her head down. “Good,” I thought, “there’s an intact conscience here.” I asked her what challenges she was facing, and unlike many of our clients, she clearly articulated that she had none. She had everything she needed: financial security, support, a good home. She voiced that if she had gotten pregnant even one year later, she would be overjoyed, because her greatest desire was to be a mother. “AH!” I thought, “She will definitely keep her baby.”
We went into the ultrasound room and Christy was emotional throughout the exam in all the encouraging ways. She smiled while looking at her baby and asked several questions. We brought her boyfriend in from the lobby at her request, and his eyes were riveted on the screen, looking in wonder at his baby. Christy’s mom came in as well and expressed support for whatever she decided. Having made a solid connection with her throughout the appointment, I was all in during our discussion afterward, and she responded positively to what I was saying. She heard the truth about the baby growing in her womb and was challenged in love to keep her baby.
Christy had an abortion days later. I was stunned and saddened! How could it be that this woman with everything going for her, upon whom God had blessed her self-proclaimed greatest desire, just not “quite” at her ideal moment but because of her own actions, would choose to murder her own child in cold blood?
A Heart Problem
I think about Christy a lot, and not just Christy, but countless others. The broken 40-year-old woman who was pregnant after an affair, desperate for her husband not to find out. She had an abortion. The hardened, middle-aged woman, also pregnant after an affair. She didn’t care much about her husband finding out, but she also didn’t care about the child she carried. She had an abortion. The young woman who self-reported her almost unfathomably promiscuous lifestyle, and a baby would get in the way. She had an abortion. The married, church-attending woman with children who simply did not want to start over with a baby again. Despite all our appeals, she had an abortion. I could go on, but you get the idea.
The majority of the women we see in our clinics who are planning to abort all carry similar stories, and national statistics verify this pattern. I share this because if we hope to properly address this issue, we need to understand the root of the problem. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” The root of the problem is not desperation, as many in the church would like to believe. The root of the problem is not only that this massive heart-occupying evil has been dealt with slowly, but that it has simply not been dealt with at all!
We see the results plainly: hearts that are fully set to do evil. No amount of education, kindness, or free resources can rid this infection from the heart. As much as modern Americans declare that we have “progressed” morally, reality bears that we are a nation consumed by bloodlust. Despite all the historically evil regimes that we point out in horror and decry, our country largely shrugs at our own killing fields: every day more than 3,000 innocent human beings are barbarically murdered at the hands of their own parents. We have lost our conscience as a nation.
The sad truth is that the primary drivers of this horror are none other than the mothers of these precious babies. Yet the lies of feminism, the means of emotional manipulation, and the failure to acknowledge our sinful nature have caused far too many Christians to perpetually excuse women from culpability for this horrific sin. That’s what this article seeks to address.
Is Everyone a Victim?
Shockingly, much of the pro-life movement, that purports to protect human life, actually calls women the “second victims” of abortion. They assert in no uncertain terms that women who willingly abort must never face any consequences whatsoever for the murder of their babies. They see this as the “compassionate” position. “Women who abort have been tricked! Duped! Coerced! Have no other option!” But the truth is, they know full well that none of these descriptions are true in the vast majority of cases. American women are much smarter than the pro-life movement gives them credit. They are also much more intent to do evil than the pro-life movement will admit. But as a Christian movement, my question is simply, why is this?
The mainstream pro-life movement has fallen prey to the lie that the way to “win” women to Christ is by tickling their ears with largely empty platitudes, leaving no stone unturned in proving that Christians are so “nice” that we fail to call sin what it is: sin. Instead of being willing to say, “abortion is murder”, the pro-life movement says things like, “women don’t need abortion,” as if we are talking about something as inconsequential as whether a woman should get eyelash extensions. But such an approach is the antithesis of love and is completely devoid of the true Gospel. If we want to see women set free from death and made alive again in Christ, we must fully reject this anti-Christian deception and embrace the unvarnished truth.
The general definition of a victim is “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.” Based on this definition, which of the women that I described can rightly be called a victim? If they are “victims” of the abortion lobby, then surely that same logic would apply to the people within the abortion lobby. They were also victimized, tricked, and duped into believing that preborn human life isn’t valuable. Why don’t we also absolve them of all responsibility while we’re handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards?
Our societal obsession with victimhood has infiltrated the church to an alarming degree. None of us are immune to the effects of this hard-wired programming. The key priority of most Christians today, whether they will openly admit it or not, is for non-Christians to see us as “nice,” and for us to never, ever offend others by things we might do or say. But of course, these oft-unspoken-but-strictly-enforced expectations fly in the face of biblical commands. “Love your neighbor” has become a club to beat into submission anyone who has the gall to declare objective but unpopular truths, especially for anyone who advocates for biblically just laws.
If All Are Seen as Victims, None are Seen as Sinners
When it comes to abortion, the suffering and regret that many women experience for the rest of their lives often seems to be the only consideration as to whether the woman is morally responsible or not. Yet, it is objectively true that sin often produces suffering. A person is not a victim simply because they suffer as a result of sin. Should a husband who egregiously sins against his wife and children through an affair be called a “second victim” of adultery simply because he also suffers dire consequences due to his actions? Most of us would immediately and emphatically answer, “No!” Proverbs 12:10 says that “even the mercy of the wicked is cruel.”Advocating to put the victimizer in the victim’s seat is unjust and cruel. Saying to the adulterous man, “You’re a second victim of the affair,” would be a slap in the face to the true victims of his infidelity: his wife and children. Not only that, but giving him cover to label himself as a second victim—in the sinful actions he willingly engaged(!)—enables him to run away from facing the dire reality of his transgression and his need for Christ and repentance.
Declaring someone a victim absolves them of responsibility for their actions. A mass murderer may have been a victim of various crimes throughout his life, but that does not make him a second victim of the crimes he willingly committed. Most Christians would recognize the deep error of assigning a “second victim” label to a gang member who chose to shoot someone. The truly compassionate response when speaking to a murderer is not to give this person a moral “out.” The compassionate response, rather, is to lovingly help them face reality: “you murdered someone. And forgiveness for your murder can be found in Jesus Christ alone.”
For all of the declarations that women having abortions are at the very end of their rope and feel it’s their only option, what pregnancy clinic workers actually see day after day are women who have deluded themselves into believing it’s a perfectly viable option to murder the very person they should have a natural instinct to protect at all costs. Alas, if the modern American woman feels her own comfort and preferences are being the least bit threatened, then that good and natural instinct of willingness to sacrifice for her child is often quickly replaced with a cold-blooded determination to kill. The “second victim” narrative of the pro-life industry has catastrophically added to this, delaying just laws and robbing women from hearing the truth of their sin and their need for repentance so that they can be truly set free in Christ. We must work to remedy this.
In everything I’m saying, I am absolutely not advocating for a cruel coldness. As heralds of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our message should be warm, seasoned with salt, full of grace and truth. This is compassion we express every time a “Christy” walks through the doors of our clinics. Nevertheless, such compassion can never trade in half-truths. We should always seek to be kind while we love others with the truth. But remember that love and truth are never at odds, regardless of whether a person feels loved when we bring a true message.
Conclusion
The difficult truth that the church must acknowledge is that our country has become a place of endless bloodshed for millions of babies aborted every year. And more, many Christians have failed to hold their neighbors accountable, because instead of declaring abortion murder, they have created a protected class of women who kill their children and are called victims.
We have an opportunity in the days ahead as the body of Christ in America to work together for the abolition of abortion. Right now there are bills that would provide equal justice being filed in states all across this nation! If you have wanted to help but weren’t sure how you could make an impact, consider spending five minutes a day making phone calls or sending emails to state legislators who are considering hearings on any of these bills. Look up an abolitionist group in your state and contact them, finding out how you can help local efforts. There is significant progress happening and we need more willing participants in the fight to abolish abortion. It is time for the church in America to be salty again!
While there are plenty of heartbreaking outcomes in our clinics, there are overwhelming moments of joy as well. There is the woman who had an affair who chose life, confessed to and reconciled with her husband, and absolutely adores her beautiful child. Then there is the single mother who recognized her plan to abort was utterly self-serving, chose life, repented, committed her life to the Lord, and is being discipled in a local church. There is the couple who not only changed their minds and chose life for their baby, but recognized they were living outside of the will of God, committed their lives to Christ and got married. These are just a glimpse into the great things that our Lord, who is mighty to save, will do through a people ready to boldly proclaim the full truth to a world desperate to hear it.
Indeed, let us not fear the reproach of those who are looking to turn a blind eye to the sin of abortion and the murder of children. Instead, let us lovingly confront those seeking abortion and those making our laws with the whole counsel of God’s Word, including the sixth commandment. Let us forever reject the temptation of seeking to be liked for being “nice” in the eyes of the world by declaring someone not guilty that the living God has declared to be guilty. The risen Lord stands ready to forgive sin, but only when it is acknowledged as such in true repentance.
