Selfish Sacrifices; Overcoming the Spirit of Abortion

Between and , the rate fell from to 42, as rates of modern contraceptive use increased Marston and Cleland Now, we have to be a little careful here because the studies do not allow us to determine the use of abortifacient contraception, so it may well be that many abortions are now hidden.

Nonetheless, it seems fair to say that contraception has had something to do with reducing rates of abortion in Russia. This, then, I would not deny: But this really is in extreme cases because the rate of abortion in Russia and other Soviet bloc countries was far higher than in other parts of Europe. To put this in perspective, the rate in England and Wales was 21 per 1, women of child-bearing age for Johnston So the rate in Russia was, at its peak, eight times higher than this, and is still double the rate of most Western countries.

Russia, in the latter part of the Soviet era, was a culture in which the accepted standard form of family planning was abortion, and a country in which there was little or no cultural opposition to this. It is an extreme case rather than a typical case. Studies in other countries seem to show a different relationship between contraception and abortion. This represents an increase from 5. Something similar can be seen in England and Wales, in which the use of contraception increased significantly among sexually active unmarried women between and from 26 to 97 percent the use among married woman was already at saturation point , and this paralleled a similar increase in abortion from 8.

Then again, in another study—this time in Turkey—we observe yet another pattern Senlet et al. When abortion and contraception are liberalized, we see a sharp increase in both contraceptive use and abortions. This seems to follow the Spanish and British models. After a time, contraceptive use becomes saturated though not ubiquitous there will always be men and women in any society who do not use it.

Once this level of use is attained, the abortion rate begins to drop, returning to somewhat above its initial pre-liberalization level. In these three cases Spain, UK, and Turkey , we observe a hand-in-hand increase in the use of contraception and the rate of abortion. The most plausible explanation for this is that both phenomena reflect a change in attitude toward sex and babies. Supported by the increased use of contraception, extra-marital sex is becoming more prevalent, and women are orientated more and more to smaller family sizes: Certainly, in the case of Turkey the abortion rate drops once contraception use saturates, but it never returns to where it began, rather it levels off at a rate that represents an overall 40 percent increase in abortions.

The conclusion I would draw from this data is, therefore, the following. There is no convincing way of arguing that contraception is a panacea for abortion. Even if the extremes of Soviet Russia can be clipped, there appears to be in other situations a positive correlation between contraceptive use and abortions built upon the fact that contraception is an important element in changes in cultural attitudes, especially the attitude toward sex.

To put this another way: The overall result of this is that, far from liberating a culture from the scourge of abortion, contraception engrains, and entrenches this practice into a culture that accepts it. Let us be clear, even if contraception were a solution for abortion, we would be forced to oppose it as an immoral solution. But the fact is, it is not even an immoral solution: I cannot, therefore, concur with the thinking of the aforementioned British statement. Rather, it seems right that I turn to the wisdom of a Polish pope who noted that. John Paul II , n. My goal, then, is to understand what the late pontiff meant when he made this statement because he clearly believed that there is a profound connection between these two phenomena.

In order to do this, we need now to move from facts to ideas. When the secular world thinks of contraception as a game-changer, it perhaps has in mind categories like giving women power over their bodies. However, the game-changing nature of contraception goes far beyond this. The dictionary says that a game-changer effects a significant shift in ways of thinking. I wish now to develop this point. Contraception changes the way we think about very fundamental realities, because contraception changes attitudes to sex, to life, to science, to the human person, and to morality. Anyone of these might have a significant impact on a society in terms of promoting a culture of death: The most fundamental reason why contraception fosters abortion is that contraception changes the meaning of sex, and not just in this or that act of sexual intercourse, but in the consciousness of whole cultures.

I have already touched upon this in commenting on the reason for the hand-in-hand growth of contraceptive use and abortion rates in the two case studies mentioned above: The key point is that contraception uncouples in the mind of the individual who accepts it as normal behavior the relationship of sexual intercourse to babies and to life-long commitment: Trivial sex, in turn, leads inevitably to unwanted pregnancies, which inexorably leads to abortion. In this sense, contraception falls under what is known as the Peltzman effect.

Samuel Peltzman was an economist who claimed that some road-safety regulations had no long-term benefits in terms of preventing serious accidents because, since they made people feel safer, they led to more reckless driving. Some claim that the Peltzman effect can be discerned in the area of ski safety. This phenomenon can be seen particularly with teenage pregnancy and abortion Arcidiacono, Khwaja, and Ouyang, ; Edgardh , —; Girma and Paton , —; Girma and Paton , —; Paton , —; Wiggins et al.

A report from Yale and Duke Universities on the success or otherwise of programs to reduce teenage pregnancy noted that. Our results suggest that increasing access to contraception may actually increase long-run pregnancy rates even when short-run pregnancy rates fall. On the other hand, policies that decrease access to contraception, and hence sexual activity, may lower pregnancy rates in the long run. Arcidiacono, Khwaja, and Ouyang , Arcidiacono, Khwaja, and Ouyang , 2. In essence, this study like others shows that what contraception gives with one hand in reducing abortions it takes back with the other by bringing women into the casual-sex—no-babies market.

In an attempt to lampoon Catholic attitudes toward child-rearing, the British comical ensemble Monty Python have a scene in one of their films The Meaning of Life in which the father of a very large group of ghetto-dwelling children tells us in a song precisely why he is the father of so many. This leans in the direction of suggesting that Catholics oppose contraception because it is a crime analogous to murder: Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that contraception is an essential part of a culture that is ambivalent, at best, about the generation of new life: Now, once this seed of doubt about the goodness of new life is planted and nurtured in the mind of a people, then the doors to abortion have been unbarred if not opened ; and as sure as day follows night, abortion will become law.

To think that, in a given culture, one can permit contraception but ban abortion is similar to telling children that pneumonia is bad for him and that is why he should wear a hat in the cold weather, but then, when he does contract pneumonia because he did not wear the hat or it slipped off in all the excitement of a snow ball fight to tell him that he cannot take antibiotics.

The anti-life atmosphere exuded by contraception goes a long way to explain why countries that permit contraception very quickly follow up with laws permitting large-scale abortion. There was just eight years separating the legalization of contraception and abortion in the USA and ; seven years in Britain and ; eight in France and Ireland held out longer, thirty-five years — I suspect this is a record but perhaps has something to do with the fact that Irish women could abort their babies in Great Britain. The point is that once contraception is legalized, its anti-life inner character begins to do its work: Of course, for many countries liberalized contraception and abortion comes as a package under the euphemism of reproductive health rights.

The anti-life character of contraception is perhaps even more starkly evident in the acceptance of the morning-after pill. Here is where the anti-life essence of contraception spills over most directly into the anti-life practice of abortion since no longer is any effort made to separate these two realities. Another way that contraception changes attitudes toward human life is that it engenders an exaggerated and ultimately despotic power over the origins of human life. This is because, as John Paul II points out, to decide for contraception is to take the stance of an arbiter rather than a minister with regard to one's power to transmit human life cf.

In accepting contraception, mankind becomes forgetful that his role in the transmission of human life is one of partnership with God. After all, the mother and father can only contribute the material part of every new human being; the spiritual element must come directly from God. If the task of transmitting human life is understood as an office bestowed upon the parents, the notion of collaboration with God is better preserved cf. But contraception fools us into thinking that we are in charge of the whole process of generating human life.

COMMENTS (325)

This, in turn, leads to the perception that since we alone create a child, we alone can decide arbitrarily when we shall and shall not exercise this power. It gives the impression that we are the gatekeepers of human life. This totalitarian and autocratic notion of our power over the origins of human life easily leads to despotic attitudes with regard to unwanted and unplanned human life, either as regards unwanted pregnancies or the destruction of spare embryos in fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.

A few years ago, a colleague of mine told me a story about an experience of his own son at school. My colleague's wife was expecting their sixth child, and their eldest son had announced this happy news to one of his friends at school. This friend, on returning home to his own family, asked his mother why they might not also have a new baby brother.

To my mind, it is significant that this mother explained things in terms of the fact that she had had an operation that had also been given to the pet rabbit in order to stop it breeding. It strikes me that this explanation has embedded in it yet another powerful effect of the contraceptive culture, namely the blurring of distinction between humans and animals.

It is not too much to say that one of the very distinctive aspects of human beings is that they can control themselves in matters of sexuality—they can harness their sexual desires and integrate them into higher forms of love. Contraception is a discouraging phenomenon because it suggests that this is not really possible: Something similar goes on in some forms of modern sex education.

The view is taken that girls are no more capable of developing virtue than are rabbits: But this conflation of what is human and what is animal has implications for life issues. When techniques proper to the farm such as neutering are deemed suitable for human beings, then destructive forms of artificial fertilization are likewise seen to be acceptable. In his Letter to Families , John Paul II touches upon a more subtle, but no less significant, shift in the attitude toward the human person that is brought about by contraception.

By this, he means an exaggerated dualism in which the body is estranged from the person, being seen more like a mere tool or vehicle. John Paul II believed that this exaggerated dualistic anthropology is implicit within a contraceptive mentality. His argument works as follows: This only makes sense if the couple believe that the body of which fertility is an important characteristic need not be included in the personal communication because it is not really part of the person. The body is seen as a kind of tool used by the person to achieve union, but not part of the person and part of the personal gift of self-inherent in sexual intercourse.

In short, John Paul II is pointing out that contraceptive sex implicitly operates on the basis of an exaggerated dualistic anthropology. Hence, the anthropology underlying contraception subtly but profoundly distorts our view of the human person and, thereby, removes a formidable psychological obstacle to abortion. It can translate into a belief that while a human body might well be present in the womb of the mother—by which is meant, that matter of a human type is present—a human person is not present because, on account of the underlying contraceptive anthropology, the human body and the human person are radically distinct.

Lewis was very interested in the question of the relationship between science and magic.

This issue is given formal treatment in his essay The Abolition of Man , and it also appears, no less brilliantly, in his novel The Magician's Nephew. In the latter, we discover the warped character of Uncle Andrew, an amateur magician who unscrupulously sends a little girl called Polly out of this world and into another by tricking her to put on a magic ring and then sends his own nephew, Digory, after her because he is too cowardly to go to save Polly himself.

In both The Abolition of Man and The Magician's Nephew , Lewis perceives a likeness between science and magic on the basis that both are interested in gaining power over nature. Magic, however, as it is practised by Uncle Andrew and later in the story by the much more powerful and cruel Jadis , differs from true science in the fact that its thirst for power is not constrained by what is good and right. Damage to Cervix and Uterus — This causes problems with subsequent deliveries, and can result in handicaps in subsequent newborns.

Increased Risks for Teenagers — Teenagers, who account for about thirty percent of all abortions, are also at much higher risk of suffering many abortion related complications. This is true of both immediate complications and of long-term reproductive damage. What do you say to someone who's experienced the trauma of abortion? It's a terrible loss. How do you help someone grieve? What do you say? Perhaps something like, "I'm so sorry. It must be very difficult for you.

Do you want to tell me about it? What has it been like to live with it? What if you're the one who's had an abortion? You need to grieve. Grief is a natural and necessary response to loss. It's more than a single emotion of sadness. It includes feelings of loss, confusion, loneliness, anger, despair, and more. It can't be turned on and off at will. Working through your grief means confronting your loss, admitting it, grieving it with tears and other expressions of sadness. The pain and grief of abortion is complicated by the fact that it is also sin. But it is not the unpardonable sin. Confess it, and receive the cleansing and forgiveness that Jesus offers.

He paid for your abortion on the Cross. He offers you the healing that allows you to be at peace with God and with yourself. He offers you the courage to tell your story with someone safe, which transforms your pain into something redemptive. He offers you the stability that means you don't fall apart if someone else is talking about abortion, or pregnancy, or babies in general. Parton suggests three steps toward healing. First, acknowledge the wound that needs to be healed. It may take ten to fifteen years before a woman may be willing to take this step.

Second, reach out for help. The Bible tells us, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Parton says there is an unusual strength of emotional bonding in post-abortive groups. Receive God's forgiveness and cleansing in community; that's His plan. Third, get into God's Word.

It's a supernatural source of comfort and encouragement. There is a dark and ugly underside to abortion, but it's not too dark for God to redeem. This account is based on a true story, with the name changed, found in Theresa Burke and David C. Acorn Books, , Personal conversation with the author, Sept.

Selfishness - because she had all these dreams, plans, hopes, and ambitions for her daughter. When the daughter turns up pregnant, mom has to grieve the loss of all her dreams for her precious daughter. She'll say things like, "I just can't stand by and watch you throw your life away" or "If you have a baby right now you're just going to be stuck for the next eighteen years.

She failed at teaching her daughter morality and purity and the things a good Christian mother should have taught her. Fear - of rejection. She fears that her Christian friends will judge and reject her. So she thinks, or says, "How could you do this to me? I am aware that many men never know about the abortion of their child. Some find out later and they often experience deep grief and anger, not only at the loss of their child's life, but the unilateral decision to keep them in the dark about their own child's life or death. Come to our website at Probe. Burke and Reardon, Forbidden Grief , Sixty-three percent of women who have had an abortion seek mental health care.

Contraception and abortion: Fruits of the same rotten tree?

There is a one hundred and fifty-four percent increase in suicide. The suicide rate within one year after an abortion was three times higher than for all women, seven times higher than for women carrying to term, and nearly twice as high as for women who suffered a miscarriage. Suicide attempts appear to be especially prevalent among post-abortion teenagers. A poll by the LA Times revealed that fifty-six percent of those who admitted to an abortion felt guilty.

But since another poll showed that seventy-four percent of those who admitted to having an abortion believe it's morally wrong, I believe that number is way too low. See Burke and Reardon, Forbidden Grief , Random House, , Loyola University Press, Francke, Ambivalence , Psychologist Philip Ney has studied the connection. He sees several effects of abortion: One mother admitted, "We had our first daughter and I never felt the deep love for her I should have.

For several reasons, I guess. The first is that I had never grieved over the loss of the child I had aborted. I was also afraid to love her too much. I felt that God was just going to take her away from me to punish me for killing my first child. Killing one's own child violates the God-given instinct to nurture and protect. How at the most visceral and critical level could human parents bring about the destruction of their own child?

One religious truth emerges in comparing ancient child sacrifice to modem abortion, i. Not surprisingly they became like him, willing to sacrifice their children to avert potential danger and gain success in their self-serving endeavors. Modern autonomous man worships himself and is willing to abort his own offspring in order to resolve crises and achieve his own goals. In serving the idolatrous self, men become more and more like the self-serving idol they worship, i.

They are willing to disregard any of God's gracious laws in order to accomplish their own ends.

Contraception and abortion: Fruits of the same rotten tree?

In their self-idolatry men have set themselves on a downward spiral of depravity and destruction from which only God's gracious mercy can deliver them. In contrast to those who worship themselves, those who worship the holy God become holy. In serving this righteous God, men and women become more and more like Him in righteousness.

Of course, even the holy people of God have faith not in their own righteousness, but in the saving work of their righteous Lord, Jesus Christ. Since there are many parallels between ancient child sacrifice and modern abortion, it is reasonable to conclude that the attitude of our unchanging God towards abortion today is similar to His attitude towards child sacrifice in the past.

What then can we rationally surmise is God's judgment regarding the practice of abortion both among Christians and those who are not His people? Like child sacrifice in ancient Israel, the practice of abortion by Christians is spiritual prostitution to an idol, defiles God's sanctuary and profanes His holy name. God alone is the Author of life and it is not the creature's prerogative to question the Creator's wisdom in bringing to life a fellow human being at conception.

Whenever men disregard their Creator's wise judgment by destroying His innocent creation, they are serving another god. They are, in fact, spiritually prostituting themselves to the idolatrous self whom they believe is wiser in its value judgments. Some values which are put forward to justify abortion are clearly idolatrous, e. Other idolatrous values are more subtle, e.

Both of these later values are good in themselves but become idolatrous when they abrogate the Creator's wise judgment in creating human life. It is not as though God fails to realize in creating some human beings that they may become a source of conflict in an unplanned conception or that a handicapped person will indeed face difficulties. Whenever Christians disregard the Creator's true value judgments, they dethrone God and by their sin defile the temple in which He dwells, the temple of their own body I Cor. Dethroned and defiled by the idolatrous sin of abortion, God threatens to abandon the wayward Christian unless there is repentance.

For God will not dwell in a temple in which another god is enthroned and a sanctuary polluted by sin. And the Christian who approves of or participates in the sin of abortion not only affects himself but he profanes God's holy name. People intuitively know that a man's attitude and behavior reflect his values. If a Christian then speaks or acts in away that is contrary to that Word, he brings dishonor to God's name.

For to those who do not know God, the Christian is their chief witness to the Word of God. And the Christian who approves of or participates in the practice of abortion is testifying to the world that his God condones the practice. He is in reality bearing false witness, for by his attitude and behavior he infers that the Creator consents to His creatures destroying innocent fellow creatures.

This false witness actually implies through his testimony that God is at odds with Himself. For in creating a human being God has clearly judged it to be of value. If God approved of abortion, He would be essentially saying that his value judgments are sometimes wrong. Many Christians who accept or take part in the practice of abortion have not made a conscious decision to sin and bring dishonor to God by condoning idolatrous values. Regardless of the motive, however, these Christians are unacceptably serving God. Indeed God hates the detestable sin of abortion.

For not only is abortion a sin against God and His innocent creation but it is a sin against the family and community as well. Scripture throughout teaches that children are a blessing from the Lord and that loving nurture is the godly response of parents toward their offspring. Abortion is the rejection of the God-given role to parent His creation.

For an unmarried woman unable to cope with the doubly difficult role of single parenting, the child may be God's gift through her to a barren couple within the community. Whether God's blessing is received and lovingly nurtured by the biologic parents or given to adoptive parents, the birth of a child is a blessing to the family and community. Often abortion is the evil solution to the consequences of a sexual sin. Whether a pregnancy results from fornication or adultery, where the mother is a guilty participant in the sin, or a pregnancy results from rape or incest, where the mother usually is the guiltless victim of another's sin, abortion is an ungodly solution.

For the Sovereign Redeemer is able to bring about good where there was evil. A new creation resulting from a sexual sin is an extraordinary witness to this redemptive truth. Sadly many Christians refuse to completely submit to the Lordship of the Creator and fail to appreciate the redemptive power of their God to save man from the full consequences of sin. The defective fetus is the victim of that original sin which resulted in the fall of all creation.

A mother may be the victim of her own or another's sexual sin or the victim of corporate societal sin, e. In all of these situations abortion has no redeeming character ; for God never deals with sin or its consequences by countering it with sin but with righteousness. The unhealthy child should be loved and cared for more not less because of its weakness.

The pregnant woman should be counseled to do what is right and given assistance in every possible way to support a godly decision to nurture in her body God's creation during its first nine months of life. Christians must always affirm, both by word and deed, the sovereignty of the Creator and recognize His power to righteously redeem mankind from the results of sin. Up to this point we have been trying to discover God's attitude towards abortion among Christians, based on Scripture's testimony of His attitude towards child sacrifice among the Israelites.

We now turn to God's judgment regarding abortion among those who are not Christians and the Christian response to the practice among them. As previously noted in the theocratic nation of Israel, some non-Israelite customs were tolerated and some, like child sacrifice, were not. Today God's people in the United States do not live in a theocracy; rather, they live in a democratic state. As such, Christians must determine, based on the principles of God's law, when they should become actively involved in the democratic process to restrict the behavior of some individuals in the interest of other individuals and society-at-large and when they should tolerate different values and customs.

Abortion is clearly a practice which is intolerable and must be restrained by the state. For abortion is the denial of the "inalienable God-given right to life"[35] of an innocent human being and it is an attack at the very foundation of our society, i. Even many of those who are not Christians acknowledge that abortion is wrong.

• The Dark Underside of Abortion | www.newyorkethnicfood.com;
• Contraception and Abortion: Fruits of the Same Rotten Tree?.
• Abortion and the Ancient Practice of Child Sacrifice.
• Call me a selfish criminal and a murderer if you want, but having an abortion was right for me.
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• I made a decision to abort at seven weeks for many reasons, writes an anonymous contributor.;

For God's law is written on the hearts of men and women to which their conscience bears witness see Romans 2: Others have suppressed God's truth by substituting their own self-serving idolatrous values. The truth of God's power and divinity have been revealed in creation see Romans 1: But men and women have suppressed this truth and their rejection of this revelation of God is clearly evident in the sin of abortion. For scarcely is the power and divinity of God more clearly seen than in His creative power bringing to life each human being, everyone made in His own divine image see Genesis 1: No man-made technology has the power to create life, much less a human life stamped with the divine imprimatur.

Rather, through the medical technology of abortion mankind rebels against the creative power of the Almighty by destroying the divine image-bearers. No, abortion is not acceptable as practiceby Christians or non-Christians and must not be tolerated by this or any other society. Those individuals who fail to heed God's law by condoning abortion will surely face God's judgment if they remain impenitent.

Even those who do not condone abortion but fail to take action against it will face judgment. For as noted previously in Leviticus both the Israelite who sacrificed his child to Molech and those who closed their eyes to the sin faced the judgment of God. And if a society as a whole persistently rejects God's laws it will surely corporately face God's judgment.

The city of Carthage and the nation of Israel are but two of many historical testimonies to the outpouring of God's wrath against unrelenting corporate sin. Something is happening in this land which God did not command nor did it enter His mind -this place is being filled with the blood of the innocent. So beware, for blood is on our hands and God will set his face against us unless we repent and are cleansed by his merciful forgiveness.

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This is what the Lord says: Look I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions. Oh, that we might not respond like ancient Israel. It is no use. We will continue with our own plans, each of us will follow the stubborness of his evil heart. For translation see Mosca P. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier.

Guey in Melanges D'archeologic et D'histoire , , pp. Mosca's epigraphic work documented in his Ph. The archeological evidence to support their conclusion is the greater proportion of human remains to animal remains in the most recent burial urns. There are text critical problems with I Kings It may be that Milcum should be substituted for Molech in this verse see I Kings Some scholars suggest that some uses of Molech in the Old Testament may have originally been used to refer to the live sacrificial offerings like Punic mulk. Some scholars unconvincingly suggest that the "passing throught to Molech" was a ritual "passing through" without active sacrifice.

For the best refutation of this view see: Note the reference to the fire pit of Topheth in Isaiah New Century Bible , , p. There are, however, many passages which warn nations not to engage in such evil and immoral practices. We can confidently affirm that, if a nation perpetually persists in defying the laws of God, God will eventually bring judgment in His way, and in His time. As Christians, we can urge our nation s to repent before such divine acts take place. This sanitized term describes a practice whereby a woman often with the approval of her male partner chooses to eliminate one of her perfectly healthy twin babies in utero, primarily because of prospective financial hardship or interference with career ambitions.

Estimates vary slightly amongst reporting agencies, but about 82 percent of the women having abortions are unmarried or separated. Jone's book Brave New People , , see book cover. Credit is due to Gary Pratico, Ph.