As we celebrate the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, we must be prepared for common lies used by those who support abortion. Here are three of them.
1. The Supreme Court took away a constitutional right.
The Supreme Court did not take away a constitutional right to abortion or even a constitutional right to privacy. The right to privacy is not explicitly stated in the Constitution of the United States. Some have argued, rather persuasively, that a certain level of privacy is implied in the Constitution. That right, if it exists in the Constitution, is certainly limited.
The government has the right to demand that we report our income for taxation purposes. Many professions are covered by mandatory reporting laws regarding sexual abuse. If a member of my church confesses sexual abuse in the privacy of my office in a private counseling session, I am obligated by law to report that sexual abuse.
If a doctor and his or her patient, a mother of a newborn, determine that the newborn should be euthanized, is that a private matter between a woman and her doctor? I hope we all shudder at that thought. Why, then, would it be a private matter between a woman and her doctor to end that same baby's life just minutes before the baby is born?
When it comes to the right to abortion or the right to choose an abortion, the Constitution contains nothing explicit or implicit which upholds such a right. If it does, those who make such claims should simply cite the article and section of the Constitution which guarantees a right to abortion. They will not because they cannot. They cannot because it does not exist.
The Supreme Court did not remove a constitutional right. It recognized that an earlier court established a “right” that was not in the constitution.
If the people of the United States wish to amend the Constitution to include a right to abortion, it must be done according to the process prescribed in the Constitution.
2. Christians and others in the pro-life movement don’t care about babies after they are born.
Those who propagate this lie ridicule Christians for spending all of our time and effort to end abortion while neglecting women facing crisis pregnancies or children born into difficult situations. They really think this is a mic drop moment. It’s not.
No group does more for women facing crisis pregnancies or children born into difficult situations than Christians. If Christian individuals, churches, and Christian organizations decided to end their financial and volunteer support of women facing crisis pregnancies, foster care agencies, adoption agencies, and ministries that offer health care, food, clothing, education, job training, counseling, and other forms of support to those fighting poverty, the social safety net of our nation would collapse.
Many times, this accusation is levied because Christians don’t support certain government social programs. In some cases, that’s a fair criticism. Some Christians resist all government social programs because of the ineffectiveness of other social programs. We must be fair-minded and evaluate each program or proposed program based on its own merits.
Failing to support a political agenda, however, is not the same as failing to care for women in crisis pregnancies and children born into and living in difficult situations. The budgets and volunteer time cards of Christians, churches, and Christian organizations tell a different story.
Those who support government social programs are saying, “Take someone else’s money, and pay someone else to give their time to help those in need.” In many cases, that’s a legitimate way to address social issues.
What many Christians say on a regular basis, however, is, “Take my money and my time to help those in need.”
3. This is an attack on women’s health.
Abortion does not equal women’s health. It is the killing of an unborn human being. Equivocating women’s health to abortion is a political tactic used to deflect the issue away from the God-given right to life as recognized in our own founding documents.
If we really care about the health of women, then we must care about the health of all women, including the approximately 50% of aborted babies in the United States who are female. If we really care about the health of women and the empowerment of women, then we should be appalled at the reality of sex-selective abortions in other regions of the world in which families choose to abort girls in hopes of having a boy. If we really care about women’s health, we should care about the long-term emotional and psychological consequences of exploiting women facing crisis pregnancies in order to fund the abortion industry.
This is a crucial time in the fight for life. Those who support abortion will not go quietly into the night. They will double their efforts to win the hearts and minds of the culture, and we must be ready to recognize the lies they often employ and replace those lies with truth.