to any of my Christian friends who support or like Bernie Sanders,
I’d really like to know your thoughts on how you reconcile supporting him with his pretty pro-abortion stance. Just really curious where people’s heads are with that.
In short, I think abortion is ultimately wrong, but that banning it outright would only fight a symptom instead of the disease. He even argues that abortion rates are just as high, if not higher, in countries where it is banned. Most abortions are carried through because of poverty, no childcare, no or poor healthcare, no paid leave for mothers and fathers of newborns, and so on.
It’s a more holistic stance, caring for the life of the baby once it leaves the womb as well. So, while I still don’t think abortions are ideal, I think this is a much better way to get rid of them.
The facts of life is that no politician supports EVERYTHING that I support, or that anyone supports, lest that person changes their views to match their political party. Bernie supports a lot of what I support, and that’s pretty good. Besides, the only politicians with a pro-life stance are republican ones, and I am not going to change political parties for this one issue. Anyways, I think that abortion is an issue that we should deal with not legally but in other ways, like encouraging adoption, helping single mothers financially, and lowering the shame that we put on unmarried pregnant women.
Literally the most perfect use of this gif
“Basically, my heart is to decrease abortions and I think this is the best way to do it.”
We’re talking about the death of children here. Were talking about murder. And yet the tone of the conversation is “Yeah, I mean I guess it’s bad, but we should work on making people feel comfortable so that they don’t feel like they need to get an abortion.”
Let me ask you a question. What other violent crime would we ever treat that way? Do we say, “Yeah, rape is less than ideal, but we shouldn’t make rape illegal… we should just make it so that men decide not to rape.” What kind of backwards ass logic is that? We ought to make rape illegal AND try to stop the motivation.
When it comes to the murder of Children there can be no compromise. I don’t care what your “heart” is… if you are supporting and defending someone who wants the legalization of genocide then you are wrong. Don’t pretend that abortion is anything other than it is… reprehensible evil
Rape is evil. Rape is murder. Rape is horrendous and abhorrent and repugnant.
But about half of our country, 150 million or so, doesn’t believe that it is. They believe it’s fine.
It’s also a unique kind of tragedy, born out of desperation just as much if not moreso than born out of selfish convenience. People generally don’t rape or murder because they feel like they have no choice other than to do so, which makes the illegality of those a better deterrent. Just by examining the way my own brain works, I can understand how people care a lot less about whether or not something is illegal if they feel like they have no choice anyways.
No, we don’t say, “Yeah, rape is less than ideal, but we shouldn’t make rape illegal… we should just make it so that men decide not to rape.” Of course we don’t say that. However, I’d hope that we do say, “Rape is awful and evil and tragic, and trying to teach men not to rape is ultimately a more helpful solution than just making it illegal, even though we should be doing both.” Exactly like you said. I’m far from a place of feeling at all comfortable with abortion being legal, in fact it still makes me really uncomfortable even entertaining the idea, but educating people that it’s murder is a much better deterrent than a law ever will be, even if/though we should be doing both.
People can choose to just be “pro-life” and leave it as simplistic as that, or people can choose to try and figure out the best way to save lives. You’re way way too smart to be unwilling to at least fairly and humbly enter into that conversation and explore different kinds of methodology. Maybe you’re totally on point, but if so, a snarky gif reblog isn’t going to help anyone else mistakenly thinking that it’d be better to keep it legal.
We can only do the best we can in our contexts. The world is pretty absent of any kinds of absolutes. God condescends into our language, our understanding, our cultures, and gently steers us along. I think that’s a helpful approach - not compromising our positions, but at least having the ability to talk, to understand, to ask questions, to listen, and to think with people in the other camps.
It just doesn’t make sense to ever acknowledge that abortion is the murder of an innocent child and then turn around and say… well let’s let that keep happening until we can convince people to stop on their own. If we’re talking about treating symptoms and treating the disease… then the symptom of abortion is the hemorrhaging blood loss of a gaping wound.
I refuse to compromise. I will not give an inch to anyone who entertains the legality of the systematic genocide of the most defenseless human beings on earth. Period. End of discussion. This is not a question of how smart I am.
The best way to save lives is not to make it legal to end them. As far as people feeling like they need to do it… the law doesn’t care about your motive. If the result of your actions is the death of another innocent, defenseless, human being… it doesn’t matter what societal pressures you were facing.
Now are all of those other measures that they are hoping to take good and helpful? Sure… but does that mean that we should call it open season on unborn children until those things are implemented? Are you crazy?
Are social programs that seek to educate people more effective at quelling violence than the law? That’s highly unlikely, but even if it was true… would that mean that we would abolish all laws and just try to educate people? Of course not. The law exists to inhibit crime… it doesn’t make crime disappear, but it’s there to make it more difficult for people to commit crime. So if abortion is fundamentally the termination of the life of another person, i.e. murder, (which everyone here seems to acknowledge) why wouldn’t we seek to make it illegal?
I will not legitimize anyone who seeks to perpetuate abortion in any way. I’m not going to pretend abortion isn’t murder… even if for the sake of argument.
“why wouldn’t we seek to make it illegal?”
Well, hypothetically, because studies have shown countries with more strict abortion laws to have higher rates of abortions.
If there’s good research showing correlation between MORE deaths with stiffer laws, then let’s talk about why, let’s see if we can figure out what the reasoning could be, let’s keep the same goal of saving lives from being murdered but entertain different approaches on how to reach that end.
That’s all I’m saying. I’m pro-life, as in, I want babies to live. I want them to survive. I don’t want them to be murdered. I’m no expert on policy or law or the human brain, so as far as I’m concerned, all cards are on the table as far as examining good methodology to save lives.
Well, then let’s just cave in and let criminals be criminals… after all, us trying to stop them just means that they will become more emboldened.
That might be your attitude… but as for me, I’d rather not be complicit in that genocide. If they want to have abortions… that’s on their head. But I’m not going to help them do it and I’m certainly not going to pat them on the back and tell them that it’s perfectly fine and legal for them to do so.
Also, the downward trend of abortions in countries that have lax abortion laws is more a result of their offering alternative methods of contraception. Also, this ignores countries like India, China, Brazil, etc. which have some of the highest abortion rates and the most lax abortion laws. Basically… it’s not that simple.
As a former fetus whose birth mother tried to abort me and then was going to kill me right after birth because I was born with one and a half fingers on my right hand with my left arm extending to just past the shoulder….I was really lucky to have a missionary step in and tell my birth mother point blank that killing your child in or out of the womb was morally wrong. No sugar-coated words. Nothing but the cold, hard truth. That’s how I came to be adopted. That’s how I’m alive today. I so appreciate that some people are still willing to call it what it is–murder. Don’t let up. I made it through the first round; I was born. But when they were going to kill me anyway, someone spoke the truth. That truth saved me.
