Orthodox Christian Theology

Abortion – some words from others, good and bad

Abortion

The shedding of innocent blood as a result of sexual wantonness with an utter disregard of the purpose of human sexuality.  A nation that permits abortion can permit anything, however barbaric and cruel.  China, Vietnam, and Russia, like the U.S., also have no limits on when and how an abortion is performed.  How tragic that we share such a legacy with nations that are among the most violent in history. – Hadley Robinson

From a woman who had an abortion, thanks to our culture and most Christian leaders

Please don’t get an abortion. I got one when I was 26 because my husband left me with three children, no money and I had no job. Afterwards I went to work and five years later I remarried and had two more children. I am 80 years old now. And I have never been able to forgive myself for killing one of my babies. I’ve prayed for forgiveness but really don’t think I deserve it. There is no one to say I’m sorry to. It’s been such a heartbreaking trial for me and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. Don’t do it. You can never go back and fix it.  - BGEA Blog site

Albert Mohler

On the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous decision, Dr. Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an essay on how the American elite who inherited a Christian civilization has been ransacking the culture for decades.  The abortion decision by the Court was just one more result of this cultural erosion.

Billy Graham

Pro-life activist, Paul R. Dorr, had heard an interview of Rev. Graham by Joan Lunden on Good Morning America Sept. 19, 1991.  He subsequently published the relevant parts of the interview in his book, Rescue the Perishing.

I was so disturbed by Graham's words in Mr. Dorr's book that I paid about $500 (in today's money) for the official transcript of the interview.  I had to be certain that Rev. Graham had not been misquoted or misrepresented.  Here is the relevant portion of that interview.

JOAN LUNDEN:  I know the last time you were on the show with Mike Schneider, he asked you what your position was on abortion, and you said, "There's a Christian position, but I can't say what that is."  Can you say what that is now"  Have we come to some kind of a feeling?

Rev. BILLY GRAHAM:  Well, I know what the Bible teaches, that you know, Jeremiah was called of God before he was born, while he was in his mother's womb.  And when Elizabeth was bearing in her womb John the Baptist, Mary went over to see her, and the baby leaped in the womb of Elizabeth.  So there is life at that point.  And when it comes to abortion, that's a long story that in two or three minutes I couldn't go into.

JOAN LUNDEN:  Oh, I know.

Rev. BILLY GRAHAM:  But there are occasions when abortion is the only alternative.

JOAN LUNDEN:  Yes.

I hope every converted Christian reading this as shocked as I was – and still am.  It was a calculated deflection of Lunden's question.  Rev. Graham essentially took the position of the pro-abortion politicians of the time e.g. "Abortion should be safe and rare."  He excused any further explanation on the ground that two or three minutes would not give him enough time to go into it.

What a contrast this is to Al Mohler (see above) and others quoted on this page.  Mohler's or Greenberg's (see below) responses would have taken less than a minute of airtime to read.

 I called the BGEA in September 1992 and spoke with a Mr. Victor Nelson at length about Graham's interview with Lunden.  He was helpful and courteous but merely confirmed that the BGEA did not have a coherent position on the murder of the unborn.  I later spoke with a Mr. Wendell Anderson at the BGEA and he gave me a different statement of the BGEA's position on abortion.  I came to the conclusion that the BGEA had no position on abortion that was either coherent or Christian.  My opinion at the time was that organizations, like the BGEA, are officially pro-life but they and their staff really do not care and consider the abortion crisis a nuisance and a distraction.  Of course, the godless people of Israel during most of the time of the kings considered the Prophets in the same way....

As I shared this interview with others, the response was usually that of being stunned or in disbelief.  The outcry did not subside.  A few years later (December 1, 1998) I called the BGEA (877-247-2426) and spoke a woman named "Ruby" and asked her about the 1991 interview on Good Morning America.  Like Rev. Graham, she was not sure, either, about the morality of abortion.  She explained to me that in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother being at stake, abortion will be OK.  She further said that someone would get back to me.

Rev. Graham gave the anti-Christian bigots of our cultural and political elite a powerful weapon to help shatter the unity of the churches involved in the fight to end the mass killings.  Graham – without qualification – stated that abortion may be necessary on occasion.

Prolife organizations have not been blind to Mr. Graham's equivocation and calculated statements on this serious matter.  If the venerable Mr. Graham thinks abortion is necessary, it must be.  Has he changed his position in recent years?  It is hard to know.  He has never called it murder -- the taking of an innocent human life.  It's a sin of some sort in his opinion, though grievous.

 My wife, Marilyn, and I wanted to know how deep was the moral crisis in the churches in the late 1990's.  In pursuit of this, Marilyn pulled off a sting to find out what churches in our area believed.  She would call a church and pose as a young woman who was pregnant and what should she do?  It was a shock to find out that most churches supported abortion on demand.  For example, First Baptist Church of El Paso told her to call Planned Parenthood.

It is tragic that a national Christian leader like Mr. Graham could not give a clear Christian position on abortion.  If one opposes divorce, adultery, and abortion in the United States, he is guaranteed to have trouble.  Mr. Graham chose public favor over biblical truth.

John R. W. Stott

How can we speak of the termination of a pregnancy when what we really mean is the destruction of a human life?  How can we talk of therapeutic abortion when pregnancy is not a disease needing therapy and what abortion effects is not a cure but a killing?  How can we talk of abortion as a kind of retroactive contraception when what it does is not prevent conception but destroy the conceptus?  We need to have the courage to use accurate language.  Abortion is feticide: the destruction of an unborn child.  It is the shedding of innocent blood, and any society that can tolerate this, let alone legislate for it, has ceased to be civilized.

Mother Teresa

She filed this brief with the Supreme Court asking that they protect the rights of a father who was arrested attempting to stop the killing of his unborn child.  "America needs no words from me...."  The Court, of course, refused to review the case – another pyrrhic victory for the criminal gang that controls our judicial system, the feminists and the emasculated.

Paul Greenberg

He comments on the evils spread by the abortion mentality: The Culture of Death.

Sydna Maas

She shares how she recovered from the horror of an abortion:  Breaking Sexual Soul Ties.  Every woman should read this deeply personal journey of someone who overcame the nightmare of guilt that often overwhelms those who have killed their own children.

Sachi Parker

Sashi Parker

Daughter of Shirley McLane, wrote in her memoirs that the abortion she had in 1984 was "...the biggest regret of my life."  I am so sorry for Miss Parker.  The political, cultural, and media elite continue to press on, justifying and encouraging the abortion holocaust.  When they are judged at the End of the Age, they will be right alongside Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and the other mass murderers of history.  What will the Creator do with them?

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