Unplanned Pregnancy

In this session from his 'Sexuality by Design' series, Tom Shrader addresses abortion as a major moral issue, examining what Scripture teaches about life in the womb and responding to the five main reasons women give for having abortions. While affirming that abortion is sin, he emphasizes God's forgiveness and grace for those who have made this choice, calling the church to engage practically through prayer, support, and involvement with crisis pregnancy centers.

“When God looks at the baby in the womb he sees that people are made like God in the womb.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Sexuality by Design (2007)

Recorded: March 01, 2007

Duration: 41 min

Themes: abortion, life, forgiveness, sin, grace, morality, sexuality, redemption, post-abortion healing, crisis pregnancy, moral decision making, women facing unplanned pregnancy, pastor counseling, pro-life advocate, pregnancy center volunteer, dealing with guilt

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-27, Job 31, Psalm 51, Psalm 22, Luke 20, Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1, Luke 18, Matthew 6, Psalm 37, Psalm 68

Theological Themes: sanctity of life, imago dei, biblical ethics, moral theology, sin and grace, divine forgiveness, creation mandate, christian worldview

Full Transcript

Today we look at session 5 of our 8-session series. The title of the series is important, and we've gone back each week to remind you of what we're trying to say in the title: Sexuality by Design. The subtitle is Discovering the Ground Rules for Healthy Relationships.

The plan is this: God indeed has a plan for you and me and how we're to live in all areas of our life, and our sexuality is no different. God created us as sexual beings and He has provided for us the appropriate outlet for that sexuality—the expression of it within the boundaries or within the confines that He's given us. So what we're trying to do in this study is to take a look at three or four of the more controversial topics and then talk about sex as God has planned it, which will really be what we'll talk about in the next three weeks. We've looked at pornography and homosexuality, and today we look at what in my mind is the greatest moral issue of our day: the issue of abortion.

The Scale of the Issue

It was January 22nd, 1973 that the Supreme Court gave us the decision that's known as Roe versus Wade. Since that time we can only guess, but somewhere around 45 million babies have been killed in this country. Just to give you a perspective on that, in the Revolutionary War, 25,000 Americans were killed. In Korea, 54,000. In Vietnam, 58,000. In World War I, 116,000. In World War II, 407,000. In the Civil War, half a million. And as I said, estimates vary, but somewhere between 45 and 50 million babies have been killed since 1973. So when you're talking about proportions of issues, you get a grasp of it. This is a huge moral issue.

I've learned over the years, having dealt with this issue in a public forum now for 20 years, that when you talk about an issue like abortion you get a huge response from people. I'm going to give you just a glimpse of why with this singular quote from US News and World Report. The statistic is astonishing: 43% of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime if current rates are sustained. That would mean that for better or worse, abortion is a more common life experience for women than divorce and more than three times more common than breast cancer. It would mean that more than twice as many women have abortions as get college degrees. It would mean that these years after Roe vs. Wade, abortions are safe and legal but not rare.

The Personal Reality

That's why it starts to generate all of this emotion. This is something where emotions run high, frankly on both ends of this spectrum. For me today to try to be able to communicate to you and have your mind stay open enough to listen for 45 minutes to have me not just come at you and somehow take what God calls abortion—and He calls it, I think He calls it sin. I think it's clear that what we're doing is taking a human life, and yet at the same time know that in this room there are women who have had abortions. Today at lunch that number will be close to 30-40 percent.

I was talking to a gal in our office who handles women's ministry, and we're talking about this issue, and she said, "I would guess between 30 and 40 percent of the women in the church have had abortions along the way," assuming that many get saved later and some just deal with it. It's a huge, gigantic numerical issue. So what I want to try to do is to speak the truth today and to speak it in love, to maybe rally you to at least be committed to pray about and for those that are involved in this issue.

Reframing the Debate

I was watching Nightline one night and Faye Waddleton came on—she's a former president of Planned Parenthood—and she said there is no question that the fetus is a human life, but this isn't a question of whether the fetus is alive. It's not a question of life and death. This is a question of choice. So once we paint it, and you start to see a pattern—we did the same thing last week with homosexuality—we started to paint things not as moral issues but as choices, as a civil rights issue.

What I want to appeal to you today, I want to appeal to you on a biblical basis, but that's one part of it. I think we ought to be able to argue against abortion without ever opening Scripture. Common sense can just dictate this. I used to drive across the freeway and there was a billboard—it was a stop smoking billboard. It was a picture of a woman who was pregnant, and the caption on the billboard said, "Listen to the one person who is asking you to stop smoking," meaning the baby. Now if all you're trying to do is stop smoking and you have no agenda, what do you call it? A person.

It's a fascinating thing. There's this billboard, and I'm sure many of these non-smoking people would be pro-choice people. I don't know that—that's an assumption I make. I think when I don't think about it, when I don't have an agenda, when I'm just responding, I understand instinctively that what I'm dealing with isn't just a tissue mass. I'm dealing with a baby, a life.

God's View of Life in the Womb

So it's a huge issue and I know it generates all sorts of response, but what I'd love to have us do today is to just listen to what God has to say about the baby that's in the womb. Then I want to look at the five main reasons or five significant reasons that women give for having abortions and then give you some specific instruction as we start to unpack this. You have on your outline the references as well, and I won't take the time to turn to each one of them, but you may want to do that.

In God's view, God looks at human life. God is not puzzled by this issue either. We may see shades of gray to this. I think God sees this as very much a black-and-white issue. When God looks at the baby in the womb, He sees that people are made like God in the womb. "Let us create man in our image."

Made in the Image of God

own image. Genesis 1:27. It's significant—has nothing to do with this lesson by the way, but it is significant there in Genesis 1:26—that God is referred to in a plural personal pronoun. "Let us make man in our image." That's a direct reference to the idea of the Trinity, the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is one God who manifests Himself in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "Let us make man in our image."

Now this very idea alone has created all sorts of confusion and is at the core in a way of much of the New Age movement. The New Age movement would not say God is in you. The New Age movement would say you are God. You're made in God's image. You're a little chunk of God. You're a chip off the old block. That's not what God's saying. God is saying that man in this creation is distinct from all the other creatures and creations of this world, and we are distinct in three ways.

Three Ways We Are Distinct

Number one, we have a sense of morality of right and wrong. You will never see a pack of wolves who are in the process of executing due process. You're never going to see a little courtroom out in the animal kingdom with this going on. We have a sense of morality. We have a sense of right and wrong.

We see it in children. We rarely have to teach them at all what is wrong. We have to teach them to do right. Braden is at this age—Braden is 15 months right now, and he is doing something that I find cute but I think his parents find annoying. I'll take him through a series of things: "What does a dog say?" "Ruff ruff ruff." "What's a cow say?" "Moo." "Can you say yes?" And he'll go "No!" I have no idea where that came from, but that seems to be pretty natural.

The second thing—this may be a stretch for some of you—you have personality. By this we mean emotions, feeling, knowledge. You can deduce. We're all excited—I wake up to the news the other day that there's a monkey who's using a spear to whatever. You did not evolve from a monkey. You're human, created by God, distinct, with a sense of morality and personality.

Here's the third thing: a sense of spirituality. You will instinctively worship something. Said another way, man is incurably religious. Are you going to get into an anthill and move all of the items away and the dirt away and find the ants in there burning incense to something? You're distinct and different.

You understand that there is something that transcends this earth. There's something bigger than you. Unless you've been really educated, you would understand that something has to create this world. There has to be an unmoved mover. You can't get something from nothing. There's a pre-existing cause. And so you begin to worship, and you go all over the world and you'll see man incurably religious. We are made like God in the sense that we have this idea of morality and personality and spirituality.

People Are Formed by God in the Womb

People are also formed by God in the womb. Job chapter 31—Job is dealing with his detractors and he said, "Did not the same one"—and he's speaking here of God—"form both of us within our mothers?" Psalm 51, the psalmist says, "I was conceived in sin." He's not saying there "I'm a bastard child." What he's saying there was, "I was conceived in the womb and in that very act, I am a sinner by nature, eventually by action."

People in the womb are known by God. Psalm 22: "From my mother's womb you've been my God." Luke 20: "He is not the God of the dead, but He is the God of the living. For to Him all are alive."

Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5—people are set aside or selected by God in the womb. "The word of the Lord came to me," Jeremiah says, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were formed, I set you apart." In this womb, Jeremiah said—and the word "know" there is not just knowledge of, but it's the idea of relationship—in the womb, God says, "I was already in relationship, Jeremiah, with you."

We Instinctively Know It's a Baby

We instinctively—I said this earlier—understand that what is in that woman at that time of conception and then pregnancy is a baby. I've never, ever heard a woman say, "Oh, my fetus kicked." I've never heard that. I have had women come up to me after church and say, "You know what? When that music started today, the baby kicked me."

Oprah was doing a show one day on "taking you where we've never been able to go before." The first part of that show, she took you into the womb within three or four weeks—three weeks, I think it was—of conception. And they'd never been able to go in and to see this. By the way, I believe if we'd have had this technology in 1973, you would have never seen Roe vs. Wade.

All we got in 1973—an ultrasound was this gray foggy thing. And they go, "Ah, there it is." And you go, "Where?" And now you get the pictures we have hanging on the wall at home. Haley is pregnant again, so we're excited about that. We just found that out. So we have a little picture of a gray mass hanging on the refrigerator. But even at that early stage, you can begin to see these things.

And as Oprah is trying to talk about "now, here we are. We're 14 days into this. We have a heartbeat. Starting to see brain waves after three weeks," Oprah would periodically forget and say, "Oh, look at the baby. I mean, fetus." You just instinctively understand that that's what you're dealing with.

People Are Valued by God in the Womb

Here's the last point that we want to make to you in that first section: people are valued by God in the womb. In Luke 1, John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth, hears Mary greet her. And Luke—the physician, scientist, historian, artist, very precise—Luke writes this: "The baby leaped in her womb as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears. The baby in my womb leapt for joy."

Now, unlike the English language, the Greek language had

options here, words that Luke could have chosen for baby. He chose one, the exact same one that he uses in chapter 18 of his gospel when he says people were also bringing their babies to Jesus. In Luke's thought process, as he writes it in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he says that baby in the womb is the equivalent of a baby who's running around, that baby that we take to Jesus.

Judge Bork, some of you remember Judge Bork. Judge Bork was, for much of his career, pro-choice. His wife was pro-life. One day, all that changed with one illustration. Bork had an aunt that he loved, and the aunt was sick. His wife said to him, if your aunt slipped into a coma, and the doctor said, we're not really sure here, we don't know what's going to happen, she may not make it. In fact, we don't think she'll make it. What do you want us to do? Do you want us to keep nourishment flowing and what it takes to keep her alive? What would you do? And Bork said, well, that's a difficult decision. If he says she's not going to get better, that's tough.

And his wife said, I understand that. What if he said to you, she's in a coma, I've seen this before, she'll be in this coma for seven months, and then she'll come out and she'll be absolutely right back where she was. Would you pull a plug? He said, well, no, never. She said, that's exactly what you have with the baby in the womb. All you have to do is provide nourishment to this and time, and you have a baby.

The Bald Eagle Comparison

If I go up into northern Arizona, and this would never happen because it would take a lot of effort, but if I went up into northern Arizona and shot a bald eagle, I don't remember the exact fine, but it's something like three to five years imprisonment and a $100,000 fine. I think it's something like that. If I were to go to northern Arizona and destroy a bald eagle egg, the penalty is three to five years and a $100,000 fine. Why? Because when I'm killing a bald eagle egg, it's the same as killing a bald eagle. A bald eagle egg is going to hatch and be a bald eagle. It's a bald eagle. That baby in the womb is a baby. That needs to sink in. We need to really get our arms around what's going on here.

Common Reasons for Abortion

Why would I decide to abort my child? I'm going to give you some reasons here. What's interesting to me is, and I have a stack of data at home, over the last 20 years, these reasons have not hardly changed a percent or two. It's really amazing. I'm sensing now with 20 years of data that they're pretty right on.

The most common reason, 76% said a baby would change my life or a baby is an inconvenience to me. 68% said we can't afford a baby. 51% said I'm not in a stable relationship here. I have relational problems. 30% said I'm too young. What we're seeing more and more now are 30% saying what? Too old. The other end is I'm too old for this gig.

23%, and there's a residue of this, 23% are being forced to the decision by the father of the baby. So we have all sorts of guys. I had a guy that came up to me and said I paid for four abortions for four different women. I can't get this out of my brain. I think the people at Crisis Pregnancy Center and other places, Christian Family Care, would tell you they're seeing more and more men who are beginning to deal with this whole issue of abortion in the past.

13% said it's for the health of the baby. 7% for the health of the mother. 1%, and this number stayed pretty consistent, rape or incest.

Addressing the Primary Concern: Inconvenience

I'm going to just talk about a couple of those and I think five of them, and that will kind of give you a flavor of how we approach this. By far, it isn't even close. And obviously when you add those numbers up, it comes way more to 100% because women were allowed to give more than one reason. By far, top of the list, three out of four. And then you could even combine them and say, well, can't afford it now, and inconvenient time, health of the, or inconvenient time, baby changed my life. By far, the number one thing was, this is just an inconvenience to me. That's not a good time for me. Lots of issues are at play here, but you know, I don't know, doesn't work.

Here's what God says, because implied in all of that, and actually, that, and I'm going to deal with the second reason separately, I can't afford a baby right now, but the answer really, in response, is almost the same. In Matthew chapter six, Jesus said to us, I want to tell you something. Don't worry about your life, what you'll eat, what you'll drink, what you'll wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air.

Now, in Luke's gospel, as he records something similar to this, he said, consider the raven, and I've shared with you before I did that, when I was studying that, I spent two days considering, analyzing the raven. I'm into online, doing research on ravens, and thinking about ravens, and I even wanted to read Edgar Allan Poe, but I didn't. But I've been thinking a lot about ravens, and here was my conclusion. Here's what a raven does. Eat, dispose of what it eats, procreate. Pretty much done now with the raven's life.

In short, what the raven does is exactly what God designed him to do. And I think what Jesus is saying here, when He says, look at the birds of the air, they don't sow, they don't reap, they don't store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them, and then He asks a question, probably debatable in our economy today, are you not much more valuable than a bird, and the answer, by the way, is yes, if you're struggling there, right? Yes, you are more valuable than a bird.

Here's what He's saying. You don't need to worry about these things. You need to do what God created you to do. What did He create you to do? Love Him, glorify Him, work, be obedient, and I'll take care of these things.

The Financial Concern

68% of those said, I can't afford a baby right now. From a pragmatic standpoint, if only people who could afford babies had them, we're one generation away from annihilation. You know, I remember when we

I'd read these stats where it costs $350,000 to raise a kid. Here's the good news: they don't ask for it up front. I don't know where they get these goofy numbers. It's the same idea as Psalm 37: "I was young, now I'm old, yet I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor their children begging bread." In other words, God's going to take care of this.

When We Rob God of Opportunities

Let me pause here and take a little bit of a side trip. There's a great life principle here. When suffering comes or difficulty comes or things come into our life we don't like, we immediately try to fix them. Oftentimes in the process of fixing them, we rob God of the opportunity to make Himself evident.

We get in a situation and all of a sudden there's this difficulty and there's hardship, and we're trying to figure all this stuff out. We never just say, "You know what? I wonder what God's going to do." It's not an excuse to not plan, not an excuse to not work. But so often we move in such a way that God never has an opportunity to do something spectacular, and then we'll sit at a coffee and say, "You know, it doesn't seem like God's doing anything in my life." He doesn't need to. You've got it all planned out and you've worked it.

Can't afford it? God'll take care of it.

The Reality of Unstable Relationships

51% said, "I'm not in a stable relationship." Periodically, I get cynical, and this may be a little cynicism here. The relationship was stable enough to get knocked up. The relationship was stable enough to get pregnant. There's no statistical correlation between a wanted pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy as to whether that child will be abused or loved or anything that goes with it.

I'm getting ready last fall, would have been September, to go up to Flag to teach our 20-ish retreat, and I don't know what to talk about. I'm putting some stuff together, and I read exactly this: Psalm 68, that God's a father to the fatherless, a defender of the widow. I thought, "You know what? There's got to be good in this group because there's got to be divorce and a lot of stuff in there." I thought, "Nah."

The next day, I'm in our work room, and there are a couple of gals in there putting stuff together for the retreat, two young ladies. I said, "What should I talk about up there?" And the gal said, "You ought to talk about being a father to the fatherless. You got a whole generation of kids now, many who don't even know who dad is."

A Generation Without Fathers

You all laugh at this stuff, and you shouldn't because it's sad. When I watch the Britney Spears stuff and the Anna Nicole Smith stuff, this breaks my heart to see how screwed up people can be, and to see we're going to fight over where to bury her, but we don't even have a clue who the father is. I go, "Well, that's that Hollywood type." There are billboards all over town here that say, "Who's the dad?" You go in, apparently this is big enough that you got people taking tests because I'm not really sure who the dad is.

Listen to the athlete. Listen to the athlete who wins the trophy. "I want to thank my mom. I don't know where dad is." A father to the fatherless. Maybe that relationship isn't stable. Maybe that guy isn't around. God'll take care of that. Trust Him. He'll be the father to the fatherless and a defender of the widow. He'll be your provider.

Health Problems and Down Syndrome

"I've been told my baby has a health problem," 13%. When you really start to get into this, this number gets really whacked because of the 13%. When they pushed Him, in the last study I saw, only 8% of the 13% said they'd been told by the doctor that there were potential problems with the baby. Most was prenatal care wasn't what it should be. We can take care of it pretty easy.

But even if they can't, Haley and I are driving back from Coronado on Monday and Haley calls. It's amazing, this cell phone in the middle of nowhere, and it does kind of make that drive. Boy, is that a dull drive. Haley said, "The doctor's office called and wants to do a test for Down syndrome. We didn't do that for Braden. I don't know whether we should do that or not and the insurance won't cover it and it costs money."

Haley said, "Why would I want to do this? It isn't going to make any difference." What are you going to say? Now, it might make some difference maybe if you could make some argument that it might make some difference in treatment, but it's not going to affect whether I have this baby or not.

The Inspiration of Special Needs

I had a guy come roaring into PLO years ago. He was all jacked up. I said, "Man, what are you taking?" He said, "I just spent two days at Special Olympics and these kids were inspirational to me." I would say we would have these people who are saying, "Inspirational." No, "inconvenient, kill them."

We have a lady that comes to church who sits in the back of the church and she has a boy. He's bigger than I am. I have no idea how old he is. I would guess 25. He has very little control over His limbs. My heart is so moved by her coming in every week, getting him in, getting him seated, trying to get him calm. I mean, I in my mind go, "I don't think I could do that." The reality is, if God gave you that child, He would give you that grace to minister to that child. Let me finish—so that that child could minister to you. That's what I'm saying.

God's Sovereignty in Difficulty

Well, all of a sudden here we are in the midst of this. "Oh, I've got this baby that's less than perfect." Rob God of the opportunity. God is not—here you go. God says, "Who made the deaf? Who made the dumb? Who made the blind? I did." God's not worried about His reputation in this.

Every event that happens in our life is either caused by or allowed by God. If that is not true, He is not God. While I would have never chosen X, whatever X is, whether it's a baby that's less than perfect, whether it's an illness—I would have never chosen these things. God allows them or causes them in my life ultimately for my own good.

And I may never fully understand that, but I know this: He's God, I'm not. Everything in my life, He's brought for a purpose or a reason, caused or allowed, and I grapple with it. If you're going, I'm not sure of that, then you've got a bigger issue than abortion to deal with. You're not clear on who God is, so you need to grapple with that for a while. Because if there's something He couldn't stop, if there's something that He couldn't correct, then He's not God, then His plans are meaningless.

One percent, and that number has stayed absolutely rock solid, one percent say, I'm a victim of a rape or an incest. I'm going to give you two really, to me, incredible illustrations. Both happened the first time I thought through this.

I had a man come up and say to me, "You know my wife?" And I said, "I do." He said, "She is beautiful." And I said, "She is. She is amazing." He said, "Nobody knows this, but her mother was raped and she is the product of that rape."

I had a guy come up and said, "You're pretty proud of your kids, aren't you?" And I said, "I am." He said, "They're pretty cute, aren't they?" And I said, "They are." He said, "Look at this kid." And it was a little girl on a fishing trip. I would have guessed six, seven, eight, and her line wasn't working and her dad said, "You fix it." She had line all over her. And as people frequently do when they have something they want to say that they want some level of privacy and we don't get it in this room, he kind of turned his back to the people and he said, "No one knows this. But a few years ago, we were on vacation and my wife was out running and she was raped. And this baby is the product of that rape. And I can't imagine ending that baby's life just because the dad is stupid."

You get that? Rape and incest, I got it. Now, if you came to me and said, "We can get a bill through Congress tomorrow if you'll make an exception for rape and incest," I'd cave in a nanosecond. I'm pretty pragmatic. But I don't think, if we want to be really consistent here all the way through, I don't think you can say because the sperm donor's an idiot, you kill the kid. It just isn't right.

Specific Instruction

Give me some specific instruction. Here you go. We got about six, seven minutes. Here's the biggest thing. And they go hand in glove, these first two or three or four things. Again, from that U.S. News article: "Women are willing to discuss the issue of abortion, but they rarely talk about their abortions. The reluctance to talk stems not only from fear of others' reproach, but from the fact that many women haven't completely made peace with their decision."

I got to walk the line here. Here's what we cannot gloss over this. Understand and acknowledge and realize that abortion is a sin, and it's wrong. At the same time, understand that within that sin, there is hope and that God forgives.

We talked about it last week when we talked about homosexuality. There's no question from God's word it's a sin. Is there hope? Absolutely. How much more in that lifestyle can you change? Millions have. Yes.

God's Forgiveness

If you're one of these ladies who have not made complete peace with this idea of an abortion or something in your past, there's forgiveness. Come to Christ. And many have. Our churches are filled with women who've had abortions. Some when they were just young and scared, maybe they were church kids, maybe even believers. Some who were older had this lifestyle, oftentimes not just an abortion, but multiple abortions. God saves them and their life changes. And they're saying, "Can He ever forgive me?" And the answer is, yeah. You can't out sin God's grace.

God is a God who forgives. He's a God of love. He does judge sin. Abortion's not the unpardonable sin. Accept His cleansing.

I'll hear this: "I could never forgive myself." Well, who are you? If God declares you forgiven, who are you to not forgive? God has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west. That's significant language. God did not say as far as the north from the south, because if I go north long enough, I'm going south. But I can never go so far east that I catch the west. As long as I'm going east, I'm going east.

God's forgiven you. God's cleansed you. Don't allow Satan a stronghold to take this and somehow say, "You're so dirty, you're so filthy, God never will forgive you." Do you hear those words periodically?

Let's say you've been sitting here going, "What a waste of time, 40 minutes, abortion's not my problem." Well, you pick your own sin here, where you're sitting there and going. Talking to a guy yesterday morning, he said, "I get these thoughts, I can't believe these thoughts, they're so disgusting, evil, filthy. Not just like when I say, when I hear, this is maybe my problem, when I hear filthy or dirty, I think sexual stuff. He said, "Not even that, just perverse, perverted, just goofy, weird thoughts." Do you sometimes get that? How could God ever forgive me? Look at what I've done. What you're doing at that point is saying to God, "My sin's greater than your ability to forgive." He'll forgive you. He'll use you.

Practical Steps

I'll give you some pragmatic advice and we'll get you out the door. Why don't you find an organization or two or individuals who are engaged in this process of dealing with pregnancies? Crisis Pregnancy Center is a wonderful organization. There are a lot of Christian organizations out there and they're great organizations, but my time around Crisis Pregnancy Center, primarily through when Haley was working there, they're on the front lines of this stuff every day. This isn't theory for them.

Almost every day, Haley would have a story of someone who came in, a young lady, an older lady, some story, and then they brought in the ultrasound machine. Haley's job was to take these ladies who were pretty sure that they were pregnant and to do the scans. And she would do those scans and allow that mother to see that baby on that screen. And I don't remember what the exact number is, seven out of 10,

Eight out of ten, nine out of ten of the women who once they saw that baby would not terminate the pregnancy. You can't deny it. It's a baby. And no matter whether it's an inconvenient time or dad's not around or you don't have the money, this isn't an option.

Haley came home one day and she said, "I had a gal that came back. She had been in before and we'd scanned it. She was on her way to get an abortion and we'd scanned it and said, 'There's your baby.'" This was now months later and she had come in with the stroller and said, "Haley, here's the baby that you showed me."

I had a lady that called me Christmas Eve a few years ago. She said, "I need to meet with you right away." And I said, "It's Christmas Eve, come on." She said, "No, I have an abortion scheduled for the 26th. I don't know what to do." I said, "Well, come on over to the house. Susan's here."

We talked and she said, "I have a boyfriend who's a doctor"—so this guy should know better than this—"who wants to pay for this and wants me to have this abortion. It's set for the 26th." I said, "Don't do it. If you need money, we'll find somebody. If you want somebody to take the baby, we'll find somebody to take the baby. Whatever you need, we will find somebody. Don't kill this baby."

About two years later, she comes into church, pushing the stroller with a big smile on her face saying—in her words—"This is the baby I was going to kill."

The Call to Engagement

It's a huge issue. Is it an emotional issue? You bet. Do I feel sorry and empathy and compassion for a woman that's caught in a pregnancy she doesn't want? I really do. But the answer is not to compound one mistake with another.

So you need to be engaged in this. You need to be praying about this. You need to be involved in this.

Reasons for Hope

There is good news. The latest stats I've seen says the abortion rate is actually dropping a bit. More young men and women ages 18 to 25 identify themselves as pro-life than pro-choice. There's good news.

Let me tell you something. Common sense, medicine, and the Bible are all on your side in this argument. For you and me, we have to figure out what that involvement is.

For you and me, though, at very least, you ought to be engaged in prayer and financial support for people who are out on the front lines fighting this battle. And as God provides opportunities through the courts, through the political system, where you can exercise that influence, you need to do that.

Closing Prayer

Father, we come before You today humbled as we think of this. We pray that You would help us realize that Your design, Your design for our life is what's best for us. And while situations, circumstances, emotions cloud these things periodically, God help us move by what we know, not by what we feel.

God, I thank You for those who have made difficult decisions, who could have avoided embarrassment and inconvenience and personal hardship by just simply ending a pregnancy, but decided to keep that baby. And now we have life.

We pray that all that we do and say in this issue glorifies You. We pray that we are able to speak the truth in love, that we don't gloss over the sin issue, but we do move to forgiveness and hope. God, thank You for loving us and working in our lives. We pray to You in Jesus' name, Amen.