When writing about the tragic act of abortion I am very mindful that I may in fact may be perceived as a hateful and condemning person who doesn’t understand the struggles and dilemmas that lead women (sometimes with the encouragement or consent of the father or partner) to make the decision to abort a little person. My intent in writing about abortion is not to pour salt into a wound that was caused by the decision to abort a child. I acknowledge that I can’t even begin to imagine the physical, emotional and spiritual trauma that an abortion causes to a woman. I additionally can’t say that I have any idea or understanding about the circumstances a woman might be living through that makes them think that an abortion is the only alternative to a difficult or inconvenient pregnancy.

To try to better understand I called our local crisis pregnancy center in Stillwater, Oklahoma to get some insight from a woman who works with women who are deciding or have decided to have an abortion. Here is my summary of our conversation:

An abortion is the exchange of one difficulty for a greater difficulty; one trauma for a greater trauma. An abortion is the decision to exchange a living challenge for a dead challenge that never quits living in the memory of the mother who aborted her child.

This still leaves me lacking greatly in my ability to grasp, and relate and I know it. No matter how much I read and listen I have no reference point for understanding what it is like to physically kill an innocent person.

If you are reading this and thinking because I have no idea what women go through, and therefore I have no right to judge or condemn a woman’s right to make this difficult decision, I would respectfully respond that you are both right and wrong. Again, I understand that I have no first-hand knowledge about the individual challenges that each woman faces, but I do know that it is wrong to murder another person for any reason.

I know  one other thing too and this is the most important thing that I know about anything, including abortion. I know that those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned. (Romans 8:1) I know that by repenting toward God and believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, including abortion and murder, there is no condemnation. (Acts 20:21)

I have never physically murdered anyone, but I have murdered people by being angry with them in the dark and deep places of my being. Don’t misunderstand me, I can’t ever think of a time where I planned or plotted to actually kill someone, but I have been angry and condemning of others to the point that Jesus says that I too am guilty before the court as a murderer. I am quite confident that over the span of my life I have hated a person or two and Jesus says I am therefore a murderer. (Matthew 5:21-26) John affirms Jesus’ teaching in 1 John 3:15 when he says, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

My guess, and it is probably more of a certainty, is that we are all murderers by the standard of Jesus and in the eyes of God. We have all hated and for that reason we are all guilty before the court.

I guess what I am saying to those who would read and hear is that I am trying to walk this road carefully with a balanced perspective of my own condition and the injustice of abortion,  realizing all sin is a treacherous act of treason against an infinitely holy and righteous God. Before God it makes no difference whether we have physically hated someone or hated someone in our mind and heart, either way we are guilty and condemned. Either way, we are all on level footing and we all need Jesus. My hope is that whatever sins may condemn us as individuals, that everyone of us will come to Jesus, the One who bore our wrath in His body on the cross so that we might die to abortion and murder, and live to righteousness. (1 Peter 2:24)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7