Persuading Pro-Choicers
by Rev. Paul Howden
December 30, 2007
First Sunday after Christmas, The Feast of Holy Innocents
Matthew 2:13 ff.

Of the twelve days of Christmas, one of those days is somber. It is called, The Holy Innocents (Dec. 28). The Holy Innocents is a commemoration of the martyrdom of the young male babies murdered by King Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus. The story of the slaughter is told in our Gospel lesson from Matthew 2. Let’s read Matthew 2:13-18.

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

The wise men informed Herod that a king of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem. The Magi assured Herod that as soon as they discovered the whereabouts of this King they would come back and let him know. In a lovely piece of deceit the wise men, after finding Jesus, and worshipping Him, failed to return and notify Herod. Instead, the Magi fled to the East while Joseph, Mary, and the Babe escaped to Egypt. Angels had told them to do this in dreams. Herod thought the child King was still in the vicinity of Bethlehem, but he didn’t know which baby boy it was. What was Herod’s solution to not knowing which child to kill? Kill them all, every boy-child under two.

His henchmen ripped babies from the arms of hysteric mothers and ran them through with a sword. The little town of Bethlehem reeled in grief. This butchery fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, because they were no more.”

It was on January 22, 1973 that the Supreme Court of the United States legalized abortion. Since then about 35 million unborn children have been killed. It has become the custom in the R.E.C. to use the Holy Innocents Day as an opportunity to promote the pro-life position. Our bishops encourage this. The goal of the Church is to halt the wrongful killing of innocent human beings in our nation. The babies are not innocent because they are free of original sin, they are innocent of having committed a crime deserving of the death penalty. If they are holy it is on account of Christ’s holiness having been imputed to them by grace.

Coming up in January are two events: the March for Life in Washington D.C., and the Pro-Life Prayer Breakfast in downtown Scranton. These are chances you have to get involved in support of pre-born babies. Another way to get involved in this battle is to equip yourself with convincing arguments against the pro-choice position. That will be our purpose this morning: finding winsome ways to present the pro-life posture.

How can we persuade people to become pro-life? How do we win the hearts and minds of people who may be on the fence? Over the years the efforts of pro-lifers toward persuasion can be boiled down to three words – “It’s a baby!” We say that over and again: “It’s a baby! It’s a baby!” And that has been our answer to almost any question or charge. You are familiar with facts about the early heartbeat of the baby, his brainwaves, her capacity to feel pain, she likes to suck her thumb in the uterus, and play around. So we tell pro-choicers, “Don’t kill that fetus, it is a baby!”

There is good news and bad news concerning this tactic. The good news is that that message has in fact been heard. Thanks to sonograms, the general public is mostly convinced it’s a baby. Before ultrasounds became common, it was difficult to appreciate the early development of unborn babies and the extent to which they suffered during an abortion. Sonograms prove our case. Now we know. Everybody knows that the tiny creature in the womb is really a small human being. A Gallup Poll found that 77% of those questioned believe that, “abortion is the taking of a human life.” For the most part the pro-life side, our side, has won that battle. That’s the good news. The bad news is: that’s not the question people are asking anymore. They don’t care if it is a baby. Why?

Many people nowadays are willing to combine two views that seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, they believe that the fetus is truly a human being; and on the other hand, they favor abortion. In their opinion, it’s unfortunate, but if a lady gets undesirably pregnant, a person needs to die. Once a woman finds out about her pregnancy she doesn’t want, it’s a fight between her and her baby. Either she is going to lose control of her life or else her baby has to die. If a lady decides she must kill her baby, it’s a hard decision, but let her do it. Many people hold this view.

Then there is denial and indifference. Sometimes the pro-choice crowd simply doesn’t want to think about the issue. Abortion is a problem so difficult and painful they don’t want to work out the implications in their minds. They don’t want to be bothered. We, the pro-life crowd, keep saying, “It’s a baby!” And they don’t really want to hear about it. So how do we break through this apathy? How do we overcome the notion that a woman should be given the right to kill the person she is carrying in her womb? Should we stop saying, “It’s a baby. It’s a person. It’s a human being”? No we keep saying that, but we go on to say other things. We can be more effective in our battle if we go beyond merely stating that the fetus is a baby. What can we say? Let me map out three points of persuasion; three general arguments against abortion. [For this sermon, I borrow extensively from a speech given by Mrs. Frederica Mathews-Green on this topic. Almost all of these ideas are hers.]

What are the three points of persuasion? The first point has to do with the baby, but it is a variation on our “It’s a baby” message.” The point to make about the baby is what a horrible thing abortion does to that baby’s body. Abortion does horrendous violence to a baby’s body. Abortion is violence, savagery. If you can, describe some of the violence, if the conversation will allow. Talk about it being dismemberment as it is in almost every case. Talk about poisons that burn the baby and the lungs so that the baby thrashes until it dies. Talk about it being a horrible and a grizzly way to die, and the helplessness of that child. Now, the thing that we’re working on there is that nobody wants to be in favor of violence and nobody can dispute the fact that abortion is savage brutality. It’s grizzly, it’s bloody, it’s ghastly, and it’s appalling what happens to that child. And then after the abortion, what happens to that little body? It’s put down a garbage disposal; it’s put in an incinerator. There’s no dignity even in death for this little child.

People sometime ask if the photographs of aborted babies are helpful in this discussion. And I have to say no. Polling shows that if you show somebody a photograph of an aborted baby, they get angry with you; they don’t get angry at abortion. They feel that you have violated their peace of mind. On the other hand, if you have ever listened to a radio drama, a radio murder mystery, the pictures you paint in your mind are even more powerful than the ones you can see in a photo. You look at a horrible image several times and after a while you sort of shrug it off, you become immune to it. So it’s using words to paint a picture of the helplessness of this child and what happens to him as its torn limb from limb that will leave a far stronger impression than photographs. So I advise against using photos.

The first point is: what a horrible thing abortion does to the baby’s body. The second point of persuasion is a response to the other side’s point of “But women want abortion, they want it to solve the problems.” To that assertion, we must say, “No, women do not want abortions. Abortion hurts women and they do it in about five or six ways.”

First, look how expensive abortion is. The average abortion is $350. If you had that kind of money, what would you want to spend it on? Abortion is a bizarre thing to want.

Second, it’s a humiliating and demeaning procedure. It’s hard enough to get women to go in for their yearly pap exam. Nobody likes going to them. But an abortion procedure is an invasion to her body, even deeper than rape, it’s an unnatural invasion of her body. It’s painful. It’s unpleasant. It doesn’t have any dignity to it, so why would she want to go through this? She would not be looking forward to this. No one’s happy in the morning because she gets to have an abortion. Nobody saves up money hoping she can have an abortion. In what sense would a woman want this?

Third, it is unnatural. With abortion, we’re taking a condition that is intrinsically healthy, women’s bodies were created and designed to conceive babies, to go through a pregnancy, and to bear children; this is a natural process. Yet we’ve invented machines that will violate her body and disrupt this natural process.

Fourth, abortion is harmful. Studies show that after abortion the rate of miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies goes up two or three times; sterility goes up three to four times; ectopic pregnancy goes up five times; one and a half increase in breast cancer, and, of course, some women just die. They get infections, their uterus or bowel is perforated on the table, they have mishaps with the anesthesia. Women die because of abortion. Abortion is harmful. It can be lethal.

Fifth, abortion breaks her heart. At some level, no matter how much she denies it, she knows that it is her own child that is dying. It is her son or daughter who looks as much like her as any child she’ll ever have. A child cannot be replaced. And if mothers are under such intolerable pressure that they think abortion is the best option, it’s because we are not doing enough to give her better options. So we see that women loathe abortions. Abortion hurts women in many ways.
           
The third point of persuasion has to do with a common assertion from the pro-choice crowd, “How can we live without it?” What do you do with unwanted pregnancies? How can we live without abortion? First we have to say that we do believe in preventing pregnancy, we’re not just trying to create babies. We believe that abstinence is 100% effective, and that it prevents not only all the other things that can come with sexual promiscuity, including pregnancy, disease and death, but also it prevents broken hearts. You cannot put a condom on your heart. You cannot prevent the kind of heartbreak that comes as a result of promiscuity. We are going to stand fast for abstinence. Christians believe in abstinence, and practice abstinence. Sexual intimacy is beautiful between a man and a woman in marriage. Outside of that it is sin.

Second, we support women who get pregnant outside of wedlock through pregnancy care centers. These are truly a great ministry. In our local area of Scranton we have Birth Rite, Care Net, and the Scranton chapter of Pennsylvanians for Human Life. There are about 3,000 pregnancy care centers in the country compared to 400 abortion clinics.

Frederica Matthews-Green comments: “in researching Real Choices, a book I recently wrote on why women have abortion, I spend two years at pregnancy care centers talking with post-abortive women. I began the book thinking that if I could only talk to women who have had abortions and ask them why they did it, I would get a list of reasons and then I could rank the list. Like number one would be lack of housing; number two: I needed free medical care, and so on. I could then analyze what resources we had, and what resources were missing. However, it turned out completely different.

What I found as the reason most women felt they had to have the abortion was because somebody they loved told them to do it. It really had nothing to do with their material state. Some of them had plenty of money. Some of them were married and had everything they wanted. 88% of the time it was an emotional pressure or relationship pressure. That was a discouraging finding because I thought if we are only going to be able to prevent an abortion by convincing the girls’ parents or husband that they should not be pressuring her into having an abortion, that was going to be very hard. But women told me that that would not have mattered so much, but what she needed was for somebody to stand by her. This pressure from one person could have been balanced by support from another person, even a stranger, even someone she has never met before, as long as she could really count on them through all the months ahead.”

So to their question, “How can we live without abortion?” Our response must be twofold: increase prevention by abstinence, and provide support for women facing unplanned pregnancy. Adoption is a third response. Married couples might consider adoption.

Those are the three points to make with people in the middle. One, it hurts babies. It does it in a horrible, violent way. Point number two is: women do not want abortions. Abortion hurts women in many ways. Third, how could we live without it? Well, we can live without it because we can prevent pregnancy, through abstinence, we can support women who get pregnant with care centers, and through adoption.

These are some of the arguments that will help you counter the pro-abortion assumptions. If we pray and worship and persevere like William Wilberforce in his fight against slavery, we might one day prevail. Keep in mind the upcoming pro-life events: The 35th Annual March for Life will take place in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, January 22. Buses leave Scranton early in the morning and return late at night. It is a tiring all-day gathering, but rewarding. The Respect Life Prayer Breakfast will occur on Saturday morning, January 26, in downtown Scranton. Wesley Smith will be the speaker, and he is good. These are two ways you can get active in supporting the pro-life side. If you are a Christian you will want to work on behalf of the children that are dying every day. Learn persuasive arguments against abortion, and get involved.

Let us pray.