Angela Chininin Buele

No one can deny there are a variety of emotions that drive the words and actions of activists on both sides of the abortion struggle.  Feelings of determination, anger, disbelief, division, or sadness can be felt on both sides of the fence.

Pro-choice advocates connected with NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Hillary Clinton, however, have honed in on one particular emotion to describe the decision to abort.  They say it is a “difficult” decision.  This wording can be found on documents at abortion clinics, in political speeches, and in personal testimonies.

Identifying abortion as a “difficult” decision is a way in which humanity is properly inserted into a debate that is often stripped of due sobriety.  For that, I am thankful. Women are human beings, and their fear of losing all they have is real.

We would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks it is difficult decision to seek treatment for cancer.  It is even more unlikely, perhaps, that someone would say it is difficult to seek treatment for a cavity.  These are diagnoses which, by their very nature, are unhealthy, painful, and physically damaging conditions.  Now, if gangrene were found on a woman’s leg and the doctors recommended amputation, that would be a different story.  In order to survive, the woman has to surrender a part of her body forever.  And quickly.  That is truly a difficult decision.  She will be the one to both benefit and suffer as a result of treatment, and this gives her the full right to take sole ownership of this matter.

Pregnancy, unlike cancer and cavities, is a natural, temporary condition that, under most circumstances and thanks to proper care and technology, is very rarely life threatening.  At this junction the most bizarre thing happens.

It is deeply saddening for a pro-life advocate to see the death toll increase each day that abortion is legal and accepted in the United States.  That shouldn’t surprise anyone reading this.  The rhetoric of abortion being a “difficult” decision surprises us as it betrays the natural response of a woman who is torn between the instinct to nurture her child and the pressure to meet expectations (whether imposed by herself or by others or by circumstances) that will lead to the end of her child’s life.

This is both good and bad news.  The good news is that signing someone’s death sentence should make a person feel terribly sad.  This is evidence of a soul which is not completely desensitized.  The bad news, however, is that women still choose to pay to have their children dismembered, knowing they already carry the guilt of this decision.  This is a problem of sacrifice.  Carrying and caring for a child, though in itself a gift, requires great sacrifice.  Abortion always makes the child the sacrifice.  This is a problem of misplaced worship, a religion problem whatever you may say you believe or don’t believe.  You know you will kill another person who is not even threatening you in order to attain relief or a reward for yourself.  It is a difficult decision after all, and we must have great compassion on anyone who identifies herself as a victim even as she initiates the murder of her own child.

Of course not everyone sees this decision as difficult.  Some people don’t even want women to practice free speech to say that having an abortion is a difficult decision.  The #ShoutYourAbortion movement from 2015 encouraged women to have a sort of coming out of the closet experience by making their abortion public.

One year prior to that campaign, an editorial piece in The Washington Post was written by a woman who directly commands women to stop calling abortion a difficult decision.  She warns her readers that, “To say that deciding to have an abortion is a “hard choice” implies a debate about whether the fetus should live, thereby endowing it with a status of being.”  As she continues, she lays it all on the line, even to the point of desperation.  She later states, “By implying that terminating a pregnancy is a moral issue, pro-choice advocates forfeit control of the discussion to anti-choice conservatives.”  I am not sure I have ever encountered a more clear example of both: a confession of unwanted truth and the calculation to cover it up.

Key Question: Does abortion being a “difficult” decision mean it’s wrong?

Unshakable Truth: “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:15-16).

The Real Choice:  Whatever your emotions are regarding abortion, God is resolute.  Forgiveness is in Christ alone, and we all need it, whether we have had an abortion or not.  How about we #ShoutHisMercy?