Transcript of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-0ORilh7Jg
We're going to be talking
about the vexed question of abortion; whether abortion is appropriate or
possible for a Christian, and whether someone who believes in the Bible and
in God and in the Lord Jesus should be feeling guilty about having had an
abortion.
Now I realise this is a
very, very difficult thing to discuss in any rational sort of way. It’s too
easy to come to a black and white solution whereby we say abortion
= murder
and that's a sin- and that's it. And I don't want to just say that and
finish the discussion; because I realise the issue is wider than that.
Believe me, I don't want to be in this discussion
really. It's just that people keep asking for some kind of guidance about
what the Bible says. And so I feel I have to share that with you because I
can't flunk the question by saying, “Search for that on the internet. Do a
Google on that one. Don't come to me.”
But I feel a great
weight, believe me, as I come and discuss this question.
Because maybe I might be leading you in the wrong way; even though I don't
want to lead anyone anywhere. I simply want to discuss what the Bible
says.
So, I wonder if you could
join with me in praying before we start on this study:
“Lord God our Heavenly
Father, we come to you the source of all life, the God of Israel, to try to
understand your word and to understand your will and how we should be
feeling about this whole issue of abortion and ending pregnancies. And, we
ask that you will open our eyes to your word, and give us strength to follow
where you are leading us. We ask that you will reveal your will to us. In
Jesus' name and for his sake, Amen”
So, I'm here in Riga,
Latvia. I'm at the Riga Bible Centre, which is in the former Soviet Union.
I've just completed a discussion about this very subject [in Russian] with a
hall full of baptised believers and some who are not yet baptised. I'd just
like to quote you some statistics. In the 1990s in the Soviet Union, there
were about 1,300 abortions for every 1000 live births. That's right.
Thirteen abortions for every live birth. And my
wife, as you might know, is a medical doctor, here in Riga, in Latvia. She
was telling me that for a gynaecologist to get registered and complete their
full training, they will have had to, in this country at least, and this is
today [October 2014], they will have had to participate in around 100
abortion procedures.
So, this is not something
that is just an item for somebody who gets raped or is in a very unusual
medical situation. Quite clearly, this issue affects a large number of women
and therefore families, in this part of the world and not just in this part
of the world. It is all over the world. And so, people are carrying a lot of
guilt when they hear things like, 'Abortion is murder'.
Let me start off thinking
a little bit about guilt. I'm going to suggest to you that there is false
guilt and true guilt. The true guilt is when we realise that we have not
done right before God, then we read his word and we realise that my life and
my thinking and my being is not matched with that which God would have liked
me to have done or to have been. And quite rightly we
should feel guilt, and the joy therefore of that guilt being taken away;
because the Lord Jesus was amongst other things the guilt offering, the
fulfilment of the guilt offering which there was in Old Testament times.
So all that guilt has been taken away. The guilt
of all our sin, sins that we don't realise we've done, sins that at the
moment maybe we've not fessed up to or don't perceive as sins. The whole
issue of guilt, both guilt that other people have put on
us that maybe we shouldn't have to carry, and also true guilt,
all guilt has been taken from us if we are baptised believers in Christ.
But, as I said, there is
false guilt and true guilt. False guilt, I would suggest, is the guilt that
we take that we needn't take. Guilt that is transferred onto us, that is put
onto us by people saying. “You shouldn't have done that.
You terrible person. You did this that and the other. You are a
murderer.” For example, if you're a gynaecologist, “You're a serial
murderer”. And I've heard that said. If you were a gynaecologist, in the
USSR and probably in a lot of Europe, you're a serial murderer. And then
when a gynaecologist becomes a baptised believer what do you do with your
guilt. Are you right to feel guilt over this, etc.? I'm just simply flagging
at the start that there is false guilt and there is true guilt.
You can also look at this
the other way round. Perhaps you live in a society, as many people did in
this country where I'm standing here, in Latvia, where there was no great
guilt attached to abortion. It was effectively used as a form of
contraception. And, unfortunately then, people can end up thinking, “Well,
yeah, it was okay because nobody else feels guilty about it. So, why should
I?” And this then raises the question of conscience. Is it simply enough to
say, when we look at this vexed issue, ‘Well it's just a matter of
conscience?’.
In 1 Corinthians 4: 4
Paul says, “I know nothing against myself”. In other words, I have a good
conscience. “But I'm not
thereby justified because there is one who is my judge and
that is the Lord”. So, then whether or not we feel okay in our conscience is
not insignificant because the Bible does talk about the importance of
conscience. But it is also not the final issue, because the Lord Jesus
teaches in the gospel of John that, “there is one that shall judge you on
the last day and that is the word that I have spoken”. Now it's not as if
we're going to stand before the Lord and our conscience is going to jump out
of us and we're going to stand there and we get judged according to how far
we followed our own conscience. No. Whether you feel it's right or not is
not the final deciding issue.
Many people who have
abortions are not rape victims. Many have abortions because they fear the
responsibility, feeling: “I'm not ready for this”.
Particularly younger women. I don't think it's
good enough to simply say, “Ah, yeah. I'm simply not ready for this
responsibility, so let's abort”. I would also like to say that I'm the
father of two children and at this moment my wife and I are four months
pregnant expecting our third child. So, if I were to say to my wife, “Ah
Honey, times are hard, some issue with money or no place for the new child
in our apartment. Let's just abort this, let's just terminate this
pregnancy”. Look it's obvious that the child is alive. There's a little
person inside that womb and for me that would be murder. And whatever I may
say in this Biblical discussion just remember
that, that for me personally that would be, effectively, murder.
Now, having said that, I
stand here in front of you and you are where you are and in one sense we are
just a bunch of cells. I'm just a bunch of cells. And that's what you are.
And if you were to analyse sperm, male sperm, what is that? It's a bunch of
cells. What is the egg inside a woman? It's a bunch of cells. So, there's
got to be some difference, starting on one side where sperm and eggs are a
bunch of cells, moving right across the spectrum to a grown human being, an
adult, who is also a bunch of cells. Somewhere on that scale that one bunch
of cells turns into something else that is considered to be a person. But I
would emphasise that the Bible does not, from what I can see, attempt to
define where that point is.
Let's think back to the
creation of mankind in the first place. God created Adam, and there was Adam
lying there, a body if you like, a person, but a
body. I'll read to you from Genesis 2:7: “And the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
A living creature. You could argue that God
breathing into Adam's nostrils made him a living creature. And without that
breath in the nostrils he was not a living creature. You could argue that
that was a special case, that was Adam's creation and that was a special
case. But going forward it does seem to me that that is actually how God
tends to define living persons- as persons who have the breath of life in
their nose. If you go to Genesis 7, you have the record of the flood.
Genesis 7:22: “All in whose nostrils was the
breath of life... died.” So, living creatures
appear to be defined there in terms of having the breath of life in their
nostrils. Now, babies don't breathe. Babies don't breathe. They fixate
oxygen from the mother. That's why when a woman comes to full term at eight
months, nine months pregnant, she's breathless. Very often pregnant women
complain of breathlessness. Why? Because they're fixing
oxygen for the child. That's why you can have a
waterbirth. A woman can give birth to a child under water because the
child at that point is not breathing, still connected to the mother for
oxygen. So, you could argue that actually the breath of life in the nostrils
is significant. And that phrase occurs many times in the scriptures. You can
check that out in a concordance at your leisure.
I'll just
give you one and believe me there are many. Job 27:3, “All the while my
breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils”, Job says. And
what he is saying in the context is, 'whilst I am alive, my lips shall not
speak wickedness' and so forth. So his description of being alive and being
a live person, who is not dead, is 'having breath in me and the spirit of
God in my nostrils'. When you come to the book of Numbers you have God
numbering his people; let's take a couple of examples in Numbers 3. This
phrase I am going to read to you occurs a number
of times in Numbers chapter 3. Let's take Numbers 3:22, “Those that were
numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old
and upward, even those that were numbered of them were seven thousand and
five hundred.” And so the phrase that continues throughout Numbers 3.
“Those that were numbered, according to the number, from
a month old and upward”. Why from a month old? Why not from two
months old? Why not from one week old? I don't know why. I'm simply saying
that it's clear here that God numbered persons in this particular context
from a month old and upwards.
I'd like to
take you back to Exodus 21, because here we have a passage that is quoted by
people who say that anyone who's had an abortion is a murderer and so forth.
So let's just read the text and see what it says. It's
Exodus 21:22: “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit
departs from her he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's
husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.”
If a man
beats up a pregnant woman and she loses the child was he treated as a
murderer? It proves that the child inside that womb is a person in one
sense. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that. We are formed inside the
womb by God and Psalm 139
says that God knows the child inside the womb. But, if this
guy comes up and beats this heavily pregnant woman and she loses the child
that wasn't counted as murder. He had to pay a fine. Now the Law of Moses is
not slow and is not shy to stipulate death penalties. And it's not shy to
say if you do this or that, then you must die. And it's not slow to condemn
murder. But, for me, all I notice in this passage in this case is it's not
treated as a murder. It's treated as something wrong but not as a murder. I
think you need to bear that in mind.
If you want,
if you are hoping at the end of this I am going to give you a yes or no, Is
abortion murder?, then you can stop watching now because I don't have that.
I don't have that answer. Because it's not in the Bible.
All I can do is discuss with you all the texts that I could see as being
possibly relevant to the discussion.
There is also
an idea that all life is somehow sacrosanct. And that any life is life. And
you've got to be extremely respectful of that, and so forth. I would say
this that there's a huge teaching in the Bible about the value and the
meaning of the human person, but
by the human person I mean the person, the personality, as they are as a
living being who has a character etc. Is all human life so terribly
sacrosanct? When I read the Old Testament, I just don't get that impression.
Because according to Genesis God wipes out the whole “world” in the flood.
Men, women and children etc. Israel then
come to enter Canaan and God basically says,
“Yep, nuke the lot of them. Men, women and children”.
And that would have included pregnant women. And then you come to
Ecclesiastes and the Psalms reflecting upon the meaning of death, and we're
told there that in the way that we die
we are no better than the animals. In the way that we
die. What does that mean, that you can go out and kill people
nilly willy, get mad
with some bloke and just go and kill him? No. I'm just saying, I'm just
raising with you the issue as to whether from God's
perspective, every single human life is so incredibly sacrosanct to
him. If it is, why does he only work with a minority of humanity? As you
see, I'm raising questions. I'm trying to help you,
I'm trying to help myself really, to come to a wider balanced perspective on
this issue. Rather than a simplistic one cent answer to
a million dollar question. Which is not want you
want and is not what I want.
Now, it is
true of course that God does work with his chosen people. And he talks about
those who he foreknew from the womb. Some years ago I was having this
discussion and I dogmatically quoted Jeremiah chapter one. I said, in my
more redneck days, “But God knew Jeremiah in the womb”. But it doesn't say
that. God actually says to
Jeremiah, “Before, [before!]
you were in the womb, I knew you and I ordained
you to be a prophet to the nations”. So, yes, there is a foreknowledge of
God, there is even a predestination of God, however you want to understand
that, of those who are, as Paul says in Romans, the called according to his
purpose. But to quote those references to God's foreknowledge of Jeremiah
from the womb doesn’t mean that therefore a certain set of cells must
therefore become a great wonderful believer; nor does it mean that you are
stopping that happening by having an abortion. I just don't think that
those verses about God’s foreknowledge of his chosen
ones in the womb is a proof that every human life is sacrosanct
to Him.
Now I am of course fully
aware of the argument that if you have an abortion you are stopping
potential life. That is true. And here in this hall, just an hour or so ago,
when we were having this discussion in Russian, somebody got up and said, “I
don't know who my parents were. I grew up in an orphanage but I have now
been baptised. And I have the hope of God's kingdom in front of me”. And so,
thank God, that his mother did not have an abortion.
But, in all discussion of
ethics, which is what we are discussing, it seems to me that very
easily, one can end up setting up a position
which if taken logically further- goes wrong. You end up in sort of case
law. So, in law the argument is sometimes made to the effect: “You let that
guy off because he did so-and-so but he was under the influence. Then why
don't you let the other guy off because he was also under the influence and
he did something worse”. This is the whole problem in any ethical
discussion; before you know where you are, you are taking decisions or
adopting positions which if taken to their conclusion will lead you into
some very, very difficult situations.
Now, I think
this is a classic example before us in this abortion issue; if we argue that
abortion is limiting potential life and is thereby wrong. If you're saying
abortion is wrong because you're limiting potential life, well I would
assume that therefore you should not use contraception. And that is why in
the Catholic church they have strong views
against both abortion and also against contraception- because the two things
logically fit together, do they not. If you're saying you can't limit
potential life or destroy potential life, well, in that case you shouldn't
use contraception. And it goes a stage beyond contraception. The ‘Don’t
limit potential life’ argument finally ends up by creating a dogma that
every human being should procreate as much as possible. Because if you
don't, if you choose to have two kids rather than ten kids, think about all
those eight little kiddies who could have had life. But you didn't because
you wanted to keep a better standard of living ,
you know the argument, ‘We didn't have enough money to have more than two
kids, so well therefore we only had two’. So, what are we going to say? You
potentially destroyed the life of eight kids? You’re a murderer? No. Well,
I don't think so.
What I'm
saying is, that in whatever position you ultimately want to come to on this
issue, you've got to test it really by asking where does
it lead logically. I mentioned earlier that I do not get the
impression that for God human life is so sacrosanct. When you think a
little bit about conception, as a process, you also would get that
impression; because one in three (that's a lot), one in three pregnancies
aborts naturally. There are a lot of women who get pregnant and they don't
actually realise they have been pregnant. That is a fact. A lot of
conception occurs but does not come to term naturally. Now, why, if God is
so, so against this, why is that built by him into the structure of the
whole nature of reproduction? We could say that it's part of living in a
fallen world. Well, yes it is part of living in a fallen world I suppose. I
don't suppose Eve would have miscarried and so forth. But all the same, that
for me only throws the question one stage back: So then why then if for God
every tiny foetus is so absolutely sacrosanct and important why then does
he, has he built natural abortion into the human
reproductive process?
The issue of unwanted
pregnancies, of “Oh hang.
I'm pregnant”, this is not something just for us here in Europe in the 21st
century. This has been always there. When I lived for a couple of years in
Africa, I came across there all kinds of strange beliefs and practices
related to unwanted pregnancies. And all sorts of ideas of what should be
done in order to end a pregnancy. It could be drinking something. It could
be touching a certain tree. It could be some strange rituals, some of them
harmful, some of them not, in order to make a pregnancy go away. Now those
kinds of rituals and those kinds of ideas are there in all primitive
societies, and for sure they were there at the time that God was giving the
Law of Moses. For sure they were there all the way through the Old
Testament. But there is never a word from God that engages with those
traditions and with those practices. There's
plenty of words from God about not getting involved in pagan rituals etc.
Don't take your children, that is children who
have been born and are growing up, and sacrifice them to the
Baals and all this kind of thing. Yes. But there
is not a word about abortion or abortion procedures as primitive societies
would have understood them. And my question is, why not? God is unafraid to
tackle and engage with the ideas of the surrounding nations. But on that one
he doesn't say anything. For sure it was there because it is there in
primitive societies today, all over the world in every single society. But
God doesn’t directly engage with it or outlaw those abortion rituals.
So, coming to
a conclusion here, the real moral issue is, I think, that God's intention is
that the family unit is the basis for having children. Sex outside marriage,
having kids outside marriage, this is taught against very clearly in the
Bible. They, for me, are the key moral issues, and it's because of a lack of
attention to those moral issues that the whole issue of abortions and
unwanted pregnancies arise. I have put before you what I see as the possible
Biblical case. And I can only say as you discuss around the relatively few
verses that appear to be relevant to the issue, that I do not see a clear
picture. In all intellectual honesty, expositional honesty, I don't see a
clear, if you like, doctrine / teaching. I don't
see a clear picture emerging, whereby you can condemn every single woman
who's had an abortion as a murderer. And remember that in the area in which
I live, that is well over 50% of women. No, they’re not all murderers.
And also in
our discussion, in this hall, today, an hour and hour and a half ago, the
point was raised that it is very easy to demonise women. “You had an
abortion. You're a murderer.” Why do most women have abortions? It's because
of a whole nexus of pressures upon them, a lot of which pressure comes from
men. Boyfriend. Father.
“I'm not having you in my house if you're pregnant, girl”. Society, boss at
work etc.. You're not going to get promotion if
you're a single mother… So, the whole issue is more than the whole guilt
being put on a single woman. The issue in that sense affects all of us.
Now, in
saying that the issue is not so black and white, the problem is that all of
us have a tendency to try and reduce every inconvenient moral issue to so
many shades of grey that we just say, “Ah yeah, well who knows? You just
have to do what you feel's right, where your heart leads you”. I don't think
that that's sensible. And God has given us his word. Now, as we've seen, he
doesn’t seem to make a big issue of it. But he does give us enough to go on
to realize that there is a point when a bunch of cells which doesn’t class
as a person, does become a bunch of cells which is a person in His eyes. I
have suggested that this is when a born person is
existing and independently breathing outside of the womb. But you
must draw that point for yourselves.
So, I'm
appealing for tolerance and understanding and not putting guilt upon people.
To simply say that everyone who's had an abortion is a murderer is very
radical and leaves huge numbers of sincere Christians condemned. You need to
think it through.
I'd like to
conclude with a prayer because as you can see, I hope, I have been somewhat
nervous in presenting these thoughts. People ask me and they want answers,
so I maybe haven't given answers in black and white; but I've discussed the
issue. Let's just pray:
“Lord God our Heavenly Father, we ask for your guidance again for each of us in understanding and in coming to our own understanding of these difficult issues. And we do pray Father for all those of your children who are pregnant, in difficult situations, we pray for those who have had children who they now have to raise on their own in difficult situations. We pray for those who feel under so much pressure, for those who right at this moment are going through agonies over these issues. We pray, Heavenly Father, for them; and we pray for ourselves to be as supportive as we can to them and as non-condemnatory as we can, whilst at the same time upholding our understanding of your word. Heavenly Father, we pray for the day when your son will be here and at last this fallen situation will be no more, and at last we shall be neither male nor female but we shall rejoice forever in your son, and the things of your eternal family. Father, may that day soon come. And strengthen us, Father, as we try to find our way through the minefield of this world and of this life, towards that wonderful day. For Jesus' sake. Amen”