To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power. (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

Seeking the power of God to fulfill our good resolves does not mean that we don’t really resolve, or that we don’t really use willpower.
The engagement of God’s power never takes the place of the engagement of our will! The power of God in sanctification never makes us passive! The power of God engages itself beneath or behind and within our will, not in place of our will.

The evidence of God’s power in our lives is not the absence of our willing, but the strength of our willing, the joy of our willing.
Anyone who says, “Well, I believe in the sovereignty of God and so I will just sit back and do nothing” does not really believe in the sovereignty of God. For why would someone who believes in God’s sovereignty so blatantly disobey him?

When you sit back to do nothing, you are not doing nothing. You are actively engaging your will in a decision to sit back. And if that is the way you handle sin or temptation in your life, it is blatant disobedience, because we are commanded to wage a good warfare (1 Timothy 1:18) and resist the devil (James 4:7) and strive for holiness (Hebrews 12:14) and put to death the sinful acts of the body (Romans 8:13).

Second Thessalonians 1:11 says that it is by the power of God that we will fulfill our good resolves and our works of faith. But this does not nullify the meaning of the word “resolve” and the word “work.” Part of the whole process of walking worthy of God’s call is the active engagement of our will in resolving to do righteousness.

If you have lingering sin in your life, or if you keep neglecting some good deed just because you have been waiting around to be saved without a fight, you are compounding your disobedience. God will never appear with power in your will in any other way than through your exercise of that will; that is, through your good resolves — your good intentions and plans and purposes.

So, people who believe in the sovereignty of God must not fear to engage their wills in the struggle for holiness. “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). Only strive in the faith that in and through your striving God is at work to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
– John Piper

He [Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:9–11)

Pilate’s authority to crucify Jesus did not intimidate Jesus. Why not?
Not because Pilate was lying. Not because he didn’t have authority to crucify Jesus. He did.
Rather, this authority did not intimidate Jesus because it was derivative. Jesus said, “It was given to you from above.” Which means it is really authoritative. Not less. But more.
So, how is this not intimidating? Pilate not only has authority to kill Jesus. But he has God-given authority to kill him.
This does not intimidate Jesus because Pilate’s authority over Jesus is subordinate to God’s authority over Pilate. Jesus gets his comfort at this moment not because Pilate’s will is powerless, but because Pilate’s will is guided. Not because Jesus isn’t in the hands of Pilate’s fear, but because Pilate is in the hands of Jesus’s Father.
Which means that our comfort comes not from the powerlessness of our enemies, but from our Father’s sovereign rule over their power.
This is the point of Romans 8:35–37. Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword cannot separate us from Christ because “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Pilate (and all Jesus’s adversaries — and ours) meant it for evil. But God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). All Jesus’s enemies gathered together with their God-given authority “to do whatever [God’s] hand and [God’s] plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). They sinned. But through their sinning God saved.
Therefore, do not be intimidated by your adversaries who can only kill the body (Matthew 10:28). Not only because this is all they can do (Luke 12:4), but also because it is done under the watchful hand of your Father.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:6–7)

Pilate has authority. Herod has authority. Soldiers have authority. Satan has authority. But none is independent. All their authority is derivative. All of it is subordinate to God’s will. Fear not. You are precious to your sovereign Father. Far more precious than the unforgotten birds.
– John Piper

He has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

No pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism, and no ugliness.

The city of God will be perfect because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there.

Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ in this world. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.

When you desire this city above everything else on the earth, then you honor God, who, according to Hebrews 11:10, is the designer and builder of the city. And when God is honored, he is pleased and not ashamed to be called your God.

– John Piper

The passing of a man of God always brings special memories and attention to those who knew that man. With some of God’s servants, it really can be called the end of an era or at least, the end of something very special.

This is the case with the home call of Herbert Conrad Murrell on Friday mid-afternoon in Bentley, Louisiana at the age of 89 years. I think of Conrad’s own words he spoke about his own father’s death, “Forever with the Lord!” Now it is true of him–forever with the Lord. His life and ministry, ever since his conversion at age 25, has been a fragrance of Christ to countless numbers of people. That is always a tribute to the mercy and grace of God toward his child. Nothing good is of ourselves, but only comes to us from above.

Every generation seems to have a special man of God (or several simultaneously) arrive on the scene at the right time in God’s kingdom to serve uniquely as a prophet or anointed preacher of God’s truth, to impact their generation in a special way, well beyond the norm. Only God can raise up such men–Elijah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Luther, Knox, Whitefield, and others. R. C. Sproul, who departed this life also around nine weeks ago, seemed to be just such a man, whose impact widely would far exceed what the man himself probably envisioned. Conrad was in such a category himself. It is my opinion that, while he did not have as wide or as large a ministry as many great men have–C. H. Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones or Sproul–those men had nothing on Conrad Murrell. His was an equal intellect, equal spiritual gifts, equal godliness, and an equal powerful ministry.

Frank Bartleman, in speaking of men of God in history, said–

In the various crises that have occurred in the history of the church, men have come to the front that have manifested a holy recklessness that astonished their peers . . . . so it has been in all ages. When the religious condition of the times called for men who were willing to sacrifice all for Christ, the demand created the supply; there have always been a few who have been willing to be regarded reckless for the Lord. An utter recklessness concerning men’s opinions and other consequences is the only attitude that can meet the need of the present times.

Conrad was just such a man. He was marked by fearless courage fueled by the fear of God, and no sense of self-importance. He could preach to well-known or “important” people of this world and have no desire at all to impress them, then turn around and share a meal with a simple unknown person, and treated them with the same loving respect he would anyone else.

His health caused him to cease from public ministry in the fall of 2014, but his life continued to bless those he was around, and those who came to visit him. It reminds me of what Luke says of Paul in Acts 28:24–“He [Paul] dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him.” That was how Conrad finished his race, in his own home, receiving all who came to him, loving them, and enjoying time with them as long as his health allowed, until he could no longer hold conscious fellowship with anyone except God. But who knows what he heard, thought, and felt in the hidden man of the heart, as he waited his departure time?

He was a beloved brother, a faithful friend, a fearless preacher, a loving pastor, a real shepherd, a teacher with advanced intellect and gifts, a wise man above his peers, a teacher and mentor to many preachers, and one who was truly valiant for truth.

When our mutual friend, Al Whittinghill, heard of Conrad’s gain in death, he thought of Isaiah 57:1–“The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart . . . . he shall enter into peace.” Bentley, Louisiana was graced with a prophet of God in their midst for over fifty years, and few there even knew it, and most of those who did, did not choose to sit under his ministry. Many today in Grant Parish have no idea that one of the finest and godliest men of their generation in the nation just passed to heaven right near where they live. No one takes it to heart. But may those who did know him, hear him, profit from him, and love him, take his death to heart today.

He is loved, is missed, will be remembered with love, and the fragrance of his life and legacy will continue. He being dead, yet speaketh. That voice points us not to Conrad, but to the Savior he so wonderfully preached and served. Take heed, brethren . . . . God sent him to us to profit withal. What a gift and what a blessing Conrad Murrell was and is–forever with the Lord!

– Mack Tomlinson

I woke up late this morning. That rarely happens. I guess my body was dictating that I needed it. But unless I am leaving in the early morning on a trip, my early routine is always the same. My goal each day after getting “presentable” is to get a hot tea or coffee and head to my “chair” to be alone. Well, not alone–the Lord is there already in the closet, waiting for me to come.

I hold my Bible. The Bible. The Word of God. We can routinely grow used to having it and this can hinder how much we profit from our daily reading. What I mean is that when I pick up my Bible any morning, I often don’t remind myself often enough what I am getting ready to engage in–hearing the voice of God Himself from the Bible. I must engage my mind, my heart and soul to conscious treasuring the Bible daily. We must consciously cultivate a high and treasuring view of the Bible when we read every morning. If we don’t have that every morning, we won’t have that attitude on Sundays or anytime we hear the Bible preached. Our goal ultimately should be, as Anne Steele puts it, to find “sweet freshment” from the Bible.

Whenever I open my Bible daily to read—

– Do I have a reverent heart?
– Do I engage my heart to be teachable?
– Do I pray in faith for God to speak to me?
– Do I view my reading time as communion with my Father rather than a time to gain Bible knowledge or information?
– Do I remind myself when I read that I am reading God’s words and hearing His voice when I am reading?

Anne Steele’s heart, expressed in her hymn, Father of Mercies, In Thy Word, expresses the attitude and heart which we should cultivate daily in our daily reading of Scripture—

Father of mercies, in Thy Word
What endless glory shines!
Forever be Thy Name adored
For these celestial lines.

Here [in the Bible] may the wretched sons of need
Exhaustless riches find;
Riches above what earth can grant,
And lasting as the mind.

Amidst these gloomy wilds below,
When dark and sad we stray,
Here beams of heaven relieve our woe,
And guide to endless day.

Here springs of consolation rise
To cheer the fainting mind,
And thirsty souls receive supplies,
And sweet refreshments find.

Here the Redeemer’s welcome voice
Spreads heavenly peace around;
And life and everlasting joys
Attend the blissful sound.

Oh, may these hallowed pages be
Our joy by day and night,
And still new beauties may we see,
And still increasing light.

Divine Instructor, gracious Lord,
O grant our fervent prayer,
Teach us to love Thy sacred Word,
And view the Savior there.

– Mack Tomlinson

It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.
– Robert Murray McCheyne

The moment you come to realize that only God can make a man godly, you are left with no option but to find God, and to know God, and to let God be God in and through you.
– Major Ian Thomas

Be dogmatically true, obstinately holy, immovably honest, desperately kind, and fixed upright.
– Charles Spurgeon

What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in nineteen cases out of twenty, arises from different habits about private prayer I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy pray much.
– J. C. Ryle

O Lord, keep our hearts, our eyes, our feet, and our tongues. – William Tiptaft

Many of us are vexed over the state of our nation and our society today. Sometimes we might feel like echoing the cry of Jeremiah: ‘Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people’. (Jer 9:1). What can we do to stem the tide of evil sweeping the land? ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ (Psa 11:3). We know that the Lord is upon His throne, and He is in control of history, but the same Lord has been pleased in the past, at his ‘set time’, to revive His cause and to stem the tide of evil.

WHEN THE LORD WORKS

What is the means through which the Lord will do his work of reformation and renewal? He will use human instruments as He did on the Day of Pentecost, at the Protestant Reformation, and during the Great Awakening. But it is not left merely to human instruments. There are many in the Churches today who are trying to bring improvement in society, and who are reaching out with the Gospel, but to little effect. Where are the conversions to Christ, a heightened spirituality in our churches, and a real effect upon our society? In our eagerness to see a change, have we forgotten something?

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Davies, regarded by some as the greatest preacher that America has produced, in commenting on John 16:8-11, declared:

The Holy Spirit is the only effectual reformer of the world. If he is absent, legislators may make laws against crime, philosophers may reason against vice, ministers may preach against sin, conscience may remonstrate against evil, the divine law may prescribe and threaten hell, the Gospel may invite and allure to heaven, but all will be in vain.The strongest arguments, the most melting entreaties, the most alarming denunciations from God and man, enforced with the highest authority, or the most compassionate tears, all will have no effect, all will not effectually claim one sinner or gain one sincere convert to righteousness.

WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES

Much as the disciples would miss the presence of their Master, He assured them in the ‘Farewell Discourse’ (John 14-17) that He would send ‘another Comforter’. In fact, He would return to them in the Holy Spirit: ‘I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you’. (John 14:18). His main ministry would be to believers, but He also has a work to do on ‘the world’, which would change it radically. The great mission of the Holy Spirit to the men and women of the world is that He will act as a prosecuting attorney to confront them with their guilt and bring them to see the folly of their ways, and to repent. Without this work all the activity of man is in vain. Besides, this is the only work that will ensure a radical change in the sinner and bear lasting fruit in his life.

‘When he is come he will reprove the world of sin’: The word translated ‘reprove’ in the AV has generated a lot of debate as there is no exact synonym in English. ‘Convict’ comes nearest to the meaning. It is to ‘convince by proof of a fault or error.’ The world is at fault regarding sin righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit is going to act like a prosecutor and secure a conviction; He is going to bring the facts to light, make a case for a guilty verdict. The sinner will be exposed and constrained to plead guilty about these three things:

1. About Sin: The world has a wrong idea about sin because it has a false idea of God. Men will acknowledge certain evil acts as sin, but as far they themselves are concerned, they are liable to speak only of ‘my failings’, or ‘my shortcomings’. We must let God define sin. It is measured by the enormity of the offence against the majesty and glory of God. Sin is an infinite evil because it is against an infinitely good God. It strikes at the very being of God , it is deicide. But the particular sin the world must be convicted of by the Holy Spirit is the sin of unbelief: ‘because they believe not on me’. The people who constitute the world do not believe in Jesus. If they did believe in Jesus they would believe His statements about their guilt. The Cross of Christ proves, among other things, the dreadful nature of sin. But they refuse to acknowledge that and they reject the only remedy there is from the consequences of their sin. This is the sin that will ultimately destroy the sinner. ‘How shall we escape if they neglect so great salvation?’ (Heb 2:3). He needs to see this.

2. About Righteousness: The world has its own concept of righteousness. This was supremely manifested in the treatment meted out to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jewish leaders, who were of the world, regarded themselves as righteous and Christ as the sinner. ‘This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them’ (Luke 15:2). He healed on the Sabbath day and as a result they sent officers to take Him. Then they took counsel together to put Him to death. Peter, later addressing the Jews, could declare: ‘But ye denied the Holy One, and the Just, and desired a murder to be granted unto you. And killed the Prince of life’ (Acts 3:14).

Why does He say ‘of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you see me no more’? In a short time He was to be resurrected from the dead, ascend to heaven, and be seated at the right hand of the Father. This would mean His vindication and acceptance with heaven and it would then be seen who was ‘the righteous One’. This would show up the pretentious claims of the ‘righteous’ Pharisees; there would be a great reversal. When Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost he said: ‘Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). We are told that ‘when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart’ (Acts 2:37). The Holy Spirit secured a conviction as far as they were concerned. The only acceptable righteousness to be found before God is that which Christ wrought out on behalf of His people.

3. About Judgment: ‘Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged’. All of the lies, falsehood, rebellion, and evil in the world originate in the devil. He deceived our first parents and held sway over mankind as a result. Christ referred to him as ‘the prince of this world’ (John 12:31; 14:30). Paul calls him ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor 4:4). Sinners are enslaved by him. He directed his venom on the Son of Man, and sought to destroy Him. The devil appeared to triumph in the crucifixion of Christ, but what was apparent victory turned into ignominious defeat. His head was bruised (Gen 3:15) and as was foretold by the Saviour: ‘Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.’ (John 12:31). God works by contraries. Manifest weakness was used to make the great reversal of the Cross: ‘Having spoiled principalities and power, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it’ (Col 2:15). The world is now on the losing side and all who maintain their alliance with Satan will be cast out with him. The sinner needs to see this.

APPLICATION

Firstly, this is the serious nature of the work of salvation. It is a mighty deliverance from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. There has to be a convicting work of the Spirit to bring the sinner to despair of his ‘refuge of lies’, and flee to Christ alone for salvation. A radical change has to take place in repentance and contrition. This is what seems most lacking in evangelicalism today.

Secondly, the calling of the preacher is not to set the sinner at ease and make him happy, his task is to strip him of his self-righteousness and go for a guilty verdict, before applying the balm of the gospel.

Lastly, the work of salvation from first to last is of the triune Jehovah. The Father purposed and planned, the Son executed, and the Holy Spirit applies. Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but God gives the increase (1 Cor 3:6). All the schemes that we can devise are ineffective without the sovereign work of God. How we need to bend the knee and cry: ‘Come Holy Spirit, Come’.

– John J. Murray

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us!

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion. Man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base — as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

The most important question before the Church is always God Himself. And the most significant fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he, in his heart, conceives God to be like.

Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.

Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God. The weightiest word in any language is its word for God.

That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence.

A right conception of God is basic not only to theology, but to practical Christian living as well. There is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics which cannot be finally traced to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

It is my opinion that the current Christian conception of God is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God, and actually to constitute something amounting to a moral calamity!

– A. W. Tozer

The usual justification for abortion is that the unborn person is not a ‘person’. It’s said that ‘Nobody knows when life begins’. But that’s not true; everybody knows when life, a new individual human life, gets started. It’s when the sperm is dissolved in the egg. That new single cell has a brand-new DNA, never before seen in the world. If you examined it through a microscope, three cells lined up– the newly fertilized ovum, a cell from the father, and a cell from the mother. You would say that, judging from the DNA, the cells came from three different people. When people say the unborn is ‘not a person’ or ‘not a life’, they mean that it has not yet grown or gained abilities that arrive later in life.

But there’s no agreement about which of the abilities should be determinative. Pro-choice people don’t even agree with each other. Obviously, law cannot be based on such subjective criteria. If it’s a case where the question is ‘Can I kill this?’, the answer must be based on objective medical and scientific data. And the fact is, an unborn child, from the very first moment, is a new human individual. It has the three essential characteristics that make it ‘a human life’–it’s alive and growing, it is composed entirely of human cells, and it has unique DNA–it’s a person, just like the rest of us. Abortion indisputably ends a human life.

But this loss is usually set against the woman’s need to have an abortion in order to freely direct her own life. It is particular cruelty to present abortion as something women want, something they demand, and find liberating. Because nobody wants this. The procedure itself is painful, humiliating, and expensive; no woman ‘wants’ to go through it. But once it’s available, it appears to be the logical, reasonable choice. All complexities can be shoved down that funnel. Yes, abortion “solves” all the problems; but it solves them inside the woman’s body. And she is expected to keep that pain inside for a lifetime, and be grateful for the gift of abortion.

WHAT NOBODY WANTS

Many years ago, I wrote something in an essay about abortion, and I was surprised that the line got picked up and frequently quoted. I’ve seen it in both pro-life and pro-choice contexts so it appears to be something both sides agree on. I wrote, ‘No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.’ Strange, isn’t it, that both pro-choice and pro-life people agree that this is true? Abortion is a horrible and harrowing experience. That women choose it so frequently shows how much worse continuing a pregnancy can be. Essentially, we’ve agreed to surgically alter women so that they can get along in a man’s world. And then we expect them to be grateful for it.

Nobody wants to have an abortion. And if nobody wants to have an abortion, why are women doing it 2,800 times every day? If women are doing something 2.800 times daily that they don’t want to do, this is not liberation they have won. We are colluding in a strange new form of oppression.

And so we came around to one more March for Life, like the one last year, and like the one next year. Protesters understandably focus on the unborn child because the danger it faces is the most galvanizing aspect of this struggle. If there are different degrees of injustice, surely violence is the worst manifestation, and killing worst of all. If there are different categories of innocent victim, surely the small and helpless have a higher claim to protection, and tiny babies the highest of all. The minimum purpose of government is to shield the weak from abuse by the strong, and there is no one weaker or more voiceless than unborn children. And so we keep saying that they should be protected, for all the same reasons that newborn babies are protected.

Pro-lifers have been doing this for 43 years now, and will continue holding a candle in the darkness for as many more years as it takes. I understand all the reasons why the movement’s prime attention is focused on the unborn. But we can also say that abortion is no bargain for women either. It’s destructive and tragic. We shouldn’t listen unthinkingly to the other side of the time-worn script, the one that tells us that women want abortion, that abortion liberates them. Many a post-abortion woman could tell you a different story. The pro-life cause is perennially unpopular, and pro-lifers get used to being misrepresented and wrongly accused. There are only a limited number of people who are going to be brave enough to stand up on the side of an unpopular cause. But sometimes a cause is so urgent, is so dramatically clear, that it’s worth it. What cause could be more outrageous than violence, fatal violence, against the most helpless members of our human community?

If that doesn’t move us, how hard are our hearts? If that doesn’t move us, what will ever move us? In time it’s going to be impossible to deny that abortion is violence against children. Future generations, as they look back, are not necessarily going to go easy on ours. Our bland acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. In fact, the kind of hatred that people now level at Nazis and slave-owners may well fall upon our era. Future generations can accurately say, ‘It’s not like they didn’t know.’ They can say, ‘After all, they had sonograms.’ They may consider this bloodshed to be a form of genocide. They might judge our generation to be monsters. One day, the tide is going to turn. With that Supreme Court decision 43 years ago, one of the sides in the abortion debate won the day. But sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind.

– Frederica Mathewes-Green

At the time of the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, I was an anti-war, mother-earth feminist hippie college student. That particular January, I was taking a semester off, living in the D.C. area and volunteering at the feminist ‘underground newspaper’, Off Our Backs. As you’d guess, I was strongly in favor of legalizing abortion. The bumper sticker on my car read ‘Don’t labor under a misconception– legalize abortion,’ The first issue of Off Our Backs after the Roe decision included one of my movie reviews, and also an essay by another member of the our group, criticizing the decision. It didn’t go far enough, she said, because it allowed states to restrict abortion in the third trimester. The Supreme Court should not meddle in what should be decided between the woman and her doctor. She should be able to choose abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

But at the time, we didn’t have much understanding of what abortion was. We knew nothing of fetal development. We consistently termed the fetus ‘a blob of tissue’, and that’s just how we pictured it, an undifferentiated mucous-like blob, not recognizable as human or even as alive. It would be another 15 years or so before pregnant couples could see and show sonograms of their unborn babies, shocking us with the obvious humanity of the unborn.

We also thought back then that few abortions would ever be done. It’s a grim experience, going through an abortion, and we assumed a woman would choose one only as a last resort. We were fighting for that ‘last resort’. We had no idea how common the procedure would become; today, one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. Nor could we have imagined how high abortion numbers would climb. In the 43 years since Roe v. Wade, there have been 59 million abortions. It’s hard even to grasp a number that big. Twenty years ago, someone told me that, if the names of all those lost babies were inscribed on a wall, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the wall would have to stretch for 50 miles. It’s 20 years later now, and that wall would have to stretch twice as far. But no names could be written on it because those babies have no names.

A woman who had an abortion told me, ‘Everyone around me was saying they would be there for me if I had the abortion, but no one said they’d be there for me if I had the baby.’

We expected that abortion would be rare. What we didn’t realize was that, once abortion becomes available, it becomes the most attractive option for everyone around the pregnant woman. If she has an abortion, it’s like the pregnancy never existed. No one is inconvenienced. It doesn’t cause trouble for the father of the baby, for her boss, or the person in charge of her college scholarship. It won’t embarrass her mom and dad. Abortion is like a funnel–it promises to solve all the problems at once. So there is significant pressure on a woman to choose an abortion rather than adoption or parenting. A woman who had an abortion told me, ‘Everyone around me was saying they would ‘be there for me’ if I had the abortion, but no one said they’d ‘be there for me’ if I had the baby.’ For everyone around the pregnant woman, abortion looks like the sensible choice. A woman who determines instead to continue an unplanned pregnancy looks like she’s being foolishly stubborn. It’s like she’s taken up some unreasonable hobby. People think, ‘If she would only go off and do this one thing, everything will be fine.’

But that’s an illusion. Abortion can’t really ‘turn back the clock’. It can’t push the rewind button on life and make it so she was never pregnant. It can make it easy for everyone around the woman to forget the pregnancy, but the woman herself will struggle. When she first sees the positive pregnancy test she may feel, in a panicky way, that she has to get rid of it as fast as possible. But life stretches on after abortion, for months and years, for many long nights, and all her life long she may ponder the irreversible choice she made. Abortion can’t push the rewind button on life and make it so she was never pregnant. This issue gets presented as if it’s a tug of war between the woman and the baby. We see them as mortal enemies, locked in a fight to the death.
But it’s a strange idea, isn’t it? It must be the first time in history when mothers and their own children have been assumed to be at war. We’re supposed to picture the child attacking her, trying to destroy her hopes and plans, and picture the woman grateful for the abortion, since it rescued her from the clutches of her child. If you were in charge of a nature preserve and you noticed the pregnant female mammals were trying to miscarry their pregnancies, eating poisonous plants or injuring themselves, what would you do? Would you think of it as a battle between the pregnant female and her unborn, and find ways to help those pregnant animals miscarry? No, of course not. You would immediately think, ‘Something must be really wrong in this environment.’ Something is creating intolerable stress, so much so that animals would rather destroy their own offspring than bring them into the world. You would strive to identify and correct whatever factors were causing this stress in the animals. The same thing goes for the human animal.

WHAT WOMEN WANT?

Abortion gets presented to us as if it’s something women want; both pro-choice and pro-life rhetoric can reinforce the idea. But women do this only if all their other options look worse. It’s supposed to be ‘her choice’, yet so many women say, ‘I really didn’t have a choice’.

I changed my opinion on abortion after I read an article in Esquire magazine, way back in 1976. I was home from grad school, flipping through my dad’s copy, and came across an article titled ‘What I Saw at the Abortion’. The author, Richard Selzer, was a surgeon, and was in favor of abortion, but he’d never seen one. So he asked a colleague if, next time, he could go along. Selzer described seeing the patient, 19 weeks pregnant, lying on her back on the table (That is unusually late; most abortions are done by the tenth or twelfth week). The doctor performing the procedure inserted a syringe into the woman’s abdomen and injected her womb with prostaglandin solution, which would bring on contractions and cause a miscarriage (This method isn’t used anymore, because too often the baby survived the procedure, chemically burned and disfigured, but clinging to life. Newer methods, including those called ‘partial birth abortion’ and ‘dismemberment abortion’, more reliably ensure death). After injecting the hormone into the patient’s womb, the doctor left the syringe standing upright in her belly. Then, Selzer wrote, ‘I see something other than what I expected here… It is the hub of the needle that is in the woman’s belly that has jerked. First to one side. Then to the other side. Once more it wobbles, is tugged, like a fishing line nibbled by a sunfish.’ He realized he was seeing the fetus’s desperate fight for life. And as he watched, he saw the movement of the syringe slow down and then stop. The child was dead.

Whatever else an unborn child does not have, he has one thing–the will to live. He will fight to defend his life. The last words in Selzer’s essay are, ‘Whatever else is said in abortion’s defense, the vision of that other defense [i.e., of the child defending its life] will not vanish from my eyes. You cannot reason with me now about abortion. For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?’

The truth of what he saw disturbed me deeply. There I was—anti-war, anti-capital punishment vegetarian, and a firm believer that social justice cannot be won at the cost of violence. Well, abortion sure looked like violence. How had I agreed to make this hideous act the centerpiece of my feminism? How could I think it was wrong to execute homicidal criminals, wrong to shoot enemies in wartime, but alright to kill our own sons and daughters? That was another disturbing thought: Abortion means not killing strangers, but our own children, our own flesh and blood. No matter who the father, every child aborted is that woman’s own son or daughter, just as much as any child she will ever bear. We had somehow bought the idea that abortion was necessary if women were going to rise in their professions and compete in the marketplace with men.

But how had we come to agree that we will sacrifice our children as the price of getting ahead? When does a man ever have to choose between his career and the life of his child? Once I recognized the inherent violence of abortion, none of the feminist arguments made sense. Like the claim that a fetus is not really a person because it is so small. Well, I’m only 5 foot 1. Women, in general, are smaller than men. Do we really want to advance a principle that big people have more value than small people? That if you catch them before they reach a certain size, it’s alright to kill them? What about the child who is ‘unwanted’? It was a basic premise of early feminism that women should not base their sense of worth on whether or not a man ‘wants’ them. We are valuable simply because we are members of the human race, regardless of any other person’s approval. So do we really want to say that ‘unwanted’ people might as well be dead? What about a woman who is ‘wanted’ when she’s young and sexy, but less so as she gets older? At what point is it all right to terminate her?

To be continued–

Fredrica-Mathewes Green