An article recently popped up on my Facebook feed that caused me to reexamine my own biases. Someone who goes to the same school I attend posted an article titled “You Can Be Pro-Choice Politically And Be A Pro-Life Advocate In Your Community”. While in theory I was aware that people who are religious are sometimes pro-choice, I guess I was just a little naïve; “Surely Bible college students who have a solid understanding of scripture and their faith wouldn’t be pro-choice” I would tell myself.

 

But boy was I wrong.

 

So now I am confronted with the fact that there are many Christians who claim to be “politically pro-choice”. And I am forced to develop an opinion on this concept. And while I can’t address every blog post and every argument line, I can state emphatically that:

 

It is Incoherent to be Politically Pro-Choice and Religiously Pro-Life.

 

I want to be clear that I am not calling anyone’s personal faith into question. Nor am I calling out anyone’s good intentions. But let’s break down some of the major, glaring issues with the statement “I am politically pro-choice but religiously pro-life”. In the article linked above, Reverend Romal Tune says, “…for many of us who are Christians and support choice it is because we believe that it is unfair to try and make people who are not Christians live their lives based on our beliefs”. And this is what I believe to be a central tenant of this position. Claiming that we cannot force people to change so therefore we shouldn’t force them at all. At first glance this statement seems fine. It seems moral. So what is the issue with it?

 

The issue is that Christians don’t believe this at all. And not just myself, I would be willing to argue that the author of the article does not believe this statement and he simply doesn’t realize it because he has never thought this through. Here is a question: would a Christian state that murder should be illegal? How about prostitution? Theft? Using heroin? To any and all of these things one could say, “I can never force them to change”. So what makes it any different?

 

A moral code by definition is something that one should fight to uphold. They are the things that an individual feels strongly convicted about. They are the things that an individual has a duty to try and improve or reform. I cannot say, “Murder is wrong for me to do, but I cannot influence other peoples’ choices” because this means I don’t believe in the immorality of murder at all. If murder is emphatically a “bad thing” then it is wrong for everyone, everywhere, at every time. Christians should absolutely uphold morals that they know to be true, even if no one else believes them. This isn’t “forcing” anyone to do anything. It is normal and expected for Christians to try and influence people based on their beliefs. Western society was founded on Christian beliefs and morals. It is completely hypocritical to say that Christians shouldn’t try to uphold their own moral code, if that was the case then we shouldn’t be Christians at all.

 

In the second part of this article I will explain what some of the specific problems are in a Christian worldview that allows for abortion.