by Dan Keizer

Created on: November 19, 2008

Abortion is a much debated issue and has been on the forefront of politics all my life. The choice to side with the free will of a mother or the life of a child is not easy for everyone.

From a contemporary Christian perspective, the rules are pretty clear cut. All life is sacred and participating in an abortion will land you in the lake of fire. See commandment number six for reference. An abortion is absolutely not in step with any of Christ's teachings that I'm aware of.

But what about Roe vs. Wade? The landmark case that allowed women in the US to choose whether or not they carry the child to term. Can a Christian support it? I'm going to go ahead and say yes, contradictory though it may seem. Let me break the situation down using an approach that isn't often addressed.

When you get to the bottom of it abortion and all hotbed political issues with the Christian Right are ethical matters. One side is the side of virtue, the other is the side of sin. Your choice determines your fate. The bible is pretty clear on marriage, sexual orientation, sodomy and murder. In life, you either choose actions that go with the lord or you give in to the temptation of the devil.

Choice is a prerequisite in ethics. If you act without having made a choice, that action cannot be held as good or bad. If somebody holds you at knife-point and forces you to donate money to a charity, you have not done a virtuous act. If our mugger on the other hand forces you to steal from the charity, you have not sinned. Unless your will is free when you act, nothing you do can be morally right or wrong.

By that rationale, enforcing virtue deviods society of virtue. Threatening a pregnant mother to complete her term by pain of imprisonment, fines or death takes away her choice and any virtue in the act of giving birth. No ethical choice, no Christian choice can be made. Forcing a person into one course of action or another makes man morally, ethically, and spiritually neutered.

So if you take away Roe vs. Wade you do not achieve a society choosing the path of Jesus, nice as that would be. What you have is a society devoid of free will, in which nobody can make the Christian choice because morals have been altogether removed from the picture by the introduction of force. Getting into heaven isn't easy from what I understand, and the only guy I know who ever tried to force his way in is down in the place we don't want to go.

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