How do we stop abortion?

[Bro. Curtis]

I think our nation is doomed. Jimmy. We have been spared somewhat, I believe because of our support of Israel, plus, the gospel of Christ has been spread all over the world thru our country. But the U.S.A, which I love & have served, has turned it's back to God. And I know he won't put up with it for long. "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being King." 1Samuel 15:23

I know these words are for King Saul, but I believe they fit today.

 

[Helen]

We can't stop abortion, but we can slow it way down, and quite legally, too.

Reach out to the women. Forget the legal mumbo-jumbo -- there has never been a law against being friends with people who are confused, especially the teenage girls who 'get caught.'

When I was a teenager my mother said "good girls don't". Well, I didn't like my mother and I wasn't so sure I wanted to be a 'good girl' anyway. But that is still -- with some variation -- what most girls hear. Now it's more along the lines of 'healthy girls don't', as 'good' seems to be passe, but there is still not enough in the way of protection for young ladies caught in the maelstrom of growing up.

There is NOTHING, for the most part, that we can do regarding grown women who see their pregnancy as a horrid inconvenience. But in my time with my own teens and their friends, I know there are several babies that are alive and growing up because of my own caring personally.

I used to be part of a team that went around to schools talking about abstinence -- that strange thing called chastity. Just pulling a letter up from a file I have here, here is one response:

"I would just like to say thank you and God bless you. I cannot tell you how much it means to me (and I'm sure all the other girls here) for you to tell us that story of your life...it was very beautiful and will be remembered forever. I've got a boyfriend now and because of your talk I understand much more clearly what it means to save yourself for the right person. Thanx."

That's at least one abortion that will never be needed.

And that's how we do it. I've been on the front lines there and what works is going the way Jesus did, to the people themselves, one by one, and being there. Offering support, financial assistance (there are a number of pregnancy clinics and support groups for girls in most states now, I think, who do major help in the way of pregnancy support and financial and educational help), a foster home to pregnant teens. -- so many ways to help.

We don't need the legal system. We don't need or want violence. We need to make sure we remember that every human alive is made in the image of God, with a spirit and spiritual needs and hungers. We have the means and the ability to help there.

It is only when we expect someone else to do that reaching out that nothing gets done. But I know the one-on-one approach of caring works. I've been there. I've done that. There are babies alive today because of me. And I am just one person -- an old lady in the hills of California who has no political or financial influence in the world at all...

But I know how to care. And I know how to do something about that caring.

 

[MarciontheModerateBaptist]

A personal encounter with Jesus Christ is the only thing that will keep someone from having an abortion. If a woman experiences what she feels is hate instead of the love of Christ, she will not think twice about aborting. But if she experiences the love of Christ through encouraging words and ministry (not yelling and screaming and law making), then perhaps she will think twice about aborting her child. Law never change the heart. People do not bow down to external demands; they will, however, bow down to the internal demand of Christ if they experience Him.

Daniel Payne

 

[Helen]

Daniel, while I appreciate what you have said, there are many ways to help girls before they have learned more about Christ. There is a respect for life and a caring in teenage girls which has not been hardened to death yet. Once we make friends, there will be plenty of time to answer their questions about our faith. Reach out first. Be there. The women, mostly, need to be there. For a man to make friends with teenage girls is very suspect! But you can alert your female friends to someone who seems to be in trouble or needing help, and you can work with a pregnancy crisis center, and you can have Bible studies in your home where a number of kids come and so you are not under suspician. There is so much any one of us can do...

They will never care about our faith or ask questions about it if they don't see it makes a difference. Faith in action makes people ask questions. Our job is to know God well enough and know the Bible well enough to be able to answer those questions. We cannot 'make Christians.' Only God can do that. But we can answer questions, and we can walk alongside hurting people, and we can reach out to a hurting and dying world with care and compassion and some real help, physically as well as telling them the truth about Jesus.

 

[MarciontheModerateBaptist]

Well said, Helen. I completely agree. With the above post, I meant to state how important it is to befriend those in need (faith in action). This is how they will be introduced to the love of Christ.

Daniel

 

[David Cooke Jr]

The best way to prevent abortion is to prevent those situations that cause unwanted pregnancies and to provide better abortion alternatives. The best way to prevent abortion is to more effectively witness to children, and to provide them with better sex education. I do not mean programs that emphasize birth control. I think we should provide older children with the information that shows why premarital sex is a bad idea-the STD risk, the emotional toll, the later effects on their marriage, the roll alcohol and drugs effects your inhibitions and increases the likelyhood of rape, etc.
When kids see that the biblical stances on sex are also the common sense stances on sex, they will act accordingly. Additionally, if they are actively invovled in good activities they have less time to engage in bad ones.
Fianlly, I think we need to promote adoptive services that provide free medical care, counseling, and education for girls who give up their baby for adoption in lieu of abortion.
As for legal mehtods, I don't think they'll work and I don't like my church involved in politics b/c it corrupts both.

 

[Rosa]

There is a lot of deep discussion on abortion here. I believe that abortions should be stopped one at at time. In the home parents need to teach on the importance of life (when life starts). My children were taught that the a baby started at conception. They were taught that you took responisbility for your actions. If you made bad choices you did not add another bad choice on top of it. In other words if you get pregnant, you have a baby to raise. When my son came home from school and explained that he had sex education in school I talked to him about leaving sex for marriage. And I followed that statement up with the statement that anytime a girl got pregnant and it was his baby that meant that he was pregnant too. He had the responsibility to taking care of the Mother and the baby. And that is why mature people got married and raised a family together.
I understand that alot of kids don't have homes and parents that love them enough to teach the good moral values. I also understand that parents don't have control over what their teenagers and adult children do. Unfortunatly, all I can do is teach morals where I have the opertunity to. At home, in Bible school class, at Girl Scouts. I have no control over the masses. As adults we have a responsiblility to touch/teach young lives. But we can only do it one life at a time.

 

[Jonathan]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Helen:
Daniel, while I appreciate what you have said, there are many ways to help girls before they have learned more about Christ. There is a respect for life and a caring in teenage girls which has not been hardened to death yet. Once we make friends, there will be plenty of time to answer their questions about our faith. Reach out first. Be there. The women, mostly, need to be there. For a man to make friends with teenage girls is very suspect! But you can alert your female friends to someone who seems to be in trouble or needing help, and you can work with a pregnancy crisis center, and you can have Bible studies in your home where a number of kids come and so you are not under suspician. There is so much any one of us can do...

They will never care about our faith or ask questions about it if they don't see it makes a difference. Faith in action makes people ask questions. Our job is to know God well enough and know the Bible well enough to be able to answer those questions. We cannot 'make Christians.' Only God can do that. But we can answer questions, and we can walk alongside hurting people, and we can reach out to a hurting and dying world with care and compassion and some real help, physically as well as telling them the truth about Jesus.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Excellent Helen! How many of "society's ills" could be lessened if Christians, church by church, would rediscover their first love.

If every true believer would have a singular passion for the glory of God, the joy that would fall on us would be so much more than we could handle that it would "splash" on all of those around us.

Then all we would need to do would be to position ourselves so that this joy splashes on the poor, tired, scared, and lonely.

This is THE perscription for the abortion problem...also the poverty problem...also the child abuse problem...also the drug abuse problem...heck, this is even the prescription for the problem of legalism.

 

[JAMES2]

How about parents insisting on the public brainwashing factories (known as public schools) not teaching their kids all the New Age, secular humanism, paganism and hatred of Christianity that they subject the kids to!!!

The public schools have our children from the time of 6 to 18, a rather formative age. I don't need to remind people that the schools and their liberal, God-hating philosophy that teaches all truth is relative, disobedience to parents, spying for the state against their parents, and that little girls have "the right to their bodies" to do as they please is one of the main causes for teen-agers having babies.

Of course, on a more theological basis, abortion will be with us because human nature is fallen and this is a depraved, God-hating, sinful, me first, selhfish world where the values taught are the absolute opposite of what they should be. If a girl is a fallen, unsaved pagan no amount of talking to her is going to change her mind. She will repeat exactly what she has been taught by her lost, pagan teachers -- it's my body, my right, my "choice", the "fetus" is a blob of tissue, me, me, me ,me, my rights, my, my ,my blah blah. It will not change unless, and no matter what you say, until a person is regenerated by a sovereign act of grace and that person's mind is opened to the truth.

Abortion, as I have repeated on this board so many times, is the modern day version of child-sacrifice. The girls are taught to sacrifice their unborn babies to the god of feminism, paganism, the goddess sophia, the god of reproductive rights, individual rights and so on. Child sacrifice it is. It's so sad that the public schools are allowed to teach that rubbish to our children. Even worse that the "teachers" see nothing wrong with teaching it. Of course, if you are lost and of the world you think you are doing right.
James2

 

[Helen]

James, a few points.

1. Many homeschool or send their children to private schools.

2. Some public school teachers are dedicated Christians reaching out even there.

3. The girls are NOT taught to 'sacrifice' their babies! Although that may be what happens in the long run, that is NOT what they are thinking.

Here's what they are thinking:

"My folks will KILL me!"

"My friends will make fun of me."

"I'm scared!"


That's what they are thinking. Most of them. Scared. Looking for a way out, somehow.

Barry and I have offered to adopt any child if that would save it from being aborted.

What have you done?

 

[Pennsylvania Jim]

Thanks, everyone, for bringing this thread alive again. And thanks, Helen, for your great "faith in action" posts, you must have great reward stored up eternally for your work. I would like to challenge you on one point:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Helen:


There is NOTHING, for the most part, that we can do regarding grown women who see their pregnancy as a horrid inconvenience. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would suggest that there is much that can and should be done. Very simply, return our laws to what they were and should be, arrest such women and their "doctors", and punish them for murder.

 

[JAMES2]

Helen:
I need to respond to a couple of your points,although we are in agreement mostly.

Point 1 -- Homeschooling. Great. Best thing since Peanut Butter. Agree 100 per cent. That is the way, parents, keep it up.

No. 2 -- Of course SOME public school teachers are against brainwashing their students. However, it is hard to understand how they can remain a teacher when they are required to feed that junk to those young people. If you took a poll of teachers in the public schools, I'd bet my NKJV bible that the vast majority would support condomns, sex education, abortion and all the other false teachings out there. Maybe, hopefully, I'm wrong. Nothing would please me more.

No. 2 -- Of course the girls are not taught that murdering their unborn children is the same as child sacrifice to the false gods of this world. They can't teach them that, even though that is exactly what it is.

And of course the girls are scared and not thinking. If they were thinking they wouldn't be having sex and sneaking around behind their parents backs and doing things they KNOW are wrong -- otherwise they would not be sneaking around or be afraid. When they are taught that sex is their right, and condoms are free and disposing their babies like a worn out notebook is "their right," of course they are going to do dumb things like they do. They are children, and really immature at that. That's why I find the public school system such an evil. By their sick philosophy, they are saying, in effect, go ahead, do your thing. It's no one's business, including your parents, what you do. It is just repulsive to me!!!!!!!!!

You said you and your husband have "offered" to adopt a baby if that would help. That is wonderful, but then you asked me, well, what have you done? I don't usually talk about that kind of stuff but since you have asked:

I have been responsible for producing two children. I supported them both 100 per cent of the time until they were 18. Then I took on four that were not mine and supported them with my own money 100 per cent of the time until they were all 18. During that time I had 7 Cambodian refugees that were stuck on the border in Thailand and Cambodioa brought to the United States. They lived with me for almost two years, in my house at my expense, along with my other kids. I had a private tutor brought in 3 times a week to teach them all English. Then I arranged jobs for all those that were old enough to work. They are now U.S. citizens and employed taxpayers. And then, of course, there were several homeless people that I let live with me until they could get back on their feet, even tho most of those took things from me, and some of them even ran my phone bill up into thd 100s of dollars. Nevertheless, I took them in. Then there as the one who lived with me for 3 years, became a born again Christian, got off drugs, stopped cussing, attends church every Sunday and has even taught Sunday school. There's more but I don't wantto bore everyone. So, while, I haven't done much, I've tried to have an influence within my sphere of operation and my community.
James2

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: JAMES2 ]

 

[Wester]

As for aborton, I don't think it is the duty of Christians to solve every wrong in the world. It is a decision that the mother should make and not society.

 

[Helen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wester:
As for aborton, I don't think it is the duty of Christians to solve every wrong in the world. It is a decision that the mother should make and not society.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Murder for the sake of convenience does not make it any the less murder.

The mother had a choice when she decided to have sex. That was the time of decision.

And you don't think the father should have any say in the life of the child?

And maybe the child would like to live, too...

Less than 1% of abortions are done for medical reasons of health for the mother.

The rest are murders of convenience.

And no, we cannot solve all the problems in the world, but we MUST take a stand against them and do what we can. Anything less is to contribute to those very wrongs and problems.
We can't carry the world uphill, but that does not relieve us of the responsibility of at least pointing the way and impacting those we can impact with the love and mercy of Christ.

 

[Helen]

By the way, James2 -- thanks. I'll back off



God bless.

 

[JAMES2]

Helen:
And God Bless you, my friend.
James2

 

[Margie Kritzer]

Thanks Helen, for placing a more realistic perspective on the subject of abortion. I am particularly moved by your insight regarding the innocence of teen girls, the fact that their fear of discovery overshadows their youthful ignorance of the gravity of their choice.

As for adult women who view their fetuses as "inconveniences," no punishment inflicted by society could possibly equal the void that surely must take root when a full-grown woman takes the life of her own child. I believe that even a "guiltless," seemingly functional woman of today will eventually suffer from the choice. I trust that only God above can bring about a true change of heart.

By the way, I am a public school teacher. I have seen the great public school machine (the theorists that send us "new" philosophical waves periodically), fueled by liberal viewpoints, try to teach untruths in the name of tolerance in ALL things. I have discovered that most of us teachers, the ones on the front lines, remain firm in our own Christian beliefs. I feel a personal responsibility to help these children through a difficult time so that they can adapt to a changing world...the truth, however, doesn't change. I think most of us recognize that.