Does the Church Have Responsibility for Same-Sex Marriage? The Question of Animus

As same-sex marriage is set to revisit the United States Supreme Court, a question has already been raised by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Namely, is political and legal opposition to same-sex marriage rooted in an “animus” against homosexual persons qua homosexual persons?

Sadly, there is a reality within the church and culture of such animus, and this has only served to disembowel the constitutional argument for the social goodness of one man and one woman in marriage. This animus is usually the exception, but its presence is poisonous.

In the fall of 2002, I was baptized into this animus reality as I addressed a forum at Boston University on the topic: “Is Same-Sex Marriage Good for the Nation?’ My interlocutor was Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. We had not met before, and I arrived at the auditorium first. When she entered the room, with a number of followers behind her, I stepped forward, reached out my hand to shake hers, and with a smile said, “A pleasure to meet you.”

As I did so, her followers all reared back in surprise, which is say (as I interpreted the moment), they expected me to be a “homophobe” and were not prepared for genuine humanity and hospitality.

Arline led off the evening and said up front that every other person she had debated on this subject “had palpably hated me, but not so tonight with John Rankin.” I was surprised, and even more so later when she also said, “John, we know that you love us.” I never used the word love, but certainly showed respect for her equal humanity, and sought to listen well.

After a forum some years later, Arline gave me a hug, and in an email said to me: “John, you are a true gentleman and a thoughtful advocate.” She also gave me permission to publish and attribute these words. This from the woman who successfully led the lobbying movement for the nation’s first “gay rights” bill in Massachusetts in 1989, and again in 2005, led the lobbying effort for the first in the nation same-sex marriage law.

In my post-graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School in the 1980s, I was once took a class in feminist ethics. During lunch, early in the term, three women classmates approached me as I was sitting in the refectory. One of them introduced herself along with her two friends, and she said, “You know John, for an evangelical, you’re a nice guy.”

She continued, and introduced a topic de novo. She noted that the three of them were lesbian, and every lesbian they knew had been the victim of “physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse” by some man in her early years. This was new information to me. And why, I still wonder, were they sharing this testimony with me?

I remember praying in my spirit as I heard these words, Dear God above, has the church ever heard this? Or do we merely pass judgment on those who are homosexual and move on?

In 2003 I shared this story at a huge turnout before the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut State Legislature, broadcast live on CT-N. The topic was pending legislation on same-sex marriage, and as I relayed this story briefly in my testimony, the whole room was filled with groans so cacophonous I could hardly hear myself speak. A friend in the audience later told me that all the groans were from women wearing same-sex marriage stickers, and that they held their breaths until I was done with that segment.

I was neither questioned nor challenged by anyone there, nor subsequently. It was something to get past for those in charge. What I did, unknowingly, was to speak a pain that dares not speak its name – and to speak it with unfeigned human care for those who have suffered. This reality has deep resonation among the male homosexual population as well.

I have addressed this and related topics in many other settings such as the University of Rhode Island, Yale, Wesleyan, New York University, Syracuse, Harvard, the University of New Hampshire, Smith, the Chautauqua Institution, a homosexual restaurant, churches of various theological persuasions, many personal conversations with avowed homosexual persons, Trinity, Dartmouth, Brown and the University of Hartford. As well, at the behest of an ad hoc meeting of fellow ministers, I was the scribe for The Ministers Affirmation on Marriage in the Hartford Courant: “Yes to Man and Woman in Marriage: No to Same-Sex Marriage.” It never elicited any public critique, as first 200, then 700 ministers and Christian leaders signed it. I even once debated the infamous and late Fred Phelps of “godhatesfags.com,” itemizing fourteen ways in which he made an idol out of hate.

Yet all the while, in my proactive theology and politics, I argue that one man and one woman in marriage is sine qua non for a healthy civil order, and that same-sex marriage undermines this foundation. This is in ways that almost no one discusses, and why I have submitted an Amicus Curae before the Supreme Court posing seven questions – where the well-being of all people equally is the goal.

Here are the questions:

1] Is there any written source for unalienable rights in the United States apart from the Creator identified in Genesis 1-2?

2] Is marriage itself an unalienable right – one that all people can demand for themselves – or is it an option under liberty?

3] How does the Creator define human sexuality?

4] Are same-sex marriage advocates thus forcing a choice between unalienable and ultimate rights given by the Creator, on the one hand, versus basic and penultimate rights defined by human authority, on the other?

5] And if so, are same-sex marriage advocates decoupling the Declaration of Independence from the United States Constitution and civil law?

6] Can same-sex marriage advocates give any example in human history where a homosexual ethos has advanced the well-being of the larger social order?

7] Is homosexuality a fixed or immutable trait? In Goodridge, re Marriage Cases and in Kerrigan, no scientific basis for a supposed genetic or social determinism for homosexual identity was even attempted. And I have seen none attempted otherwise. Apart from clear evidence of a “fixed or immutable trait,” Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, relative to defining a “suspect” or civil rights class status, is not met for homosexual persons qua self-identified homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a civil rights class in U.S. law.

Before the Court can make any ruling, I believe these questions must be addressed and answered.

On my website, www.teii.org, at the Marriage or Pansexuality icon, there are nearly 70 articles that explore this plus much more cognate territory. I invite those in the church to consider a question: To what extent does male irresponsibility despise and abandon boys and girls into an ersatz human sexuality, one that teems with sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and early death? And for those so abandoned, as they find homes among communities of shared suffering, what would we have done had we suffered such violation, and sans a true grasp of the Gospel?

The harshest language Jesus ever used was in calling some of the hypocritical elite “sons of hell.” Any man who betrays true manhood, and does sexual violence to others, along with the hatred of a Fred Phelps, are clear examples I know where such judgment is merited.

I also invite those who disagree with me in any capacity, inside the church or outside, to pose their most rigorous questions.

Jesus removes the condemnation from a manipulated woman caught in the act of adultery, and then calls her to leave her life of broken trust (my language for the most biblically comprehensive definition of “sin”). And he gives the power of his Holy Spirit to all those who want to heed his words. I have a friend, a Unitarian minister, whose church has welcomed many avowedly homosexual persons. And yet, he made a remarkable statement to me once in a public conversation. Namely, though in his counseling with many of them, he affirmed them in their homosexual identities, but saw no resulting improvement in their psychological and physical health across the years. There are far deeper painful relational realities at play. Does legalized same-sex marriage cause any remedy for such human suffering, or only give imprimatur to deepening broken trust?

If same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land, the church bears great responsibility. Broken relationships will continue to multiply and the social order will continue to crumble on many fronts. I pray otherwise, but we in the church must be proactive and not reactive in our grasp of the Gospel. And if same-sex marriage does not become federal law, our calling remains equally the same.

###

The Apostle Paul (Part 2)

When the apostle Paul writes to Philemon, some see a supposed parallel in Roman society. N.T. Wright points out, that over a century prior, the distinguished Pliny the elder writes to a friend named Sabinianus. He makes a plea for a "freedman" who has fled from Sabinianus, a man with whom Sabinianus is angry, one who has done obvious wrong in some capacity and is sorry for it. Pliny counsels Sabinianus to be merciful, but also adds: " ... because I've given him a severe talking-to, and I've warned him clearly that I won't make such a request again (This is because he needed a good fright ...)." A "freedman" is someone who has already gained freedom from slavery but is not a citizen with full rights.

There are two important observations N.T. Wright makes here. First, the literary structure at play is something with which Paul is well familiar, and uses easily. But second, and dynamically, the underlying reality for Paul is the biblical narrative that is radically different than that of the Roman storyline.

Pliny expects the freedman to stay within the social order as it exists, and reinforces it with a strict warning. But Paul radically undermines the Roman social order while not engaging in lawbreaking. First, Onesimus, though a slave, is to be received back by Philemon as much more - he is now a brother in Christ, regardless of what the Roman social order says. Second, Onesimus is to be regarded as Paul's assistant. And third, Paul implicitly but powerfully suggests to Philemon that Onesimus receive his freedom. In Christ, there is a deeper fellowship (koinonia) that transforms social orders for those who grasp its nature. We treat one another - regardless of social standing, race, sex, education etc. - as equals in the sight of Christ Jesus. As members of the Body of Christ, we work together in true unity.

###

The Apostle Paul (Part 1)

I am reading through the 1658 page magnus opus by Anglican scholar Tom (aka N.T.) Wright: "Paul and the Faithfulness of God." For any intrepid reader, if you set a modest pace of 10 pages a day, you will be richly rewarded. Here, in sequential blog posts - in pace with others - I will seek to progress through it with some summary observations.

Tom Wright begins with an overview of the letter to Philemon. Paul lives in a world intersected by Roman rule, Hellenistic culture and Jewish theology, and thus has much to negotiate constantly. Onesimus, as a runaway slave, is liable to the death penalty, that which his master Philemon can require. But Onesimus becomes a Christian in the process, and this changes everything. Paul uses his authority, in Christ, with Philemon, to cut far deeper than the rule of human law, but at the same time without becoming lawless. Namely, the fellowship (koinonia) shared between Christians is so profound and transformative that Paul can appeal to it and Philemon understands.

Paul is cutting through false social and political strata, and as he does elsewhere, in saying that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. He does not negate true complementarities in human nature and culture, but rather lays the foundation for the abolition of tribal and racial divides, slavery and sexism. The Roman Empire implodes, and within its remnants is the Christian Church with a radically different understanding of political power and only source of stability.

###

The Original Sacred Assemblies for the Unborn (SAU), 1989-1991 (Part 2)

The Strategy

In these assemblies, we had several points of strategy. First was a visible presence augmented by banners and signs. Second was a peaceful and conversational presence where we sought to engage abortion-rights protestors, police, passersby, “escorts,” guards and others in honest dialogue. Third was worship, including song and prayer in various capacities. And fourth was the eventual development of The Jeremiah 19 Liturgy (see below). It all involved a specific embrace of spiritual warfare, where we were seeking to break the demonic forces present, and to see the Spirit of God touch the hearts and minds of all those involved with Preterm in any capacity, especially the women coming for abortions.

In the first element of our strategy, we had two large banners, each about six feet in width, and three-and-a-half feet in height. One banner was at the front of Preterm, on the sidewalk on Beacon Street, and the other on the side street near the rear entrance and parking lot.

The banners had white block letters against a green background (like a highway sign), and easily visible from quite a distance:

YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHOOSE LIFE

We also had some signs (three by two feet in size) that said the same, with the same colors. Then we had ten (now twelve – #3 and #12 have since been added, with several also slightly edited, 18″ x24″) sets of yellow signs with black letters, that posed rhetorical questions, also designed to be clearly visible against any surrounding. These read:

AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU WEREN’T ABORTED?
WHY DO YOU FEEL NO CHOICE BUT ABORTION?
IS IT YOUR CHOICE, OR HIS CHOICE, FOR YOU TO ABORT?
HOW DOES HUMAN ABORTION ADD TO YOUR OWN DIGNITY?
MIGHT YOU REGRET THIS ABORTION SOMEDAY?
CAN ANYTHING GOOD BE SAID ABOUT HUMAN ABORTION?
DOES GOOD CHOICE NURTURE OR DESTROY HUMAN LIFE?
WHY DOES THE HUMAN FETUS FIGHT TO STAY ALIVE?
WHY DOES “FEMINISM” ABORT UNBORN GIRLS?
WHICH COMES FIRST? YOUR LIFE OR THE POWER OF CHOICE?
CAN YOU IMAGINE JESUS PERFORMING AN ABORTION? WHY NOT?
IS THE ABORTION INDUSTRY RACIST?

In the language of the banner, the first six words equal the centerpiece of feminist sympathies: “You have the power to choose ….” And pagan feminist thinking believes the concept of the power to choose is their formulation of an identity in stark opposition to a biblical worldview.

The words “you have the power” strengthens this language of acknowledgment, and in adding “power,” feminist yearnings find resonance. This is further symphonized with the addition of choice – “You have the power to choose ….” These six words are as central to all feminist theories as any summation can make. We know that the abortion choice is largely the result of male chauvinisms, and many feminists and abortion-rights activists are in painful reaction to having been so violated.

When the final four-letter word is added to the phrase, “You have the power to choose life,” the de facto feminist ethic of misinformed choice is revealed. The power of informed choice requires accurate definition of terms, it requires an acknowledgment of reality. When “life” is put in, the object of “pro-choice” is no longer amorphous. It takes on flesh, it becomes real in its consequences. The power to choose? The power to choose what? Are all choices equal (e.g., dualism), or are some good and some evil?

The questions were all designed to be intelligent and thought-provoking, and not accusatory. Over two years worth of Saturdays, we saw as many as 200 women turn away from their abortion appointments. Hundreds of honest discussions occurred with abortion rights activists and others who were there, and many anecdotes elsewhere.

###

The Original Sacred Assemblies for the Unborn (SAU), 1989-1991 (Part 1)

When “Operation Rescue” hit the national scene in 1988, it advocated a strategy of vigilante physical blockade of abortion centers. I argue elsewhere that is was unbiblical. For here, let me address how we sought to best protect the unborn in such a context during that season, where as many as 200 women walked away from their abortion appointments by their own informed choice.

In the spring of 1989, I initiated a Christian witness at New England’s largest abortion center, Preterm, in Brookline, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston, which later I called the Sacred Assemblies for the Unborn (SAU). Preterm was then performing about 10,000 abortions a year. Over a two-year period we maintained a weekly presence on Saturday mornings. Usually we had from a dozen to three dozen people; on a number of occasions we had 50 or more, and several occasions we had large turnouts, including our first time on June 3, 1989, with some 225 participating. Activists from the Boston chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) were also there for the first nine months in equal numbers, but afterward called it off because, according to one of their leaders, we “were persuading too many of them.”

Biblical Thinking About the Evil of Rape and Incest

In prior blog posts (October, 2010) I focused on real life stories concerning the evil of rape and incest, and the ministry of the Gospel. Here I will look at the critical biblical thinking necessary to address such deep human pain.

The hatred for the evil of rape and incest is best embraced when the humanity of the woman and child are equally and fully embraced.

Since human abortion does not heal the evil and does not unrape the woman, the next question is where healing and justice are to be found. In order to move in this direction, the power to give and the power to forgive must be embraced, and they are rooted in only Genesis.

Courage is needed to overcome the adversity, but rarely is courage able to be grasped when someone is alone – especially if facing single motherhood with the painful memories of the pregnancy having occurred in such a violent fashion. The power to give trumps the power to destroy, and the raped woman needs love given to her so as to help her overcome such devastation. We love because God first loved us.

Thus the church must be an agent of that love to such a woman, giving her the time, love, counsel, spiritual, psychological and material resources necessary for her to become an overcomer. This is particularly a one-on-one woman-to-woman ministry, though men can be involved in supporting capacities. Here the ministries of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) have done yeoman work. Healing is found in the church where Jesus Christ is Lord, where his people are self-giving to such women, where the necessary resources are made available, and where the raped woman chooses to accept such ministry, with her privacy being simultaneously honored.

We need to profile the nature of courage. It is a choice of whether we rise to the challenge or flee from it. In Revelation 2-3, Jesus addresses seven churches in the province of Asia – churches at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. They were under severe persecution for their faith, from political and cultural opposition orchestrated by the devil, as well as direct assaults from occultic powers. Their lives were threatened, and they suffered many abuses and even death. In history we see the evil of rape in wartime, and for the Christians in these seven cities, it would probably be one of a list of many atrocities they suffered. We all know trials in our lives we need to overcome, whether an actual rape or another evil that strikes at the deepest core of our physical, social, psychological and spiritual well-being.

In the words to each of the seven churches, Jesus specifically calls them to be overcomers. He provides the wherewithal – if only we believe, and that is what he calls us to. The greatest literature in history, and its focus on true heroes and heroines, does not celebrate the cowardly, but the courageous. At the end of Revelation when it diagnoses those who are outside the kingdom of God, it mentions the “cowardly” (21:8).

To be courageous is not to summon human strength to overcome, and to be cowardly does not refer to the one who cannot summon such strength. The courageous are those, who in acknowledgment of their weaknesses, nonetheless place their trust in the goodness of God, and the cowardly are those who will not embrace such trust and belief. In fact, those with the greatest worldly strength and resources are oftentimes the biggest moral cowards. And the poor and humble are oftentimes the most courageous. The reversal of the reversal. Courage means doing what is right.

When a woman becomes pregnant by rape or incest, she is terribly aware of her weakness and vulnerability. Only a reversal of the reversal can minister to her, and if she embraces it, she is empowered to be an overcomer. Cowardly acts lead to a true loss of humanity, but courageous acts lead to a greater humanity, and it is the courageous whom history fetes. In the face of the destruction and dehumanization of rape and incest, the choice to give life to the unborn is an act of courage, and the church needs to be there to help the woman make this choice. Courage is never easy on the face of it, but it is the right thing to do, and in the long run it produces peace in the soul.

The unborn child is innocent, and if aborted, the child becomes the second victim. It is a question of power – if the child is aborted, the rapist prevails twice. He has succeeded in having one act of destruction lead to another act of destruction. He has succeeded in prostituting motherhood by causing a mother to forsake her child. This prostitution is his prostitution, not hers, but she is the one in whom the agony is deposited alongside his seed. He is the coward to begin with, and he poisons her with that same cowardice if she yields to an abortion. He has succeeded in having the power to take trump the power to give, he has served the reversal, he has advanced the agenda of the ancient serpent.

What about the woman’s emotions? Oftentimes, in pregnancy due to rape, the very thought of giving birth to a rapist’s child is repulsive, and even if she overcomes that initial repulsion, the memory of a rapist father will always be there. She cannot but view the child as the offspring of such a “father,” and cannot imagine loving such a child. This is why the love of God the Father is indispensable – he who has loved us, when through our sins we have become as unlovely as can the appearance of a rapist’s child to the mother, and as obviously hated by the rapist father. Only God’s love can reverse the reversal in this case, and with a grasp of the power of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Who has more power – the rapist or the woman? In 1 Corinthians 7, as we have looked at earlier, Paul is addressing the question of marriage and divorce, and in this context he says:

“If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy” (vv. 12b-14).

Here Paul says that the believer has more power than the unbeliever, especially in terms of influencing the children. Do we encourage victims of rape to believe this? Are they empowered in the face of the hell they are going through, to overcome the temptation to look at the child as a “rape child,” and instead to see him or her as an image-bearer of God in whose life the love of Jesus Christ can triumph? Does a rape victim view the child as her child, the one whom she will influence, or does she buy the devil’s lie that the rapist, and the painful memory of him in absentia, will be the primary influence?

The percentage of abortions due to rape is very small, and women who abort due to rape, abort at about the same rate as all women who abort their pregnancies. So the emotions and the trauma associated with rape do not produce a higher choice for abortion than women who get pregnant out of a chosen relationship. But because of the huge hormone changes in a woman’s body during the first weeks of pregnancy, a woman is emotionally vulnerable to being pressured into an abortion in the 8-12 week range – while her emotions can be reacting to that state of pregnancy, before her hormone shift is complete and she begins to identify with the growing child within her. This is why CPC ministries are crucial in how they stand in the gap, especially in cases of rape and incest.

Whereas pro-abortion ideologues say that an abortion is necessary to rid the evil of rape and incest, in truth, they take the pain of women so victimized, and employ it to their own ends. Abortion-rights proponents have long known that most all abortions are in reality a matter of choice.

In the early 1970s, an abortionist in California, Dr. Irvin Cushner, said that 98 percent of women who get an abortion do so simply because they do not wish to be pregnant at that particular time, as he testified before the U.S. Congress. They have college or career plans or other priorities. Now it is my conviction that male abortionists are the most chauvinistic men there are, so we need to be careful with Dr. Cushner’s diagnosis. Medically speaking, he understates the case. But he does not note the 93+ percent reality, as we have itemized [elsewhere], of all abortions being outside of marriage – where male chauvinism reigns (not to mention the fact that nearly the rest of abortions happen because the husband is on the way out the door). So the choice is never a planned choice or a satisfactory one – there are mediating factors. Women are often pressured into this “choice” by male chauvinists.

This is why the pro-abortion activists, in their ideological zeal, can actually hate women, despite their protestations to such a diagnosis. In the mid-eighties, I traced the data, as far as it was possible, to arrive at an estimate of the percentage of abortions due to rape and incest, and the figure came out to 1/10 of 1 percent, or about 1600 cases per year (out of 1.6 million total annual abortions at that time). The nature of forcible rape actually lessens the statistical norm for possible pregnancy, but whether the number of instances is small or great, it is nonetheless a real hell for those so victimized.

My point here is that upon the backs of these women do the pro-abortion ideologues market an ideology of sexual promiscuity and abortion-on-demand. Whereas some of them do genuinely care for women thus victimized, in large part it is the pain of the raped woman that is used to market the justification for abortion in all instances. The pain of raped women is employed as public rhetoric in service to Planned Parenthood and other abortion marketeers. Whenever they have need for political persuasion to keep abortion legal, they prostitute the emotional identification we all have for compassion upon a rape victim, so as to say that pro-life people hate women, and thus the pro-life argument must be rejected in total.

But the pro-abortion ideologues rape these very women all over again, using their pain as chattel. When we grasp this reality, we can see clearly how the abortion-rights language is in service to the reversal, and we as Christians are called to reverse the reversal. We do this by empowering rape victims to choose life equally for themselves and their unborn children, to embrace overcoming courage and to reject the male chauvinistic cowardice that only knows destruction. We do this by reversing the reversal of public language, and say “no” equally to the physical rapist of the women, and “no” to the spiritual and political rape of these same women by those who are the pro-abortion ideologues.

Another way we can look at this issue is pointing out that we are all children of rape, whether physically or metaphorically. In other words, if we were able to trace every act of sexual union that produced us, from our parents back to the Garden of Eden – how many of these acts were in true marital love with the planned embrace of children so conceived? How many of these sexual unions were in various states of turmoil, and how many were adulterous unions, acts of fornication, acts of rape or acts of incest? For all I know, and I do not know, a drunk fifty-year old man in the highlands of Scotland in the ninth century A.D. raped his thirteen-year old niece, apart from which I would not be here today.

We do know that William I of Normandy was an illegitimate child, known also as “William the Bastard.” He shaped history with the crossing of the English Channel in 1066, apart from which not only would I not be here today, but many tens of millions of others as well, including British royalty and most if not all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. This returns us to my earlier observations about Genesis 5:1-3, the image of God and the power to pass it on as given to Adam and Seth, even in spite of their sins. Of course too, we know that such sexual sins have also produced evil people like Adolf Hitler (i.e. the ethics of choice). The point is this – none of us come from a lineage that is sexually pure. Thus, if we judge the child of the raped woman to be less than human, then we judge ourselves and our loved ones likewise. I would not be surprised to learn that the majority of or all of the human race has literal rape or tabooed incest in their lineages at some point.

If we can answer the question of rape and incest, the toughest of questions in the abortion debate, we can then win the largest portion of public sentiment possible. The tragedy of pro-life politicians who carve out an exception for the rare reality of pregnancy due to rape and incest, is that by side-stepping the question, they reduce their ability to tackle the real question of human abortion head on – the willful destruction of unborn children, which simultaneously assaults the humanity, psychological and physical health of their mothers. We can only succeed in the overall concerns if first we embrace the power to love hard questions in this regard.

In summary, human abortion is not an answer to the hell of rape or incest:

1. Human abortion does not unrape the woman – it redeems nothing and thus it is in service only to the reversal.

2. Human abortion does not restore the fractured qualities of the POSH Ls of the image of God (peace, order, stability and hope;to live, to love. to laugh, to learn).

3. Human abortion only adds further brokenness, since it equals the intrinsic power to destroy.

4. Human abortion is not compassionate to the woman or to her child.

5. Human abortion mocks the power of the woman to overcome the evil she has suffered, it excludes the power and redemptive effect of courage.

6. Human abortion mocks the nephesh of the unborn by killing the child – the other innocent party.

7. Human abortion allows the rapist to triumph twice – to assault both woman and child – to get away with “double murder.”

8. Human abortion allows the power to take and destroy of the rapist to vitiate the power to give of the woman.

9. Human abortion allows the pro-abortion ideologues to market “abortion-rights” on the backs of rape victims – it rapes the woman all over again.

10. Human abortion is a tool of the ancient serpent, who would abort us all, since all of us are actually or metaphorically “children of rape.”

###

Women and Their Unborn: Two Overwhelming Realities

There are two overwhelming realities to the debate over human abortion.

First, biologically discrete human life begins the moment a haploid spermatozoon fertilizes a haploid ovum, and a diploid one-celled zygote is formed. We all started this way, and there has never been a change in our DNA from that moment of fertilization.

Thus, human abortion destroys human life.

Second, and crucially, legalized human abortion is a quintessentially male chauvinistic prerogative. According to the Alan Guttmacher research arm of Planned Parenthood, International, a consistent 82 percent of all abortions in the United States since 1973 are performed upon unmarried women. According to data well known to the thousands of pregnancy resource centers in the United States, of the remaining 18 percent of abortions where the woman is married, in three-fourths of the instances the pregnancy is through adultery. Of the remaining one-quarter, the man is almost always on his way out of the marriage.

In other words, when the man refuses responsibility for his sexual intimacies, the woman too often feels no choice but abortion. His license, not her freedom. If the man were to be faithfully married to the woman, the consideration of abortion would be quite rare.

Thus, human abortion assaults women’s dignity.

Also, this means that the protection of the unborn cannot happen apart from responsible men honoring women as their equals and complements, and this means chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within. We all know brokenness from one angle or another, but what is the healthy norm for which we aim?

This also means that women are as equally vulnerable as their unborn children, and their equal dignity must always be affirmed.

###