I'm Not Certain About Abortion. You Shouldn't Be Either - Either Way.

by Darryl L. Fortson, MD

  As a Christian, abortion is pretty hard to defend. Scripture is replete with verses emphasizing the value of human life and dire consequences of ending it by man’s hand. Arguments utilizing Scripture to defend abortion are hard to find and often come off as sophistry. And yet, having said all that, I still often get a nauseous quivering when I hear pro-life activists speak on the “horrors of abortion.” I have tried to figure out why what they say is so inarguably right but feels in my spirit so profoundly dangerous and wrong. I have come to realize the issue for me isn’t their stand on abortion; rather, it is their certainty in that stand.

  I am certain about four things – that there is a God, that Jesus Christ is His Son, that His Word is true and unfailing, and that Heaven awaits those that accept Jesus as His Lord and Savior. I am extremely confident in other things – my name, my wife’s love, my ability to count to ten for example, but I am not certain. Perhaps I am “mama’s baby and papa’s maybe.” Perhaps my wife is just waiting for the insurance money. Perhaps some physical malady will suddenly befall me and my ability to count will fail me. All of these things have happened to many people who were “certain.”

  The passionate members of the anti-abortion movement are quite certain. They are quite certain that abortion should end and that it should not be allowed under many circumstances. Some believe that it shouldn’t be allowed under any circumstance – not even rape, incest, or to save a mother’s life. They think about Scripture, as well they should. “Thou shalt not kill.” “Suffer the little children and forbid them not,” etc. I think about these Scriptures as well, and they give me pause about my own point of view regarding abortion. But I also think about the “certain people” in those same Scriptures, what they did in the name of their certainty, and what became of them after they acted on that certainty.

Pharaoh, in the Bible, was certain. His hard heart made him certain that the Israelites were not to be freed from cruel bondage, but his certainty led to the destruction of the infrastructure and military of his entire nation, and in many ways, Egypt has not been the same since. The Biblical Haman was certain that Mordecai, Esther, and the entirety of the Israelite tribe deserved to be genocidally cleansed. Yet in the end, it was Haman that was eliminated by the king on those very gallows. The Disciple Peter was certain when he cut off the Temple guard’s ear, but Jesus admonished him for doing so and healed the guard, reversing the consequence of Peter’s efforts. Saul of Tarsus was also certain on the Damascus Road as he traveled to terrorize and imprison even more Christians. These men were certain, and these men were wrong.

  Scripture is also replete with “uncertain” men who were used by God through their uncertainty. Jacob wrestled in a dream with God, leaving Jacob with a broken hip and an uncertain limp that he walked and rode all the way to Egypt with when God, through his own son Joseph, saved the entire region from famine and mass starvation. The Apostle Peter became uncertain while walking on water, and he sank. But Jesus did not allow him to drown, bearing witness to countless Christians who followed of God’s mercy and man’s capacity to grow in faith the way Peter did. Finally, Saul of Tarsus became Paul of Christ through the uncertainty of his blindness on that same Damascus road he was traveling to imprison and kill Christians on.

  Uncertainty can be a place of lukewarm enthusiasm and double-mindedness – states of mind that Scripture speaks against. But is also a place where we can meet God, because our uncertainty demands his direction and engagement in order to make a correct decision. When we are utterly certain in our own minds and selves, we have no need for God or His input. We know, we know that we know, and we are certain that we know that we know, and that is the end of it. Yet we are creatures with carnal minds, sin nature, with intellectual, informational, and physical limits on what we can do and how well we can do it. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,” says the Book of Proverbs.

  Uncertainty is an essential part of humility. It is the component of humility that compels us to remember that none of us have all the answers and that we all have the capacity to get a thing wrong, even when we have all the information we need to get it right. Uncertainty should not stop us from making decisions; rather, it should help us make better decisions by looking beyond didactics, traditions, and prevailing thought (either way), and to tap into the true fount of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding – which is not only God’s Word but his Spirit to guide how that Word is to be understood.

  Uncertainty is also an essential component of mercy. We can’t be fully merciful when we are hyper-certain in our own moral rectitude in a matter. Our own vaulted assessment of our righteous superiority flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence that we are not God and that we do not meet His standard of righteousness. That self-righteousness evaporates our mercy and places us as judge and jury over the lives and affairs of others in a way that we are not equipped or worthy to be.

  What exactly would you do if your 12-year-old daughter was impregnated by your brother, her brother, your husband, or your father? What exactly would you have done if the first time you ever had sex, you got pregnant or impregnated someone? What exactly would you have done if you found out a month after a breakup from the worst human being you had ever known that they were going to be a co-parent with you, in your life, for life? What exactly would you do if you found that in 7 to 8 months, a “one night stand” was about to become “a life sentence.” Some are certain of what they would do and some of them are certain they are certain. But many have been certain until it happened to them, and then they weren’t so doggone “certain.”

  This uncertainty in the wake of certainty swings both ways, by the way – pro-choice women who decide to keep their babies in the midst of outrageously adverse and overwhelming circumstances, and pro-life women who, when faced with the reality of what they may (or will) have to contend with in raising a child, decide that their personal level of faith simply does not match their pro-life rhetoric.

  I don’t know about you, but I need mercy. I need a way through, but sometimes, I need a way out. I need a second chance or a “do-over.” I need a “mulligan” or a “City of Refuge.” Sometimes, I need a moment to gather myself as I sit in my own personal “Garden of Gethsemane,” perhaps certain of what I must do, but uncertain as to whether I am up to doing it. Sometimes, I am asleep with exhaustion in that proverbial "garden" with the other disciples nearby, uncertain of both. This is because I am a human being, and this is w hat human beings do – no matter how certain they are or think they are.

  I am not really asking pro-life advocates to change their stands. The pro-life movement keeps everyone from devaluating life to the point where abortions become the equivalent of an “obstetrical life-enema,” with the life-potential of the fetus flushed away with no thought of the loss, nor of the possibly poor decision making that brought the woman to that point. What I am asking is that they inspire faith and respect for life instead of “inflicting” their faith as a violent, self-righteous and intrusive weapon that, were they in a similar circumstance, would compel them to be “uncertain,” even in the midst of that same faith and respect. It is in that moment of uncertainty that a woman is called to pause and seek God’s direction – whether to embrace God’s grace to strengthen her to have the baby or His mercy to find the way out of a situation that she lacks the resources or the faith to endure. The reality is that there is a cost to both going through with or terminating any pregnancy, unwanted or not. The only question is what that woman has the spiritual, physical, economic, social, and intellectual resources to pay. I don’t know and neither do you in that moment in time – often, neither does the mother. We can pray and we can support, but none of us possess the right to compel, either by force or by law, and I need too much mercy to try – and of this perhaps too, I am certain.