Choose Life

A woman came to see me recently who was struggling with guilt about an abortion she had many years ago. She was worried that this might be an unforgiveable sin. She also wondered if current events of great difficulty in her life might be punishment from God for the abortion.

Some things are very hard to get out of our heads and hearts. Some things stay there forever.

An abortion is one of those things that is very hard to get over and get past. It is a traumatic, frightening event fraught with moral quandaries. It often occurs during a woman’s youth or young adulthood. Traumatic events in our youth tend to cast long shadows on our lives.

Going through months of pregnancy and giving a child up for adoption is a difficult, life-changing experience as well. Unlike abortion, however, adoption is life-giving rather than life-taking. While abortion provides no laughs or smiles, adoptions are literally full of joy, as our bustling church nursery with adopted, healthy babies can attest. I held a baby in my arms this past Sunday who is the product of a young woman’s choice to go through pregnancy and adoption rather than abortion.

I have experienced two reunions recently where adults who were given up for adoption as babies have searched for and found their biological parents. In both of these cases significant relationships have developed between mother and child mingled with lots of joy and grief. That is not always the outcome of these reunions, but sometimes it is.

As a matter of moral conviction, I urge young women in crisis pregnancies to choose life. Death is the solitary human experience from which there is no recovery. The law of reciprocity dates from the beginning of human social order. Death brings death.

Does God forgive the sin of abortion? Absolutely and completely. For any penitent sinner, God’s grace is greater than all of our sin.

We think we are boxed in, ruined by bad choices. We think we are walking dead-end streets, that our failures are final and there is no way out. We are full of despair, imagining that our lives are already over. We are walking in the darkness, and we imagine death to be our only choice.

The truth is something else. As long as we have the breath of life, we have new possibilities before us. There are no dead ends in grace. Every breath is a divine gift.

Will the woman be able to forgive herself? That’s another story. Can she get past her abortion? I am not sure she can. We do not really ever get past the impact of great loss. We integrate that loss into our minds and hearts. We work to do this in a healthy way. Sometimes we mature emotionally and spiritually in the wake of sin and death. Sometimes our grief becomes a ball and chain from which we seek liberation but without success.

I have been bouncing babies on my knees for many years, my own children and grandchildren and hundreds of others. I have walked the path beside those dealing with crisis pregnancies and witnessed nearly every imaginable outcome. No path is painless.

I prefer to deal with the mess that life always creates rather than the darkness and sterility of death. In my mind, abortion is another kind of violence that rips up life and leaves deep scars. Life is never easy, but it always deserves our respect and protection and in the end is the best choice.