Issue 1: The Choice God Would Have Us Choose

On November 7, we Ohioans have a choice to make. Yes or No on Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that in essence, legalizes abortion at any stage. Proponents say abortion is all about choice. I would agree. But the question is, "Whose choice?" The mother's? The child's? The leftists’. The ethicists’? The government's. Or God's? In attempted support of Issue 1, horrible scenarios are created and hypotheticals constructed, to try to justify abortion. Two things should be kept in mind about such arguments: 1. There are some truly drastic situations involving incest, pregnant children, rape victims, critical health for mother. Those tragic cases should never be minimized. 2. Neither should they be used to try to justify abortion. Those are a minuscule fraction of those who actually choose to have abortions. Most abortions happen simply because a baby doesn't fit with what the woman wants. That is not my assessment; it is the proponents: They call their whole movement "Woman's Choice." What the woman chooses, what the woman wants. I don't find it as easy as some to simply say that there is never a circumstance where a choice has to be made about a pregnancy. But that is the point. Who or what ultimately makes that choice? And what about Baby's choice? In potentiality, what would Baby's choice be? Baby indicates its choice by striving to live in the drawing back in pain from instruments that would extract and kill it. Choices are often made like this for adults in a brain-dead coma. If a decision has to be made to end life support, the family considers: "What would she (the one in the coma) choose?" They don’t consider just what they would choose for the incapacitated. In the extreme cases above, the decision wouldn't be a choice a mother would have to or want to make. Whatever the medical urgencies or life exigencies, a mother with concern for her baby would not want to make a choice to end her child’s life. She would be saying, “I don't want to make this choice.” This is the point. Pro-choice is about the choice women want to make not about the choice they don’t want to make. Recent protestors have shown this by boasting since abortion is a woman’s right, they would gleefully choose to have an abortion. Fierce proponents of pro-choice continually chant the mantra “autonomy.” A woman should have autonomy over her body. Autonomy literally means self-law. A woman is the final authority over her body. She decides. She chooses. She chooses what she wants. As in so much of life, choices, tough choices must be made. But, for those who believe in Yahweh, the true God, they not only see they must make a choice, but they also desire to leave the choice to Him, the Creator God. Yes, humans have free agency. They can and do have to make choices. But from the beginning, when God put two trees in the Garden, we see that God sets up the choice. God gives the freedom to make a choice. But always, God makes clear which choice He would have humans make. God gave humans a choice. But not a choice of what is right and wrong. He gave a choice to choose between right and wrong. God gives what the choices are. Then, God makes clear what He would have us choose. As He told people again and again. “I set before you life and death. Choose life.” There are some really, really tough circumstances. But one does not have to be governed by those and choose with the desire to choose death. She can be governed by the desire to choose, as God would have her, life. In the end, Issue 1 is about whether a woman should be able to choose what she wants to choose or what God would have her choose. Issue 1 is about choosing life or death. A vote, No, is a choice for life. A choice God would have us choose. Choose life! --Pastor Clifford Hurst