Abortion is Good for Women?

"I’d be happy to contribute to the organization, but I need to make sure that the charity is pro-choice."

This was a comment I received at my workplace after a coworker read a flier that I had posted in the office’s pantry. The flier solicited pledges for a local pregnancy center’s fundraising "walk-a-thon," which helped raise thousands of dollars that year to help women in crisis pregnancies.

Taken somewhat aback by the question, I began to explain why my coworker should give to the organization even though it was not pro-choice. I explained how women would be nurtured by caring counselors, how they would be provided with financial and medical support if needed, and how these women would be given a real alternative to having an abortion. But this explanation went nowhere. "No," he said, "I have to make sure it’s pro-choice; I have teenage daughters, you know."

You see, somewhere in my coworker’s mind there was a fact that he knew to be 100 percent true: abortion was good for women. And, not only that, abortion was liberating for women. Abortion was the ticket to a woman’s freedom. You see, my coworker had teenage daughters, and he could not imagine them living in a society where they would not have the unimpeded liberty to dispose of an unwanted pregnancy. Such a society might limit the potential of a woman to reach her career goals. After all, my coworker was a strong supporter of women’s rights. How could he even think of supporting an organization that might want to convince a woman not to exercise her freedom to abort? No, not him, not my coworker.

However, as we all know, my coworker did not have all the facts: Abortion is definitely not good for women. First of all, abortion kills a growing child (not a blob of reproductive tissue, as my coworker thinks, but a child) created by God. Secondly, rather than liberating women, it imprisons them in a web of guilt and sadness. There is something inherently unnatural about abortion, and any post-abortion counselor can see the signs of its devastating emotional effects even years after the abortion has occurred. Thirdly, abortion has many physical consequences that may include: excessive bleeding, emergency hysterectomy, lifelong infertility, and a greater occurrence of future breast cancer.

But, my coworker has never heard any of these negative consequences, because he lives in a world where all the information he receives is "pro-choice." His daily newspaper is "pro-choice," his nightly newscast is "pro-choice," the public school his children attend is "pro-choice," his circle of friends is "pro-choice," and his church is either "pro-choice" or simply ignores the topic. And, what’s worse, any women or men that he knows who have been negatively touched by abortion are too ashamed to discuss it with him. So my coworker drifts along in a world of reproductive ignorance. It is a world, by the way, in which he feels quite comfortable.

This brings me to a recent study on the causes of premature births conducted by the National Academies of Science. Premature births have a much greater likelihood for complications, to include neurological disabilities such as cerebral palsy. The study said that the third most common reason for a premature birth is a previous first trimester abortion. This study finally backs up with legitimate scientific data what the pro-life community has known for years: abortion is bad for women and their "reproductive health," and not the other way around.

So how can we change the minds of our coworkers and family and friends—and let them know what we pro-lifers have known for more than thirty years? We need to admit that people like my coworker are in our churches (and there are many, perhaps even a majority). Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a lot of teaching to do: