Incorrect labelling | Features

I thought there was a law against incorrect labelling?

Is God pro-life or pro-choice?

Isn't the answer obvious? You say of course that the answer is that God is pro-life – but He is also pro-choice. The reason these words cause a problem is that we are used to hearing them in a context where they are used to incorrectly label people.

God is pro-life, because He made it all. God is pro-choice – because He invented choice too. Life and free will are both given to man by God:

Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule... NIV

So we live and we choose because God gave us both abilities.

Over the years, as I have spoken to women who have had abortions, the most common comment from them has been "no-one told me In would feel like this afterwards, no-one told me about the feeling of loss or the guilt I carry".

It is generally true to say that no-one prepares people seeking an abortion for the guilt and loss felt by many of them afterwards. Often the emphasis that they have the right to choose to 'terminate' their child is the only information they are given.

Pro-choice implies that people have the right to make an informed choice. A choice where all the information isn't available is always a dubious and questionable one. Therefore if someone is pro-choice they should insist that all information on both sides of the dividing line is presented. To deprive someone of the information they need to make a quality decision is to be anti-choice or controlling.

We would never put someone in a car at a busy junction that had blacked out windows and say to them "pull out if you want to". We would not be allowing them the information (the line of sight) they need to decide when to pull out. That position is not 'pro-choice' – it is uncaring.

Clearly experience shows us that the most vocal of the 'pro-choice' camp are in fact just like that – they want to stop women being able to make an informed choice. Totalitarians of all breeds have been the same throughout the centuries.

God made us with the inner ability to choose, knowing the downside. We can only choose to follow God if we are told how to.

Rom 10:13-14 "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? NIV

Many people say that they are happy for their children to have a 'religion' or a 'spiritual side' but they are not giving them any guidance because they want them to have the free will to make-up their own mind. Firstly, whether we like it or not children will have their free will! Secondly, how can a child make their mind up unless we tell them what the options are?

I heard my children were laughing as they talked about R.E lessons at school. Teachers had told them what a Christian was and they laughed! Nothing in the description of what Christians are and do seemed remotely close to their experience. Their teachers' lack of knowledge amused them, but they were also concerned that the school was teaching other children a parody of Christianity that seemed designed to put them off.

The use of disproved and inaccurate examples to support the theory of evolution, is another example of how in state schools, there is a pro-choice position as long as the choice is in agreement with the majority. No one actually teaches the real options of creationism or Intelligent Design Theory.

Pro-choice is a wonderful ethical position to take- as long as we mean it. Unless we allow both sides to be told without prejudice the final decision is skewed. The reality is that we live among a small group of humanists who seek to impose their ethos on all of us. As Christians we cannot impose our ethos on the world – we can only inform and offer it.

This means that Christians have a responsibility to 'tell it like it is'. We also need to stand up for everyone's right to choose – based on an understanding of all the information.

Moses explained the consequences of the actions of the nation to the people. He gave both sides – and spelled it out in words that everyone could understand. He was pro-choice – because he implored them to choose. The choice he recommended from experience was life – so he was pro-life too!

Deut 30:19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live NIV

Funnily enough, his message also included a desire that their children might live. With over six million dead in the UK since the 1967 abortion act came into force, it is about time some of us had the same desire as Moses.

If we could ensure that those in the valley of abortion could hear the truth, there would be some good choices made. A good choice is one that always chooses life.

Let us step aside from the trappings of labels – especially as they are often incorrect and restrictive. Let's just be open about what we know and inform people out of love.

And don't forget to pray!

In the mean time, we must continue to offer a caring shoulder and an open ear to those who are hurting because they made a choice that cost them their baby. These ex-mums need to know that Jesus still loves them, and they will only get that message if we show them the reality of that love.