The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice presents itself as a faith-based group who argues that "reproductive choice" (including the choice to abort) is a "basic part of religious liberty".

Always being interested in the left's attempt to merge the Christian faith with their political goals (is "submerge" the better word?), I found this group rather interesting. Of course, if "reproductive choice" is a key element in religion then forcing it to be legal on that basis, raises, from the left's point of view anyway, serious church/state separation issues, no?

On their site I found this tract, addressed to pregnant women who hold religious convictions. Below, I address the religious arguments presented in the tract, and deal with them from a Christian perspective -- which seems appropriate considering Christian women are clearly one of their major target audiences.

Ignoring any specific religious issues or arguments, the logical arguments offered are so poor they would be greeted with either laughter or shocked disbelief if they were offered concerning any other aspect of life.

For example, we are to believe that because a child exists at the 2nd or 5th month of pregnancy doesn't mean it is "intended" to live until birth. If so, we could equally argue just because a child reaches 15 years of age, we shouldn't be prevented from keeping her from reaching her sixteenth birthday. There may be additional arguments they have, to make this seem less stupid, but if so, the reader clearly needn't be apprised of them.

The reason I'm blogging this is that I want people to see the blatant manipulation and deception being employed here. To me, that is always an indicator of less than honorable intent. An honest man stands in the light. Theives hide in the darkness. Jesus clearly told his followers to watch to see which is which.

Words directed to distressed women of faith

Be assured that, no matter what your circumstances and your decision, you are a person who is loved and valued by God.

Of course. But what does that have to do with my choices? Because God loves me, is that supposed to mean all my choices are right or moral?

We've all heard that life is a gift from God. But it doesn't mean just a baby's life-it means your life, too. In thinking about an unplanned pregnancy, you must consider your life, too.

They are apparently worried people are being too selfless. A big modern problem, that.

In this usage, the phrase "it doesn't just mean a baby's life" clearly means something closer to "it doesn't mean a baby's life." I mean, how can you say our concern should be "not just" for the "baby" when that specific consideration -- the baby's life -- never comes up again in this tract? That doesn't show a balance of concern, but rather a unbalanced, one-sided equation.

Wouldn't that be an important moral issue to address directly? Wouldn't that be something on the woman's mind? Why do you leave her in the dark about this rather than address the issue?

Your physical health and emotional well-being are sacred concerns.

So would the "baby's" physical health and well-being not also be sacred concerns?

No, I understand: this is supposed to mean that the reader's physical or emotional health is more important to God than "the baby's life" mentioned earlier in the sentence. We don't weigh life against life, we weigh "emotional health" against life. Avoiding feeling bad, stressed, ashamed, or physically distressed is apparently a reasonable tradeoff for "the baby's life".

Just wanted to be clear on that.

If you are considering abortion as an option, consider that whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy is a matter of choice, not fate.

Look at the degraded form of ethical reasoning the woman is being enticed to accept. Is it valid? What if she adopted it seriously?

"If you find yourself low on funds, consider that whether to embezzle your employer's money or not is a matter of choice, not fate."

"If you are currently unsatisified with your marriage, consider that the decision whether to cheat on your loving, faithful spouse is a matter of choice, not fate."

Isn't it amazing how we can use the language of "choice" to try to bypass tough moral questions? Apparently, we are to believe all options are equally moral as long as a human "choice" is involved somewhere.

These people are not trying to help women face the hard decisions they have to make. They are like a car salesman who doesn't want you to look to closely at some aspect of the purchase, and endeavors to whisk you quickly over the trouble spots and get you to focus only on the more attractive features in order to close the sale.

But those problems will still be there if you buy the car.

How should you understand your pregnancy?

Don't worry, we'll dictate the answer to you:

(Choice? You have no choice. You must accept our view.)

Pregnancy is not a punishment for what you have done-or left undone.

True enough. But it is a "consequence". Having to feed and train a puppy isn't a "punishment" for having bought one. But it is the responsible person's consequence of that impulse to buy the cute puppy in the window.

But we don't like to think of consequences or responsibility. So we offer a false argument -- "pregnancy isn't a punishment" -- to distract from the more important question: Does a pregnancy imply some kind of responsibility?

Worse, as you'll see below, it becomes clear what they really mean by "pregnancy is not a punishment" is that an unwanted pregnancy, carried to term actually is a punishment, and an unjust one, similar to a crime.

God does not will the beginning of all new life or that all pregnancies must continue.

How do we know that God doesn't "will the beginning of new life?" The bible seems to imply otherwise:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb... your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:13-16)

God is not responsible for every human act and its consequences.

Certainly God is not responsible for every human decision or intention. That's what "free will" means. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't or cannot have a hand in deciding determining the outcome. In this case, whether a baby will be conceived from a specific act.

From a human point of view, certain conceptions may be "accidents". But from God's point of view there are no "accidents" or "mistakes" walking around, which is what the authors imply here.

God may not be responsible for two humans to doing something he asked them not to -- but he knew ahead of time when it would happen, and whether it would (or would not) bring forth a new life he intended. Good things can come out of sin (David's affair with Bathsheba ultimately produced Jesus) but that doesn't mean that the sin isn't a sin.

People make choices, right or wrong, but the bible teaches that it is God who decides what the result of those choices will be, not humans.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow... Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

We were created to make choices and to take responsibility for our futures, not to be victims.

... which we would be if we failed to abort an unplanned pregnancy. See? The baby is a punishment, if kept. A child "victimizes" her parent; unplanned pregnancy is likened to a crime.

Are we to take responsibility for our future? Certainly. But shouldn't we also take responsibility for our past actions too? Why are we only focused here on the future, as though there were no moral burdens brought to us by our past actions?

Your pregnancy is a call to discover God's intention and love for you-it is not a statement of God's will to bring the pregnancy to term. (emph added)

Really? I'd love to know how the author knows what God's will is and is not in a specific woman's pregnancy. How are they so absolutely sure pregnancy without miscarriage is not a statement of God's will to bring a baby to term?

Couldn't we then apply this same reasoning to children becoming adults?

There is not even a hint the authors could possibly be wrong. Did God tell the authors of this tract? Did He write them a letter? The one letter I know is the bible, and, as noted above (and below), it seems to imply God definitely has a purpose in bringing people into being, even in vitro.

Why must we contradict scripture in order to "help" these poor women in distress? Why not support them without undermining their faith?

As you figure out what to do, it's important to realize that sincere people disagree about what's right.

Of course sincere people disagree about what's right. No matter what stance you take -- Jews shouldn't be burned in ovens, blacks are fully human, freedom of speech and worship is a basic human right -- there are people who will sincerely disagree with you.

So what does sincerity have to do with morality? Are all people who are sincere right? Is every decision made sincerely a good one? Again, look at the poor ethical reasoning the poor distressed reader is being enticed to accept. Imagine all the behaviors we could justify if that reasoning was applied consistently.

And how sincere can the authors of this tract be, if they're trying to use such manipulation as this:

You may know that the Bible does not mention abortion. There is no biblical evidence to support the idea that abortion is a sin.

Really? Psalm 139 (above) shows clearly that God ordains lives before they come about. Luke 1 depicts John the Baptist, in vitro, as not only being alive but also filled with the Holy Spirit and reacting to the arrival of the Messiah. Paul the Apostle states that he was "set apart" for his mission before he was born. (Gal 1:15) The prophet Jeremiah says the same thing. (Jer 1:4-5)

If God can fore-ordain days for people, fill them with the Holy Spirit, and set them apart for his service within the womb, then how is it possible to argue that taking away that life would certainly not be a violation of his intent?

I can understand saying that perhaps one doesn't find these verses convincing. Or that one personally finds the evidence to be ambiguous. But to falsely assure the reader there is categorically "no biblical evidence to support the idea abortion is a sin" is a dishonest manipulation of a vulnerable woman of faith who is seeking spiritual guidance in her time of need.

What if she were to discover these verses after deciding to abort, and suddenly come to doubt and guilt, rather than having wrestled with them honestly before making the decision?

The intent of this one-sided presentation seems clear: This group is not interested in fully informing women who come to their site seeking guidance in such a distressing time. Instead, they carefully give her only those theological-sounding arguments which support the morality of abortion. One minute she is told that people of faith can disagree sincerely. The next minute she is confidently told there is no evidence whatsoever which would lead to their opponents' conclusion.

She must discover problems with these arguments later, perhaps in regret.

That's not a sincere disagreement. That's shameless manipulation of emotion and scripture intended to bring about a specific result.

Even so, you may be afraid God will punish you for having an abortion. Do not be afraid-remember that you are a person who is valuable in the sight of God and God loves you and will be with you, no matter what.

According to this, God will not punish people for things because he loves them. But this is a direct contradiction of the teachings of Christianity. Instead, Christians believe they can be forgiven of sin through admitting our sins and accepting Jesus's death on the cross. Two thieves died alongside Jesus. God loved them both, yet only one was assured of entrance to paradise.

So yes, God can forgive sin. But that doesn't mean there are no sinful choices, or that our conscience won't continue to plague us when we do the wrong thing. Though we are free to make choices, we are also told we must make the right ones.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ... What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:15,21-23)

This pamphlet tells distressed women it's about "clarifying what you believe" and seems to place an emphasis on honoring the woman's beliefs and choices. Yet at point after point, they simply dictate theology to her, a theology which, abortion completely aside, is repeatedly in clear contradiction to the bible and orthodox Christian doctrine.

God doesn't punish sin because he loves people? The bible says otherwise. God doesn't will human life to begin? The bible says otherwise. "Whatever you decide... God will bless you", this tract assures her. Yet the bible leaves us with no such illusion, that God unconditionally blesses everyone for every act:

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 offspring may live. (Deut 30:19)

An ironic verse to choose to contradict so directly.

I could understand taking a secular approach to abortion, and basing the decision to abort a child in vitro on the idea it is not a child, or that personhood is assigned by society and is thus not an inalienable right, or in an admission that certain classes of people are disposable. I would disagree philosophically, but at least the argument is intellectually honest, however misanthropic.

Yet, in taking a "religious" or even allegedly "Christian" approach to abortion, why is it so important that core values from scripture must be undermined? That is not a form of respecting a Christian woman's beliefs. That is subverting them.

The suspicion should dawn on the reader: Perhaps scripture must be contradicted because it, itself contradicts the values which undergird the pro-choice movement. Perhaps a straightforward reading of what is actually present in the bible would leave no room for arguing abortion is a moral option.

And perhaps there is some other goal which is more important here than an honest, unbiased consideration of scriptures and ethics.

What on earth could that other, more important objective be?

Peeking behind the curtain

I think this page should begin to make things clear: women who are pregnant are funneled into only to abortion providers, who will make a tidy profit from her distress.

As the police say, let's follow the money...

According to this research, only a fraction (0.2%) of RCRC's total support comes from the religious organizations who are its members. The vast majority comes from elsewhere. Thus RCRC apparently functions as a "front group" and uses its religious membership to obscure it's actual main sources of funding.

So who really does fund this "religious" pro-choice group, which is apparently, from its rhetoric, aimed at maximizing the number of circumstances under which a Christian woman will abort her offspring?

Apparently one top donor, who contributed $700,000 [PDF] is Warren Buffet, an atheist. Another atheist, George Soros, donated $137,500. Another top donor is Ted Turner, yet another atheist, who is on record as calling Christians "losers".

Now I have nothing against atheists, and my point is not to demonize. But there's something vaguely unseemly about a group which is primarily funded by atheists trying to convince Christians they should have more abortions, using the language of a faith in which they do not believe.

Their intentions may be good -- a unifying theme among RCRC's donors seem to be the desire to unify earth as a single community, under a global leadership (whether you consider that good or bad is up to you) -- but it nonetheless confirms my point: The primary purpose of this group is not to correctly represent any particular faith. The primary purpose is something entirely different, and "people of faith" are merely conscripted as a means to that end.

Now, if this were a noble goal, I don't understand why it need be carried out in such an underhanded way. Why not just admit it: "Attention Christians and other religious people: There are too many of you. Stop breeding and die for the good of the planet."

Ah. I think I see the problem now. Doesn't look too good does it?

Once again, like so much of the left's agenda, we see this is yet another strategy based in deception. RCRC often goes into member religious organizations apparently assuring them, falsely, it is not "pro-abortion or pro-choice" when it is. It presents itself as being primarily religious in nature, when in fact its funding comes from sources which are secular or even overtly hostile to religion, and it uses religious language to subtly contradict and undermine many women's religious beliefs in order to persuade them of the morality of abortion.