I think we must define what medical care really means. In my training as a physician and surgeon, medical care involves treating or preventing an illness. Sometimes that involves providing medicines and surgery. Sometimes it involves counseling and counseling and medications. That is what I was taught as medical care.
Cosmetic surgery is not medical care unless it is done for the purpose of fixing the maimed body or focused on restructuring a body deformed at birth.
Abortion is not medical care. There is no need for abortion. There are desires for abortion. Women rarely choose to abort their babies for medical reasons. The cases of rape, incest or the risk of the mother are an exception to the rule. Few are done for these three exceptions.
My friend and colleague Dr. Cami Wheeler reminded me of several things about this issue. Her words are italicized below.
Not always, but all too often, the convenience of the father who financially, practically, emotionally, relationally or otherwise abandons the newly mother-to-be is as large or larger a factor in women choosing abortion, or in their being pressured into abortion by lovers or parents/family or friends. A woman aborting against the will of the man who impregnated her is rare. It takes two to make a baby and guilt is the burden of both parents when abortion occurs.
Women I know personally are scarred and bearing the loss, the pain and the shame of abortion. The man who started by pressuring them into sex then pressured them into having the abortion are socially left unscathed. (By the way, we didn’t have the term “date rape” back then. This side of #metoo many of those men would be prosecutable.)
I believe as long as we in the Church lay the guilt & blame & shame solely at the feet of women, we are adding fuel to the fire of the, “My body. My choice.” argument. Men and women having sex produce a pregnancy/baby together. Men and women choosing convenience, selfishness, economics etc. over the life of their baby is the way they choose together to abort a child. Those of us of faith should work to place some of this burden on his back and counteract the narrative that it was only her choice.
And all too often, churchy people contribute even more to the choosing of abortion because they’d rather their daughter kill their grandchild than face their church friends with an unwanted pregnancy. Or they give their daughter the idea that it would be better to kill her baby in her womb that for her to face their wrath, disappointment and shame. So, she makes the choice for abortion to hide from them the fact that she’s been having sex. We’d have far less abortion if churchy people had more grace for their daughters and greater expectations of their sons who need to step up.
I deeply believe Titus 3:5-6 that his lovingkindness, grace and mercy are what lead us to repentance so that instead of pointing a blaming finger in the direction of women, we must point to Him and His love again and again as we exhort men and women to choose life for their baby and more so to choose Life in Him.
I agree with Dr. Wheeler. In spite of the chants, My Body, My Choice it is all too often not her body, but that of the pimps, handlers and dealers. It is the choices of men and women who profit in pornography.
I wonder if the woman who was flung at the feet of Jesus for being caught in the very act of adultery, actually may have had a pimp or had possibly aborted her child to ‘stay in business’. John 8:3-11
Abortion is not medical care any more than a face-lift or gender re-assignment. This is about the desire to murder in the name of freedom of choice. This is as selfish as the decision not to get vaccinated against a deadly disease, even though this decision will impact the lives of my children, my family and community.
Abortion is not medical care. It is murder under the guise of personal choice. As sin always is, personal choice. This choice is made under duress, threat, shame and convenience. We all who throw stones must realize that as a society and especially as a church, we must drop the stones in our hands. For all of us are guilty either as individuals, or culturally.