Monday, September 6, 2021

Abortion, Feminism, and the Creation Order

The point of anti-abortion laws is the same as existing laws against murder. The pro-life position argues that abortion is murder, the unjust taking of innocent human life.

This is why many of the objections to anti-abortion laws make no sense to someone who is pro-life. For example, exceptions for rape and incest do not make sense. Rape and incest should be punished, but they do not justify the killing of an innocent party.

This is not a "war against women." The focus of anti-abortion laws and the pro-life position is on the life of the unborn child. Its goal is not to punish or suppress women - in fact, the pro-life movement has resulted in many charitable efforts to help pregnant women and their children in difficult circumstances.

With that said, egalitarian feminism is waging a war, with unborn children as casualties. This is not true of all feminists - some have opposed abortion, pointing to other solutions such as birth control, adoption, and accommodations in the work place. But a certain type of feminism believes that women need access to abortion to eliminate the difference between men and women and preserve individual autonomy. With its individualist and egalitarian principles, it comes into conflict with nature (that is, the way things are designed to work).

In general, we naturally desire sex, which naturally leads to pregnancy, which naturally leads to distinctions between men and women and their abilities. Fathers and mothers have natural obligations to their children, just as those children will have reciprocal obligations to their parents. All this naturally leads to traditional marriage as the best arrangement for these factors, all of this being designed by God, including marriage.

The conservative and biblical approach is to strengthen marriage and the family (Ex. 20:12-14, 1 Cor. 7:2, 1 Tim. 5:4, 8-16). This includes passing laws such as those that limit divorce (Matt. 19:3-9), hold men accountable for premarital sex (Ex. 22:16-17), and punish rapists (Deut. 22:25-27). It also involves extended family and other institutions stepping in when the family breaks down (1 Tim. 5:3-10, Deut. 14:29, Ruth 1-4). Its approach is to exhort people to fulfill their natural obligations through custom, education, and law. But the modern theory that affirms a woman’s right to kill her unborn child for the sake of autonomy and equality ultimately denies that such obligations exist, which is a big problem. Like Cain, they distance themselves from the victim and disown their responsibility. "Am I my child's keeper?" As Carl Trueman puts it,
“Abortion is simply one way in which a fictional notion of what it means to be human is reflected in our culture and enabled by law. In denying the obligation of the mother and father to the child, legal abortion denies not simply the personhood of the child in the womb, but also the humanity of the mother and the father.” 

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