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This week in my psychology class, we got into some pretty heavy material about whether or not the parents of a child born prematurely who is at high risk for a disability like Cerebral Palsy have the right to ask the doctor not to resuscitate.
Now, I must make this clear. I am super vocal in these situations. I will shut my mouth on gay marriage and marijuana legalization. Those are battles I'm not able to fight - it's a social thing. But allowing a child to die because it would be an inconvenience to you and your family or aborting them before they even have a chance to change your mind, that is something I will always fight, because that is a heart issue. That is something that has been influenced by society, but ultimately comes down to your value of life. If we get upset over the death penalty, and how many chickens are brutally killed for our enjoyment each year, why then do we not get upset over the baby genocide epidemic within our world?
If it is wrong to kill a child at 1 month, 1 year, 10 years, etc., how then is it any different to kill a child within the womb, or deliberately let it die because it is going to have a "terrible life"?
After this conversation was had in class, we were paired up with a couple people to discuss the fairness of this, and IVF treatments, too. To add on to that topic - I am not a supporter of IVF. Many times, 4 or 5 eggs will be fertilized and placed to give you better chances, but when all of them take and you're left with 4 babies you don't want to carry, many women choose to remove all but one or two of them.
The girl I was paired with is about as opposite in her beliefs as I am. She is pro-choice, all for gay marriage, etc, etc. Instead of discussing, objectively, the pros and cons of both situations and how they psychologically affect our culture, it turned into a battle of political and faith stances. She began questioning me on all sorts of absurd things - like what the bible has to say about a girl who is raped by her father and becomes pregnant - what then? I was confounded by her naive approach to something so simple. Those things don't happen every day, first of all, and secondly, rape victims are the least likely to get an abortion. Here's some stats for you found on OperationRescue.com:
• Women who have never been married account for one-third of abortions in America.These are real stats from real women. If you want to combat a Christian's reason for being pro-life, you have got to choose a different scenario than incest. More often than not, women abort because it is an inconvenience, they don't have enough money, and they're not "ready" for a baby. It just doesn't happen the way she depicted it. She continued to ask me how I could believe in such a thing, and gave me a scenario where her friend had been told - through "science" - that her baby would be born without eyes, ears, or the ability to function. And that it "might" live to be two weeks old. She asked me what to do in that situation.
• Less than 1% of all abortions take place because of rape and/or incest.
Women give an average of 3.7 reasons why they are seeking an abortion including the following:
• 21% Inadequate finances
• 21% Not ready for responsibility
• 16% Woman’s life would be changed too much
• 12% Problems with relationships, unmarried
• 11% Too young and/or immature
• 8% Children are grown; she has all she wants
• 3% Baby has possible health problems
• <1% Pregnancy caused by rape/incest
• 4% Other
I had to back up at this point, and explain why I was going to say what I was going to say.
First of all, I am a born again Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ and his resurrection. I believe that the bible is the word of God and I believe that there is nothing more sacred than human life.
Sin entered this world as a cause and effect of Adam and Eve's disobedience to God. That's when we got disease, pain in childbirth, death, pain, emotional hurt, and that's also when we were eternally separated from God unless we chose to pursue Him. So, a child being born with these "defects" is a result of the fall of man. It doesn't make the child imperfect, however.
See, the bible says that we are created in His image; "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) and it also says in Psalm 127:3, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward."So if God tells us we are made in His image - and that this includes children with "disabilities" - and that children are also a heritage from Him and a reward...and if I, as a Christian claim to believe that the Word of God is truth and the only valid source I trust, how could I say that abortion, not resuscitating a child after birth, and other abusive ways of "disposing" of children, is right?
I cannot and will not ever say that it is okay. Ever.
After making this point to her, I think she knew it was a losing battle to keep fighting with me. She then asked me, through a very inappropriate choice of words that is too disgusting to even post starred out, if I'm a supporter of gay rights.
There are a couple homosexuals in my class. And I simply laughed and said, "yeah, you guessed right."
They all heard me, and I knew it could be detrimental to my being taken seriously ever again. But I can't compromise to serve myself.
"So, you don't believe in love, then?" she poses. I don't remember exactly how I worded it, but it went something like this.
I believe in the bible, and what the bible has to say about love. If I stand up for "gay rights", I am again, going against my beliefs and therefore losing the integrity I possess. If you stand for nothing you'll fall for anything. So, yes, I believe in love. But love as is defined in the word of God - the truth - by my Jesus - is defined by my God sending his only Son to die on the cross for my sins.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."We have all heard this passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8(a) at least once. If love is patients, it is my duty to stand firm in my convictions, while remaining patient with those struggling with what the bible has to say about their sin. If love is kind, it's my responsibility to not condemn those who's lifestyles I don't agree with - it's my responsibility to show them the grace Jesus gave me. If love is not self seeking, it is my job to love and support and encourage others to follow Jesus because it's better for them, not because it makes me better.
And going back to her comment of "so you don't believe in love, then?"....yes. I believe in love. But my Jesus showed me more love than any man or woman ever could. And because I believe in love, I also believe in a baby's rights to life. I believe in marriage being a holy covenant between a man and a woman only; I believe that if you have the love of Christ filling your life, you have more power than anyone to combat addiction, abuse, depression, so on and so forth.
We live in a culture where "acceptance" is our god. Non-believers crucify Christians for not accepting gays, abortion, drugs, abuse, and so on. But in reality, if we are so focused on acceptance, we would stop focusing on acceptance. An Atheist asking me to have tolerance in regards to things like gay marriage and abortion, goes against their agenda of acceptance.
I as a Christian will not ask you to support the same things I support because you are held to a standard of the world, not Jesus. But you in return, in order to fulfill your plight for co-existing, must tolerate my "intolerance" because I am standing firm in my convictions and rights to them. If you ask me to compromise what makes me who I am for your convenience, you have no right to get upset when I ask you to compromise your convictions for me.
Co-existing is not really possible, because in a world where we are pushing acceptance and tolerance, the only ones not receiving acceptance and tolerance, are Christians - because we stand for more and have supporting reasons for everything we stand on.
As soon as we finished our conversation during break, the woman told me to "keep doing what you're doing you rock.", and I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. I was told I am too black and white, the world doesn't work like that, etc. Yeah, it doesn't, because sin rules our life. I left class on break and just didn't come back. I was so riled up and knew I would be disruptive if I stayed. The next day, a friend told me everyone in our section of the class (about 7 people) sat and talked poorly about me; only proving that they are not as confident in their "convictions" as I may be. What someone says about how "black and white" I am will never affect me - because I am not here on earth to please them, I'm here to glorify my God. If they are so firm in their convictions and beliefs, they wouldn't care what I believed - they would pity me for my lack of "understanding" - but instead, I make them think. I made them question. I made them uncomfortable, and that alone was worth the persecution that I may have incurred.
If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
I stand on Jesus; and because of this, I will never accept anything less than His truth.
