Innocent Lives at Stake: No Excuse for Christian Apathy on Abortion
by Emily Wood Hawley
Rosie the Riveter graced the cover of The Economist recently, with her sleeves rolled up, a voting card in her hand, the feminist raised fist symbol on her collar, and “My Body, My Choice” tattooed on her arm with the headline: “Meet America’s most dynamic political movement.”
Women are lied to en masse and told that the only way to be truly free or “empowered” like the World War II-era icon Rosie the Riveter is having the “right” to kill their offspring.
The abortion issue has always been a “dynamic political movement,” but in the two years since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the battle surrounding abortion has only intensified. Not only is it the most dynamic political issue (maybe to ever exist), but it’s certainly the most consequential.
Talking points and nuance aside, the lives of innocent children are on the line.
The fall of Roe v. Wade two years ago struck a nerve in the Republican Party. True colors and inconsistencies were revealed as many in the GOP abandoned the life issue for silence and compromise. While Democrats run on the abortion issue, many Republicans run from it in retreat.
The same is sadly true for many churches and Christians who attempt to write off abortion as merely a partisan issue that just stirs up division. But the fact of the matter is abortion is not a political issue that can be ignored; it’s a moral and spiritual issue of utmost importance.
Burying our Heads in the Sand
A Christian who lived in Nazi Germany recalled how German Christians tried to distance themselves from the stories they heard about the Holocaust “because what could anyone do to stop it?”
The small church he attended would sing hymns at the top of their lungs when they heard the train on tracks outside coming by to drown out the cries of Jews being shipped to death camps.
He shared this chilling story Erwin Lutzer retold in his book When a Nation Forgets God:
“We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us. … We knew the time the train was coming, and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. Years have passed, and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.”
The “Sing a Little Louder” story has been used as a powerful analogy to compare German Christians’ complicity during the Holocaust to American Christians’ silence regarding abortion, a crime against humanity that has killed over 63 million Americans since 1973.
Like Christians in Nazi Germany, much of the American Church (and certainly the Republican party) is simply singing a little louder and sticking their heads in the sand to drown out the reality of the million-plus children being killed by abortion in the U.S. each year. Are we content to remain silent as innocent children are being ushered to death?
Swinging the Pendulum in Post-Roe America
So much hinges on the fall of Roe, which was the starting point, not the finish line, in the fight for life, and the pendulum can either swing toward life or death.
What many of us optimistically –– and perhaps naïvely –– believed would lead a sweeping pro-life shift in policy and culture after Roe was declared “egregiously wrongly decided from the start,” abortion rates have only increased as the pro-abortion movement has doubled down to codify into law the killing of children.
States like Arkansas reported zero total abortions in 2023 compared to past years averaging over 3,000 children killed by abortion in the state. Another report found 32,000 babies were saved from abortion in the first six months of 2023 alone.
While these stats make great headlines and are certainly something to celebrate, they don’t tell the full story. On the whole, abortion rates have increased in a post-Roe America with the deadly abortion pill flowing freely through the mail and certain states removing virtually all abortion restrictions.
In 2023, the first full year after the fall of Roe, more abortions took place in the U.S. than in over a decade, and data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute estimates 171,300 mothers traveled to a different state for an abortion last year. Meanwhile, pro-abortion organizations are lobbying even harder for unfettered abortion access to be enshrined into certain state constitutions, such as in Florida, through measures on ballots in November.
Though life is winning in states with laws to protect the preborn and there is no longer a constitutional “right” to abortion (thanks to the Dobbs decision), babies’ lives are still at stake across the nation at large.
Waking Up an Apathetic Church
A baby to be born in a less-than-perfect circumstance should be treated as a life to be valued rather than a problem to be “dealt with” and discarded. In a culture obsessed with the convenience of killing unwanted children, a spiritual shift and a change of hearts and minds is vital. This starts with waking up an apathetic church to the gruesome reality of abortion and the call to “rescue those being led away to death” (Proverbs 24:11).
The shedding of innocent blood through abortion is an issue close to the heart of God that Christians should care about.
Human beings, at every stage of development born and preborn, are made in God’s image and deserve equal protection under the law. Whether a human baby has the right to live or be murdered is the most consequential issue of this election cycle and our time and must be addressed with Christian conviction, not cowardly compromise.