Site icon Coram Deo ~

Guest Blogger Teri Williams – Abortion Front Lines

Bill Pence

IMG_1268

 Teri is the Director of The Spoon River Pregnancy Resource Center located in Canton, IL.

 

Abortion Front Lines

When you think of Orlando, Florida, the thoughts that come to mind may be about warm weather, beaches and Mickey Mouse. Close to the last thing one would want to consider in the middle of the happiest place on earth would be an abortion clinic that does not only first trimester abortion procedures, but actually abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. As someone who works in a pregnancy center, even I would rather not think about abortions happening that late into a pregnancy. The loss of life, the risks to the procedure, and the impact on life moving forward is unspeakable horror. This particular clinic has come up to me three times in conversation in the past two days.

First, I spent time with a friend who lives in Orlando and had visited this clinic. She was horrified by the surgical procedures being performed there and praying about involvement with a man who is there 6 days a week doing sidewalk evangelism. His name is John Barros. He is a part of RC Sproul’s church near Orlando. I then mentioned this clinic to my brother-in-law and sister as they attend a yearly conference in Orlando associated with the same church. They informed me they had heard this same man, John Barros , speak at the 2015 National Ligonier Conference and could send me the link. http://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/after-darkness-light-2015-national-conference/abortion-front-lines/? {Lee Webb interviews Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. and John Barros about the importance of sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics.) After listening to the presentation twice, I feel a strong need to share a few thoughts.
John Barros has been given a tough, tough ministry assignment. Yes, he does see almost daily, women and couples who change their minds and choose life for their unborn child. But far and away more often, he is watching the destruction of countless lives every single day. The despair that has washed over me even thinking about the reality of this, is overwhelming. Pray for John Barros.
But secondly, listening to RC Sproul, Jr. share his experiences with this ministry I found much of what he said disturbing. Early on he makes the statement that — EVERYONE knows this is a baby. This situation is not due to a lack of education on fetal development. Everyone is fully aware they are murdering a baby. There are many of us in the prolife movement who do know enough about fetal development and Psalm 139 to believe this is a valuable life at the moment of conception. A life that God is knitting together in the womb with both a God-given purpose and a plan. But does EVERYONE believe that? Not hardly. It has become painfully obvious to me in the past few years, that much of the church today is not prolife — they are pro choice. The definition of when life begins is extremely controversial. Women who actually admit they are carrying a baby and use the word BABY are often NOT able to terminate the pregnancy.
Secondly, he calls abortion a great evil. I do not disagree with that statement at all. However, it is not greater than any other sin. Why do CHRISTIANS not talk about the fact they have had an abortion in their past? Because they fear being told just that — their abortion is one of the biggest sins anyone could commit. I do not see this supported in scripture. I think MAN likes to believe there is a top 10 worst sins. Then I am not as bad as you because I never did….fill in the blank. Delusional thinking.
Mr. Sproul also talks about a person covering their shame or eliminating their shame by having an abortion. The bottom line reason for an abortion is NOT shame it is self–centeredness.
Lastly, towards the end of the presentation. RC Sproul, Jr. discusses a young man that he spoke to during a visit to that abortion clinic. How that young man saw the abortion as a solution to his dilemma. And if he could just get his girlfriend through the procedure life would go on. Mr. Sproul went on to say that the young man would be filled with horror afterward at the reality of what just happened, but the horror would fade until he eventually forgot the experience entirely. It would not even cross his mind until the day he died. And then it would come back. The young man would remember what he had done.
I have no idea where Mr. Sproul got that impression, but I can tell you in 17 years of working in prolife ministries, I have NEVER met one person male or female who was able to forget their abortion experience. It often becomes something that is quite haunting. Statements are often made like, “I wish I could forget….or it was the worst day of my life….or if I had known what it would be like, I would never have done it.” It is a defining moment in anyone’s life. The reality is I have never met a person in 17 years who didn’t say “that experience changed my life forever. I walked out of that clinic a different person.” There are books written about post abortion trauma. There are prisons filled with inmates, both male and female who have an abortion in their past. Many of them will attest it was a part of their downward spiral.
While I very much admire John Barros for his commitment and perseverance in sidewalk evangelism at the Orlando abortion clinic, I honestly feel RC Sproul, Jr. was a huge deterrent to a productive, factual, compassionate conversation on this topic.
To read more of Teri’s articles, click here.  To learn more about SRPRC or to make a donation, go to http://www.spoonriverpregnancycenter.com.


Reading Together Week 3

Chapter 3: Modern Holocaust: The Gospel and Abortion

Counter Culture: A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography by David Platt.

David Platt, author of Radical, has written an important new book. So important, I believe, that rather than doing one book review, I’m going to review the content chapter by chapter. Note, all of Platt’s royalties from this book will go toward promoting the glory of Christ in all nations.

Each chapter concludes by offering some initial suggestions for practical requests you can pray in light of these issues, potential ways you might engage culture with the gospel, and biblical truths we must proclaim regarding every one of these issues. These suggestions will also direct you to a website http://www.counterculturebook.com/resources, where you can explore more specific steps you might take.

This week we look at Chapter 3: Modern Holocaust: The Gospel and Abortion.
• For of all the pressing social issues addressed in this book, abortion poses the most clear and present danger to the most people on a daily basis.
• Across the world, over forty-two million abortions occur every year.
• The worldwide practice of abortion is why I do not believe it is anywhere close to an overstatement to call abortion a modern holocaust.
• Conservative estimates reveal that approximately one-third of American women have had (or will have) an abortion at some point in their lives.
• God the Creator alone has the right to determine when someone lives and dies, and abortion flies directly in the face of his authority.
• Many people say, “Abortion is such a complex issue, and there just aren’t any easy answers.” But if what is in the womb is a person, then even if someone is proabortion or pro-choice for any number of reasons, all of their reasoning falls apart.
• Scripture is clear: that womb contains a person being formed in the image of God.
• An estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies.
• Would we murder a child outside the womb because he or she was conceived by rape? Of course we wouldn’t. Then why would we murder a child inside the womb?
• Abortion is an affront to God’s authority as Creator, an assault on God’s work in creation, and an attack on God’s relationship with the unborn. Once we realize the severity of abortion before God, the implications of the gospel for abortion become clear.
• This includes our current president, a man whom I respect deeply and pray for regularly but who is proactively and aggressively working to keep the murder of innocent children legal.
• If you are a Christian, I plead for you to step out of a muddled middle road that says, “I may not choose abortion, but I don’t think we should take away others’ right to choose it,” and to realize how inconceivable it is for us to stay silent while millions of children—individuals made in the image of God—are dismembered and destroyed around us in the world. Such thinking is not enlightened tolerance; it is sinful indifference. Moral and political neutrality here is not an option for us.
• If we believe the gospel, then we must speak out against the injustice of abortion.
• To anyone and everyone who has ever aborted a child, supported abortion, encouraged abortion, performed abortion, permitted abortion, or done nothing about abortion, may the following realities lodge deep within your soul. He forgives entirely, he heals deeply, and he restores completely.

Next week we’ll look at Chapter 4: The Lonely in Families: The Gospel and Orphans and Widows. Won’t you read along with us?

Exit mobile version