Episodes
Monday Jun 17, 2013
Open Letter to Congress and Legislators
Monday Jun 17, 2013
Monday Jun 17, 2013
Dear elected official considering "legislative solutions" to reduce the abortion rate ... well, not really the rate because there is no indication you have thought that through at all, being more focused on passing laws that make it look like you are "doing something" about abortion when you are missing the point entirely ... yeah, you: We are on the wrong course in our interactions with courts, the legislative process, and specifically the women in our society. Lowering the abortion rate to astonishingly low levels is possible, and it starts (STARTS) with ending the expensive and wasteful process of trying to force people into making the choice most of us want them to make. Let's do this the way Jesus demonstrated. Listen to people, love them as they are, intervene personally and directly; not with laws that attempt to control them without listening to them or even knowing who they really are (much less loving them as much as so many conservative Christians "say" they love the unborn child ... an anonymous and cheap form of "love" at best). There is a simple test that we should apply when someone in a debate talks about "low levels" of pregnancy due to rape and incest or life-threatening situations like we've heard about in the past year from Ireland and elsewhere. (Think it couldn't happen here? I think it could in a rural part of states like Oklahoma, Mississippi, or others). None of that even includes women living with other sorts of threats, like domestic violence or health situations that could lead to serious consequences like sterility or conditions that would shorten life ... but just not drastically enough to satisfy the kinds of legislation being proposed by so-called conservatives. No the test here is really easy: whenever you call a number of women small, then your job is to pull out pen and paper and write down (you, personally, not a bunch of pages or interns) the names and phone numbers of all the women you have met for the first time in the past year. You see, the same women aren't typically pregnant from rape in consecutive years. For some women -- thankfully -- it is only a once in a lifetime experience if at all. But if you think it is a small number, go ahead and set a timer for an hour or two, and write down all your new female associates. It's a small number, right? Of course, if it is physically impossible for you to write that many names (thousands of women each year) in a short span of time, then it isn't a small number at all. We should have the intellectual integrity to challenge people who use language so inappropriately. On the other hand, you also may have -- despite being in a position of power -- simply avoided meeting that many of your constituents, choosing instead to remain in a very narrow field of influence for some arguably political reasons. That would be a lack of ethics and/or moral integrity ... if we are serious about the use of terms like "small number" to refer to such a large and important part of our society. Jesus would speak with those women. With the woman at the well in John 4 as an example, he would empower her or them to be his advocate with others in the community, not only other women. He would never adopt a "there there little lady, I know what's best for you" philosophy and he certainly wouldn't legislate such an approach through the power of human government. People who do that are not following Jesus; they are opposing his example. Please, don't empower the anti-Christ forces that you are forced to brush elbows with, whether they identify themselves as some sort of Christian voting bloc or moral majority or not. The only real "moral majority" is Jesus. Try doing things his way for a change, or take this prompting to challenge peers who are and have been taking the Lord's name in vain on this issue (and numerous others). Sincerely and admittedly, Someone who loves Jesus more than power (I'm not alone here, my fellow Christians, and you are welcome to join us)
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