JW August 22, 2018 Graham Glover

Hate Abortion? End Poverty

There are millions of Americans who hate abortion. I’m one of them.

There are millions of Americans who wish most abortions were illegal. I too am one of them.

There are millions of Americans who wish that every woman considering an abortion would make a choice for life rather than death. Again, I’m one of them.

What, then, should the millions of Americans who feel this way do, or rather, what policies and laws should we support to help end this sin that continues to plague our nation?

Some think the appointment of Neil Gorsuch and the soon-to-be appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is a step in the right direction. Many in the Pro-Life Movement are convinced that judges such as these will be instrumental in overturning abortion laws, perhaps even Roe vs. Wade. They may be right.

But a new Court isn’t the only answer. It’s not even the first answer. Justices who uphold laws that support the life of an unborn child would certainly be a step in the right direction. And maybe, just maybe, a different Supreme Court could make this happen.

But if you really hate abortion, if you really want the hundreds of thousands of abortions that occur every year in America to end, then you should support policies and laws that end, or at least seek to radically reduce, poverty.

If America is truly is a Pro-Life nation, then our policies and laws should focus not only on making most abortions illegal. Rather, they should focus first and foremost on ensuring that women are not forced to make such a life-altering decision.

To that end, I want you to imagine a different America. An America whose policies and laws support life well beyond the act of making abortion illegal.

Imagine if every American woman who was pregnant didn’t have to worry about how she was going to pay for her and her child’s medical care during and after the pregnancy. If you can imagine this, then you can imagine a nation that insures every one of its citizens from conception to death.

Imagine if every American woman who was pregnant didn’t have to go to bed at night wondering how she was going to feed herself and her child during and after the pregnancy. If you can imagine this, then you can imagine a nation that guarantees a living wage to every one of its citizens.

Imagine if every American woman who was pregnant didn’t have to be anxious about how her pregnancy will affect her career. If you can imagine this, then you can imagine a nation that has more generous maternal leave policies and begins to have a serious conversation about paternal leave.

Imagine if every American woman who was pregnant didn’t have to rely solely on the income of her unborn child’s father to provide for them. If you can imagine this, then you can imagine a nation that finally addresses the gross income disparity between men and women.

And finally, imagine if every American woman who was pregnant but wasn’t sure if she was ready to be a mother had the assurance that her child would be placed into a loving foster or adoptive home. If you can imagine this, then you can imagine a nation that puts is money and its rhetoric where its mouth is by radically expanding foster and adoptive services and supporting them in ways far beyond what our budgets currently allot.

If the millions of Americans that hate abortion can imagine these things, if we can support policies and laws that make these things a reality, then maybe, just maybe, more women will choose not to have an abortion. And that’s what the Pro-Life Movement is truly about. A culture that supports life. A culture that encourages life. A culture that enriches life.

Hate abortion? Me too. Hate abortion? Then support policies and laws that end poverty.

16Comments

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jonolan on August 22, 2018 at 4:14 am

Your premise is flawed. While more “poor” women choose to kill their babies than ones who are better off, pre-2011 when they made the poverty level relative (hence, at least 20%-ish of the pop will be “poor.”) figures show that only approx. 33% of abortions are among the “poor.”

Also, behavior leads to poverty and there’s no evidence that “uplifting” poor women would change their behaviors or lead to less abortions.

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  Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:37 am
  
  jonolan, I’d questions your statistics, but regardless, are you willing to ignore policies and laws that can benefit the 33% (1/3 of all abortions!) you cite?
  
  Since, according to your logic, we can’t alter behavior or affect change in people’s live, what’s the answer for the 33%? Just making abortion illegal won’t do it.
  
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    jonolan on August 22, 2018 at 4:40 am
    
    Yes, given the specifics of the majority of that 33%, I’d ignore such policies because they’d more than likely do no good and that’s even if they were allowed to be enacted.
    
    The only answer that will work is to make abortion illegal, specifically making it murder (with all parts of murder statutes and surrounding law applied).
    
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Nathan A. Rinne on August 22, 2018 at 4:27 am

Imagine a world where man & woman are committed to one another & have intact extended family connections that help.

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  Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:31 am
  
  Nathan, that would be great as well. There are several things that can be done to reduce the number of abortions. I’m simply trying to expand the aperture of pro-lifers to consider policies and law they typically do not.
  
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Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:45 am

jonolan, on this we will have to disagree. My premise is that if a nation truly cares about life it will do more than make abortion illegal. You and I (I think) want the same end result: less abortions. To that end, may we both continue to pray that such an end will come someday soon.

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  jonolan on August 22, 2018 at 7:32 am
  
  Yes, that is an end that I want.
  
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Paul Howe on August 22, 2018 at 5:46 am

I too would like to see abortion at zero. How can it be that poverty is the biggest reason when no one seems to lack knowledge on who is selling drugs or where the Pimp lives or where to get a gun or where to get food stamps or Medicade but has not a clue where to get free birth control pills? Amazing that free birth control pills are beyond the poverty budget.

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  Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:42 pm
  
  Paul, I’m not sure I follow your logic. I’m saying give women health insurance, a guaranteed living wage, pay equity with men, a much more generous maternity leave benefit, and lots more federal funding for adoptive and foster services. Do these things that help maintain the financial well being of pregnant women and there need/desire to have an abortion goes down exponentially.
  
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Matt Cochran on August 22, 2018 at 6:22 am

Imagine if raising a child didn’t require self-sacrifice. Wait, I can’t.

Murdering one’s own child is the ultimate act of selfishness. But there are no circumstances in which raising children doesn’t require a hefty dose of selflessness. Of all your suggestions, the really telling one is this: “Imagine if every American woman who was pregnant didn’t have to be anxious about how her pregnancy will affect her career.” To say that children are a handful is an understatement. They will affect your career no matter how long your leave is. Its not like you stop needing flexibility or overtime stops being a problem if you take a year off after the birth. If you’re willing to murder them over career, no amount of assistance will make that temptation bearable.

In the face of the enduring sacrificial commitment that loving your children entails, all these policies are a matter of plucking a few straws off camels’ backs. Yes, there will be a few instances when you remove that final straw and prevent an abortion.

But those straws aren’t just disappearing; you’re putting them on the backs of others. And for every occasional abortion prevented because of a generous leave policy, another abortion will happen because the mother is working too much overtime to handle a child. For every occasional abortion prevented because of welfare, another abortion will happen because the people paying for other people’s children feel like they can’t afford one of their own.

And it’s not as though we have no experience with this mindset. When your policies fail to bring about the intended result, you will claim they’re not generous enough and double-down. Ultimately, the redistribution of straws will itself become so burdensome that poverty (and by your logic, abortion) will increase instead of decrease.

So no, “Really caring about life” doesn’t require what you suggest. On the contrary, true concern should make us all the more wary of further inflaming our overgrown sense of entitlement. Because at the end of the day, that sense of entitlement–not poverty–is the real reason we murder our children.

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John J. Flanagan on August 22, 2018 at 6:52 am

Graham, there is much truth in your premise, but I might add that the statistics gathered by the Guttmacher Institute on Planned Parenthood over several decades has shown that 93 percent of abortions were done for “convenience,” having no relationship to the health of the mother. The remaining 7 percent of abortions relate to rape, incest, health of the woman. The idea of economic hardship as a justification for murder is unacceptable, since adoption is the alternative. The disposable mindset of our society renders the unborn at risk by those who are pro-abortion. We can and should be engaged in influencing the political and legal means necessary to end abortion. For those women who have had abortions, there is often guilt and emotional trauma. Treating them in a pastoral manner, encouraging repentance, and seeking the Lord is the only way to deal with the issue. Going further than some, I refuse to vote in elections for any Democrats, the party of Planned Parenthood, nor for any pro-abortion Republicans for any office whatsoever. Abortion is criminal and immoral, and a blight on this nation.

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  Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:44 pm
  
  John absolutely agree that many/most abortions are done for elective purposes (rather than someone’s life being in danger or in the tragic instances of rape and incest.) I’m just exploring methods beyond passing laws making abortion illegal to help women.
  
  Even if abortion is made illegal, women will still have abortions. To help prevent this, let’s put policies in place that encourage them to keep the baby.
  
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Matt on August 22, 2018 at 7:44 am

I oppose abortion but think that overturning R.v.W. is a moot point and will never happen, it is just a talking point to keep the Democrats from weighing out Republican candidates. Secondly, as has been proven by the war on poverty, poor decisions and choices don’t end because we provide Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, rather those folks are enabled by us to continue the path they are on. As social programs have proven, they destroy the family structure. Maybe churches should take up their role in accordance to scripture and “true religion” to “take care of widows and orphans.” Maybe it could help if preachers quit teaching everyone to gloss over sin and label everything as a helpless disease forgiven by grace not of our own accord although it is true, the New Testament also tells new believers to “go and sin no more,” to not continue in sin. Christ spoke of sin and hell, but preachers today shy away and dilute the meaning of love and discipleship down to Jesus being a hippy. (none of this is targeted to you specifically, but most churches in general). The issue behind all of this is the destruction of the family – this is talked about in our Bibles, it is talked about in the communist manifesto “blessed is he who has no family”. Second issue regarding medical insurance for everyone, I am not for or against it. I am against the way they are going about it. It could be a lot easier to pass if we stopped subsidizing corn, wheat and sugar then tax the ever-living stew out of any food highly processed especially with added sweeteners in any form and fried/ high-fat things like chips. Tax a 20oz Coke so it costs about $5 – 6 bucks and a bag of chips about $10, then watch America get healthy again, cancer rates decrease, and healthcare would not be such a large portion of our economy as well as unhealthy eaters “paying their fair share.” This will never happen though. All politicians stand to lose too much money.

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  Graham Glover on August 22, 2018 at 4:54 pm
  
  Matt, you raise some great points. I especially appreciate your commendation for the work of the church. Sadly, the church has ceded many of these responsibilities to the state. We should own them and provide for our members and our neighbors.
  
  I think I also agree with your assessment of Roe v. Wade. There is much talk that the Kavanaugh nomination will set the stage for its reversal. Like you, I remain skeptical. However, that doesn’t mean the Pro-Life movement doesn’t continue doing what it does best: teaching that all life is sacred – even the unborn.
  
  Ultimately, we put all of this in the Lord’s hands and trust that through the proclamation of His Word that souls will be saved and unrepentant hearts turned.
  
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Jennifer W on August 27, 2018 at 11:43 am

If we start first with loving and respecting women instead of chastising them for their unplanned pregnancies (whether married or unmarried), we will have done more than any law or policy can do. As long as we treat women like trash instead of the beautiful, special children of God that they are, abortion will often be seen as their only option. It is easy to sit in judgement. I encourage you to walk a mile in their shoes…to take the plank out of your own eye…to lay down your stone…and to Love like Jesus. From this Love in action, all things may be reconciled. It is our hearts that must be changed.

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  Graham Glover on August 27, 2018 at 1:42 pm
  
  Jennifer, thank you for these comments. Absolutely concur and I commend them to all!
  
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