Before I introduce you to a female pastor claiming abortion can be a moral good, I wanted to begin with something beautiful. I chose the words from Dr. Kathryn Rombs’ new book: Motherhood: An Extraordinary Vocation. Her thoughts are tonic for the disturbing opinion piece in USA Today (now hidden behind a paywall) titled: “I’m a Christian minister who’s had 2 abortions. Here’s how faith informed those decisions.”
Meet its author, Rebecca Todd Peters, a Presbyterian pastor and professor of religious studies who claims that God helped her decide to end the lives of two of her four children. I wonder how the living ones will ultimately feel about this. Lucky? Predestined? Resentful or conflicted at the power their mother yielded over their lives and those of their absent siblings?
Peters proudly claimed: “I did not make my abortion decisions despite my Christian identify and faith, but rather because of it.” Here is just a sampling of corrupted Christian truths she twisted into diabolical delusions:
“Christian values that support healthy and secure families also require careful, thoughtful and morally rich consideration about the decision to become a parent or not.”
If you are pregnant, that decision has already been made. So has a new person. The feel-good adjectives — careful, thoughtful, morally rich —are an attempt to pretty up an ugly reality.
“The fact that the social, physical and moral well-being of children is primarily the responsibility of parents meant that my husband and I thought carefully and deeply about our decisions to have and not have children.”
She is cognizant of her responsibility for all aspects of her children’s well-being yet concluded that killing two of them was the best option. Why not be honest and speak about the decision whether to let the baby continue growing and be born or abort? That is the ugly reality left unspoken.
“Parenting is a sacred task.”
Yes, she said that. And yes, parenting is a sacred task from the very beginning. Words like sacred, moral, abundant life— these are more of the feel-good adjectives used to manipulate throughout the piece.
“Guided by Christian principles that promote abundant life, seek justice and recognize the human dignity of women, the decision to end a pregnancy can be a morally good decision.”
Christian principals do indeed promote abundant life. A woman is beautifully and wonderfully created with a womb to support new life, not to end it, lest a baby be deprived of becoming a man or woman deserving of that “human dignity” of which Peters speaks.
Overturning Roe v. Wade
Peters fears “returning to that pre-Roe world” and worries about poor women and women of color and young women who will have a harder time aborting. No concern that babies of color are more likely to be aborted than born. She expects that she herself will be among those still able to get abortions.
Sadly, Peters’ views are generational, quoting her mother as teaching her: “You shouldn't have a baby just because you are pregnant — you should have a baby because you want to be a mother, you want to have a family.”
That reasoning fails to recognize that the divine gift of motherhood expands a woman’s capacity for love for the miraculous creation that came to life in her womb, as opposed to motherhood just being about what you feel like doing at a given point in time.
Peters ends with a litany of situations when abortion can be a moral good, all of them worldly, transient and egocentric.But as Mother Teresa once said: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
Reaction from Post-abortive Women
My friend, Leslie Blackwell, also a post-abortive mother of two living children, often tells her story of regret and healing as part of the Silent No More Campaign.
When I showed her Peters’ essay, she shared it with her Silent No More sisters. Here are some of their responses:
- “Vile on so many levels”
- “Repugnant, reprehensible”
- “She’s still in denial, trying to justify her ‘choices’”
- “Demonic language”
- “Surprised how many times she used the words ‘sacred’ and ‘moral,’ as though just saying it makes it true.”
- “Complete lack of understanding of the post trauma effects of abortion”
- “This woman is silencing the voices of may post abortive women and men”
- “The black race is being decimated and yet she sounds like Margaret Sanger, founder of PP, and her eugenics philosophy”
- “She says faith informed her decision? Where are the 10 Commandments ... what about ‘Thou shalt not kill?’”
- “Most women don’t want to abort their child ... they need help to carry the pregnancy and support afterwards.”
- “No discussion on adoption (the best choice) or pregnancy centers!”
- “If abortion is so good for women, why are there so many nasty, angry women yelling and protesting?”
- “She’s trying to step in and play God with life ... God creates life.”
Please join me to pray for Peters to see the light, and one day help bring healing and understanding to others.