Is God Pro-Choice?

I mean, really: is God pro-choice? That’s a very good question, and I think the answer may shock you even more. Before I proceed with the answer, however, let me first say that personally I am unabashedly pro-life and unapologetic for it. Furthermore, I believe God is pro-life, too. So, if I think God is pro-life, why did I ask that provocative question? Well, it wasn’t just to get your attention (though that was part of it), but it’s because our contemporary understanding and use of the term pro-choice is misguided and misused.

Before the abortion debate raised its ugly head 40 years ago with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, the idea of being pro-choice meant one had the right to choose something for himself or herself, even if he or she made a bad choice with that right. The United States of America was founded on that very principle of personal freedom — to a point, of course. For instance, one doesn’t have the right to take another human being’s life simply because of personal freedom. At least, that was the case until 1973 when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling decided that an unborn baby was not a human being. That is pretty much like saying a caterpillar isn’t a butterfly in the making. Just because the caterpillar doesn’t resemble a butterfly at first, doesn’t mean it won’t resemble one as it develops further along.

The very concept of personal freedom implies the ability to make choices that profoundly affect one’s own life, although those choices should be informed by the Word of God as their guide to right decision-making. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, even among supposed Christians. This part of the abortion issue is true, however: a woman always has had the right to choose to terminate her pregnancy if she desired (simply by participating in activities that jeopardized her unborn child’s safety), just as she has had the right to choose whether to eat spinach or broccoli for dinner and just as she has the right everyday to choose whether to rob a store or help her neighbors or serve God as a faithful, believing, and obedient Christian. Why does she have the right to choose between good and evil? She has this right because God gave it to every human being ever to be born into this world. God gave this basic human right to choose between good and evil because He wanted people to be able to choose for themselves whether to be in relationship with Him and live under His authority and rule forever.

Perhaps the best proof we have that God is pro-choice is found right in the Bible. You may ask, “Where?” Well, during the Exodus from Egypt, God spoke through Moses to challenge the people of Israel to make a choice. He said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live….”  (Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV). You see, not only has God placed these choices before us to prove that He has given us the right and power to make our own choice (as He did for the nation of Israel thousands of years ago), but He has even told us what the right choice is for us to make! We don’t even have to stroke our chin with contemplation or scratch our head with indecision about which one is the right or best choice for us. God has taken all the guesswork out of it already!

Since it is plainly God’s will for people to choose life through obedience to His commands, that means God is obviously pro-choice. So, why does God use His Own power of choice to allow such evil things in the world as abortion on demand? Well, it’s because He has deliberately limited Himself from intruding into our lives in order to permit us to make our own choices in life. In fact, He won’t even intervene without a direct appeal from us. The flip side that so many people rarely (if ever) think about is that the choice for evil results in death, whereas the choice for good results in everlasting life with God where we will never again have to face the consequences of evil, though that won’t begin until after Christ’s return.

It’s not God’s will for us to choose evil, but because it is oftentimes our will to do evil, God lets us have our way. This includes letting a government legalize the murder of unborn children under the guise of personal freedom and letting thousands of women everyday choose to abort their babies for any reason. It also includes letting a man or a parent or a set of parents or a supposed friend or relative or even a complete stranger pressure an individual woman into aborting her baby for all kinds of reasons, such as “You’re just too young,” or “How are you going to feed that baby when you can’t even feed the ones you’ve got already?” or “Aborting a handicapped baby is just the humane thing to do.”

These sorts of arguments are perfect proof that aborting a baby is the epitome of self-centeredness, but then that’s how that little baby came into existence in the first place. The parents, however old they were, married or not, mentally and economically prepared or not, were so focused on satisfying their own selfish desires for pleasure that they chose not to think of the possibility of generating a child when they came together, and when they learned the woman was pregnant, they chose not to think of their baby first but to think of their own selfish interests once again, such as how inconvenient having a baby was going to be. Yes, inconvenience is really at the root of practically every abortion. It wasn’t convenient to be pregnant or to have a baby right then and the crimp that responsibility was going to place on their free-living lifestyle and their other personal plans was just more than they could bear.

For those comparatively few cases of rape or incest, no one stops to think how that tiny, helpless baby had no choice in who his or her parents were. She couldn’t help it if her daddy was a rapist, and he couldn’t help it if his daddy was also his grand-daddy. Killing an unborn child that is the result of rape or incest is just as wrong and unacceptable to God as killing any other baby. It’s still murder, even if a baby was sinfully or criminally conceived or if the baby will have (or, as in many cases, is wrongly suspected to have) mental and/or physical disabilities. Did you know that God even goes so far as to tell Moses that He makes people with certain disabilities (see Exodus 4:11)?

Indeed, God is pro-choice because He desires to let us choose between good and evil, right and wrong, living eternally His way or suffering eternally our way. It’s a simple choice and, for me, at least, it’s an easy choice. I choose life, and I choose life God’s way. Therefore, like God, I, too, am pro-life. Furthermore, because it is God’s choice to let human beings be free to choose between good and evil, thus making God deliberately pro-choice, I, too, am pro-choice — not pro-abortion, mind you, but pro-choice in the truest sense of the term. Like God, I’d rather you didn’t choose evil, but since God is your judge (and I am not), I will leave the judgment and disciplining to Him.

Make no mistake, there will be a reckoning for the unrepentant sinners one day. If you need it spelled out for you, an “unrepentant sinner” is one who refuses to turn away from his or her sin and embrace God’s way of living. If you are a woman who has had one or more abortions or if you are a man who has pressured a woman to get an abortion or if you are a medical professional who has performed one or more abortions, it’s not too late — yet — for you to confess (agree) that you have sinned against God’s will and turn away from this evil deed called abortion and all other evil deeds you have done in your life. You can ask for God to forgive you and begin living life God’s way from now on. Read His Word (the Bible) and obey His commandments contained therein to the best of your ability, not in order to be saved from your sins but because you have been saved from your sins. The proof of your salvation will be in the way your life is changed for the better, from practicing sin and evil to practicing righteousness and good.

If you’ve never sought this salvation before, or if you sought it once and drifted back into disobedience, now’s the time to come to Christ and begin living your life for Him once and forever. Living eternally with Him will be far better than anyone (except God) can describe. To put it simply — the rewards will be out of this world!