The other day I read a blog written by a woman who was about to have an abortion. The post was saddening to me. It treated having an abortion as though it was a decision as simple as choosing what to wear or where to go for lunch.

What stuck out to me most though was not what was actually written in the post, it was one of the “tags” or “categories” that the blog was placed under on the website. This was one of the tags:

Justice.

Justice?

Justice for whom? Justice for the woman who made a conscious decision to commit an act (sex) that creates life. Even though she obviously didn’t desire to get pregnant, her and her boyfriend created that life; the baby didn’t create itself.

Clearly this isn’t justice for the innocent human life that is being taken, who has done nothing to deserve this. 

This isn’t justice. The woman who is pregnant has not been wronged in any way. She was not made to get pregnant. This was not forced upon her.

Today I also saw an online debate about whether it is morally acceptable to get pregnant just so that you can have an abortion. And I suppose if having an abortion is a just thing to do, why wouldn’t it be? But if abortion is ending a completely innocent life, who again did not create himself/herself, how could this be a good thing?

Upon reading about both the “justice” of abortion, and whether or not it is just fine to get pregnant for the purpose of having an abortion, all I could think about is what Paul wrote in Romans 1:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:18-25)

This is what happens when we suppress the very idea that there may be a God and that we are not him. When we put our very selves before anyone or anything else.

But I want to end this post not with a feeling of hopelessness. Because there is God who not only exists, but loves and cares for us. Who will one day make all things right, and who invites us into a relationship with him. Though we deserve God’s wrath, he extends to us grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

No matter if you yourself have had an abortion, nothing is beyond the grace of God. For the very same man (Paul) who wrote Romans 1 (and much of the New Testament) himself killed Christians before God saved him and he became a follower of Christ himself.

So even when we see or read about some of the darkest things imaginable, we can look to Jesus and what he has famously proclaimed; “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)