A Christian Response to the Evils of Planned Parenthood

I was grieved to the center of my soul on Tuesday when I saw the now viral video of top-tiered Planned Parenthood abortion doctor, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, nonchalantly estimating the costs of obtaining livers, lungs, and heads from aborted babies over lunch.

What is the proper Christian response to such evil? In the following post, I want to think through a Christian response along three spheres: the moral, the political, and the theological.

The Moral Sphere

Every life is precious. You don’t have to have a degree in theology to know that. And yet we are surrounded by a world that is suppressing this universal truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). Every now and then, though, the truth manages to bubble to the surface, despite the best efforts of its suppressors:

• For example, the pro-choice mantra of the fetus as “a clump of cells” is ditched in the video when Deborah Nucatola describes a baby as having a “head, lungs, and a liver” that can be harvested.
• Or there was the occasion of the royal pregnancy announcement, when the media scrapped the normal terminology of fetus and exchanged it for the much more dignified baby.
• And then there was the ironic, yet accurate tweet from President Barack Obama—America’s most pro-abortion president ever—when he said, “If there’s even one thing we can do—even one life we can save—we have an obligation to try.”

The world is inconsistent because the world knows the truth and is suppressing it. Our obligation as Christians is to recognize the ways that we suppress the truth and then to lead others out of truth suppression. If you aren’t outraged by the thought of a small, 23-week-old dead baby’s severed head being whisked away from an abortion clinic to be traded like it’s just another commodity on the market, you are suppressing the truth. Outrage is the morally proper response to such evil.

But we should experience an equal repugnance at the fact that it is legal in this country to murder infants in the first place.

Which brings me to the second sphere.

The Political Sphere

To be frank, it is legal to kill babies in their mother’s wombs in America because a liberal Supreme Court packed by liberal presidents decided in 1973 that it should be legal.

Elections have consequences. During this past election cycle, it was made clear to the world that the Democratic Party has planted its flag as the abortion party. Consider this quote from the 2012 Democrat Party platform:

“The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Now, this isn’t to say that every Democratic candidate is pro-choice, but the party’s stance is certainly making it difficult to remain a Democrat and be pro-life.

Planned Parenthood—the organization that is even at this very instant dismembering baby boys and girls and selling their legs—is funded by our federal government (up to half its annual budget), which necessarily means it is funded by you and me. And President Obama and several candidates in the presidential primary are fully committed to continue supporting Planned Parenthood and to tirelessly defending Roe v. Wade.

If we want to stop reading headlines about the latest psychopathic thing that Planned Parenthood and affiliate organizations are doing, we need to be involved in politics—at the very least voting and speaking out about the social, cultural, and spiritual ramifications of electing certain candidates to office. And we can’t just vote in the presidential elections. Vote for the pro-life mayor. Vote for the pro-life county judge. Do the research, be informed, and exercise your democratic privilege while you still have it. America is a democratic republic, and because of this we are all implicated in part by the actions of our government.

And until Roe is overturned and it is no longer legal to kill innocent babies in their mother’s womb, Christians should not be ashamed of single-issue voting.

But most importantly, our moral and political responses must be informed by a proper theology.

The Theological Sphere

Every human life is precious because the Bible says that we are all created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). Has that reality hit you yet? You who are reading this post, regardless of whether you are a Christian or not, are stamped with the image of God. The tiniest baby, who could rest on the tip of my finger, is an image bearer—an identity that angels don’t even experience.

This is why taking a human life is such a big deal in the Bible. Not only is it a crime because life is precious, but because human life is imbued with god-likeness. Let that sink in.

This is why we grieve. We grieve for the little image bearers who are being ripped apart and treated like rubbish. And we grieve for the image bearers who are so morally backwards that they can do this without blinking.

Christians, we must pray. We must pray that God would protect the innocent—that he would rise up and defend the helpless (Ps 146:7–9). And we must also pray for the salvation of abortionists like Dr. Nucatola and those who support her position.

Every human life is precious. And the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is powerful enough, nay pleased, to save calloused sinners—even the most hardened abortionists.

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Colin Smothers is a Ph.D. student in Biblical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  When not studying, Colin enjoys reading, blogging at his personal website, and spending time with his beautiful wife Elise and his three sweet children.  Follow him on Twitter @colinsmo.