Addendum to Yesterday

Here is an addendum to yesterday's entry.

Nature aborts approximately 75% of all pregnancies. If the biblical God made nature, one could say that God aborts all of these pregnancies. In other words, God aborts vastly many more pregnancies than people do. Some would say that if God does it, it’s not an abortion. But this seems like a silly play on words. A miscarriage and a medical abortion have the same result—a “baby” dies in the womb. It’s an abortion.

Yet, do Christian opponents of abortion rail and protest against God for aborting these poor “babies”? No. Do they mourn these innocent victims of God’s abortions? No. It’s perfectly okay with them if God does it, but not if people do. They say that when God aborts a conceptus, it’s God’s plan for that child, but not when people do it.

Yet, what is the real difference for the conceptus? Do Christian opponents of abortion truly believe that the soul of a conceptus aborted by God meets a different fate than does the soul of a conceptus aborted by humans? What would that difference be? Does the soul of a conceptus aborted by God go to heaven and the soul of a conceptus aborted by humans go to hell? The soul of the conceptus aborted by people was no more responsible for what happened to it than was the soul of the conceptus aborted by God, so why would it not go to the same place that the souls of conceptuses aborted by God go?

Some Christian opponents of abortion say that we don’t know where any of these souls go, but that they have faith in God’s supreme justice and mercy. How could this faith lead them to any other conclusion than that God sends all aborted souls to heaven? For how could God be just and merciful if he penalized these innocent souls by sending them to anywhere but heaven?

Some Christians say that God can do anything he wants and that it’s good simply because he does it. So, if he wants to send the souls of conceptuses aborted by humans or all aborted souls to hell, it is good because he does it. Well then, one could use that same argument to say that if God ever tells us to rape our children, it’s good because God has told us to do it. If everything God does is good simply because he does it, we have no grounds for saying that anything he could conceivably do would be evil. If a Christian wouldn’t accept a tautological definition of God’s goodness, then he or she implicitly believes that God’s acts are not good simply because he does them, but because they meet standards of goodness that we use to judge all acts, including God’s or those attributed to God. Our standards of goodness tell us that innocent aborted souls must go to heaven and that a God who didn’t meet this standard would not be good. If God is good, he must meet this standard and send all aborted souls to heaven.

So, all aborted souls go to heaven. On the other hand, souls whose bodies aren’t aborted have a very good chance of going to hell, for the Bible says that the gate to heaven is narrow whereas the road to hell is wide. Christian opponents of abortion say that all souls should be able to choose for themselves where they will go. But if that’s true, why does God deny this choice to 75% or more of all souls? What’s more, what woman who truly loves the “pre-born child” in her womb would want it to end up suffering everlasting torture in the dungeon of hell?

Christian opponents of abortion say that a woman who aborts her child is selfish. But if she aborts her child because she wants to spare it suffering in this life and a strong possibility of going to hell in the next even though she knows that she could spend eternity in hell for doing it, she is committing the most selfless act imaginable—risking the damnation of her eternal soul to guarantee that her child’s soul enjoys everlasting bliss in heaven.

So, a Christian cannot credibly argue that abortion is wrong because it’s necessarily a selfish act of the mother that harms the “pre-born child.” I have shown that abortion is the ultimate gift that one could give to any child—a non-revocable ticket to everlasting bliss, and that it can be a supremely selfless act on the part of the mother. Abortion may violate God’s command not to abort, but what external standard of goodness dictates that God’s command is good? If our standard of goodness says that everyone should have the chance to choose for herself whether she goes to heaven or to hell, doesn’t God himself violate this standard for more than 75% of created souls? If God does only good, then abortion can't be wrong because it deprives souls of their choice. There must be some other reason. What is it? If there isn’t any and Christians continue to insist that God's innumerable spontaneous abortions are good, shouldn’t we humans do our best to follow his good example?