Have you noticed how the words “birth control” and “abortion” have
become controversial and divisive to the extreme? These words elicit a
“knee jerk” response: all reason is shut down and emotions run rampant
Prevention of sperm and egg meeting does not destroy life, obviously,
because life does not start unless these two meet.
Common sense tells us that the use of birth control would lessen the
number of abortion procedures performed. So why are these two so often
linked together as twin evils?
I can’t understand how anyone can be aware of the horrible conditions
in this world – the starvation of children, the diseases, the poverty,
the abuse – and not realize that providing the option of birth control
to poor women would ease some of the suffering. I just thought of the
two widely publicized cases of infant girls found in garbage bags. And
what about all the other unwanted, discarded babies that we never hear
about?
Isn’t it unethical to have the freedom and money to choose whether or
not to reproduce, and the number of children to bring into this world,
and to deliberately deprive others of this ability to choose?
I know that some Christians are caught up in promoting reproduction,
and who cite passages from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to bolster
their position. But the Apostle Paul gives us another viewpoint that
appears to contradict this wholesale promotion of baby-making.
In 1 Corinthians 7 the Apostle Paul says,
1. Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for
a man not to touch a woman.
2. But because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and
let each woman have her own husband.
Further along, Paul continues,
6. But this I say by way of concession, not of command.
There’s that word “concession” again. So many folks get caught up in
the “concessions” that God allows in this fallen world instead of making
an effort to live by His original intent.
7. Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each
man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in
that.
8. But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for
them to remain even as I [unmarried].
9. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is
better to marry than to burn.
