Hi Staff,
I once heard a story about a man who was vacationing on the coast. The man walk along the beach each morning. One morning, he happened to notice that the tide washed ashore tens of thousands of starfish.
As the tide rapidly receded, the man noticed a boy throwing starfish back into the sea. He watched as the young man would pick up a starfish, look at it, and then throw it into the sea.
After watching the boy do this about a dozen times, the man walked up to him. “"Do you truly think that you'’re making a difference? You can’'t possibly throw all of these starfish back into the water. You're wasting your time."
The boy bent down, picked up another starfish, looked at it and then threw it into the sea. He said, "It made a difference to that one."
When I approach the issue of abortion, it isn't just about the lives of the babies themselves. After all, they are innocent and will find themselves in the arms of the Lord even prior to having taken their first breath.
Rather, I am also greatly concerned for the mothers of these babies. The goal is to help prevent these mothers from the psychological, emotional and, most importantly, spiritual consequences of aborting their own child's life.
I can't imagine the stress that they must go through when they decide to kill their own child.
For some who were raised without any inclination of spiritual matters or with a broken moral compass, they may try to make excuses by pretending that there is nothing wrong with it. They argue that this isn't a "life" or that it isn't really a HUMAN life. They try to dehumanize that baby by referring to it through clinical terms (e.g., fetus, embryo, etc.). The goal is to be able to live guilt-free.
Some even hide their guilt behind pro-abortion activism. However, study after study has shown that there are widespread lasting consequences that affect such women for years (and even a lifetime). Oddly enough, many pro-abortion organizations (like Planned Parenthood) actually dismiss this as little more than a stigma caused by (you guessed it) religious and anti-abortion groups.
I think that there are other girls who get abortions because of fear. Some feel ill-equipped for motherhood. Others are afraid that their lives will have changed and that whatever dreams of their life is dashed by the prospect of having a baby. Others are certainly afraid of what their parents, friends, classmates or those around them will think -- that their reputation will be ruined. Some girls still want to be thought of as "good girls" in their parents' eyes. I read about one girl who admitted that she aborted her child because she was afraid that few men would ever want to marry a single mother with "such baggage". They are so afraid of these potential consequences that they will decide to end the life of their pre-born child in order to preserve the "life" that they want to continue living.
So, the outreach is really two-fold. It is to protect the lives of the unborn babies -- but also to help guide women away from making such a monumental decision that they will carry with them throughout eternity.
It often seems like a "lost cause" as this world grows so callous toward truth. It is disheartening to watch or hear so many foolish people march in the effort to keep a "right" that would justify their sin.
Like the boy in that story who endeavors to save starfish, the ultimate war might still be lost. However, the battle doesn't have to be lost for each and every person in that war. Christ went to the cross for each and every one of us. I think that many evangelical efforts are lost because they focus on the "every" and not the "each."
