Can Christians Support Abortion?

This episode confronts the complex question of whether Christians can support abortion, arguing the necessity of understanding both the human and unborn experience. The discussion navigates emotional factors, moral implications, and differing perspectives within the Christian community while emphasizing a compassionate but firm pro-life stance.

• Discussion on whether Christians should support abortion 
• Exploration of the emotional experiences of women who have had abortions 
• Consideration of differing Christian perspectives on abortion 
• Debate on empathy in relation to the well-being of both women and unborn children 
• Importance of distinguishing between personal beliefs and morality 
• Issues relating to leadership in discussing abortion 
• Examination of societal pressures affecting women's decisions about abortion 
• The role of informed choices in discussions surrounding abortion 
• The significance of unconditional love while standing firm against abortion policies

Chapters

• 0:00 Should Christians Support Abortion Debate
• 11:08 Christianity and Abortion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Hi everybody, welcome to another edition of the Jordan and Kristen Rickards podcast. Today's topic should Christians support abortion. Because I figured we'd start out the new year 2025 with something nice and easy, non-controversial, just to kind of ease our way into the new year like this. So, kristen, why don't we start with you? Tell us what you think. Should Christians support abortion? Go right ahead. Why or why not?

Speaker 2: 0:51

Well, right before we, even right off the bat, I just want to say one thing If you are a woman who has had an abortion, god loves you and I believe that abortion is wrong, but you are loved and you are cared for and God has a future and a hope for you and there is forgiveness. And I know that a lot of women who have had abortions say that there's a lot of different mental health issues that come with that and pain that they feel that they can never escape because it's such a horrible thing that just kind of haunts them. This is what I've heard from women who have had abortions. But I just want you to know that there is hope for you to be able to live a life without shame, without feeling that weight on you, and God has that for you in your future. So I just want to say that right off the bat.

Speaker 2: 1:43

But, as you can tell from what I just said, in my opinion, yes, abortion is not something that Christians should be supporting, and I thought that this was kind of a black and white issue. I always thought and heard growing up in church that abortion was wrong and I thought that everyone felt the same thing until actually just about 24 hours ago, where I looked for a chart that I had seen that talks about how many abortions were performed and how many babies were lost by way of abortion versus how many people died in different wars, and it was just a huge, huge chasm of difference. And so I was looking for that chart and all of a sudden, I saw all these articles pop up about people who are Christian who actually support abortion, and that really took me back for a second. I couldn't even believe that that was something that was even a discussion, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Well, I think the argument they would make and you and I both have friends who are Christians and who support abortion I think the argument they would make is they are showing empathy to a woman who finds herself in a difficult situation right, and I would never tell anybody to be less empathetic, but I think it's actually a failure of empathy when you don't show the same empathy to the child who you're killing. I mean, that's what it is. Look, this is 2025. Now we can't pretend to be agnostic about this. We know where babies come from. We understand what the life continuum is. We understand what's happening inside of a womb, and the fact that you just can't see it and it can be done with surgical precision and kind of you know, behind closed doors to a child who you've never met before, it doesn't change what's actually happening, all right. So let me start with that. Now I do want to read to you something I brought this up before the show that I wrote on my Facebook page, because I was trying to reconcile how this, how I, how I can have so many friends who are frankly pro-abortion even though they wouldn't call themselves that, but they are and yet I know them to be good people. So here's what I wrote. I want you to tell me what you think about this, all right. Know them to be good people, so here's what I wrote. I want you to tell me what you think about this, all right.

Speaker 1: 3:54

So I wrote this. I wrote I'm as pro-life as they come. I have many friends, republicans and Democrats alike, who are not, because I know them to be good people. They would not be my friends otherwise. I refuse to attribute their disagreement on this extremely sensitive and important issue to some sort of depravity or villainy on their part.

Speaker 1: 4:10

I believe abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, because a baby is clearly all three of those things innocent, human and a life. There can't be any serious doubt about any of that. But I do not believe that every person who refuses to oppose abortion is evil, even though abortion is itself evil, because sometimes people overthink things and sometimes they underthink them, and sometimes they're just coming from a different place in life, and I'm wrong, too, about some things, and when I am, it's not because my heart is in the wrong place, it's because people are human and nobody's perfect, and sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees, and I mentioned that mine is an adversarial position, a profession being a lawyer, and I'm designed for that. But as I get older, I find it's best to think the best of people, especially those you know to be, and understand that good people often disagree on matters of right and wrong for reasons other than wickedness, even when what's right seems so obvious and all of us get wrong from time to time things that in hindsight are obviously right.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Okay. So I'm not going soft here. I'm trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also trying to draw a distinction here between condemning the person and condemning the practice. So plenty of food for thought there, kristen. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 5:16

Well, it's interesting that you bring up this kind of viewpoint, because we don't fight against flesh and blood and sometimes when we see something so obvious, we tend to want to get really angry at the person.

Speaker 2: 5:32

But I do have to tell you, I start to see these articles that these people have written and they make me angry. And I have to watch not to get angry at the person because I think and I like to think the best of people. I do think, like you said, they're trying not to alienate people, they're trying to be really inclusive, but the problem with that is what they are saying is evil. So I'm going to be very strong on this and say for people who are in leadership or in any type of leadership that are saying softly and sweetly, you know, like those serpent kind of things that the enemy is using as seeds to draw people in, because people see that and then they think, okay, abortion is okay. I saw one that a woman wrote that she believes that God knows who's going to have an abortion, so because he knows that he chooses not to put a soul into those cells, so it's okay to have an abortion.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Well, that's just the most asinine thing.

Speaker 2: 6:38

So this is what I'm talking about. The line needs to be drawn. I'm not saying that we yell and scream at people. Maybe that's not the right approach and it just depends what you're called to do. But I do get this firing up of justice when I'm seeing some of these articles out there or just people just being wishy-washy on the whole thing. There needs to be a line in the sand. So I'm going to be a little more firm than you on this issue and say, no, the people are not evil per se, maybe. Maybe some of them are, but maybe their heart is in the right place, but they just don't know and they're confused. So let's not be mad at them, but let's be mad and war against the enemy. Who is trying to do this takeover in a sneaky, subtle way and say this needs to stop.

Speaker 1: 7:32

Oh, let me be clear. I'm not saying there are not genuinely evil people on the side of the abortion debate. On the abortion side of the abortion debate, I mean, I think about Cecil Richards, who was the outgoing CEO of Planned Parenthood, and the new one, alexis McGill Johnson, and I remember hearing the first one of those speak and just thinking this woman is pure evil. She reminded me, actually there's a scene in Dante's Inferno which I know is in scripture, but it's a good book anyway and in Dante's Inferno there's these circles of hell and they get worse as they go along for the worst people. And in one of the later circles you see souls in hell who have not even died yet. Their bodies are still alive, but they're so evil that their souls have been taken to hell already. And I know that's not scriptural and that's not literally what's happening, but that's like the level of evil with those people, the completely, completely awful, soulless human beings. And I don't want to say that they're irredeemably evil, because I don't believe anything is beyond Christ's redemption, but unrepentantly and unequivocally evil. And, by the way, let's not lose sight of the fact that those are people who make tons of money on abortion too. Abortion is a big industry. Go look at the salaries of these Planned Parenthood people half a million dollars and above. Go, look, I mean, these people are making more than the president and acting like they're Martin Luther King Jr here or something, leading the civil rights marches. You know like we're fighting for. You know for desegregation? That's the other thing. How it's gone from being it used to be.

Speaker 1: 9:00

It used to be. People would say well, you know, I don't personally believe in abortion, but you know, I don't think I should impose my views on women. And now, you see, I'll just say it, with the Democrats this past year really doubling it that abortion was being hailed as a good thing. It's not just a matter of a woman's right or women's health, it's a good thing to happen, and anyone who opposes it is bad. I mean, the world is totally topsy-turvy, and so what I would say is you know, quoting Ephesians 4.15, we are exhorted always to speak truth in love. Right, and you can speak truth, but not in love, which is what I'm saying we don't do. Okay, speak truth tenaciously and speak it in love, but that doesn't mean that you can't call out for what it is.

Speaker 2: 9:42

It is, and you know I was thinking about speaking of that love. You know there are places that have ministries for women who have had an abortions and I want to stress that again. I think people confuse this, this whole thing about getting on the abortion issue. When we get on the issue and say this is wrong, it needs to stop, we're also advocating for the right of the unborn, but we're advocating for the pain that these women have to go through that have had this done to them. I'm telling you, I know women who, many women who have said to me that they didn't want this, they didn't want this and they sat in that room and took that pill while their parents and they were over 18, looked at them until they swallowed the pill or they have such traumatic experiences and I'm telling you.

Speaker 2: 10:29

And then I have a friend who is a nurse who says you don't even want to know I can't even say it, it's too graphic what they do to the body parts of fetuses after for these abortions. She said I was like eh, on the abortion issue, but when I became a nurse and I saw what was happening, I was truly my stomach was turned and I became an advocate for pro-life. So that's the thing here. We're not just advocating, we're advocating for unborn babies, male and female, and those future daughters. And you know we're also advocating for the women who've gone through these painful, terrible experiences. Really, you know people say about the choice, the freedom to choose, a lot of these women have been coerced into this and it's against their will. And even if it is their free will, they have been kind of, you know, prodded into that thought line and then they regret it and there's no going back.

Speaker 1: 11:28

That's true, but a lot of women don't regret it. A lot of women just do it. It's interesting thing about the free will is there's free will in terms of this is what I want. But then the next question as well is informed free will, and what you'll notice is that a lot of the abortionists what they'll do is they'll try to prevent women from getting access to the information they would need to make an informed decision. For example, there are certain laws that say, well, before you have an abortion, you need to look at the ultrasound, and a lot of people oppose that because they don't want women to see what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 11:56

All right, well, look, let's return, wrapping this up, to the original question Can somebody be a Christian and support abortion? So I'll go first here and you tell me what you think. I suppose you can be a Christian in that you accept Christ and you believe in the resurrection and all that sort of stuff, and have the contrary view, that you also support abortion. But you have to understand you're on not only the wrong side of Christianity, you're wrong morally and ethically and intellectually, and you don't even have to be a Christian. I know that we're running a ministry here and this topic. We've couched it deliberately in terms of can a Christian support abortion? But you don't have to be a Christian to oppose abortion.

Speaker 1: 12:39

I mean, there is a perfectly coherent argument that says look on the side of science, we know what a baby is and you're obviously killing a baby, and killing a baby is obviously wrong and you don't have to be a Christian or a theist of any kind to believe in that. So my answer is can a Christian support abortion or support this sort of you know one foot in, one foot out position of? I oppose abortion, but I don't think the government should be involved. I suppose you can if you understand that you're on the wrong side of the issue, morally, ethically, scientifically and in terms of Christianity, and you know where that leaves you. I don't really know. I don't know why you'd want to be deliberately wrong about something from every single angle. And if the idea is that you think that this is the empathetic thing to do, then I can show you you can still be empathetic to these women while not doing the most unempathetic thing possible and advocating for the killing of the child.

Speaker 2: 13:39

You know, at some point you have to say it's like can a Christian do this and be this? There's a technicality of someone can gun somebody down and kill them and then all of a sudden realize what they've done and say Jesus, forgive me of my sin, and accept Jesus and go to heaven. That's the power of the gospel. But there's a repentance there and a realization and then they become a Christian. Can a person be a Christian, accept Jesus, go, gun the person down and then say God, forgive me what I did? Well, yeah, there's going to be consequences, like serious consequences, but yes, but they're not.

Speaker 2: 14:18

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. So my question to you would be if you support abortion, you know only God can judge. I'm not God. I can't judge and say are you a Christian? Are you going to heaven? That's not my place to judge. At the very least, you're misguided. I'm sorry, but it's like how can you believe in this and believe in Jesus at the same time? It's contradictory. It's a double-minded man, is unstable in all his ways and that's just. I'm sorry if I'm being a bit harsh on this, but I just feel like it's like it's not. It's not. This is just the way it is. It's not harsh.

Speaker 1: 14:55

It's not harsh and it's a difficult question for the theological, the, the moral, ethical, scientific and and legal questions to me are easy to answer. Okay, where it becomes harsh is and there's perhaps a broader discussion here that we can have some of the time is at what point are you so wrong about something and you've been so vocal in support of that thing that you're you're advocating on the side of evil and that you're, at that point, compromising your salvation? And I don't know the answer to to that I think it's best just to. I mean, how the heck you could say look, this is very simple, there's a very simple filter here. Okay, you want to be a Christian, you want to live a Christian life and a good life, you want true enlightenment. It's very simple. What would Jesus do? Do you think Jesus would support an abortion?

Speaker 1: 15:41

And if you even saying those words, it sounds so patently ridiculous to me. Blasphemous of the Holy Spirit, whatever it is, it's just so patently ridiculous. If the answer is no, jesus would not support abortion because Jesus is all-knowing and all-loving then what defect is there in your thinking? Are you less than all-knowing or less than all-liking? All-liking, all-loving it has to be one of those things. So I don't know that you go to look, I'm not the Pope here, not that I'm a Catholic, but you know, I'm not here to tell somebody, if you are a Christian and you believe in abortion, you're going to hell. But I am absolutely saying that if you are a Christian and you believe that that supporting abortion is constant with your faith, then there's been, there's been a failure of thought somewhere in the process. How about that? That's? That's as charitably as I can put it. All right, kristen, before I start to really go off here, why don't you pray us out? All right?

Speaker 2: 16:27

Okay.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Well, jesus, I pray that the veil will be lifted off of eyes, and it's not just the abortion issue, it's other issues, lord, whether it be in the church or just subtle little things that the enemy tries to get an inroad Again.

Speaker 2: 16:42

We're not mad at the people, lord, even though we are in our flesh sometimes and we tend to get fired up. God, we're mad and we should be righteous anger at the enemy, what the enemy is trying to do, and we want to take that stand, we want to draw that line in the sand and say no more. And we pray for revival in this nation. We pray for eyes to be opened and repentant hearts, God, and we don't come here saying that we're holier and mightier than now. And what have you, god? We say Lord, show us the things in our hearts, god, that need to be corrected. God, and I pray for each and every one of us, lord, to just have loving open arms and that the people who have gone through this would see Jesus in us and that your kingdom would come to this earth. In Jesus' name.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Amen, all right guys. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Bye.