Recently the state of New York removed most restrictions on abortions, including late term abortions. You can read about the changes to the law here: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/health/new-york-abortion-measures-trnd/index.html. This is a pro-abortion article, so it should be about as fair as I can get in providing a reference to the law. New York, even with this change in its abortion laws is not the most liberal state when it comes to abortion. You can go here to look at a summary of abortion laws in the different states: https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws. As you can see, some states have absolutely no restrictions on abortion at any stage in the pregnancy. The following link will take you to a site that gives a sanitized description of the “process” for abortion procedures from conception through late term abortions: http://americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/abortion-procedures/. Warning, this last site does have some descriptive elements that are not pleasant, but it is not overly graphic in its descriptions. I selected the above sites because they are pro-abortion in order to avoid being accused of linking to overly sensationalized anti-abortion articles or literature. By doing so it becomes clear abortion is the ending of a human life, and that late term abortion does so in a way that is painful to the child. You can see that in an article even when the article is pro-abortion.
The above sets the stage for what caught my attention today. Someone offered up a prayer request concerning the change in the law in New York. Specifically, they wanted us to pray for those who were now going to consider late term abortions. During the actual prayer time someone did pray for this specific request. They prayed that those who were going to consider having abortions be brought to realize that abortion was a sin and the ending of a human life and that they would reconsider their decision.
I was struck by the nature of the prayer. Not that I disagree with the tenets of the prayer, killing another person is a sin, I fully agree. But when the request was first made my thought was that we need to pray that God would send others into their lives to offer support, guidance and hope. I have to believe that almost all mothers contemplating late term abortion would be doing so under some form of duress. I doubt anyone does it flippantly, after all, they certainly have been experiencing the movement of their unborn child for some time. After I read a few articles about late term abortion, it seemed that at the heart of the decision was a loss of hope for the child and a future, and those around the mother are in accord with this loss of hope.
As Christians, we should first be a source of love, support and hope to those who are clearly in a dark place in their lives. I am certain that if we have been clear about our Christian convictions that no one will assume that we are OK with any form of abortion, let alone a late term one. And I have to believe that most mothers are agonizing over the decision they are faced with and may need support to make a decision to see what God can actually do. Let this be our prayer for these struggling souls, that God is a God of hope and that there are other options.
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