Anglican Perspectives

Choose Life

American Anglican Council

The following article by Canon Phil Ashey first appeared in the July 26, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly email Update. Sign up for this free email here.

The American Anglican Council joins the millions in the UK and all over the world celebrating the birth of George Alexander Louis to Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.  I’m sure we can identify with both the joy and the hopes this child brings not only for the parents, but for the future of the monarchy in England.  He will surely have a bright future ahead of him.

But what about the pre-born children who do not have the same resources, education, family and future ahead of them that the newest Prince of England has?

It is common in our culture for children to be aborted, among other reasons, for the “quality of life” they might experience if they were allowed to be born.  “Quality of life” is cited as the justification for aborting children with genetic defects, rare diseases that are likely to shorten their life span, a fatherless family, a family living in poverty and violence.  It is ironic that such a concern for “quality of life” has created and accelerated our culture of death by abortion (at the beginning of life) and euthanasia (at the other end).

But there are signs of life in our culture of death!  Consider the story published in The Washington Times on July 9.  The facts are as follows: A young couple was planning to abort their unborn child who had been diagnosed with Downs Syndrome. A Catholic priest who learned about their situation reached out and offered to take the child, but for a variety of reasons he had to act fast.  So he used his church’s social media pages to post the following plea:

“There is a couple in another state who have contacted an adoption agency looking for a family to adopt their Down Syndrome unborn baby. If a couple has not been found by today they plan to abort the baby. If you are interested in adopting this baby please contact Fr. VW IMMEDIATELY,” the post read. “We are asking all to pray for this baby and the wisdom that this couple realize the importance of human life and do not abort this beautiful gift from God!”

When he came in to the church office the next morning, the phones were ringing non-stop all day long.  Hundreds called from all over the United States and around the world – including England, Puerto Rico and the Netherlands.  The priest himself received 900 e-mails.  The offers were narrowed down to three families which the unborn child’s parents are reviewing with an adoption agency.  You can read the whole story here.

When God spoke to the people of Israel through Moses, he gave them this choice:  “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life, so that you and your children may live..” (Deuteronomy 30:19).  God said “choose life” – NOT “quality of life.”  The hundreds of people who personally called and e-mailed to make that live-saving and life-changing choice to adopt a Downs Syndrome baby were making God’s choice – and from the article it appears that many of them were making that choice out of love for God and his love for life, period.

Frankly, that is in keeping with the Apostolic Church of the first four centuries, facing a similar culture of death.  As Justin Taylor notes in “Abortion and The Early Church,”

“Against the bleak backdrop of Roman culture, the Hebrew “sanctity of human life” ethic provided the moral framework for early Christian condemnation of abortion and infanticide. For instance, the Didache 2.2 (c. A.D. 85–110) commands, “thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born.” Another noncanonical early Christian text, the Letter of Barnabas 19.5 (c. A.D. 130), said: “You shall not abort a child nor, again, commit infanticide.” There are numerous other examples of Christian condemnation of both infanticide and abortion. In fact, some biblical scholars have argued that the silence of the NT on abortion per se is due to the fact that it was simply assumed to be beyond the pale of early Christian practice. Nevertheless, Luke (a physician) points to fetal personhood when he observes that the unborn John the Baptist “leaped for joy” in his mother’s womb when Elizabeth came into the presence of Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus at the time (Luke 1:44).

More than merely condemning abortion and infanticide, however, early Christians provided alternatives by rescuing and adopting children who were abandoned. For instance, Callistus (d. c. A.D. 223) provided refuge to abandoned children by placing them in Christian homes, and Benignus of Dijon (3rd century) offered nourishment and protection to abandoned children, including some with disabilities caused by unsuccessful abortions.”

As followers of Jesus Christ face the ever-bleaker backdrop of a secular culture whose values are closer to that of pagan Rome than Christianity, we, too, are called to make the same life-saving and life-changing choices.  We must do so for the same reason:  for the love of our God who loves life without qualification.  In our own time, it was Mother Theresa who turned the pagan notion of “quality of life” on its head when she said “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”  Are we prepared to make the same plea as she did to a culture which encourages abortion, the same plea that Catholic priest made to the young couple, “Give me your children?”

Life without qualification, the life God calls us to choose (Deut. 30:19) is the choice every pre-born child deserves to receive – royal or not.

Yours in Christ,

Phil+

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey
Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council

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