Can the Abortion Debate Really Change?

“I’m beginning to wonder if things can really change,” a friend told me recently, “or if I can.”

This friend is in full-time ministry and has been walking with God for more than thirty years, but in her personal life, she’s starting to lose heart. I empathized with her struggle, but at the same time felt something rising up inside me that said, “Yes! You can absolutely see change in and around you, because that is who God is and what He came to do!”

When something has been broken for a long time, it’s easy to lose faith that it will ever change.

Does the abortion issue ever feel like that for you? Do you wonder how we can ever come to a solution that will be God-honoring, respectful and hopeful?

While I don’t want to minimize the very real difficulties in the debate, I feel the same faith rising up in me now that I experienced with my friend. When we pray, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” (Matt. 6:10) we are exercising our belief that God’s desire is to bring life, hope and light into broken places.

So what would it mean to believe that God can bring life, hope and light into the abortion debate?

In today’s culture, many women facing unplanned pregnancy think that their only options are abortion or overwhelming struggle as a mom. But ProGrace offers another path. If we as the Church show acceptance and support to women facing unplanned pregnancy, we honor both God’s design for pregnancy and His plan for transformation. If we commit to living out the ProGrace model, we believe God will bring unprecedented change to our community.

Imagine if there were groups of Christians opening their doors and showing grace to women.

Imagine if we said to women, “There’s a third way. There is a hopeful future possible for both you and your child.”

Imagine if we told a story that allowed women to dream of a new reality — and if, as we told this story of hope more and more, we saw fewer abortions.

Imagine if we saw both women and children thriving.

If you’re still having a tough time believing we could really see this kind of change, let me offer one last bit of encouragement: I’m not the only one who thinks this.

I have conversations with other believers (all of the time!) who feel the same surge of faith and desire to jump into this debate with a fresh message of grace.

I have conversations with pro-choice, liberal-leaning folks from other religious persuasions who say things like, “If evangelicals shifted their response to abortion, it would change everything.”

My favorite conversation was with the leader of a feminist health clinic. I told her we were crazy enough to think that getting the Church involved in accepting and supporting women could change the world. She looked into my eyes and said, “I think maybe you’re right.”

Let’s try, shall we?

There are a whole lot of women and children every year who need our help. Let’s commit to believing that God really can bring change to a tired and broken issue. We’ve got nothing to lose.

by Angie Weszely