Abortion – A Difficult Decision

It is difficult to give a decision of an abortion of a living human being, and there is much controversy regarding.  As a minister and a physician, I also have difficulty with this question.

First, let me say, that politicians should have no input on this question, unless they have had a child by childbirth or caesarean.  Currently, test tube babies are excluded, as well as clones of human beings.  It seems reasonable to me that to obtain the most reliable information on this subject of abortion, that only women who have had children should decide this question.  Men, because they cannot birth a child, should be excluded.  That would include ministers, physicians and politicians, except physicians who help birth children, that is labor and delivery physicians.

It seems obvious that the person closest to the birth, that is the mother of the child, should be the one to decide about an abortion, unless the mother is already dead, then let the closest family member decide whether to birth the child.

This is a subject which involves human beings and is therefore of primary or utmost importance.  This baby’s life is involved.  Politicians, ministers and physicians are all excluded, unless they have birthed a human being.

In this way, the person closest to the birth, that is the birth mother has the opportunity or option to decide.  Do I (does she) want this child or not?

Today, we have the miracle of birth control.  In most cases this involves a small pill which suppresses (prevents) the fertilization of the female egg.  While not always effective, it is about 97% reliable at preventing pregnancies.  Condoms and spermicides are also available, but are not as reliable, but work to prevent pregnancies in most cases.  There is also the rhythm method, which is tied to the female’s body temperature elevation on day 14 of the menstrual cycle.  This is not as reliable, but helps prevent a pregnancy in many cases.

In the times before the beginning of reliable birth control, women generally chose to keep the child, but not always.  China limited childbirths to only one child, but found that couples preferred male rather than female babies.  So now, in the Peoples Republic of China, there are too few women.  So, who will have the next generation of children?  This is obviously a short-sighted policy, unless you want to limit a country’s total population.

In the era of the Roman empire, it is reported that the early church grew with more women than men, because in the elite Roman society, families wanted a male child to further or keep the male line.  Senators with no male children would adopt a male outside their own family and designate him as their male heir.  Female children were often discarded on the trash dump outside the city.  The early church found them and rescued them, so the early church had an abundance of females.

The church fathers were all male, except Mary Magdene, who could have been the first apostle, having seen the risen Jesus in the garden, and clung onto him.  But Peter was selected as the first apostle of the early church, eventually being designated the bishop of Rome.

The early church fathers all refused to marry, thinking this was preferential not to marry, as did Apostle Paul.  But we know that Peter was married, and he had a house in Caesarea.

So, the early church had a predominance of women disciples but also had men disciples.  The church leadership was designed from a group of males.  Until the Protestant era with Martin Luther, who nailed 95 theses on the church of Wittenburg, Germany’s door.  After Luther, Protestant ministers were encouraged to marry, reflecting Jesus’ desire to have the ascended church as a new Jerusalem.  Even Paul alluded to this, saying in Christ “there is neither male nor female, bond nor free” and relating in Ephesians that “a man should love his wife as Christ loved the church”, as this was the love God wants all to practice in heaven.

The Roman Catholic church has had a great difficulty dealing with this question of whether to save an unborn child.  Before the age of contraception, there are actual reports of children being discarded and being buried in walls, beds of flowers, and at the base of trees, as to be unborn was the same as being murdered, and as long as no one knew what occurred, these babies could be simply forgotten, except by God.

So, the question of abortion is an important question even today!

Currently, (mid-2026) the world population is approximately 8.3 billion and should grow to 10 billion by 2060.  There are a whole lot of human beings on this planet.  Each of us living has a human name, and each person is known by God.  Barring a plague, a famine, or a global catastrophe, there are a lot of us who need to learn how to get along.

The church is a good place for all of us to learn how to do just that, to learn how to get along.  If we can’t figure out how to get along now, why would we want to go to heaven?  There should be a lot of learning how to get along over there!

Bill Wilson