This is a question for men: Are you settled on the issue of abortion?

I mean really settled, head and heart together, such that you would sacrificially love both the mother and the unborn child if your wife or girlfriend or one-time hook-up or “friend with benefits” told you she was pregnant?

Or would your mind and heart change depending on the circumstances?

Russell Moore recently wrote about a man who is settled on the issue of abortion. He is a doctor who performs abortions — as a “ministry.” Dr. Willie Parker uses the story of the Good Samaritan as his basis for killing unborn children. Moore helpfully and forcefully addressed this doctor’s so-called biblical warrant in his recent article, “Aborting in the Name of Jesus.”

On What Basis?

But I was left with this question: How does Willie Parker, a former “boy preacher in Baptist churches” who became a doctor and delivered thousands of babies, turn from helping women bring forth life to destroying life in the womb through surgical and chemical abortions? That is a gigantic, horrendous leap.

Except that it wasn’t that gigantic of a leap for Parker.

In an interview Dr. Parker did with the Center for American Progress last year, he explained that while for years he didn’t provide abortions, he always supported them: He says, “For the first 12 years of my practice, I could not provide abortions. While I never questioned the right of a woman to have them, I felt conflicted about what it meant to provide them.”

The core issue about abortion had been answered in his mind. He never questioned the practice of aborting small human beings, only his participation in it. For Parker, it was not a matter of whether abortion is right or wrong, but whether he’d be part of it. Thus, moving from “could not provide abortions” to performing abortions at every legal stage of pregnancy is a very short bridge to cross. This is especially true when the conviction about abortion is based on your own situation or experiences rather than foundational, unchanging principles.

Encouraging Hypocrisy

Furthermore, he is now so settled on the practice of abortion that he encourages women to act against their beliefs:

I see women who are crying because they are Christians and they are torn up by the fact that they don’t believe in abortion but they’re about to have one. What I tell them is that doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You can never say what you will do until you’re in the situation, and Christians get in jacked-up situations, too.

Actually, acting contrary to one’s stated belief is the definition of hypocrisy.

Are You Really Settled?

But he does make an observation worth thinking through: Can we know what we will do before we are in a situation? Put another way, will you trust God’s rock-solid, blood-bought promises even when your sinful behavior resulted in an unplanned pregnancy? Forgiven sinners who hold on to God’s promises do crazy things like love unborn children who come in less than ideal circumstances.

Or, are God’s words about not murdering (Deuteronomy 5:17) and all children being a reward from God’s hand (Psalm 127:3–5) open to reinterpretation because of someone’s circumstances? The answer to those questions is about life and death — both physical and spiritual.

So, men, let me repeat my question: Are you really settled on the issue of abortion?

Or is there a child at risk of being destroyed because you won’t speak up for them? Is a human being threatened to be destroyed because you are inconvenienced, embarrassed, or in a “jacked-up situation”?