Value Beyond Choice: How Abortion Maims Us All
EDITOR’S NOTE: The article below is a difficult one to publish. Even painful. For it is written by my daughter, Allison Luna, and it tells the story of the most devastating experience of her life, an experience that devastated us as a family, those who love her. Allison does not tell her story to draw attention to herself, but to draw attention to a similar story of devastation that has been written tens of millions of times in America, one that continues to be written every day. Allison shares her story in the hope that it will help you the reader to carefully consider just how the killing of innocent children – unborn and just born – really maims us all. We publish it here at Journey in the hope that you will not only read it, but carry its message with you always. Even into voting booths right now as we decide what kind of a nation we will be: a nation of good that protects the innocent, or another kind of nation that maims and kills the innocent. A nation that, ultimately, maims and kills ourselves.
Some people wonder why abortion is the issue to which I dedicate so much time. Aside from obvious answers about the enormous human rights violation that it is, I believe that abortion touches every other moral issue that we hold dear. It expresses a viewpoint on the value of human life itself that I refute completely.
As a teenager, I began to question my value. I think many people start to have insecurities at this particular point in life. We wonder what our purpose is and if other people care about us. Instead of searching for answers, I let my doubts overwhelm me, and my self-worth plummeted. After a period of recurring abuse, something I now recognize as a trigger to an already-loaded pistol, I began to lose myself, hate my body, and see myself as useless. I dove into anorexia, struggled with depression and anxiety, and started to self-harm. I saw no value in myself.
At a certain point, I struggled with suicidal thoughts. Anorexia led me slowly and deliberately to the inevitable end of my life. But I had a choice to make. Did I believe that I was of value? I saw myself as the worst and least deserving in the world. But I still believed in God. I couldn’t escape the notion that He cared about me and created me with purpose. If I chose to die, I would be spitting on the purpose that He had given me. I was denying His wisdom in creating me.
Therefore, I had to choose to see my value and the value of every human life. Because if someone like me matters, then each life does. I am not worth more nor less than anyone else. I know you agree.
This is why I take abortion personally.
It would be hypocritical of me not to. My life was a choice, and one that I wasn’t sure I wanted to make. But I decided to see the importance of one of the least desirable members of society: me. I was sick and useless, but my life was still precious. I have wasted as much time in my life as anyone, and yet my value remains unchanged to God.
My life has meaning, as do the lives of my two daughters, who would not be here today if I thought that ANY human life was disposable. My life has never been more important than that of my daughters. If I had aborted my own life all those years ago, I would have unknowingly aborted the lives of my children and potential grandchildren, as well as altered the lives of countless others. I would have squandered God’s precious gift to me.
Ironically, it is in giving my girls life that I have finally found purpose for my life and rest from my mental illness. It’s an immeasurable waste when we choose which lives we value and which we don’t.
The truth about abortion is that it is always wrong. No matter the reason. It doesn’t matter that the baby is unplanned, fatherless, conceived in rape, born to poverty, developing improperly, or any other reason often cited as justification to abort. To deny the value of one life is to deny the value of all lives. Ending a human life is a serious matter that deserves a more serious response than the oft-touted, always childish,” My body, my choice.”
For me, the bottom line is that one life cannot be worth more than another. It’s a dangerous game that denies any innocent human being their right to life. If you don’t care for the purest and most vulnerable creatures on this earth, for whom do you care? The obvious answer is yourself, and it’s a small universe that makes you its center.
Abortion does humanity a disservice by denying the value of life in all its forms. Does life have a purpose? Then all life has a purpose, and you cannot deny it to any innocent human. Until we see the value of all, there is value in none of us.
Yes, I take abortion very personally.
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