There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: (#3) hands that shed innocent blood... (Proverbs 6:17c).

Chrisitans tend to make a very big deal out of the political struggle surrounding abortion.  Why is that?  I'm sure the rest of the world has to wonder, from time to time:  Why that issue, specifically?  Why does there seem to be a disproportionate amount of energy exerted on that campaign, above all others?  Such single-issue determination is confounding to those who did not grow up in the church during the years following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade.  And honestly, I think a lot of us within the church have forgotten why the issue of abortion warrants such a knee-jerk reaction, seemingly having become more reflex than reason!

While I've certainly come to realize the complexity of the political landscape -- not to mention the very awkward marriage of various moral concepts within the American political dichotomy -- I do still feel quite strongly about the issue of abortion.  Though I don't go so far as to put myself in the position of being a single-issue voter, I do feel that abortion is a significant moral problem that warrants our passion.  And I think that Proverbs 6:17c offers a very succinct explanation for such a rationale:  God hates hands that shed innocent blood.  And however you look at it, abortion results in bloodshed and the extinction of a young (or at the very least, a potential) innocent life.  Again, I'm trying to be very sensitive, here, to the fact that different people have different beliefs on this issue -- but when a pregnancy is aborted, human beings are making decisions about the viability of a life which has never had (and will never have) the opportunity to make its own moral decisions.  It is thus, by very definition, the shedding of innocent blood (be it an "unborn human life" or a "developing cluster of cells with the potential to become human").  And it is thus that I feel it's appropriate for me to stand against it, too.

I don't feel like it's my job to cast moral judgment on abortionists -- neither the medical staff involved nor the people who make use of their services -- but I do feel that it's important to fight against this injustice.  Both the policies supporting it and the medical practice itself.  I would never endorse doing this in ways that would result in further bloodshed (abortion clinic bombings and shootings are unconscionable to me).  But this is why I play the part I do in the political process and in supporting young women facing the difficulties of an unplanned pregnancy.  Because of Proverbs 6:17c, I feel like my role as a believer is clear.