Reproductive choice, many tell us, is essential to human dignity. That freedom is part of the broader liberty that should be honored in our country.

I agree. Reproductive choice is foundational to human life and society. Any law or government entity that interferes with it is exceeding its authority.

What It Really Means

When God created Adam and Eve and joined them in marriage, He commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill all the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Human reproduction is basic not just to our survival as a species, but to obeying God’s first-ever commandment to the first couple.

Marriage, in the Bible, is the permanent union of one man and one woman. No exceptions. No qualifications. And no elastic meanings that allow for other kinds of marriages. And Scripture teaches, repeatedly and clearly, that sexual intimacy is exclusive to marriage.

This is where choice comes in. Whenever a husband and wife decide to commit the sexual act, or not to do it, they are exercising true reproductive choice. Sexual intimacy can lead to a woman becoming pregnant with a baby. The couple chooses the possibility of having a baby when they choose to be sexually intimate.

But that’s not what “reproductive choice” means now. Now we cover-up the true meanings of what we’re saying with code words. “Choice” means abortion. “Freedom” means doing what one wants with whomever one wants without consequences. Like a child.  “Reproductive freedom” means having sex with the option to kill a child that results.

 “Reproductive choice” no longer means a married couple being sexually intimate with the knowledge their behavior could lead to a baby. It means the legal freedom to have sex and then kill the fruit of that freedom if the mother doesn’t want him or her.

Secularists and Sex

This idea shocks secular critics. Sexual intimacy apart from marriage is now as common as going shopping. And portrayed as about as meaningful. That means a lot of accidental pregnancies.

Many point out that many, many people have non-marital sex. Few see any problem with it. Therefore, we need not only to keep abortion legal, but to expand access to it, even pay for it when people can’t afford it. This is like saying we know some people will become drug addicts, so we might as well distribute pure-grade heroin to prevent deaths from contaminated drugs.

It’s a stupid argument. Make it easier to do the wrong thing and more people will do it more often. Make it harder for people to do the wrong thing, and the wrong thing will be less common. Look around. How many people do you see smashing car windows to steal sound systems? Legal penalty discourages bad behavior.

Saying no to sex outside of marriage is, in our culture, hard. Many younger people have been raised in homes with horrible modeling – divorce, adultery or parents who never marry. Also, we make sex very inviting. Sex saturates the culture, from grocery store aisles to the internet. From MTV to “rite of passage” movies, sex is exalted, striven for, and shown as the key to both adulthood and liberation.

Secular people, you don’t agree with my definition of reproductive freedom. You don’t believe marriage has anything to do with it. I understand that. But could you at least accept that reproductive freedom has consequences? Including the beginning of a new life? This means both the freedom and the responsibility not to kill a child — a separate human beings with all the rights you have — that results? 

Standing Graciously for Truth — and Life

America confronts, as no time since 1973, the reality that at least some limits on abortion access could become law if the Supreme Court decides to rule with constitutional integrity and basic justice. What the left holds sacred as “reproductive freedom” is suddenly in question.

The left feels panicked and shocked. The shrine of self-worship, whose most cherished ritual is elective abortion, is at risk of desecration. The battle is already ugly and will get uglier. Abortion’s champions have marshaled political, legal, economic, and media forces to fight for the ability to destroy unborn life.

So, for Christians, part of our challenge will be to retain grace-filled hearts and resolute spirits. As we advocate for making reproductive choice what it always has been intended to be, we will face rabid hostility and clueless astonishment.

So be it. We are defending unborn lives. The women who carry them. And the honor of the Prince and Author of life, Whose offer of forgiveness and hope transcends all the schemes and laws and lies of death.