I remember my mother, an active member of the pro-life movement, taking me aside and in a serious whisper telling me: quot;What if the Virgin Mary had had an abortion? She certainly had a lot of reason too. Where would we all be then? quot; She was using this statement to prove how horrible an abortion could be. That even the savior of the world was subject to surgical removal. That an abortion was, in essence, the potential wiping out the greatest person to ever die. Unfortunately for her, I suppose, I didn't share here respect for the life of Jesus or the results of his ultimate and untimely death.
When I turned over this statement in my mind, I considered why Mary would want an abortion and decided she should, by all means have had one, if she had so desired. The, I considered, results of Jesus's life and death and could not fathom one truly good thing accomplished by it. That was not necessarily his fault. I have the feeling that Jesus himself wasn't all that bad, just a little misguided into believing he was the son of a God. What resulted after the fact, however, has turned into the nightmare of Western civilization.
Jesus should have been aborted. To begin with, the story goes that Mary was raped by the Holy Spirit. There was no consent, just a mere warning by the Angel Gabriel. quot;Hey Mary, you've been chosen to get knocked up by a God! Have fun! Got some shepherds to scare, so see ya! And he was gone. Sure enough, the Holy Spirit showed up while she was sleeping (so she couldn't protest) and impregnated her. This was rape and it was wrong. She was violated and had every right to choose to suffer less for what was done to her.
One must also consider Mary's personal situation. She was an unwed mother of 14 living in a society where women who lost their virginity outside of marriage were stoned to death. Even the staunchest of pro-life activists will often concede that abortion should be allowed when the mother's life is at risk. In Mary's case, it most definitely was. Furthermore, barring the risk of stoning, she had no way to support the child. Women didn't earn money for their labors in those days. Joseph bailed her out of the dilemma, proving himself to be quite an exceptional male considering the times in which he lived. Most men back then would be searching for the largest rock.
So they married but didn't consummate and went to Bethlehem to register for a census. They didn't have adequate health care, so they were forced to birth the child in the filthiest of places, a barn. Needless to say, Mary's life was once again at risk here, and considering that, theoretically, she was still a virgin, the pain involved in childbirth must have been doubled. ouch! She should have died, but must have been some sort of wonder woman amazon to survive the whole ordeal.
Besides the fact the child compromised Mary's life in every way, there is another reason May should have considered an abortion. She knew, as did every other good hebrew person at the time, that the Messiah was destined to suffer horribly-- to be sacrificed like a fuzzy little lamb. Gabriel informed her, prior to rape, of just whom she was going to be pregnant with. Seeing how she was most certainly familiar enough with the Scriptures, she easily could have figured out just how this future life would end. it is imperative to ask the question whether it is indeed moral to bring a fetus to term. giving life to a child whose entire purpose in life is to be sentenced to die at the whim of a hysterical mob.
It seems almost malicious to bring into the world a person who can know no joy of living, who will be tortured, humiliated, beaten, then executed in the most inhumane way ever invented by mankind. She could have spared herself and her child heaps of misery if she had decided to end theses possibilities during the fetal phases of development.
But what does all this matter now? Today Mary's trials and tribulations seem small and insignificant to us. However, one can't deny that the life and death of Jesus weighs heavily on our history and our modern society. Scanning the records of the ages since his death, there stands an overwhelming pattern that is rather difficult to overlook. Jesus followers have, in his name, raped, pillaged, murdered, tortured, and destroyed nations and people up to this very day.
Yesterday there were religious wars waged against Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and presumed witches--the Spanish Inquisition the Protestant Reformation, the Crusades, the numerous witch trials to name a few. It continues today with the harassment and murders of doctors who perform abortions. It will not stop there. History is proof of that.
I don't believe Jesus would have advocated all this evil, but because he existed, it happened. It's almost impossible, now, to imagine a world without a New Testament, but stretching as deep into my imagination as I can, I can pretty easily assume it couldn't have been much worse. If Mary had simply chosen and abortion, infinite amounts of suffering could have been alleviated. She didn't make that choice. I'm not even entirely sure that abortions were possible 2,000 years ago, but if they were, she would have been totally justified in pursuing one.
I do know and am happy to say that abortion is still an option for most women in the world today, but that right is being threatened daily. Choosing Jesus, patron saint of the pro- life movement, as a case study is an extreme example, meant to take a stab back at the pro-lifers who are attempting, as I write, to strip me of my personal rights and freedoms as a woman--to send me back to Mary's time when there were no choices. Obviously, there are times when it is good to carry a child to term. There are other situations when it is better to have an abortion, for yourself, for the fetus that will one day bear the burden of life, and perhaps for all humanity, as was the case with Mary.
[Source: Jesus Should Have Been Aborted, by Jenn Shreve]
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