An Empty-Manger Christmas
By Travis K. McSherley

The holiday season is a wonderful time to celebrate family and friendship, to reflect on the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and … to celebrate abortion?

In its annual "holiday card," Planned Parenthood apparently sees no contradiction in connecting the birth of Jesus with a woman’s so-called right to an abortion.  The card, which has seen its share of publicity, reads "Choice on Earth."  This pharse rings familiar, of course, with the angels’ prayer in Luke 2, "on earth peace, good will toward men."

The irony here has surely not escaped the Planned Parenthood execs.  Exploiting the commemoration of one very special birth to celebrate a flawed system that allows mothers to escape their maternal duties -- it would be comical if it were not so horrible.  Why anyone would want to give his or her loved one a "Choice" card (other than as a joke) remains a mystery to me.

Yet, to be honest, it seems that this twisted expression of holly-jolliness could be nothing but a joke.  For whatever one’s view on the abortion issue, it cannot be something taken so lightly as to glorify it on a greeting card.  Every time a woman aborts a pregnancy, something that was alive stops living -- meaning that something must be dead.  Science seems to indicate that this "something" is actually a "someone," a human being.  So besides being utterly offensive and disrespectful to the Scripture, messages like this make light of the fact that a life is lost during every abortion.

What’s even more ironic is that the birth that Planned Parenthood treats so flippantly is one that might never have taken place had Mary walked into a P.P. clinic.  What incentives would she have had to see it through?  Sure, she received instructions and promise from an angelic messenger, but if there were ever a difficult pregnancy, it had to have been this one.

Mary nearly lost her fiancé in this deal.  "Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly" (Matthew 1:19 NIV).

Not only was she in danger of divorce and public disgrace (or worse), but Joseph, too, must have been taken aback by his bride’s unexpected pregnancy.  If not for another divine revelation, Mary would have been stuck alone with this kid.  Instead, Joseph became father to a baby with whom he had no blood connection; and he no doubt was the recipient of disapproval by members of his family and community, who would assume either that Joseph and Mary had not remained chaste or that Mary had committed adultery.

Then, after the child was born, Joseph and Mary had to take their son and leave the country in order to escape the mass infanticide of Governor Herod.  Their entire life was shaken and rearranged by Jesus’ birth.  Yet they trusted God and pressed ahead.

The point is, of course, that life is absolutely invaluable.  To make celebration out of a woman’s "right to choose" that a life be ended is irreverent at best.  Planned Parenthood’s policy statements define this "reproductive freedom" as "the fundamental right of every individual to decide freely and responsibly when and whether to have a child."

But the pro-life movement would argue that this decision is made in the bedroom, not on the operating table.  Of course, pro-abortion groups tend to promote promiscuity as well, though they may again cloak it with terms like "choice" and "privacy" and "freedom." What it boils down to, however, is that the abortion issue really has little to do with a woman -- and everything to do with the child.

So, this holiday season, may we rejoice over a birth that did take place some 2000 years ago -- a birth that opened the door for God’s victory over death and sin, a birth that made possible the salvation that we now have available in Jesus Christ.  And may we pray for the hearts and souls of women who are faced with the decision to end the life of their unborn infants, which is described to them as a valid and honorable choice.