One other comment is necessary on my interaction with Jim Wallis a few posts ago. He said that the abortion debate had grown “stale,” and that we ought to concentrate on reducing abortions instead of outlawing abortion. As I was thinking about it, this question occurred to me — “where has he been?” He speaks as though the “Religious Right” was consumed with outlawing abortion, and that the same people were somehow not engaged in creating a network of crisis pregnancy centers around the country.
Given how progressive-thought works, “reducing abortions” in Wallis’ mind probably has something to do with spending tax money on a government program, the announced goal of which is to “reduce abortions.” So when people spend their own money, time and energy to actually help women in trouble and reduce the number of abortions, it doesn’t register with men like Wallis. Their compassion radar doesn’t work in the private sector. And when these same people urge a change in the law so that the lives of the unborn receive the same protections that the rest of us do, Wallis thinks it is “stale.”
Nancy and I were involved in establishing the crisis pregnancy center here in Moscow back in the eighties. We have also earnestly wanted Roe v. Wade thrown headlong into hell. Our actions toward both ends are not inconsistent at all — we embrace them for the same reason, which is that abortion is murder. And as much as Jim Wallis wants us to get tired of it, our conviction that unborn children bear the image of God is not the kind of conviction that can get “stale.”