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Abortion and Forgiveness
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The church's stance on abortion:
By KARAN MINNIS,Guardian Lifestyles Reporter -
Nassau, Bahamas:


If you've had an abortion, can you be forgiven, and still enter the kingdom of God?

This is the burning question for many people today, as millions of abortions, are performed worldwide every year, as women turn to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies.

According to where you live, it can be legal as well as illegal. In The Bahamas, the procedure is illegal.

An abortion, according to Wikipedia, is the removal, or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in, or caused by its death. This can occur spontaneously or accidentally as with a miscarriage, or be induced by medical, surgical or other means for therapeutic or elective reasons.

By all accounts, the simple idea of anyone — let alone a professing Christian — having an abortion, and ending a life is wrong, and it is a sin that is strongly condemned — particularly in the Catholic church.

Worldwide, there are people who are staunchly against abortions, while others are all for a woman's right to choose. And then there are those who are undecided on the subject, because for many an abortion seems like the only way out.

If you were raped and found yourself pregnant is abortion still wrong?

What if you have a medical condition and the child is killing you, would you do it then?

Real life questions that have affected more people than many could image.

In the case of Marcia Lewis, (name changed to protect identity) a 36-year-old now born-again Christian, an abortion she had 17 years ago still haunts her.

Marica was 19-years-old when she committed her "sin," which she says is one of the biggest regrets of her life.

"I had just graduated from high school and I had gotten pregnant. I was attending The College of the Bahamas, and I was afraid of what my parents would think, so I had an abortion."

The still smarting Marcia said she knew other people who had terminated their pregnancies voluntarily, and they had told her it would be okay. She was never okay with what she did, and said she did not come to that realization until she was 24-years of age.

"I had found a church to call home that I felt comfortable in and I became a Christian. That's when I really learnt that what I did wasn't okay. And now I'm suffering the consequences because I'm married and have yet to have kids. I just can't seem to get pregnant and I don't know if this is my punishment or not. But we are working to find the problem," she says.

Adding that she will not and cannot honestly say that her abortion is the root of the problem, Marica says that it could be.

"I have asked for forgiveness and I have repented for my sins, but I mean how do I know that I was really forgiven? I know now that it was wrong, but I can't go back to change the fact that it has happened. I can only move forward, and it is my hope that I can. But I still wonder if I can," she says.

"It's a sensitive situation and I have to face it everyday. That one little mistake could have caused me a lifetime of problems. But I know that my God is able, and once you truly repent, you will be forgiven. I do believe that He has, and will forgive me."

The church generally doesn't agree with abortion, according to Rev. Wilton Strachan, pastor of Mount Moriah Baptist Church, Farrington Road, but he says that exceptions should be acceptable — for health reasons.

"Other than [for] health reasons I don't think the Christian man ought to agree with abortion. That is a forgone conclusion. After careful council with your doctors, you may find that having a child may not be in your best interest as you may die or [become] extremely ill, and in this case I do not think that I should tell you to have the child because your life could very well be in danger. But in terms of killing and abortion we do not accept it in any other case. To us ... or better yet to me, it is wrong," said Strachan.

The Catholic Church's teaching has always condemned abortion as a grave evil. Christian writers from the first-century author of the Didache to Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, "The Gospel of Life," have maintained that the Bible forbids abortion, just as it forbids murder.

Bahamas Christian Council president Bishop John Humes also disagrees with abortion, and says it is a sin.

"This is because they, like older children, have souls, even though marred by original sin. James 2:26, tells us that 'the body without the spirit is dead,' and that the soul is the life-principle of the human body.' And since from the time of conception the child's body is alive, the child's body must already have its spirit," he said.

In 1995 Pope John Paul II declared that the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion was unchanged and unchangeable, and that it is a sin. However, the early church fathers agreed that abortion, like all sins, is forgivable; and that forgiveness is as close as the nearest confessional.

"Although it is forgivable, that does not mean you do it just because you know that you can be forgiven," he said. "That's just like stealing and saying 'oh God will forgive me,' so I can just take that. It doesn't work that way. You've got to understand that.

"Abortion is a sin, and we know this ... but there are gray areas. But forgiveness is man's blessing, and all sins are forgivable," says Humes.

January 17, 2008 | 10:14 AM Comments  0 comments

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