Ministering to People With Unwanted Pregnancies

[temporal1]

Great example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Did you read the actual title of this thread? We are talking about women with unwanted pregnancies. It is pretty much a binary choice. There is no time machine option that allows pregnant women to go back in time and decide not to get pregnant.

If you want to talk about preventing unwanted pregnancies that is a whole different subject.

The U.S. government started providing those things in the 1960s.
The result was that single motherhood skyrocketed.

I thought that was what you wanted. Fewer abortions means more single motherhood.

Great example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

“Fewer abortions means more single motherhood” is, indeed, a great example of soft bigotry of low expectations.

Fewer abortions can readily equate with increased personal awareness, self-empowerment, self-control. YES WE CAN.

This is how the world existed before RvW. RvW dramatically INCREASED numbers of abortions - and, exponentially increased single motherhood - with the help of gov subsidies that encouraged fatherlessness. Destruction of traditional family units.

Aside from that, humans are more than robots or animals, we are spiritual beings.

Our bodies are God-designed in every way to nurture and protect our unborn, our young. From the moment of conception, on a molecular level, the mother’s body goes into high gear to prepare mind+body for that new being. Life protects life. It’s unnatural and counterintuitive to God’s design to kill new life. It’s gruesome.

i suspect this is why viewing sonograms is so helpful to pregnant women.
the sight+sounds they see “register” intensely, due to God-designed changes in their minds+bodies to love+protect those new lives.
the science of all this is fascinating. too bad it’s fairly ignored in the public arena. we are more than the sum of our parts.

Before “free love” took off, i had a young cousin who became pregnant at 16. Total shock throughout the family!
No mention of abortion. Unthinkable. These 2 married, had the baby, and another, that child has always been the love of her life, she’s now a grandmother, thankful+grateful. YES IT WAS HARD. Life can be hard. And life has unexpected rewards.

What are we “saving” people from via abortion?? - The glory of experiencing their own lives? For what? What good would have unfolded had they aborted? Very likely no good at all. But, the forever losses.

Pregnancy is often a shock. It means change. We have 9 months to adjust, and years following to learn.
The last 50-70 years of me-centric medicine hasn’t altered God’s design. It’s interferred. Not altered.

“Ministering to People With Unwanted Pregnancies” and counseling for prevention go hand-in-hand, closely related.
Definitely from a Christian perspective.

[Ken]

Great example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Did you read the actual title of this thread? We are talking about women with unwanted pregnancies. It is pretty much a binary choice. There is no time machine option that allows pregnant women to go back in time and decide not to get pregnant.

If you want to talk about preventing unwanted pregnancies that is a whole different subject.

I thought that was what you wanted. Fewer abortions means more single motherhood.

Great example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

“Fewer abortions means more single motherhood” is, indeed, a great example of soft bigotry of low expectations.

Fewer abortions can readily equate with increased personal awareness, self-empowerment, self-control. YES WE CAN.

This is how the world existed before RvW. RvW dramatically INCREASED numbers of abortions - and, exponentially increased single motherhood - with the help of gov subsidies that encouraged fatherlessness. Destruction of traditional family units.

Aside from that, humans are more than robots or animals, we are spiritual beings.

Our bodies are God-designed in every way to nurture and protect our unborn, our young. From the moment of conception, on a molecular level, the mother’s body goes into high gear to prepare mind+body for that new being. Life protects life. It’s unnatural and counterintuitive to God’s design to kill new life. It’s gruesome.

Before “free love” took off, i had a young cousin who became pregnant at 16. Total shock throughout the family!
No mention of abortion. Unthinkable. These 2 married, had the baby, and another, that child has always been the love of her life, she’s now a grandmother, thankful+grateful. YES IT WAS HARD. Life can be hard. And life has unexpected rewards.

What are we “saving” people from via abortion?? - The glory of experiencing their own lives? For what? What good would have unfolded had they aborted? Very likely no good at all. But, the forever losses.

Pregnancy is often a shock. It means change. We have 9 months to adjust, and years following to learn.
The last 50-70 years of me-centric medicine hasn’t altered God’s design. It’s interferred. Not altered.

Like I said. Pregnancy prevention is a whole different topic and probably should be a subject for a different thread.

We already have a tremendous amount of information about what works and what doesn't to prevent unwanted pregnancies. There is no big mystery. Access to family planning, effective sex education, and access to low-cost passive forms of birth control are the biggest factors that reduce unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence-only programs have been studied to death and have been found to be completely ineffective in delaying sexual activity or reducing risky behavior among teens and young men and women.

[Josh]

We have a fundamental disagreement here, so I'll resort to the 1995 Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, which I hope we can agree on as a common denominator.

We believe that God intends marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman for life. Christian marriage is a mutual relationship in Christ, a covenant made in the context of the church. According to Scripture, right sexual union takes place only within the marriage relationship.6 Marriage is meant for sexual intimacy, companionship, and the birth and nurture of children.

...

Scripture places sexual intimacy within God's good created order (Genesis 2:23-25). Sexual union is reserved for the marriage bond (Exodus 20:14; Mark 10:11; Romans 7:1-3). Sexual union is for pleasure and closeness and for procreation. Through procreation, the human family continues from generation to generation. The oneness between husband and wife is a mystery which reflects the oneness of the Godhead and the oneness between Christ and his church. We affirm that Christians who marry should marry in the Lord, to a Christian spouse.

It's not fruitful to further debate whether fornication is wrong or not. This is a Mennonite forum, and when talking to other Christians and Mennonites, I expect us to agree on this very basic fact. This is found in scripture, in the earliest apostolic teachings, in the early confessions, and in the modern ones.

[temporal1]

“Ministering to People With Unwanted Pregnancies” and counseling for prevention go hand-in-hand, closely related.
Definitely from a Christian perspective.

One of the most egregious failures of the RvW era was, too many women had MULTIPLE abortions, relying on abortion as a form of birth control.

i was mortified in early 70’s, So Cal, to meet a beautiful young woman at a college campus party, 17-18 years old, only to learn she had already had several abortions, a number under 10. i was in my early 20’s, i tried not to stare with my mouth gaping open.

[Szdfan]

In 2015, a Christian abortion alternative network, Care Net, commissioned an abortion study performed by Lifeway Research, a Christian research organization. Their findings were not what they expected. https://lifewayresearch.com/wp-content/ ... evised.pdf

• In 2015, 70% of abortions were performed on Christian women, the exact same percentage as Americans who identify as Christians. In other words, Christianity had no effect on abortion rates.
• 52% of churchgoers who have had an abortion have no one at church who knows they have had a pregnancy terminated
• 76% of women indicate local churches had no influence on their decision to terminate their pregnancy
• 30% of women who have had an abortion indicate they have had more than one pregnancy termination or abortion
• 49% of women who have had an abortion agree that pastors’ teachings on forgiveness don’t seem to apply to terminated pregnancies

Blaming women doesn't work. And actually helping women is a bigger task than most churches are interested in undertaking.

[Ken]

It's not fruitful to further debate whether fornication is wrong or not. This is a Mennonite forum, and when talking to other Christians and Mennonites, I expect us to agree on this very basic fact. This is found in scripture, in the earliest apostolic teachings, in the early confessions, and in the modern ones.

But this thread isn't about morality lessons for young conservative Mennonite teenagers.

Presumably it is about public ministry to women from all walks of life who are faced with with unwanted pregnancies. Whether you believe fornication is wrong or not is kind of beside the point. They are ALREADY pregnant. In fact, I expect that the fastest way to chase them away is to be judgmental about it.

[Josh]

But this thread isn't about morality lessons for young conservative Mennonite teenagers.

Presumably, denominations other than conservative Mennonites teach that fornication is wrong and to be avoided.

Presumably it is about public ministry to women from all walks of life who are faced with with unwanted pregnancies. Whether you believe fornication is wrong or not is kind of beside the point. They are ALREADY pregnant. In fact, I expect that the fastest way to chase them away is to be judgmental about it.

In order to have public ministry, first we have to agree on just what we're ministering for. If we can't agree on something as basic as whether or not fornication is wrong, we won't agree much on how to perform public ministry.

[Ken]

But this thread isn't about morality lessons for young conservative Mennonite teenagers.

Presumably, denominations other than conservative Mennonites teach that fornication is wrong and to be avoided.

Presumably it is about public ministry to women from all walks of life who are faced with with unwanted pregnancies. Whether you believe fornication is wrong or not is kind of beside the point. They are ALREADY pregnant. In fact, I expect that the fastest way to chase them away is to be judgmental about it.

In order to have public ministry, first we have to agree on just what we're ministering for. If we can't agree on something as basic as whether or not fornication is wrong, we won't agree much on how to perform public ministry.

My assumption is that this thread is about ministering to young women who are ALREADY PREGNANT in order to convince them to keep the child and not have an abortion. That is what I took from the title and Ernie's original post.

I suspect that many if the the majority of us live in states where abortion continues to be legal despite the recent SCOTUS decision on Roe. And even in states where it is not, there are still medical abortions and out-of-state abortions.

If you want to convince young pregnant women not to have abortions, how are you going to target your ministry? By shaming them or helping them?

[Josh]

My assumption is that this thread is about ministering to young women who are ALREADY PREGNANT in order to convince them to keep the child and not have an abortion. That is what I took from the title and Ernie's original post.

I suspect that many if the the majority of us live in states where abortion continues to be legal despite the recent SCOTUS decision on Roe. And even in states where it is not, there are still medical abortions and out-of-state abortions.

If you want to convince young pregnant women not to have abortions, how are you going to target your ministry? By shaming them or helping them?

Why are you so focused on making sure we affirm and support fornication?

Perhaps I wanted to start a ministry to help people who have had guns get rid of them, and maybe who have had bad things happen due to owning guns. I would certainly want to support them and help them deal with things like their felony record.

But at the core, I'd have to start with affirming that a peaceful sincere follower of Jesus has to stop carrying a handgun and give up their lawful right to self defence. Would that be "shaming" them?

[Ken]

My assumption is that this thread is about ministering to young women who are ALREADY PREGNANT in order to convince them to keep the child and not have an abortion. That is what I took from the title and Ernie's original post.

I suspect that many if the the majority of us live in states where abortion continues to be legal despite the recent SCOTUS decision on Roe. And even in states where it is not, there are still medical abortions and out-of-state abortions.

If you want to convince young pregnant women not to have abortions, how are you going to target your ministry? By shaming them or helping them?

Why are you so focused on making sure we affirm and support fornication?

Perhaps I wanted to start a ministry to help people who have had guns get rid of them, and maybe who have had bad things happen due to owning guns. I would certainly want to support them and help them deal with things like their felony record.

But at the core, I'd have to start with affirming that a peaceful sincere follower of Jesus has to stop carrying a handgun and give up their lawful right to self defence. Would that be "shaming" them?

I'm not trying to make you take any position one way or the other on fornication. The purpose of this thread is how best to help young pregnant women decide not to have abortions. My position is that helping them is a more effective approach than shaming them. Apparently you disagree.

As for your gun analogy. It isn't a particularly relevant analogy for women who are already pregnant. That "gun" has already gone off. The more relevant parallel to guns would be a ministry focused on convincing young single men to keep their pants zipped up, their "gun" put away, and to stay celibate. Maybe that should be your focus instead if your ministry concern is fornication and not abortion.