It is said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Is it? Or is it paved with justifications by Christians? I recently posted some information that I found incredibly disappointing. I found out that a Christian company called “Thirty-One Gifts” is giving money to groups that fund Planned Parenthood. I asked the people on my page to contact the company and ask them to stop giving. As pro-lifers, we should always take the time to educate the public about links to the abortion industry. This was yet another opportunity.
For several hours, the posts were positive…”thank you for letting us know,” “I will be sure to send an email,” “this is a great opportunity to educate them about the abortion industry,” etc. Even consultants were coming on my page thanking me for this information. They were going to go back and get some answers. Great! That was the point of my post.
Then the bomb dropped. The “Thirty-One” all women’s mafia invaded my page. These all are Christian women who sell Thirty-One Gifts. However, based on their comments, you wouldn’t know they were Christians. One called me the devil. Several said that, as Christians, we should not be judging this organization (even though they are helping to fund abortion). Some wanted to know HOW MUCH money was given to Planned Parenthood by these organizations (as if that matters). And anyway, as most of them pointed out, Thirty-One Gifts does a lot of good…surely we can overlook this. A few of them came on my page to defend Planned Parenthood.
So, there it is. Christians defending the funding of abortion. Christians defending their own sinful actions. Christians defending sin. Why do we insist on justifying sin? Because that sin provides us income? Because that sin makes really cute purses? Because I don’t want sin to inconvenience me? Yes, probably all of those in this case.
Please understand that I never said to boycott Thirty-One Gifts. I simply wanted to give people the opportunity to contact this company and inform them where their money is going. Isn’t that what we should do? Shouldn’t we, as pro-lifers, want to do as much as we can to stop the funding of the abortion industry? Some of us do…apparently, some of us do not.
I know all about the justification of sin…I did it for 8 years. I would tell myself, “God doesn’t want women to die from illegal abortions, so working in the legal abortion industry must be the right thing to do.” Sometimes I would say, “We at Planned Parenthood do SO much good. Abortion is just a tiny percent of our business. You can’t let abortion overshadow the good that we do.” It went on and on.
I remember attending an event where the president of “Clergy for Choice” was going to be speaking. I was so excited! Finally, a pastor defending abortion. I was sure I would be able to pick up many more justifications. He was asked about the unborn child. His answer, “The unborn do not become babies until the mother decides they are wanted.” Hmm. That sounded pretty good to me! Yet another justification in my road to hell.
In Father Tom Euteneuer’s powerful book Demonic Abortion, he wrote about neutrality and justifications in our Christian world. He said,
“Unless the disciples of Christ truly awake from their slumber and unite in opposition to the heinous crime [of abortion], the collective guilt of this industry will fall upon us all as a people, and Jesus will say to us, like He said to the weeping women of Jerusalem on His Way to Calvary, ‘Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children.’ We will not be held accountable if we fail to stop such an immense evil, but we will receive a withering judgment if we live amidst the evil and do nothing about it. The Medieval poet, Dante Alleghieri (1265-1321), is supposed to have said that ‘the hottest places of hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.’”
I pray that we all stop these justifications. I pray that when we hear these sorts of things, “but they do a lot of good,” we will be reminded that doing good doesn’t matter when it comes to the taking of life. I pray that we will be a people of courage. I pray that we will not worry about being inconvenienced for the sake of standing up for what is right. I pray that we will not worry about being popular or maintaining the status quo. I pray that we will stand up, unite and fight.
After I left the abortion industry, I learned a very important lesson. When something is right, you don’t have to justify it. Right is always right, and wrong is always wrong.
Abby Johnson’s life was changed the day that she resigned from the largest abortion corporation in the nation…Planned Parenthood. Visit her website at www.abbyjohnson.org and watch her this week on LIFE Today.
