Magazine
Sojourners Magazine: November 1980
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Cover Story
Not long ago I met a man who has dedicated much of his time and energy to a pro-life group. He was discouraged at the results of that work.
On June 30, 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down another in its long and controversial series of opinions on the subject of human abortion.
The war in Vietnam de-militarized my conscience. And it was the war that first made me think about abortion.
Margaret Mead wrote in her memoirs, Blackberry Winter, that she "felt strongly that a culture that rejected children was a bad culture."
"Therefore choose life." The peace movement has made that familiar scriptural appeal a basic principle of action and, in most respects, has been faithful to it.
Phil and I have two children: Frida, age 6, and Jerome, age 5. They are one year and two weeks apart.
As President of Right to Life of Michigan and now vice president of National Right to Life, I am often asked by those outside the movement whether my involvement in the abortion issue was primarily motivated by religious conviction.
Many plead, "Will somebody please be consistent about issues of life and death? Where did all the anti-war folks go when the abortion issue came along?"
The conviction that each human life is sacred has its roots in the scriptures. There God is revealed as the living God who bestows life.
One helpful way to deal with the question of abortion is to begin on the personal level.
My brother, the youngest in our family of seven, and I are separated by some 20 years. We have had several conversations about abortion.
The right-to-life person said, "What gives a mother the right to kill her child?"
Being pro-life is much more than being anti-abortion -per se; it means taking a stand against all powers, persons, and institutions militating against human dignity and the sanctity of all life.
When Juli Loesch told me that Sojourners was doing a feature on abortion, I was mighty surprised.
I reject the notion of those who say that abortion is only a woman's issue...Such a view is parallel to saying that war is a man's problem, or that capital punishment is a legal problem, or the poor are an economic problem
Feature
Kim Dae Jung, the leader of opposition to two south Korean dictators--first Park Chung Hee and now Chun Doo Hwan--has been sentenced to death by hanging.
Columns
This special issue of Sojourners is on abortion. It is overdue.
I have not always been pro-life. In the years of the late '60s and the decade of the '70s I was for abortion. It was the popular opinion of everyone I knew.
"I just don't have space in my life for prayer." How many times I have heard these words.