@TITLE THIN = Letter

Letter to the Editor

Preparing for Socially Comfortable Acceptance of Abortion?

D. Gareth Jones

Department of Anatomy
University of Otago
O Box 913
Dunedin, New Zealand

From: PSCF 44 (March 1992): 71

Dr. Ross S. Olson (Letters, September 1991 Perspectives) considers that "I am preparing the way for a socially comfortable acceptance of abortion" in my article on "Nonexistence" (June 1991 Perspectives). His brief comments raise a number of important issues.

The first is the assumption that everyone writing about the beginnings of human existence has "abortion" in mind. What that does is to limit the framework of debate to abortion, and this inevitably ignores other large questions of relevance for Christians.

The second issue is that it is easy to dismiss difficult questions by questioning the motives of an author. I, personally, have no desire to promulgate a socially comfortable acceptance of abortion, any more than I wish to adopt positions that are non-offensive to my secular colleagues (as my secular colleagues could tell you). Questioning the motives of other Christians does not allow us to escape facing the difficult questions. They remain.

A third issue is that of integrity in Christian thinking and living. The fact that some authors raise hard questions and attempt to get others to take them seriously, is not akin to watering down their allegiance to biblical imperatives. I would suggest it may actually be an outworking of this allegiance, reflecting their integrity as God's people.