Her Son Would Be 50. Should She Be Forgiven?
Fifty Years Later
“I know people will say you shouldn’t show that because of people like me.”
With one hand, “Cathie” clutched her “I Regret My Abortion” sign. With the other, she pierced the air with her index finger, spotlighting the sign perched on my shoulders of a preborn baby killed by abortion.
Then she flattened her hand to clap it over her heart and declared,
“But we needed to see this before we did that!”
Cathie and I both had been participants in Ohio’s inaugural statewide March for Life when she saw my sign and shared her story—a story which, if not unique, is only made more striking for its resonance with countless parents worldwide.
Fifty years before we met, Cathie had been sixteen years old. Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, this scared teenager believed the lies. “Don’t worry,” she was told. “It’s just a blob of tissue. Like a tumor.”
The money she paid for the abortion was likely spent within days. But half a century later, Cathie’s testimony shows that the wounds she purchased with that wad are not so quickly erased.
Fool’s Gold Forgiveness?
But while Cathie’s abortion may still cause tears, it has been vacated of any hold over her. Her chains truly are gone. She’s been set free. Anyone who understands their sin and what it means to be forgiven can relate. But, as I was reminded after sharing the above video of Cathie’s story, this forgiveness is foolishness to those who reject God.
One woman who watched the video on Instagram responded, “So you believe if you believe in your God you can still have an abortion, he will just forgive you, so what’s the big deal? Lol religion is nuts” (See screenshot.)
That this Instagram user’s concept of Christian forgiveness is bankrupt is evident in her use of the word “just.” ”… you can still have an abortion, [God] will just forgive you.” The implication is that it’s a minor thing. God doesn’t really care about sin. Do what you want. He’ll just forgive, perhaps with a snap of grandfatherly fingers and a twinkle in his merry eye.
This makes our opposition to abortion baffling to them. If we really believe abortion is so bad, how can we also believe God “just forgives”?
But they’ve made a grave mistake. As Cathie knows, her forgiveness cannot be equated to cheap candies tucked in grandpa’s pockets. It is a weighty thing bought with no less than the blood of Jesus Christ himself, a plan so marvelous it was eagerly anticipated by angels and prophets (I Peter 1:10-12).
God doesn’t “just forgive.” He made a rescue plan of immeasurable cost and power.
This doctrine does nothing to minimize the sin of killing ones own child. In fact, that forgiveness for Cathie’s abortion could only be achieved by the death and Resurrection of Christ underscores the great weight of abortion. There is nothing cheap about this grace.
Our task, then, is to point this Instagram user and others like her away from the 2D stereotype they’ve been given and toward the 3D reality of Christian atonement.
After all, those fleeing the hound of heaven today dismiss Christian forgiveness as fool’s gold—pretty to look at but lacking genuine substance. But one day they might reckon with the reality of their lostness and cry out for a Savior, and then they will see that what they long dismissed as fantasy is not only a true story but The Story that makes sense of everything they’ve experienced and can unite them with the King.
We Must Show Them This Before They Do That
God’s forgiveness makes it possible for Cathie to raise her eyes to an image of an aborted baby and feel sadness but no shame. She knows what she did. But she also knows what He did.
This also enables her to champion showing abortion victim photos publicly. She’s been forgiven, but she knows the grief of her abortion might nevertheless endure until the coming kingdom, when God will wipe the tears from her eyes. This pain, according to Cathie, might have been avoided had she seen visual proof that her baby wasn’t a tumor and that abortion isn’t innocuous before she made the irreversible choice.
“We needed to see this before we did that!” she declared to me as the marchers marched by.
It’s too late to save Cathie’s baby from abortion. But there are parents today for whom it is not too late. Right now mothers and fathers are considering abortion. We should take our cue from Cathie’s story. We should show them these babies before they pay someone both to kill their own child slap chains on their own wrists.