Is Abortion “Loving Your Neighbor As Yourself”?

The common denominator behind all of these arguments is a misunderstanding of what love is.

The word “love” gets bandied about all the time in our culture. Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) is used by various politicians to support any and every policy; “Love is love” is thrown out to support anti-biblical LGBTQ identities and lifestyles; and “God is love” is used as a quip to silence opposition to gay “marriage.” But the common denominator behind all of these arguments is a misunderstanding of what love is.

You see, we don’t define love. Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he defines love—not we sinful, fallible human beings with corrupted, sinful hearts (Jeremiah 17:9)! And God has defined it for us all throughout Scripture, but perhaps never as clearly as in “the love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4–7)

God says that love is kind, not insisting on its own way (some other translations say love “is not self-seeking”); love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing; love endures all things. Now, for this blog we will mostly focus on the horrible application of “love your neighbor” to the abortion issue since today is National Sanctity of Life Day. So think about abortion—the taking of an unborn human life—in the context of how God defines love.

• Is abortion kind? No, it ends a human life in gut-wrenchingly horrible ways.
• Is abortion “self-seeking”? Yes, it puts the wishes of adults above the rights of the unborn child.
• Is supporting abortion rejoicing in wrongdoing or in the truth? It’s rejoicing in murder—that’s wrongdoing!
• Is abortion enduring all things? No, it’s ending a child’s life so the mother/parents don’t have to endure something they don’t want to.

Supporting abortion is not loving your neighbor (no matter who may say otherwise)—and this is obvious when we allow God’s Word to be our authority and interpret Scripture with Scripture.

So does abortion pass the “love test”? Not at all! So, no, supporting abortion is not loving your neighbor (no matter who may say otherwise)—and this is obvious when we allow God’s Word to be our authority and interpret Scripture with Scripture.

Also consider Romans 5:8, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Love isn’t demonstrated by selfish decisions (even if those decisions are cloaked in “compassionate” intentions like “ending suffering” or ensuring a child isn’t born into poverty!). Love as God defines it is demonstrated in Jesus’ death on the cross, when Jesus—who is God, the Creator, the exalted King, the Lord of lords, the only one deserving of our worship, praise, and service—humbly took on flesh and came to serve us selflessly, laying aside his rights as King of kings, to ultimately suffer a horrible death on the cross that we might be saved. That is what love is—giving for the needs of another, expecting nothing in return. We could never repay Jesus for the wonderful gift of life that he secured through giving his own life and then taking it up again—and yet despite our absolute inability to repay him, Jesus died for us anyway and then offered this salvation as a priceless gift to all who will believe.

That is love. And abortion—or any other sinful practice our culture likes to slap the term “love” on—is the antithesis of Jesus’ example.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.