Feminism is the greatest cancer within the pro-life movement because it seeks to subvert the cause in order to promote a social welfare agenda. Rebecca McLaughlin, a Big Eva favored voice on the issue of homosexuality, wrote a feminist piece about the issue of abortion over at The Gospel Coalition titled, “To End the Killing of Babies, We Need a Loving Revolution.” This article is the latest Big Eva integration of feminism and abortion abolition efforts.
The article begins with a larger point about eugenics in antiquity. In then continues its tour in history she makes a historically asinine comment.
Taking their cues from Jesus, the early Christians collected the babies abandoned by others. And when (to everyone’s surprise) the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian, legal protections for women and children started to come into place.
Historically there is no evidence that Constantine became a Christian. He was not baptized until he was on his deathbed or already dead, which raises the concern of many historians of the authenticity of his faith. She uses this premise to then argue:
In the early fourth century, Constantine passed laws protecting women from unwarranted divorce and offering provision for children born into poverty: “If any parent should report that he has offspring which on account of poverty he is not able to rear, there shall be no delay in issuing food and clothing” (Theodosian Code, II.27.1–2).
Historian John Dickson notes that Constantine used churches “as the welfare distribution centres for this program.” Killing an infant became a form of homicide in AD 374, under a subsequent Christian emperor.
Because of Rebecca McLaughlin’s faulty premise, her argument is reliant on the precedent of a likely unbeliever. Because Constantine created welfare programs, Christians should advocate for them as well is basically her argument.
In our culture, pro-lifers are often accused of not caring about vulnerable mothers and children after birth. But the first Christ-motivated pro-life legislation in the world followed laws protecting women from abandonment and providing for poor families. Consistent Christian ethics must do all these things.
It’s no coincidence that in Matthew and Mark, Jesus’s teaching on marriage and welcoming children is followed by his instruction to the rich young man to sell all he has and give it to the poor. Today, as in the first century, two symbiotic factors put babies at risk: poverty and fatherlessness.
Another note about Roman politics is the desire for Emperors and senators to be popular with the people. There is no real evidence of a Christian motivation to the aforementioned welfare programs because there is no evidence that faith was a driving factor.
In the United States in 2018, 85 percent of women seeking abortions were unmarried and about three quarters were living below or not far above the federal poverty line. Due largely to historic inequalities, this means that black babies are more than three times as likely to be aborted as white babies. These tiny black lives matter. But rather than providing women with the support they need, our society opts for the quick fix of abortion.
Thankfully, abortion rates in America are trending down—2018 saw the lowest rate on record. But that still represents 619,591 lost lives.
Again, Rebecca McLaughlin avoids historical facts, such as the fact that Margaret Sanger specifically wanted to target black babies with Planned Parenthood. She instead credits social inequality. America is one of the wealthiest nations in the world and we have a higher rate of abortion because of our rampant industry of baby killing, not for lack of wealth.
This is an asinine observation, and so this article serves as nothing more than a plea for additional welfare programs for women.
America has so many entitlement programs for impoverished woman who are both mothers and public. More will not change the hearts of those who want to murder their children.
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Constantine was a pagan, but he later became a catechumen, and was later baptized and became the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. Common belief is he was baptized by Eusebias of Nicomedia, who was an Arian. Both Constantine and Licinius were influential in the Edict of Milan in 313 which ended the persecution of Christians in the Roman empire (prior to this had been the Edict of Serdica, or the Edict of Toleration, in A.D. 311 by Galerius, ending the persecution of Christians by Diocletian and granted religio licita to Christians. He convoked the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 bringing the true statement of the Christian faith from the Nicaean Creed. He further built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Evangelicals frequently espouse a lack of understanding, and a revisionist view of patristics and church history. One of the many reasons, IMO, why Mainline Protestantism, and now evangelicalism, has/is going off the rails.
Asinine is the perfect word Ray. Wow. How’d those “social programs” work out for Rome?