Is Abortion a Good Thing?

I've been reading an interesting book lately. It's called Freakonomics (I can't remember the author's name at the moment). In the book the author attempts to shed light on some misguided thinking we accept as truth. In one chapter he talks about the drastic drop in crime that happened in the 1990's. He discusses the reasons we tend to think would have brought about this reduction in crime (more police, aging population, gun control etc...). But, he says, most of these reasons either did nothing, or at least very little, to cause the drop in crime. What does he attribute the drop in crime to? Abortion.

He was not making a moral judgment about whether abortion is right, but he was pointing out that the facts show that legalized abortion lowered the crime rate. The rationale is that it is unwanted children born to poor, unwed mothers who typically grow into criminals. If these unwanted children are aborted before they have the chance to become criminals, then the crime rate falls.

I'm sure many Christians would want to argue this point. They would want to discredit him, find holes in his argument, and in the end come away being able to say "nothing good comes from abortion!" I'm not going to do this. Instead I'm going to say that after reading his argument I think he's right. I agree that abortion caused the crime rate to fall. Hear me out.

I follow the logic, but it does not change the way I feel about abortion. You see, when it comes to the commands of God the ends do not, cannot, justify the means. Whereas someone who does not believe in God would have a hard time coming to any other conclusion but that legalized abortion was good for America, those of us who believe in God cannot come to any other conclusion but that the deliberate and intentional killing of an innocent life is wrong no matter what our perceived benefits. The consequential drop in crime rate does no more to convince me that abortion is good than the consequential convenience a person may experience by being able to undergo an abortion.

Belief in God means belief in something greater than you or I. It means believing that Someone else makes the rules, Someone else is in control, and that Someone else will hold us accountable. People who say they believe in God but don't believe that he makes the rules do not really believe in God. But for those of us who do believe, we must follow his commands in faith. He doesn't say "Do it my way unless your way seems better." 

So when you hear of abortion causing drops in crime, embryonic stem cell research curing diseases, or even a healthy amount of greed causing our economy to thrive, do not let it sway you, discourage you, or anger you. Sin is sin no matter the outcome. Trust that God's way is not only better, God's way is the only GOOD way there is, no matter what limited benefit we may see to another way.