What Does Pro-Life Mean?

by Mitch Hescox

As Focus on the Family so beautifully depicts in the video below on the Dignity of Life “When we talk about being “pro-life,” it’s not just about a political issue. It’s a worldview . . . it’s a life-view.”

Pro-life is so much more than being against abortion, it’s also about protecting humanity from poverty, human trafficking, and for us the threats from pollution. Abortion is a nationally tragedy, but so is 1:6 children born with mercury levels that could cause brain damage, or the 78% increase in autism in the past decade, or the fact women now face a 1:8 chance of developing breast cancer — all linked to increases in toxic pollution. The Christian Church has long supported pro-life as whole life, from conception to natural death. Pro-life has everything to do with quality of life as well as preventing abortions. The long Biblical history promotes pro-life as a true concern for all life. To limit pro-life to only abortion weakens the Church’s witness in caring for all God’s children.

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

God created us in His image and breathed into us the breath of life. We were created special –with special responsibilities to care for each other and to care for all of God’s creation. Hopefully, no one will dispute the Christian call to be faithful stewards of all God has entrusted to us and this especially includes the earth. We live at a critical time as new chemical compounds are developed by the thousands each year, and many have never been tested for their effects on human life, especially in the combinations in which they are marketed in pesticides, herbicides, and even plastics. Lakes, streams, and ground water contamination continues from lead, mercury, organic compounds, and synthetic hormones. All these are threats to human life, especially our unborn children and “the least of these” that Jesus commands us to care. Moreover, this doesn’t include another serious threat to human life – the climate disruptions caused by carbon pollution that result in extreme weather leading to drought and severe temperatures that menace human life, both here at home and around the world.

Recently, a few Roman Catholic and evangelicals developed A Joint Declaration on Life. Their goal was to call attention to the political partisanship that attempts to disrupt true Christian witness in favor of one party over another. The degree of partisanship of those concerned with our whole life message is troubling. No single political party has the full solution to life issues. The church must carefully speak on the need for action to reduce abortion and to reduce harms to all of life including harms that come from chemical exposure and the world we will leave to generations yet unborn. I signed the declaration as it represents a balanced whole biblical approach to pro-life and rejects a partial Christian understanding of pro-life.

Let’s rebuff any worldview that “waters down” the Biblical message and witness that calls us to protect all life at all time in all ways. Pro-life as whole-life doesn’t confuse the message but completely and fully describes our biblical witness.

The Rev. Mitch Hescox is President & CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network