if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0But alas, there is a key distinction between a sperm and a zygote. \u00a0A zygote, left to develop naturally, will tend to develop into a human being. \u00a0You can have a tank of millions of sperm, but without an egg not a single one will develop into a human being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis blogger draws a huge line between sperm and eggs on the one hand, and zygotes on the other, arguing that only one of the two has the potential to naturally become a human being. But if you think about it another way, there are two natural processes going on here. It\u2019s natural for two people to have sex when they are sexually mature and\u00a0physically\u00a0attracted to each other, and it\u2019s natural for a woman\u2019s body to grow a zygote into a baby over the course of nine months. But as humans, we have the ability to stop either process if we so choose. Evangelicals like this blogger are all about not doing anything to stop the later process\u2014pregnancy\u2014but have no problem telling everyone in shouting distance to stop the first process\u2014sexual intimacy. And yet, without either, you, and I, would not exist.<\/p>\n
What put all this in my mind recently, though, was a thought I had about my young son Bobby. I became pregnant with Bobby on my first try. I know how to chart my fertility and Sean and I were very conscious in our planning. I wasn\u2019t surprised that we got pregnant on our first try, because it was the same way with Sally as well, and also because there are no fertility problems on either of our family trees.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I found myself wondering the other day what would have happened if I had tried to become pregnant a month earlier, or a month later. We would still have a baby, but it wouldn\u2019t be Bobby. It would be some other baby that now doesn\u2019t exist, but could have. And Bobby wouldn\u2019t exist. Think about that. If we hadn\u2019t made that conscious choice to attempt to become pregnant a year and a half ago, there would be no Bobby, and if we\u2019d chosen instead to become pregnant a month later, a totally different baby would exist, a baby that does not exist and will never exist because we didn\u2019t wait that extra month to conceive. Is your mind in knots yet?<\/p>\n
There will always be potential people who will not exist. In fact, there are scats and scads of potential people who will never exist. Every time you feel sexually attracted to someone and they reciprocate, and yet you don\u2019t act on those urges, you are impeding the potential creation of a human being. The same is true when you take birth control pills, or use a condom. Or when you decide to stay home and not go to the park, where you might have met someone you might have hit it off with and eventually procreated with. We do things all the time that prevent human beings from being created, whether that is contraception, abortion, abstinence, or simply not getting out enough. And if stopping a pregnancy is wrong because it is placing an unnatural block in the creation of a human being and stopping the process, so is choosing to keep it in your pants when you have sexual urges. After all, if my parents hadn\u2019t had sex, I wouldn\u2019t exist\u2014and if your parents hadn\u2019t had sex that night, you<\/em> wouldn\u2019t exist either.<\/p>\nOh, I know the standard pro-life response, or at least how I would have responded to all this as a pro-lifer. I would have said that abortion is different because a zygote, embryo, and fetus has unique DNA and a soul. I\u2019m not saying that the decision to not have sex with someone is somehow identical to the decision to have an abortion. All I\u2019m saying is that the exact same logic behind the slogan \u201cSmile! Your Mom Chose Life!\u201d can be extrapolated to additional slogans like \u201cSmile! Your Mom Didn\u2019t Use Birth Control!\u201d or \u201cSmile! Your Mom Had Sex!\u201d And because of this, I no longer feel the tug on my heart strings that I used to feel when faced with a \u201cSmile! Your Mom Chose Life!\u201d bumper sticker. Sure, I wouldn\u2019t exist if my mother had had an abortion. And I also wouldn\u2019t exist if my mother and father hadn\u2019t had sex, or if my mom hadn\u2019t moved across the country and thus met my dad.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Smile! Your Mom Chose Life!” I found this slogan very compelling when I opposed abortion. I mean, think about it! If your mom had had an abortion, you would not exist! Would you like to not exist? I didn’t think so! So how can you be in favor of keeping abortion legal without being hypocritical? And then one day I realized something. I wouldn’t exist if my parents hadn’t had sex either. Or if they hadn’t met. Or if they hadn’t been born.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[104,105],"class_list":["post-12501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-abortion-2","tag-sex-2"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Your Mom Chose Life!" I found this slogan very compelling when I opposed abortion. I mean, think about it! If your mom had had an abortion, you would not exist! Would you like to not exist? I didn't think so! So how can you be in favor of keeping abortion legal without being hypocritical? And then one day I realized something. I wouldn't exist if my parents hadn't had sex either. Or if they hadn't met. 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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/02\/KC-SYMA_Smile_Your_Mom_chose_Life.jpg\" "\\"KC-SYMA_Smile_Your_Mom_chose_Life\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n