A Call to Arms, Little Hands and Little Toes

By Pastor Bill

These were dad-to-daughter words spoken to Sarah Polley, Canada’s talented Oscar nominee filmmaker. In her documemoir, Stories We Tell (2012, National Film Board of Canada), her late mother Diane was clearly upset at the news of her unplanned pregnancy. She was 42, could scarcely afford another child, and was worried about having a Down syndrome baby. Plus, secretly she was struggling about the identity of the baby’s father. Feeling desperate, she made arrangements with a Toronto hospital for an abortion. But her husband recounts, “Before reaching the main entrance Diane slammed on the breaks of her life blurting out to herself and to me: ‘I can’t go ahead with this!’”

And yet, in Polley’s film, her mother’s last minute “pro-life” choice is simply a fortuitous footnote. The arc of the film serves to reveal the family secret. Sarah’s true birth father is someone else because her late mother had a hush-hush affair. So, in Stories We Tell (2012), the “I can’t go ahead with this” decision drips with irony: if her mother had proceeded with the abortion, there would be absolutely no story to tell – at least by Sarah Ellen Polley, actress, writer, director, and producer.

When’s the last time, regardless of your family saga and upbringing, that you put on the brakes and thanked God your creator for the gift of your very existence? Every day, you can look up at the skies knowing that you, a consciousness with a conscience, are on a planet whirling around the sun in a solar system traveling in space. Isn’t it humbling that in the first place our basic capacity to live and have our being as sentient creatures made in God’s image depends on His ground zero gift of human existence? Only God is self-existent, so all our expressions of wonder and worship assume His prior gift of our human beingness.

Listen to the psalmist marvel with praise for this gift of God: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well” (Psalm 139:14). And his words of wonder refer to his preborn self: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). The science of embryology is stubbornly clear. From the very earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. And biblically, our human existence is pictured here within the shadow of our mother’s womb where God like a master weaver intricately and carefully intertwined fibers of fabric to make up our being. And what’s more? He planned out our lives – every-day – even when we were just the merging of two cells: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16). Praise be to God, independent in His self-sufficiency but graciously self-giving in fashioning us for His glory to enjoy Him all the days of our lives.

This is why we rejoice every time we hear another beauty for ashes story from a mother who seemingly against all odds says “no” to abortion. This is why Canadian Christians rejoice for American Christians who are celebrating last month’s June 24th Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Despite the reaction of anger and hostility I’ve seen and read from progressives, what a decision for righteousness it was. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers” (Proverbs 21:15). “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).

So how do we live out our pro-God, pro-life convictions? How can we renew our call to arms?

1. 1. Relentlessly pray, following the example of like-minded American believers who persevered for almost 50 years of federally legalized abortion, a time period that accounted for the killing of some 63 million babies.
   2. Persistently cry out to our government leaders (yes, against all human odds) to repeal the constitutionally conferred right to murder pre-born children (in Canada there are nearly 300 daily abortions).
   3. Familiarize yourself with the contact information of your Members of Parliament and your Members of Provincial Parliament, plus keep abreast of the voting records of your elected representatives here.
   4. Be alert to the personal privilege and invitation to graciously help those facing the trauma of unwanted or crisis pregnancies.
   5. Support and be aware of Pregnancy Care Canada and its affiliated pregnancy care centres that all identify as Christian organizations. Fact 1: Canada has no abortion law whatsoever. Fact 2: Unexpected pregnancies will never be legislated out of existence. Therefore, pregnancy care centres remain a vital safe place for vulnerable women and men to receive compassionate care, medically accurate info, and practical resources as they work through their unique challenges and life-impacting decisions.
   6. Champion life through adoption and foster care, and the support of others who have adopted or are serving as foster parents. Plus, support and be aware of Christian adoption agencies like this one, Christian foundations for financial assistance like this one, and adoption self-assessment tools like this one.
   7. Ramp up and learn to be an effective and knowledgeable advocate for the pre-born by reading a kindle book like this one, or downloading a free eBook like this one, or listening to podcasts like this one, or taking an online classroom lesson from here.
   8. Plan to be a public witness of silent protest at Campaign Life Coalition’s LIFE CHAIN event on Sunday, October 2 from 2-3 PM in Brampton (7 locations), Orangeville, Alliston, Nobleton, or Tottenham.

May our pro-life convictions be neither incidental or accidental. May they be motivated neither by politics or partisanship. Instead, for the humble praise of the creator and giver of human life, both biological and spiritual, may we be a church known by our love for God and neighbour, including the adopted and their adoptive parents, the single mother or father, those marginalized and vulnerable, and especially those who are voiceless like the unborn. May God use us to be the story behind their story.