Abortionist Willie Parker identifies as a born-again Christian. But as Dr. Russell Moore asked, Who would Jesus abort?

How does a professed Christian physician become an abortionist? John Richardson has written a piece in Esquire Magazine about Dr. Parker’s “come to Jesus” moment. This OBY-GYN doctor specialized in helping mothers deliver their babies safely into the world … until he decided to become a so-called “abortion doctor” who killed babies as they came into the world. His conversion to pro-abortion came at the time of the assassination of late-term abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, while Tiller was ushering at his church, Reformed Lutheran in Wichita, Kansas one Sunday morning.

Tiller was the Medical Director of Women’s Health Care Services, one of three late-term abortion clinics in the country. Tiller’s web site once bragged that they had performed 60,000 mostly late-term abortions.

It was the murder of his fellow professed Christian that motivated Parker to change his practice. Richardson writes.

Finally, he had his “come to Jesus” moment and the bell rang. This would be his civil-rights struggle. He would serve women in their darkest moment of need. “The protesters say they’re opposed to abortion because they’re Christian,” Parker says. “It’s hard for them to accept that I do abortions because I’m a Christian.” He gave up obstetrics to become a full-time abortionist on the day, five years ago, that George Tiller was murdered in church.

Parker describes himself as a “reproductive justice advocate.” He sees “reproductive justice” as a stance of Christian compassion toward women “suffering” from an unwanted pregnancy. That makes abortion itself a moral act.

The abortionist who practices

Parker describes his earnestness to train as an abortionist. He thinks of the Planned Parent abortuary (my term, not his) as a gymnasium for training. He writes that he would go to the clinic “and perform abortions, over and over, like the athlete who goes to the gym after practice to shoot three pointers.” On these “training” visits he would do as many abortions as he could because “I wanted to get to the point where the procedure was automatic, a synthesis of muscle memory and mental vigilance.”

Can we read this description without being sickened? He trained for muscle memory while his conscience lost memory. How else could someone who professes Christ, who spent his career delivering babies, now give his life to destroying babies and objectifying mothers?

Parker may be considered a circuit-riding, pro-choice evangelist and abortionist. He travels to under-served areas in Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, performing as many as 40 abortions a day. His book, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice, explains why he thinks aborting babies is a moral act of compassion.

How can Dr. Parker be so wrongly impassioned? Because he has denied both the authority of scripture and the function of science.

As a professed Christian, Parker is to be under the authority of the Bible to determine what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral. Instead he has put the Scriptures under his authority to determine what is right and wrong. Scriptures assert that every human being is made in the image of God and thus every human life is sacred.

But Parker has also set aside science. At one time, abortionists claimed to have science on their side while labeling pro-lifers anti-science. Those promoting life, supposedly, had only the scripture for support of their view of human life. Now, science has revealed the humanity of the unborn baby and the tables have turned. Now it is Dr. Parker and his ilk who have abandoned science.

Nancy Pearcey brilliantly unpacks this shift when she writes in her article “Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science.” She points out that, at one time, abortionists could avoid their moral dilemma by simply using non-human terms for babies—a product of conception, tissue, an unwanted substance in a woman’s body. But now science has established the humanity of the unborn baby.

Now is the time to turn the tables and make the case that it’s the pro-abortion stance that is actually anti-science.

In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human — biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”

How do abortionists live with themselves

Science now affirms that what a woman carries in her body is not some appendage, but another human being. Given this consensus, how do pro-abortionists continue to live with themselves? They become dualists. They make a mental separation between the body and the soul. They argue that the baby is not fully human until it reaches the point of self-awareness, many months after birth. Pearcey continues:

How do liberals get around that scientific fact? By denying the relevance of science.

Liberals argue that the sheer fact of being human does not confer any moral worth. Nor does it warrant legal protection. The turning point is said to be when an individual becomes a “person,” generally defined in terms of self-awareness, autonomy, or other cognitive capabilities.

This is called personhood theory, and it implies a dangerously divided view of the human being. On one hand, the physical body, knowable by science, is trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. Human life is reduced to a utilitarian calculus subject only to a cost-benefit analysis.

On the other hand, the concept of personhood has been disconnected from the biological fact of being human, which renders it ultimately arbitrary. Ethicists disagree even on the point when personhood begins: Is it when the fetus starts to exhibit neural activity, or feels pain, or achieves a certain level of consciousness?

Following this logic, people are now arguing for “after-birth abortions.” If a mother is not happy with the birthed child she has the right to choose to have her baby aborted after she is born. In this thinking, a woman is still empowered to be pro-“choice” (more accurately, of course, pro-abortion). Her life as a “self-aware” human being takes precedence over her baby’s life, whether in or out of the womb.

Perhaps Dr. Parker has not thought this through. Many people do not analyze the ideas that are shaping their lives and actions. Parker is denying both science and the Scriptures. May he have another “come to Jesus” moment. May he come to see

• that Christianity is true, not because he believes it, but because Christ is who He claimed to be,
• that we live in the universe God has made,
• that all human beings are, indeed, the very image of God.

May Dr. Parker become a pro-life zealot and return to his OB-GYN practice, helping mothers safely bring their precious children into the world.

• Darrow Miller

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