Pro Choice

This is not an article about abortion. This is an article about choice itself.

But, let's use abortion as an example. Here's the thing: if it ever came to pass that laws making abortion illegal were constitutional (i.e. reverse Roe v. Wade) you would not stop abortions from happening. If you destroyed and/or closed every abortion service provider in the world, you would not stop abortion from happening. Even if you could convince the entire world to agree that conception creates a human life as complete as you or I standing there, you would not stop abortions from happening.

Let's consider another equally divisive choice: gun control. Go ahead, remove the 2nd amendment of the Constitution. Pass another amendment that said it never existed in the first place, if you want. You can even go so far as to master time travel and go back to the creation of the Bill of Rights and talk them out of ever writing it down. You still won't prevent deaths or injury or even crimes that involve guns. Technically, if it were possible to physically remove every gun from the face of the earth and prevent the manufacture of any more, you could eliminate the aforementioned atrocities involving guns. But, you wouldn't prevent the atrocities themselves (murder, injury, and crime).

God created humans with choices. No human or human effort is going to change that. Even denying the existence of God and creation will not change that. It is at the very core of being human to make choices. With great effort and extreme cruelty it is possible to prevent a given human from the outward expression or outcomes of their choices (did you every see the movie Boxing Helena?) But you cannot prevent them from making choices in their mind, and really all you end up doing is making choices for them, not actually eliminating choice itself.

Saying you are pro-choice is technically redundant. If you "are" you are. It is more accurate to say you are pro-abortion or anti-abortion, that you support the use of firearms or oppose their use.

Can choice, itself, be a "bad" thing? Consult the creator on that one. Or don't, it's your choice.

I cannot presume to know why God would do anything, but I can easily understand one good explanation why He would create free will: without it, love cannot exist. Unless his beloved humans can choose to love Him, love cannot be (He could create another creature to do so instead of humans, but that fails to grasp the nature of God--God does not make junk, nor does He need duplicity.) The same is true for our relationships, even if we fail to understand it. Love cannot be demanded, else it is not love. Of course, this whole point is premised with "God is love" and the Gospel of John literally states and the entire Bible notates and demonstrates. If God had no need for love, freewill would, likewise, be unnecessary. It's a corollary. It's a priori.

None of that is to say that people to not make "bad" choices. If a choice is an action, any action can have one or many negative consequence(s). The arguments around the examples I started with are all about one side trying to convince the other that their consequences are negative and, therefore, worthy of prevention or even elimination.

And neither side is going to win thinking like that.

The "battle" of good and evil is not our battle to fight or win, technically. We cannot create or eliminate either. It is not within human power. We do, however, have a role. We are part of the creation itself. Our actions do matter. We will even be accountable for our actions.

And yet, we are not responsible for the outcomes. That is to say, we are called to be faithful, not successful. The success is not ours to own.

We have only the choice to be faithful. Or not. It's as simple as that.