Donald Miller & Abortion
So, I posted about Donald Miller the other day. I hate to keep picking on the same person but decided this had to be commented on as well.
Like I said the other day…I am not really a fan of Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz). He gave the Benediction the other night at the Democratic National Convention. As I said before, I have no problem with him doing that.
Miller recently gave an interview to someone from Christianity Today talking about why he is at the DNC. The video that I saw can be found here or below.
So, in this video, Miller talks about abortion. He says, “Legislation was passed that we hope will reduce the number of abortions by dealing with systemic social problems…The Republican, Evangelical, Conservative mindset has been to make it illegal and it has never worked. I don’t see it working anytime soon.”
On the surface, this sounds kind of novel. You at first think, “I have not looked at this quite like that before.” But after about half a second, you see the smoke and mirrors. First, Miller is making the assumption that most abortions occur because a woman is under social distress. Is this really true? Or, are most women having abortions because a child is not convenient for them at that time? Will fixing social problems really change anything? I seriously doubt it.
I will agree with Miller that it is a tragedy when a woman gets pregnant and does not feel that she has the ability to care for the child. But, Miller is assuming that there are not better alternatives to abortion. Wouldn’t adoption be a much, much better alternative while we work on fixing social problems? There are many couples throughout the country that would love to adopt a child. Wouldn’t a better approach be to encourage adoption and also cut a lot of the red tape that makes this process long and expensive? If social distress is the problem, adoption is the temporary solution, not abortion.
Let’s even take this one step further. I would say that murder occurs much, much more frequently due to social distress than does abortion. Most murders occur over drugs or money or bad social settings where anger goes uncontrolled. So, taking Miller’s argument and applying it to other issues, we should allow murder in this country and focus our energy on correcting the social problems that lead to murder. If he is saying that social problems leave a woman with no choice but an abortion, then he is also saying that social problems leave a person with no choice but murder, so that person should not be responsible for that action.
Furthermore, continuing Miller’s line of thinking, murder is illegal but that has not stopped murders. Does this mean that we should repeal the laws related to murder? Absolutely not! The job of government is to restrain evil, to punish evil, and to protect the weak and innocent. Murder is illegal to restrain evil and to protect the innocent even though social problems exist. By the same token, abortion should be illegal to restrain evil and to protect the innocent even though social problems exist.
Miller sounds so brilliant and pious on the surface, but you only have to pull back a couple of layers to realize that he is not saying anything of substance.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3
Once again, I find it very sad that Miller is viewed as a Christian leader to many American Christians.