First of all I want to wish everyone a Happy Martin Luther King Day! I find it especially appropriate that it comes one day before a historic inauguration. Even though MLK’s dream isn’t fully realized, I believe our country is on the right path towards recognizing his dream.

Since the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is coming up, the prolife movement here in South Carolina had their state march for life. The march begins right in front of the student center on my campus and the state capitol is just a few blocks away. I decided to get up and go to the march and to my surprise a girl on my floor who I’m beginning to develop a friendship with also attended. However, attending the march made me realize how I really don’t fit in the prolife movement anymore.

As a nursing student I recognize the reality of life in the womb before birth and have a difficult time with Obama’s position on signing the Freedom of Choice Act and have even written to my senators and representative to oppose its passage. Yet at the march I get this strong vibe that to be prolife you must be a conservative Christian. I even saw a few anti Catholic signs and people passing tracts explaining why Catholics aren’t “real Christians”. What the heck does that have to do with being prolife?

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve felt alienated in the prolife movement. When I moved to the Columbia campus last fall, I attended a Students for Life meeting. However, I got very put off by this guy that kept bashing liberals and the anti-contraception attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I believe teaching abstinence is important but ignorance about sexuality isn’t going to achieve that. The final straw was the liberal bashing guy was reading a book by our Senator Demint. Even though our Senator is prolife, in the book and during his election campaign for the Senate back in 2004, he had said that unwed mothers shouldn’t be allowed to teach in public schools. So we tell girls not to have an abortion and then punish them for doing the right thing? Then we have the nerve to complain about “welfare queens”. To top it off the guy starting talking about how there’s nothing inherently wrong with war. Yes, he talked about this at a “prolife” club. No, I’m not a pacifist, but going to war just b/c we can is utterly stupid and wrong.

This may be quite offensive to some people but it’s been on my mind for quite some time now. Many conservative Christians who are prolife talk about how sacred life is and that every human life matters to God. While I believe that to be true, evangelical Christian theology does not support that. Many people like to talk about how precious the unborn babies in the pretty pictures are yet according to evangelical doctrine 80-90% of those same babies will burn in hell forever is they reach a certain age and haven’t “made Jesus Lord”. I remember seeing a sign with 4 stages of fetal development with the words “beautiful”, “wonderful” and “incredible” Yet in Sunday School I remember a teacher telling us that newborns are essentially little sinners. So I guess human life is no longer beautiful and sacred once it slips out the mother’s birth canal?

Maybe I’ve gone completely nuts but I believe the church’s legalistic, divisive, and exclusive attitudes and doctrines are the reason why it has been unable to stop abortion. God may love people while they’re in the womb but once you’re out you’re deserve to go to hell simply for being born. We feel distraught that a baby is thrown away because it is unwanted, inconvienent, disabled, etc yet God is going to throw away the vast majority of the human race and torture them in a way that would make partial birth abortion very humane. How can the church expect others to value human life when its theology talks about the utter worthlessness of human life?

Martin Luther King Jr. wanted a society that treated everyone as equal in the eyes of God. Sadly, he never lived to see that reality but we can continue his legacy. America has come a long way in dealing with racial prejudice, but we still have a long way to go in dealing with racism, homophobia, sexism, and spirtual racism. If you’re unaware of the concept of spiritual racism, I’d encourage you to read this wonderful article. http://www.gospelrevolution.com/spiritual_rights.htm That is my dream for the future.