Abraham's Lapses

There is a debate raging in my spirit. I want to obey God but I don't know what He's calling me to do.

The situation boils down to this: abortion to save the life of the mother.

I suffered an ectopic pregnancy in the spring. It came in the form of what looked like a miscarriage on the day after my 37th birthday. The evening before, we were sharing the celebration with another friend who has the same birthday and were speaking about pregnancy and Rh negative syndrome and when you need to receive the blood-product antibody and when you don't. Strange dinner conversation? God had a plan. It was that conversation that put the need top-of-mind for me and sent me to the OB where routine lab work showed that I was still pregnant. Two sonograms later, I was facing the reality of needing to rid my body of this conception gone awry.

An ectopic pregnancy is when the baby (medically referred to as a blastocyst) implants itself somewhere other than the uterus -- usually the fallopian tube. That was the case with mine. It was explained to me that the "blastocyst" will continue to grow until it ruptures the tube, thereby killing the baby and endangering the mother's life due to internal bleeding. I was told in no uncertain terms that the blastocyst is not viable, and unfortunately cannot be surgically moved to its proper place in the uterus. (It was my first question.)

The treatment for this condition hinges on the size of the blastocyst. If caught early enough, as was mine, it is dissolved with chemotherapy medication called methotrexate. If later and bigger, removal will require surgery -- sometimes the surgeon can spare the tube, sometimes not. Nobody talks about it in these terms, but this is abortion to save the life of the mother.

What does God think? I've had much support offered by godly people whom I regard, but none can tell me what the Lord thinks. I've heard statements like, "I don't know that I would do anything differently than you did." Compassionate -- but not the Mind of the Lord. Another popular counsel is, "You have 3 other children to raise! You need to be here for them!" Reasonable, but again -- not the Mind of the Lord. I'd like to think that the Lord wants me here with my children, but I see Him take mothers away all the time, and He saw fit to do no differently for the apostles of Jesus.

I've spent a fair amount of this debate thinking about Jesus. He laid down His life for the sake of others -- but then He knew that His death was not in vain. My laying down my life will absolutely not result in the life of another -- I can't bring a baby to term if I've bled to death.

Then I consider that God is the giver of life, and I take it as a calling. Am I being unfaithful to abort the calling, or would staying the course in the face of such medical understanding be irresponsible to the calling I have to my born children? In my BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) class, we are examining Abraham's lapses in telling half-truths about Sarah's true relation to him as well as an episode where he presumably perceives starvation coming around the bend as his area is struck by famine. He heads to Egypt, and we recognize that as a lapse in his faith.

Really? Where is that line between godly wisdom and ungodly fear? Does God include this account of Abraham for us because He wants or expects us to do better? Or is the story really there to show us that this is the best that we can do -- so that we never fail to recognize how much we need His grace.

There is another hitch to this dilemma, and it's a big one. I was informed by two different people (one before the abortion, one after) that there was a documented case of tubal pregnancy resulting in the birth of a live child. When I brought the information to my OB, she scoffed and said it sounded like a story from the National Enquirer. Weeks later, I found it on the web by "googling" the keywords ectopic miracle. The story is reported by the BBC and it happened in 1999. Apparently a woman there was pregnant with twins and an ectopic that ruptured and spontaneously reimplanted and grew its own placenta. Nobody knew about the 3rd baby until later in the pregnancy, and before 30 weeks, all were delivered by c-section. The ectopic baby was described to have been the healthiest of the 3!

What do I do with that? Or, maybe in seeking the mind of God, it doesn't matter.

So -- is abortion in the case of saving the life of this mother for or against God? I run a 20% risk of it occuring again in subsequent pregnancies. I haven't repented of my choice because that would suggest I'd do it differently if I had it to do again. I don't know what I'll do if He chooses to test me again -- I have so much more information than before. I can't say that I can choose either option with the faith that I need to please Him.