I understand this is sensitive, especially this close to a Roe v. Wade anniversary, but …

Surely at least you folks who assured everyone that gun control laws will not stop mass shootings must understand that criminalizing abortion will not put a stop to the practice?

I’m all for repealing legislation that requires taxpayers to fund abortions against their consciences — it’s just wrong.

Yet if we really want to reduce the number of abortions, we Christians need to quit putting all our eggs in the anti-abortion law basket. We need to be about the much harder business of meeting, befriending, loving and accepting young unmarried women who are pregnant — especially those who have no history of parental love, no knowledge of a loving and forgiving God or His Savior Son, and no visible means of financial support. We need to be willing to open our hearts, homes and maybe even wallets to help them to choose a better option. We need to be willing to set up vocational training and day care opportunities through our churches. We need to establish fellowships for adoption and scholarships for career-seeking young women who intend to keep their babies.

We need to be willing to provide foster homes for babies given for adoption, and legal assistance with fees, and help in connecting birth-mothers with adoptive families.

We need to be ambassadors of God’s grace in this world, not spigots of judgment and condemnation, and/or legislators of morality.

Anyone can sign a petition, cast a vote, badger a legislator to pass a law, and go back to their lives the next minute, able to salve their consciences that they didn’t make a wrong choice that led to pregnancy and they’re not responsible.

If we’re really serious about saving the lives of unborn children, then we need to face the hard choices, too.

I’m a parent of two awesome adopted children, and I owe more than I can ever repay to some exemplary people who made some very tough choices.

We can try row upstream against the river of public opinion with nothing but anti-abortion legislation, continue to wade through it, or hoist sail by expressing the love that explains why we oppose it and also Who died so that God’s family could grow.