PCCs fight abortion with a 'double-edged sword'

Thirty years after the 1973 Supreme Court decision in favor of elective abortion in Roe v. Wade, Joe Maddox said he believes pastors and congregations are still not fully aware of how abortion has affected American families.

"Families have been smashed and broken because of Roe v. Wade," said Maddox, director of missions for the Alachua Baptist Association. "It is sad that Christians and the churches slept through those days."

Maddox, who was in his 20s in 1973, said he really couldn't remember anything being said about the issue in the Southern Baptist church he attended.

For the last two years Maddox and others in Citrus County have fought the Court's decision-not with placards or protests-but through the ministry of a Pregnancy Care Center in Inverness.

Maddox is part of a growing number of Florida Baptists who are acting on their convictions by supporting Pregnancy Care Centers (PCC). Joining Maddox in his fight in Citrus County is Mary Lou Henry, director of the Life Choice Care Center in Inverness.

Both said they believe the issue of what to do about abortion-its immediate affects and after-effects, goes far beyond easily tossed around rhetoric.

"We need to get beyond the political issue," Maddox told Florida Baptist Witness. "God loved these babies long before it was a political issue. It is an ethical issue."

And it is more than an issue of killing babies, according to Henry. She said she is now counseling a woman who has been dealing with the guilt of her abortion for more than 20 years.

"The pain and guilt does not go away," Henry said. Abortion has caused "heartache, years of tension, secrets, guilt, depression and suicide."

But Henry said what Christians can do is offer hope in Christ. And that is where a PCC comes in.

"I have seen great healing by the power of God," Henry said, even for the men who come to the pregnancy care center with their wives or girlfriends.

And making abortion just a woman's issue and not including men as part of the equation has been a "major mistake," Maddox commented.

"Christian men need to become leaders in this area," Maddox said. As the father of seven, he said sometime even Christians fault the woman for an abortion but are silent about the man who "walked away."

"Because [the men] have not confessed their sin and acknowledged the child, they are not whole men," Maddox said. "They have the freedom and do not live with the consequences of their actions." Some men don't take responsibility because they might feel guilty or ashamed, he added.

Coleman Pratt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Union Park in Orlando, couldn't agree more. In an interview with FBW, he said men sometimes side-step the issue when they are most needed.

"[Christian] men have the responsibility to be the shepherd. He should be the leader and protector of women and children-the shepherd to the weakest lambs," said Pratt.

Pratt said he believes one reason it has taken so long for Southern Baptists to become involved in the abortion issue is the fear of being considered "liberal" and promoting a "social gospel" of good works without a witness for Christ. Pratt said when Christians "marry" the Gospel with social work, it can save lives both physically and spiritually.

"Evangelical pregnancy care centers can be like a double-edged sword-saving the lives of babies and healing the lives of men and women," Pratt said. His church has been praying for three months about starting a PCC.

"I am proud that the Southern Baptist Convention is stepping out about the abortion issue," Pratt said. "If it is God's will, I hope 50 years from now that my legacy will be that souls were saved because of the pregnancy care center we started."

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