Defending Life: Ten Articles

Defending life is not a partisan issue. The gospel calls for lifelong protection of the weak and vulnerable. Here’s a collection of some of Plough’s best writing on what it means to be pro-life.

The Image of God

In the Image of God
“What does creation ‘in God’s image’ mean?” asks Johann Christoph Arnold. “It means that we are to be a living picture of who God is. It means that we are to be co-workers who further his work of creating and nurturing life.”

The Gospel of Life: Readings from Evangelium Vitae
Insights from Pope John Paul II: “All together, we must build a new culture of life: new, because it will be able to confront and solve today’s unprecedented problems affecting human life.”

Every Child Is a Thought of God
Eberhard Arnold writes about the mystery of a new life: “When we receive a little child from God, a soul is entrusted to humankind from eternity. No matter how often this happens, each time it is a powerful event, something unbelievably great.”

Consistent Life Ethic

A World Where Abortion Is Unthinkable
Let’s not only focus on making abortion illegal, writes Shelley Douglas. Let’s try to imagine, and work toward, a world where abortion is unthinkable.

Womb to Tomb: Imagining a Completely Pro-Life Politics
“From the moment of conception,” writes Ron Sider, “we are dealing with persons made in the image of God.”

Building the Jesus Movement: An Interview with Shane Claiborne
“It’s unhelpful that the term pro-life has come to mean only anti-abortion. In my neighborhood in Kensington, Philadelphia, to be pro-life means that I’ve got to figure out how to support a fifteen-year-old girl when she gets pregnant. These aren’t just ‘issues,’ they’re human beings.”

All Have Worth

Pursuing Happiness
In 2014, Richard Dawkins wrote: “If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.” Erna Albertz would like him to meet her little sister Iris, who has Down syndrome … and a great capacity for happiness and love.

The Teacher Who Never Spoke
And here’s someone else to meet: Duane Bazeley, who never learned to speak, but still coached dozens of his peers into manhood.

Living Inspirations

Heaven in Hell’s Kitchen: Saving Manhattan, One Child at a Time
A profile of the Sisters of Life, who care for mothers and their children.

The Baby We Kept
Our son Yusang has Down syndrome. He saved another child’s life.

And some books as well:

Perfectly Human, by Sarah C. Williams
She knew they would only have a few fleeting months together, but in that time Sarah’s unborn daughter would transform her understanding of beauty, worth, and the gift of life.

You Carried Me, by Melissa Ohden
Melissa Ohden was fourteen when she learned that she was the survivor of a botched abortion. In You Carried Me, she details for the first time her search for her biological parents and her own journey from anger and shame to faith and forgiveness.

Sex, God, and Marriage, by Johann Christoph Arnold
Thinking about sex, love, and marriage in the light of our relationship with God. Foreword by Mother Teresa.

From the community behind Plough, a statement on Dobbs vs. Jackson:

Where Every Child Is Wanted
Even the best government cannot carry the burden of an unplanned pregnancy. Together we must work for a society where every child who is conceived is wanted, loved, and cared for (from Bruderhof.com).