Who are the least of these?

My two year old son, compared to most people, is pretty helpless.  Physically, he has no ability to defend himself.  As far as sustenance, he can open the fridge and grab whatever is in there, but that’s about it.

Even more helpless is his one year old sister.  She doesn’t even have the strength to open the refrigerator door.  She just started walking a few weeks ago.

Our son, despite being a physically inferior being, can still try to impose his will on his sister.  A major part of our job is making sure he doesn’t beat up on her when she takes a toy.  We do this so that he will not physically harm his sister, and also because he needs to simply learn not to beat up on people.   When we discipline, we try to do more than simply preventing him from hitting her.  We try to discipline out of love and use these instances as a teaching lesson.   The fact that we don’t let him beat up on his sister doesn’t mean we love him less, although we do try to affirm our love to him while disciplining him.

Even though our son is, in a sense, the “least of these”, there is still someone smaller and more helpless than he is, someone we teach him not to harm.

The reason I bring this up is that there is a Christian pro-choice argument floating around.  The argument is that the typical women considering abortion are scared and with few resources.  By not letting them have abortions we are not “loving” them.  In many ways, these women are indeed the “least of these”.   But involved in this decision is someone who is even more helpless.  I believe as Christians it is our role to help and defend those who have no voice.  I don’t use this comparison to trivialize the decision;  I don’t want to equate wanting a toy to abortion.  Where the analogy comes in is that just because someone is weak and helpless doesn’t mean we should ignore the needs of those more helpless than they are.

Also, when it comes to the abortion issue, it goes beyond telling a woman “don’t do it.”  If we meet someone in that situation, we should do all we can to help out and show Christ’s love.  Getting involved in this issue is simply more than voting pro-life, but taking initiative by getting involved in issues that help out poor expectant mothers.