On Southern Baptist's Irresponsible God

Southern Baptist ethicist, Ben Mitchell, describes the use of contraception as a form of abortion. He says, the pill creates "a hostile environment in the uterus so that the embryo is expelled. That's chemical abortion, plain and simple." Ethics Daily quotes Mitchell further:

Some pro-lifers who believe that life begins at conception say "morning after" contraception is really a form of abortion, because in some cases the pills work by preventing a fertilized ovum from implanting in the wall of the woman's uterus.

"A so-called fertilized egg is an embryo," said Ben Mitchell, a consultant on biomedical and life issues for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "An embryo is a very young human being."

"The morning-after pill is another technological fix for a sexually promiscuous and anti-natal culture," said Mitchell, an associate professor of bioethics and contemporary culture at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. Primary users, he said, are "sexually active women who do not want the responsibility that goes along with having sex."

When Mitchell studied this issue, he should have learned that enormous numbers of human embryos, or in his words "very young human beings," spontaneously abort through natural processes. At some point, those who profess to have thought through these issues might be expected to wonder why God could not also be accused of treating so many embryonic human beings "irresponsibly."

If every embryo is indeed a "very young human being," why would a loving God who designed a good universe create a process so wasteful of human life?

To my knowledge, Southern Baptist ethicists have never addressed this issue.