Embryonic Power of Attorney

I asked God a dangerous question and was surprised by the answer! (A Blog Overview)

Ministering to people exiting the sex traffic trade in my city, I encounter women who want to know more about faith in Christ, but feel exiled from Christian communities because they are judged as murderers for aborting fetuses before they ever walk through the doors of a church. 

I struggle with my belief that human existence begins at conception AND my conviction that these women are innocent of murder.  So . . .

I asked God:  “What is YOUR opinion??”

If you’ve walked with God for very long, you know that is ALWAYS a dangerous question!

God reminded me of the difficult time following my mother’s debilitating stroke. 

Mom’s medical team made sure Dad was ready to assume the responsibility of Medical Power of Attorney should Mom have another stroke and lapse into a coma.  We wrestled with whether Dad would be a murderer for terminating life-support if it came to that.  As my dad, my sister, and I navigated these tough family discussions, one of the first things we learned was the definition of “viable.” 

A viable organism is considered ‘alive’ and has all its bodily systems functioning independently without external assistance.  A ‘sustainable organism’ is therefore NON-viable and able to be sustained artificially on a life-support system.

We learned that the Medical Power of Attorney has the legal authority to

provide electricity for,

maintain, and

regulate

the external LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM sustaining that non-viable human being.

We had already witnessed the triage of criteria for determining WHO has the Authority to make decisions in regard to a medical life-support system.

1.    First priority goes to the viable human who is designated as the Medical Decision-Making Authority by the patient while the patient was of sound mind -- or . . . cognitively viable --  and able to sign a Living Will.

2.    If the patient did not designate a Medical Power of Attorney, the second criterion falls to a spouse, partner, next of kin, or close friend who is able to be physically present at the medical facility and willing to assume decision-making Authority over a life-support system.

3.    Failing to satisfy the first two criteria, Power of Attorney falls to the attending physician whose medical facility is literally providing the electricity that powers the life-support system.

Since Dad was concerned about the murder aspect of his power of attorney, we began asking Mom’s medical staff all of our questions.  We learned:

1.    First:  You cannot murder someone who is non-viable. 

An organism has to be alive first before it can be ‘killed.’

2.    Second:  How many people do you know of who have made the difficult decision to ‘pull the plug’ on medical life-support sustaining a loved one, then found themselves convicted of murder?

We were all like: “Ummm . . .  NONE!”

This realization was a great relief to my father.

3.    Finally:  We learned that there is only ONE person on the planet with the legal Authority to continue or terminate a particular life-support system.  There is ONE Power of Attorney for each system.   In our case, it was our Dad.  A kind nurse explained to my sister and me that we could disagree with our dad’s decision to terminate Mom’s life support as loudly and as passionately as we like, but we still have NO authority to make any decisions regarding our mom’s medical life-support system. 

Dad’s Authority overrides that of Mom’s medical staff AND any concerns his own daughters might have about his decision to terminate life-support.

      We gained RESPECT for Dad’s Authority as Mom’s Power of Attorney

    AND we learned the LIMITS of our own authority to govern Dad’s choices 

in regard to a life-support system over which he is the sole Medical Power of Attorney.

Whew . . . after flooding my mind with all those memories of that difficult time in my family’s history, God turned my attention to

pregnancy. 

I gasped as I began to see the allegory.  God seemed giddy with excitement as my Creator showed off that feat of engineering.

It had NEVER occurred to me that God designed pro-creation to include a non-viable human being sustained on a life-support system

Intentionally

Beautifully

and with Pristine Perfection.

As a crowning achievement, my Creator revealed that each pregnant woman meets ALL THREE of the criteria for Medical Decision-Making Authority to

Power

Maintain and

Regulate

the life-support HER body provides to sustain each non-viable fetus within her.

Since the fetus NEVER WAS of ‘sound mind’ or cognitively viable to sign a Living Will, our Creator designates Medical Power of Attorney FOR the fetus every time He places one of His life-support systems in a WOMAN’S body

and NOWHERE else.  

Not in a man’s body.

Not on a politician’s desk.

In a WOMAN’S body.

God nearly knocked me over with this realization:

If my own father would not be a murderer for terminating the life-support system sustaining my own mother, a woman is not a murderer for terminating the life support HER body provides a non-viable fetus within her. 

For ALL the reasons that it is impossible to kill a human that is NO LONGER viable,

it is impossible to murder a human being that NEVER WAS viable.

Furthermore, God’s definition of ‘alive’ in Genesis 1:7 matches perfectly with the medical definition of ‘viable.’ Job 27:3 also supports this when it says, “As long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils.”

Nowadays, I say to the women I work with on my city’s streets:

If you feel exiled from Christian communities because you champion a woman’s Authority to continue or terminate the life-support HER body provides a non-viable fetus, consider this:

Every woman’s Embryonic Power of Attorney is built right into God’s Design for Pro-Creation.

(This initial post serves as an overview of the Quest God lead me into when I asked His opinion on the abortion rights issue. If you would like to read about each point touched on here in far more depth and detail, you are welcome to join me as I recreate my Quest with these blog postings)