I may flatter myself, but I like to think I’ve matured as a prolifer. and having learned some philosophy and theology,  I was pro-life out of moral principle. Now, however, I increasingly think that to be pro-life is to share in the extravagant love and mercy of God for his people. Which is to say, to be pro-life is to help save the world by grace. I would like my fellow prolifers to appreciate their importance in the economy of salvation.

Let’s approach this from an opposing perspective: Entitlement. Or the belief that “other people owe me stuff.” Entitlement recently re-entered public discourse when a pop song revived the legend of welfare queens, “obese” people who, according to the lyrics, are “milkin’ welfare” by buying “fudge rounds.” The implication is that beneficiaries of public assistance owe us a better standard of judgment in their grocery choices.

The welfare-queen legend parallels other, more insidious political archetypes. The Right complains of “anchor babies,” whose mothers exploit temporary government aid by having children to make a profit. We can hear similar scorn in the Left’s use of “unwanted child”: Wouldn’t abortion be better, they insist, than the imposition of a miserable life—maybe even incarceration!—at public expense?

As against these alleged social threats, Jesus introduces the notion of forgiveness. “Forgiveness” can have different meanings, but in the case of Jesus, the most reliable is the forgiveness of debts. In other words, to forgive someone is to let go of our notion of entitlement. In Jesus’ teaching, I have truly forgiven you when I can honestly say: “You no longer owe me anything.” This can apply to money, of course, but more often it applies to apologies for injury or bad behavior. (Forgiveness, while it doesn’t require a change of behavior on the part of the forgiven, doesn’t require the forgiver to continue to submit to bad behavior or ongoing abuse.)

One of the clearest examples of this teaching is found in last Sunday’s reading from the Roman and Common lectionaries, the parable of the unforgiving servant. The senior servant of a king refuses to forgive his junior a debt of one hundred days’ wages, maybe the equivalent of $12,000 today—a noticeable amount, so far as my bank account is concerned! But by his refusal, the senior servant condemns himself, for he fails to consider how the king had forgiven him a debt of “ten thousand talenton,” an archaic measure comparable to contemporary measurements of the national budget—that is, untold billions of dollars, which no one could ever hope to repay.

Originally, in resolution of the debt, the senior servant and his wife and children were to be sold into slavery. But after his refusal to forgive another’s debt, the judgment is retracted, and he is consigned instead to debtor’s prison, and torturers are commissioned to motivate him to repay the debt. Of course, in debtor’s prison and under torture, he will be unable to earn anything; he will be entirely dependent on the charity of others. Based on the servant’s conduct, one suspects that such charity will be slow in coming to him.

Like many of Jesus’ parables, this one is simultaneously amusing and sobering. There’s irony in the servant’s second fate: tortured until he repays, unable to earn while tortured. But it’s sobering when we realize that Jesus means the parable apply to all of us: “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

I think of the pro-life movement as an embodiment of that extravagant exhortation to forgive. When folks insist that other people’s babies are their problem, the pro-life movement intervenes: “No, the babies are gifts! Wherever their parents are unwilling or unable to provide, we will all gladly share the burden!”

By renouncing the usual social expectations of entitlement, prolifers practice Jesus’ forgiveness and promote a culture of extravagant love and care—harbinger of the salvation of which Jesus so often speaks. And we are not owed consideration for caring for unwanted children; on the contrary, it is we who owe their mothers a debt of gratitude for bringing them into the world.

So let us encourage each other to reject the notion that other people owe us something for our efforts, or for our pro-life orthodoxy. Rather than imagining that we deserve remuneration, let us speak and live in grace: In gratitude for the love we received as children, and eager to share that love with mothers, babies, and all comers. For thus we share in Jesus’ work for the salvation of the world.