In the public debate on abortion, the stand called "pro-life" is generally identified as the Christian viewpoint. It is not, however, the only Christian viewpoint. A far more common Christian viewpoint is that often self-described as "pro-life AND pro-choice"; or, "I want abortions to be safe, legal, and rare."
I am a Christian. If you read many of my articles, you will soon see that I am not a traditional Christian, and definitely not a fundamentalist one.
I regard the Bible as one part of the historic record of humanity's dialogue with God. I do not have to accept it as literally true and inerrant in every part in order to use it to inform my own dialogue with God. My own experience, perceptions, and thoughts will always be the controlling factor in my religious life. Anyone who says otherwise isn't being honest, or taking responsibility for their own arguments. You can't not make up your own mind. But to disregard entirely the experience, perceptions, and thoughts of others, and the record of many others over time, is just plain ignorant.
I do respect that for many other Christians, the Bible is of paramount importance in deciding their beliefs and actions.
However, whether regarded as an historic record that can be educational, or as revealed truth direct from God, the Bible cannot legitimately be used to justify that which is called the "pro-life" position, that abortion is a sin against God and a crime against human life.
All argument that abortion is sin seems to be based on the Biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill," combined with the claim that a fetus is a human being, therefore to kill it is to violate the commandment.
If a fetus truly is a human being, then the pro-life movement is right in opposing freedom of choice to have an abortion. We do not have freedom of choice to kill each other.
But the Bible itself does not give the fetus the status of a human being.
Exodus 21:22-25 says that if a man strikes a pregnant woman so as to cause a miscarriage, he must pay a fine to the expectant father. But if he otherwise injures the woman, he must be punished accordingly. If God regarded a fetus as a human life, the punishment for causing the death of a fetus would be the same as that for taking a human life.
Numbers 5:11-21 says that if a man suspects that his wife is pregnant as the result of intercourse with another man, he must take her to the temple, where the priest will give her a drink that will, if she is guilty, cause the fetus to discharge -- abort. If a fetus is a human in its own right, separate from its mother, then the fetus should not be punished for the sins of the mother.
A fetus is not a human being. It is potentially a human being. But the rights of the human being already in existence take priority over the rights of the human being not yet in existence, just as the living woman is valued more highly than the fetus she carries, in Exodus 21.
Our social ethics have advanced since Biblical days. We no longer practice slavery, which was taken for granted in both the Old and the New Testament. We are horrified by genocide, which was not only condoned by the Old Testament God, but outright ordered. In the United States we don't stone people who commit adultery, nor put to death people we consider "witches."
There is no Biblical law saying, "Thou shalt not exploit thy children, neither by forcing them to labor for your profit, nor by using them for thy sexual pleasure." But we regard child labor and child pornography as unethical, and we have made laws against them.
The same argument could be used to say, "It is true that a fetus was not regarded as a human being in the days of the Old Testament, but we were as children then, our ethics have advanced, now we know that the fetus is as much a human being as the mother, and we will be held accountable for acting accordingly."
Any such argument, though, cannot use the Bible to justify it, and must use other evidence to prove that a fetus is a human, has all the rights of a human, that those rights take priority over the rights of the female carrying it, and that society will benefit from practicing this.
Ethics are, basically, the way we figure we have to act in order to get the world we want to live in. Most of us want to live in a world where our lives and property are safe from violence; where we can live as we wish, limited only by respect for others' rights to live as they wish; where we have access to the resources to live; where life is to some extent predictable, promises and agreements will be honored; where we are not excluded from social institutions, but are a participant, with a voice in decisions that affect our lives that is equal to that of anyone else. Out of this, we have created a body of human rights precepts and civil law.
Some people believe that granting the legal right to abort a fetus makes it easier for society to accept violence toward others, besides fetuses. First abortion, then euthanasia, then horror on Earth.
I do not agree. I do not believe that the "right to life" of a fetus is a necessary consequence or a necessary foundation for other human rights. I do believe that the right of a woman to choose whether to continue or to terminate her own pregnancy is a necessary consequence and foundation for other human rights.
The majority of people who argue the "right to life" are not abortion clinic bombers. They do not make death threats against doctors who do abortions. They are appalled by and condemn the extremists who commit such acts.
But if legalizing abortion erodes the respect for life, and forbidding abortion enhances it, then no one who is against abortion would commit crimes against human life in support of their cause.
The anti-abortion stand is not justified by the Bible, nor does it seem to be an advancement of ethics beyond the Bible.
Human society is a great example of the second law of thermodynamics: any closed system will run down. Human rights don't just happen. Unless each generation has people who actively push the boundaries, human rights don't grow, they erode.
Protecting human rights and expanding human rights does not mean extending rights to the fetus. That is over-riding the rights of people who can speak for themselves, by people who claim to speak for others who can't say one way or the other.
Protecting human rights and expanding human rights means defending the right of a woman to choose abortion, and her access to safe, medical abortion, which includes public financing for abortions for women who cannot otherwise afford them.
Yes, that means that people who do not believe abortions are ethical will be taxed to pay for them. My taxes have been used to support things I disagreed with, too. That's the price I pay for living in a society where other people get an equal voice in decisions, and I am occasionally outnumbered by people who disagree with me. Democracy does not mean that you always get your own way.
I do believe that a few people can be right when the majority is wrong, and should remain vocally working to advance their views. That is how we ended slavery and child labor and got the vote for women and made other social progress. But if I do not want my life controlled by a small number of other people, then I can't dictate social decisions when I am in the minority myself.
People who believe that abortion is murder are right in trying to convince other people that abortion is murder. I hope that they will listen to arguments to the contrary, but they are free to act according to their own beliefs.
People who believe that abortion is murder are not right in forcing that decision upon others who do not agree.
As I see it personally, lots of embryos begin and fail to come to term, for lots of reasons. Some babies are stillborn. Some babies fail to thrive, die in infancy. If every single one of those cases was a soul which had only that one chance for a human life in which to decide its eternal fate, the Universe is irredeemably screwy and I will spend the rest of eternity drunk.
I do want passionately to save more of those lives. Making abortion illegal does not save more embryos from death. Improving the lives of women does. Improving the lives of women has to begin with respecting the self-determination of women. Then, instead of trying to prevent them from choosing to have an abortion, we can improve access to birth control, medical care, food, housing, and safety from violence, so that they have other real choices.
For Christians who support making abortion illegal, who are willing to learn more about the thinking of those on the other side of the argument, here are some recommended sources:
Web sites:
- Abortion in Law, History & Religion
- Abortion: Ethics
- The Abortion Debate
- Abortion Is Not a Sin from the site Adult Christianity
- A Christian Choice from the site Liberals Like Christ
Books:
- Birth Control in Jewish Law: Marital Relations, Contraception, and Abortion As Set Forth in the Classic Texts of Jewish Law
- If you can't part with $40 for the above book, the section dealing with abortion is covered online at Perspectives in Judaism.
- That is part of a greater body of material on Religious Perspectives on Abortion
- A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion: Catholic doctrine on ensoulment and abortion has not been the same down through history.
- Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions: There are competing views within many traditions.
- Abortion: My Choice, God's Grace: Christian Women Tell Their Stories: Personal stories both of women who made the choice for, and women who made the choice against, abortion.
- Live From the Gates of Hell : An Insider's Look at the Anti-Abortion Movement: The realities of the extremist right. This is not a movement that respects life.
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Comments: 18
I think it is important to remember that "should abortion be legal?" and "are abortions moral?" are two different, and pretty much independent, questions. That is, I can think abortions should be legal, but are immoral, that they should not be legal, and are moral, etc.
That is, abortions might not be moral, but I might want them to be legal because I would rather see people not get abortions due to persuasion rather than fiat. Similarly, I could believe they are moral, but should be illegal for other reasons. Traffic laws often fall into this category.
Personally, I think abortions should be legal, for the reason stated above. That is, if someone feels abortions are immoral, then they have the right to try to persuade women not to have them.
Another aspect of abortion is the father. That is, in the United States abortion is allowed without consulting the father of the fetus. Yet, one could make the case that in agreeing to have sex (which is always the case except in the case of rape) a woman agrees to carry a man's baby to term. Certainly, if a man fathers a child, and the women chooses to carry the fetus to term, then the man is forced to pay for the support of the child.
Many people consider it immoral to smoke tobacco, for instance, because it is not only damaging to one's health, it is damaging to the health of other people. Few people would break into a smoker's house and knock the cigarette out of his hand in his own living room, but some would be willing to knock the cigarette out of his hand if he lit up in front of a pregnant woman who had asked him not to. Correspondingly, there are more people who consider it legitimate to pass laws against smoking in public than support making it illegal to smoke even in private.
Law is not just the codification of a social agreement, it is the authorization of force to hold people to that agreement. In situations where we would consider it wrong for us to use force against another in person, why should we consider it right to use force vicariously, through the power of the state?
This still leaves the issue of abortion debatable. Few of us would condemn someone who used force to prevent a physical attack on another person. Some people who consider a fetus, even an embryo, to be a person, would consider it legitimate to use force to physically prevent a woman from having an abortion, or a doctor from performing an abortion -- just as legitimate as using force to prevent a man from putting a bullet through another man's head. I do understand that reasoning; I just disagree with it.
I hope that the interests of the unborn have their advocates, and that the interests of the father are heard. Those interests are important. It is the woman who will carry the child, however.
Would it be morally acceptable to tie an unwilling father to a hospital bed and force him to share blood wih a fetus for nine months? Would it be morally acceptable to tag any stranger and say, "You are a tissue match to a critically ill child, we ae going to take one of your kidneys whether you agree or not?"
If those things are not morally acceptable, then neither is forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.
As delightful a pair of sentences as I have read in a very long time on Gather.
While I may disagree with you on this issue, I cannot argue that your reasoning is anything but intelligent and sound. Kudos for writing such a thoughtful, moral, and rational piece on this hot-button topic.
That is how the Biblical text presents the issue.
Bill, I apologize for missing your point. My point was that laboring to earn money for a child's food and directly sharing your living tissue with the child are not equivalent; the person who pays the highest cost for having the child will always be the biological mother, therefore it is fair for her to have the most say in the decision.
Your point seems to be that if it is fair to force the man involved in a conception to support the resulting child whether he desires to or not, it seems equally fair to force the woman involved in the conception to bear, and support, the resulting child whether she desires to or not.
The first complication is that in the majority of unintended pregnancies, the participants were using contraception; they were attempting to responsibly avoid starting a conception they could not support. The reason the contraception fails is usually that it was incorrectly used. The majority of unintended pregnancies could therefore be avoided by improved education in, and access to, contraception. This seems to me much more fair and reasonable than forcing the people who tried to avoid the conception to have and support the child they did not intend to conceive.
If an unintended conception occurs and neither party desires to continue it, allowing an abortion seems equally fair to both. Forcing the woman to carry and the father to support, against the will of both, seems to me an equal abuse of all parties; in some books, that is considered "fair," but I do not agree.
If both parties desire to continue it, then payment of support by the father seems fair. If the father desires to continue the pregnancy and the mother does not, it seems fair to me that the mother, as the one who will take the greatest burden of carrying the pregnancy, have the final say. If the mother desires to continue the pregnancy and the father does not, then it may not seem fair for the father to be forced to pay support -- but what other options do we have? Forcing an abortion so that the father doesn't have to pay? Forcing taxpayers who had nothing to do with the conception to pay? Allowing the child to starve? I don't think there is any ideal solution.
Jennifer, there is no large group of people who are all the same; and if there were a large group of people exactly like me, I'd be most unlikely to hang out with them, because they'd have no new ideas for me. :) Some church groups do encourage independent thinking, critical dialogue, and tolerance of dissident views more than others. Up here in Seattle, five of our most liberal church leaders are, respectively, a Baptist, an Episcopelian, a United Methodist, and a Lutheran couple who are co-pastors. In most areas, the United Church of Christ is usually a very welcoming, moderate-liberal group.
In my experience,you can find all kinds of people in all kinds of places. All things vary in any population.
As for the rest, the Bible is supposed to be taken as simply as it is literal about what is right and wrong. There are no gray areas except where we put them. God is clear. We may not be clear. Who are we to follow? God, or man?
Just because a church allows other views about what the word of God says, doesn't mean that the church condones the beliefs that are not in alignment with what God says. It only means that by allowing others to come to the church, it gives truth a chance at giving them revelation about what they had been believing.
This is to be about you and God in that you are obeying Him. It isn't about you and the world agreeing, nor about you and a church that has conformed to the world.
You must follow what you think is right, as I am certain you will. Your right and duty to follow what you understand to be the commandments of God does NOT obligate others to conform to your opinion when we honestly disagree. And honest people who are honestly attempting to follow God have honest disagreements with you -- with you and not with God.
We must continue to struggle with the question, discussing it as openly and honestly and humbly as humanly possible. We must not, ever, FORCE another human being to conform to our own human judgment of what God commands, as if we ourselves have the authority of God.
Exactly.
The next line was: "If you don't think there's anything wrong with your statement that I quoted, you are lost. Think on it, once in awhile, let it roll around in your brain, and maybe one day you'll know what I'm talking about and you can join the rest of us in true communication and reality. Take your agreement with that sentence as a sign of safety - the longer you agree with it, the more safe your brain and ideas are."
Abortion often suffers from the problem of absolutes; and both sides are guilty of it. The same arguments we have over those not yet born can equally be made over those already born. Some people, for example, have recovered from years of being in a comatose state. But on another level how we treat those who have no voice does impact how we treat anyone without a voice. Once we ignore one group of people, it is easier to ignore another group of people. Today we talk about a woman's choice; tomorrow it's the insurance company's choice.
As a pro-life Roman Catholic, I don't want to make abortions "illegal." I want to see most abortions not done. There are many ways to do that. But first we need to make "illegal" the notion that abortions are this psudo-sacred constitutional thing that can never be questioned for any reason in the absolute manner. As I mentioned before we need to fight a war against absolutes – on both sides. But currently the pro-choice absolute is the law of the land.
I agree that absolutes can freeze brain cells, but it is remarkable to hear a Roman Catholic argue against having absolutes guide moral decisions. I do not think it very likely that we are going to get anyone to give up their moral absolutes; nor do I think it morally right to try. Making it "illegal" to hold any particular moral absolute -- like the right of a woman to control her own body -- is a violation against freedom of thought, even if it is just a rhetorical flourish and not a serious proposal for legislation.
Instead of trying to get everybody to give up their absolutes, perhaps we simply need to get everyone to appreciate that other people have absolutes that are equally important to them. As I see it, we should not ask anyone on any side of this conflict to compromise on principle, and we do not have to do so. We can respect the right of a woman to control her own body AND the right of a fetus to the best chance at life, by bending all of our energies toward providing more safety, security, education, medical care, and other resources to all women.