Mothers and Families Matter To God Too

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The pro-life movement catapulted to prominence in 1989 when the first major Supreme Court case to challenge Roe v. Wade hit the courts since the ruling itself. There were pro-life and pro-choice rallies at Rutgers College, Rutgers University every week throughout my junior and senior years. Christian groups sponsored viewings of the 1984 anti-abortion video, “The Silent Scream.” And evangelicals assumed if you are saved, then you must be “pro-life.”

One day that year my mother and I stumbled into a heated argument. With exasperated arrogance, I bent backwards to convince her that her pro-choice position on abortion was immoral, unfaithful and unchristian.

She asked: “What if the life of the mother is at stake? Should abortion be allowed then?”
“No,” I countered flatly.

“Lisa,” she explained, “do you remember that time I was pregnant, a few years ago, and I went into the hospital and the baby didn’t make it?”

“Yes…” I said.

“I had an abortion,” she said. “I almost died and the doctor had to take the baby to save my life.” She paused.

“I could have died,” she said.

I wish I could tell you I responded with compassion and humility, but I can’t. Determined to win the argument, my heart turned to steal. I looked my mother in the eyes — my mother, the woman who almost died to bring me into the world, who worked nights to put herself through college while raising three small children, who would give up anything to make sure we were provided for — I looked my mother in the eyes and said: “They should have saved the baby.”

On November 8, 2011, Mississippi voters voted down Ballot Measure 26, “the Personhood Amendment,” which would have granted the status of legal person to a fertilized egg. The measure would have effectively outlawed abortion in all circumstances within the state, deeming it murder. It would have made protection of the mother’s life a criminal offense, if that protection risked the life of the fertilized egg.

According to a November 2011 Mother Jones article, “Personhood amendment” lobbyists were poised then to introduce Personhood ballots in Montana, Oregon, California, Nevada, Ohio, and Florida.

There are lots of points of controversy over measures like these. They are so extreme that even the Catholic Bishops denounced Measure 26. For me the most haunting question is this: “Who would it harm most?” My conclusion: families — especially poor ones. When mothers — especially poor ones — die of complications in childbirth, families fold.

Thirty-two percent of households led by single women were poor in 2010, as opposed to 6 percent of two-parent households. In the case of Measure 26, Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation with an overall poverty rate of nearly 22 percent and a number of counties with rates as high as 48 percent. If Measure 26 passed, the state’s foster care system would have had to watch out. With no provision to protect the lives of mothers, the system would have likely seen a rise in the rates of children processed and placed in the system. This wave would have included both the fertilized eggs and fetuses born to dead mothers and their motherless brothers and sisters. How’s that for family values?

I often think back to that conversation with my mother. It took decades for our relationship to heal after I knifed her with my words that day. Since then, God has countered the effects of my hardened heart. God has whispered words of truth and health to my mother’s soul, “I care about you… I see you… You matter to me… The well-being of your family matters to me.”

May the mothers of America hear the same for years to come.

Amen.

 

This article was adapted from an article that originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

The Right Side of a Revolution

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Am I not a man and a brother? –Abolition era medallion

 

A few years ago, my mom and I were discussing the John Adams miniseries that was on TV. She remarked that if she and my dad were alive at the time, they probably would have been against the revolution. (They aren’t very revolutionary.) It was an off-hand remark, but it stuck with me. Race was a defining domestic policy issue for over two centuries before the truth broke through. Today, the inherent dignity of human is widely assumed, and our history of slavery and racism is universally condemned. Where would I have stood on slavery? I resolved to be on the right side of any future revolutions.

 

I have become convinced that future generations will regard the era of abortion with the disdain and disappointment we currently view slavery and racism.

 

Life came to the forefront of domestic policy debates in the early 1980s and has since become the defining question of our time. Abortion is the main issue, but debates over euthanasia, stem cell research, and cloning involve the same central questions as debates over slavery: what is a person and what is a person worth?  The value we place on life has far-reaching implications. As is written in the Manhattan Declaration:

 

Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry… And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.

 

Or, as Kansas Governor Sam Brownback often says, being “pro-life”  means concern for “whole-life.”

 

The initial batch of posting from my friends Amy, Paul, and Stephen were remarkably similar. Each affirmed their own pro-life commitments before moving the conversation away from the merits of pro-life arguments to the politics and rhetoric surrounding the abortion debate. This is where the respondents are most comfortable. Today, it seems to be where many Christians are most comfortable.

 

It’s not difficult to understand the reasons why. Abortion is unpleasant. It involves matters of a private nature, including our bodies and personal histories. It is difficult to have a discussion of abortion without hurt feelings, heated words, and damaged relationships. Given where the two political parties stand, it is easy to believe that the two-sides have calcified and nothing can be gained.

 

Can’t you imagine feeling the same if you were living in London in the mid-18th century as William Wilberforce led his decades-long movement to end the slave trade?

 

What if you were a Virginian in the early 1800s? Would you have wished the abolitionists would temper their rhetoric? Would you have supported allowing the South to secede to maintain the peace?

 

What if you were a German pastor in the era of Bonhoeffer? How far would you go to avoid conflict?

 

These are the questions I ask myself when I think about abortion, when I’m in the uncomfortable position of defending my position. At the end of the day, I would rather be on the right side of history then on the good side of my neighbor.

 

If you agree, allow me to offer one practical suggestion. I share an office with Care Net, a national network of 1,100 crisis pregnancy centers. Recently, I learned that 90% of pregnant women who visit a crisis pregnancy center carry their child to term. Compare that statistic to the fact that over 90% of pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood choose abortion.

 

Crisis pregnancy centers offer women in need a heaping dose of compassion and provision. They help take the fear out of an unanticipated pregnancy, allowing women to make an informed, clear-headed choice about what to do next. And, when given such a choice, the vast majority choose life.

 

Find a crisis pregnancy clinic near you. Donate your time, resources, and money to their work. Spread the word. Advocate the building of new clinics that can serve even more women.

 

 

Abortion in the 2012 Election

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Well, we certainly cannot complain in this election cycle that the abortion issue is being ignored.  The selection of the resolutely pro-life Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate and the continuing fall-out from the Todd Aikin controversy has ensured that the abortion debate will receive plenty of attention in coming weeks, much to the dismay of Romney, who clearly is trying to change the subject.    

While I’m always glad when electoral campaigns range over many issues, I have my doubts as to how constructive this discussion will be, particularly at a time when the two parties both seem preoccupied with their ideological electoral bases instead of reaching for the independents that are so important for success on election day.  What I hear are strong, defiant statements of principle, expressed in “here, I take my stand” tones, and full-throated rejections of alternative points of view.  Civility is an early casualty in this form of political discourse.

Of course, it’s not hard to understand why candidates would seek to distinguish their own views from those of an opponent.  But candidates (and their staffs) would do well to recognize that a move towards civility does not weaken one’s position, and actually might strengthen it.  I distinguish two ways this may be true with respect to the abortion question. 

First, in a civil discussion, statements of principle require justification.  My sense is that in a society where there is so much disagreement about moral foundations, we attempt to avoid explaining why we hold the moral positions we do—we simply expect that others disagree with those foundations, or even that others simply cannot understand them.  And so we have pro-lifers arguing their position as though it descended upon them from the sky, and we see pro-choice advocates repeating the “right to abortion” mantra as though a rights claim isn’t a moral claim that needs to be considered alongside other moral claims.    

For a civil debate, we need more than this; otherwise we simply hurl our principles at each other, again and again, while the public moral ground is ceded to mere pragmatism (go with what works) or majoritarianism (the majority is always right).  The loss of a genuinely principled public discussion is a loss for all sides.

Second, in a civil discussion that is taking place within the political space, we need arguments that are genuinely political.  This requires, among other things, the recognition not only that there are people who disagree with us, but also that after the election, some of those people are still going to be hanging around.  This means that if we want to make progress on the policy front, we’re going to have to get along with these people.  So while I personally find many of the pro-life arguments to be persuasive, I think it spectacularly unwise to seek nothing less than a full abortion ban.  In the America in which I live today, there are simply too many people who disagree—many of whom I otherwise have great respect for—and so I have to accept that for the time being, any legal protections for unborn children that we might achieve politically will be partial and incomplete. 

Again, for a civil debate, we need more than what we have—we need arguments from the candidates (on both sides) concerning how they will pursue their goals with respect to abortion politically—that is, we need to know how they get from personal morality to political morality.  We need to see how the candidates see their goals concerning abortion policy as part of their larger task of promoting justice in politics—how abortion policy fits into their political worldview.

Given how important the issue is to so many people, it’s remarkable how rarely candidates take up the abortion question.  This time around, there’s a genuine opportunity for an alternative political conversation—let’s make the most of that opportunity.

Can Anything New Be Said?

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The prolife and prochoice arguments on abortion have been aired so thoroughly for so long that one doubts if anything new can be said.  In an effort to avoid rehashing old, tired arguments let me suggest two observations and the conclusions to which they lead that may actually introduce some new perspectives.

The first observation is that, somewhat surprisingly, both Republican and Democratic voters are deeply divided on the abortion issue.  Poll after poll demonstrates this fact.  For example, a recent poll by the respected Pew Research Center found that 30 percent of Democrats are prolife—they believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases—and 39 percent of Republicans are prochoice—they believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.  Other polls show similar results.  Yet the national leadership of the Republican Party is near-unanimous in taking a prolife position on abortion; the national leadership of the Democratic Party is near-unanimous in taking a prochoice position on abortion.  This fact is also reflected in the two parties’ platforms. 

This first observation leads me to conclude it is an error for the prolife movement to tie itself too closely to the Republican Party, as has increasingly been the case. When this occurs many among the 30 percent of Democrats who are prolife will be left politically homeless and—unless they go against their political leanings and their positions on many other issues—their efforts to support the prolife cause by their votes will be lost.  They will be tempted to write off the prolife position as a Republican issue and something they can do little about. 

And Republican politicians, once in office, will be tempted to temper their actions in support of prolife policies in order not to alienate the 39 percent of Republicans who are prochoice.  For example, both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush appointed prochoice justices to the Supreme Court (Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy; Bush appointed David Souter).  The prolife effort is strengthened to the extent it can be a bipartisan effort.

My second observation is that both prolife and prochoice advocacy groups often miss what I believe is a crucial point.  Obviously for those of us who are prolife, our religious—and for most of us—our Christian views clearly influence our thinking on the abortion issue. This has led many prochoice advocates to conclude that prolife persons are seeking to impose their religious beliefs onto all of society.  There is some truth, but more error in this position.  And it is important to be clear why this is the case.

Two quite different issues are at play when considering abortion.  One is what in a medical, physical sense is taking place.  And here modern science has not been kind to the prochoice position.  As science has learned more about fetal development, it has pushed back to the very early stages of pregnancy the presence of a very small, but complete human being—to within the first seven weeks.  One must turn to science and its study of God’s world, not God’s Word, to uncover answers to the facts of human fetal development.  Our faith does not tell us that a fetus is a human being, science does (although there are places in the Bible that indirectly confirm or assume this).

Where religious truth—and for the Christian, the Bible—enters in is in determining the value that should be attached to the human life that abortion ends.  And the Bible and the entire Christian tradition are very clear: human beings have been created in the image of God and as such possess an inherent worth that no other creature possesses.  Their lives are of enormous value in God’s sight; they must be of no less value in our sight.

Thus for the prochoice advocates to say we are simply seeking to impose our religious views onto all of society is much too simple.  We do not believe almost all abortions should be illegal simply because we believe they are wrong and against God’s will.  There are many other things we believe are wrong and against God’s will—such as taking God’s name in vain, fornication, and gossiping—that we do not believe should be illegal.  What is different about abortion is that it involves taking another human life and our faith causes us to value human life very highly. 

Prochoice advocates should recognize this. To be honest in their argumentation they need to argue their case on the basis that they disagree with us on the value we attach to pre-birth human life.  The issue is whether human rights and their protection by government should extend to all human beings or only to some—to those who have been born.  It most assuredly is not a matter of one group seeking simply to impose specific religious beliefs onto all of society.

And we Christians who are prolife also need to do better.  We need to argue our case on the indisputable facts of fetal development, combined with our faith’s high value it places on human life.  Our faith tells us what value to place on that life, and this is where we disagree with our prochoice fellow citizens.

This also means that our position on abortion should be only one way in which the high value we place on human life shows itself.  Some who are prolife see issues such as limiting the easy availability of guns, feeding the hungry, providing medical care for the aged and disabled, and overly quick resort to military action as distractions from the “truly important” work of opposing abortion.

If one’s position on abortion is rooted in a thoughtful commitment to human life it becomes difficult to be prolife in the case of human beings before birth and adopt an individualist, “every-person-for-him-or-herself” after birth—or even to relegate concerns for the protection of human life after birth to a secondary status. I am convinced that to the extent we who are prolife Christians link our prolife position on abortion to a heartfelt, active commitment to the sanctity of human life in other settings, our position on abortion will gain increased respect and a renewed, serious hearing.

Reclaiming and Restoring the Pro-Life Label

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Far too many Americans have negative associations with the pro-life movement. It is not uncommon to hear opponents of abortion derided as self-righteous, hypocritical, and even misogynist. As someone who self-defines as “pro-life,” such negative associations grieve me deeply. I would much rather that people connect the term pro-life with phrases like dedicated, caring, showing the love of Jesus, and ministering to people’s needs.

Some of the criticism likely stems from misunderstanding or even mischaracterizations, but some of it has been deserved. A few vocal activists are shrill and insensitive, but most of those in the pro-life movement are warm-hearted, caring people with deep concern for the women and men affected by unplanned pregnancy.

In this essay, I will offer a few reflections on Christian teaching that calls us to oppose abortion, on the politics of abortion, and on some ways the church can work to reclaim and restore a culture of life.

Abortion and Christian Teaching

The Christian prohibition of abortion dates back to the very early church. The Didache is one of the earliest documents of Christian teaching that we have outside the New Testament. This manual for individual Christian living and the corporate life of the church lists abortion as one of many grave sins, exhorting believers:“you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.”

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible teaches us that human life is a gift from God. The creation account tells us that all humankind bears God’s image and is sacred. In my view, this means that we should value human life and seek to protect it from conception until natural death.

Scripture also calls us to seek righteousness, mercy, and justice, giving particular care to the poor and vulnerable. Women facing an unexpected pregnancy and the lives growing inside them are among the vulnerable ones God calls us to love and serve.

Pro-Life Commitments and the Politics of Abortion

It may seem very hard to find common ground on the abortion issue, for, at the end of the day, the two sides fundamentally disagree about the status of the embryo and fetus. Yet, although the two sides of the abortion debate ultimately reach this impasse, we have many opportunities to seek common ground. Almost everyone agrees that abortion is a tragic decision, so we can at least work together to reduce the number of abortions. We can also find common cause supporting meaningful restrictions on abortion designed to protect women’s health and move us further away from abortion-on-demand.

I support public policy that moves toward an end goal of banning elective abortion with exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and threat to the life of the mother. As was common practice in many states before Roe v.Wade, regulations against abortion should penalize the providers, not the women already victimized by abortion.

I don’t expect hearts and minds to change overnight, but those of us who identify with the pro-life movement can cultivate and encourage a culture that values life in the womb and supports women who make the difficult decision to carry a pregnancy to term.

Abortion, Sexuality, and the Church

Many Christians view the abortion issue in terms of “us” vs. “them.” Such a perspective is problematic in at least two ways: it assumes that we need not care about the lives of those outside the church, and it assumes that unintended pregnancy and abortion only affect non-Christians.

The numbers tell a very different story. The sexual practices of unmarried evangelicals look far too similar to those of the general population. According to data reported in the Spring 2012 issue of NAE Insight, 80% of unmarried evangelicals aged 18-29 have had sex, three in ten say they or their partner has been pregnant, and about a third of those sought abortions. We need to acknowledge the extent of the problems within our own churches and encourage responsible, biblical sexuality.

If we want to restore the pro-life movement to one worthy of praise and not scorn, we should demonstrate the depth and breadth of our commitment to the sanctity of human life.

A commitment to the sanctity of human life does not end at birth. Upholding the God-given worth of human beings applies regardless of age; our commitment must continue past a pregnancy and out of the womb. Abortion is a tragic option, but it may seem the only option for a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy with few resources and little or no emotional and financial support. Choosing to continue a pregnancy has real costs, and we need to be right beside women and men in crisis to help bear the burdens.

A pro-life commitment extends beyond the abortion issue. Protecting unborn life is important, but it is only one aspect of upholding the dignity of human life. As followers of Christ, we must seek justice for all humankind–regardless of age, social status, or geography. We often turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering of children and adults all around us, tacitly accepting poverty, hunger, disease, discrimination, racism, and other evils that devalue God’s image-bearers. A deep commitment to the value of human life is sweeping and difficult, and it should challenge us each to the core.

As we work to protect the value and dignity of all human life, we must do so in a spirit of humility, sharing God’s mercy and love. As sinners living in a fallen world, we should serve out of our brokenness and gratitude, not out of high-minded pride or a false sense of superiority. Christ was forsaken and condemned so that we would be forgiven and accepted.  How much more should we share His acceptance and forgiveness with those around us?

The ultimate expression of valuing life and the clearest way that we can live out the challenge to uphold the God-given worth of human beings is by loving our neighbors as ourselves and seeking ways to minister to their needs.

 

 

Topic #11: Abortion

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Please consider the following potential leading questions for a conversation to be launched on August 29.

#1: What do you project as the future of Roe vs. Wade?

#2: Assuming that Roe vs. Wade will not the overturned, what reasonable steps can be taken to significantly reduce the number of abortions in our country?

#3: Given the significant disagreement among citizens as to possible circumstances under which abortion should be permitted, what do you believe is a viable public policy on abortion that should be legislated for all citizens?

#4: For those who take a “pro-life” position, what are the contours of a consistent pro-life position for protecting the sanctity of all human life?

#5: For those who argue for the “right of a woman to choose” (whether to have an abortion, or other aspects of her own health care), should there be any “limits” to this “freedom of choice” that can reasonably be legislated as public policy?

#6: As long as abortions are legal in the United States, what protections should there be for health professionals, faith-based hospitals and clinics, faith-based educational institutions and other faith-based organizations not to participate in abortions, either directly or indirectly (for example, by way of their health insurance plans)?