In 2009 and 2012 I expressed some of my personal reflections on abortion from my pastoral perspective. I probably should just leave it at that, but with the US Supreme Court soon to issue a major opinion on Roe v. Wade, I wanted to get my thoughts together and set down so I am not reacting to their decision or to the myriad of respondes it will evoke, no matter what it is.
http://nstolpewriting.blogspot.com/2015/08/abortion-pastoral-response.html http://nstolpewriting.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-decide-when-you-have-right-to.html
In certain Pro-Life circles excitement is building that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, with some hope if not expectation that would be at least the beginning of the end of abortion in the US. At the simplest level, overturning Roe v. Wade would not make for a uniform national ban on abortion but only return the authority to regulate abortion to the states. That would open the way for some states to tighten abortion restrictions while other states could respond with much more open abortion regulations. Besides the hodgepodge of regulations, this would introduce legal maneuvering such as how strict states would respond to women who travel to more permissive states to have abortions.
However, the Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to overturn wholesale previous decisions. Generally, they make modifications along the way. This has been happening with Roe v. Wade all along. Having said that, the profile of this Court could be primed for overturning Roe v. Wade as some have hoped and even predicted. The way they render their opinion will probably be more nuanced than “just go back before 1973” as though Roe v. Wade had never happened. Indeed, a lot has happened in the past 49 years. Surely some will hope for the Court to impose some level of national uniformity, but that would seem to require a real act of Congress. I have neither a prediction nor a recommendation for what the Court will do, but I am confident that whatever they do will unleash a storm of legal battles for years to come.
My point is not advocacy but realism. Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, abortion will not go extinct in the US. To be sure, the landscape will change which will both please and aggravate people on both sides of the debate. Battles over abortion will be waged in state after state, and it will be a high profile issue of contentious public debate. This will be much more convoluted than the patchwork of contradictory regulations from state to state. Individual cases of differing motives for seeking abortion will challenge not only the laws but the sentiments of many people, some of whom do not think of themselves on one side of the debate or the other. Before 1973 women of means or connection were able to find physicians who would perform abortions for them, either calling them something else or as part of another surgical procedure. Roe v. Wade did not completely eliminate the “black market” (I use that understood cliche with reluctance.) in illegal abortions that had previously been tragically too common. While it probably won’t go back to the way it was before Roe v. Wade, it will undoubtedly resurface adapted to new market realities.
My expectation (not an expert opinion) is that criminalizing abortions (whatever form that takes) is not and will not be effective in either reducing or eliminating abortions. Like so many other social and ethical concerns, reality is complex and messy. In the debates one side seemingly presumes the women seeking abortions are promiscous and irresponsible. The other side presents tragically difficult cases that go beyond rape, incest, mother’s life/health. Yes, both are real, but pitting one against the other evades addressing the sorts of forces that prompt women, girls, couples, families to seek abortions. What would seem to be more effective in preventing abortions are things such as birth control that women easily access, economic opportunities for women, child care that enables especially women to be employed.
Beyond all this, I would assert that what could be most effective, maybe even essential, in drastically reducing the market for “elective” abortions is undoubtedly the most elluisive and difficult to achieve. That is a dramatic change in the cultural consensus that would expect men and boys to be responsible and hold them accountable for their sexual activity. This not only applies to abortion but to rape and sexual assault culture that treats women and girls as tools for male rites of passage and ascension in power. In my pastoral engagement with community, I have seen too often men insisting on unprotected sex with their partners and then compelling them to get an abortion when pregnancy results. Yes, part of this is empowering women to say “no,” but such a radical change in what is expected of men seems almost insurmountable. To be sure, the Supreme Court will not speak to that. Law is only part of it. This is where the cliche of “what we have is a heart issue” is most incisive.
I do not see either the “Pro Choice” or “Pro Life” advocates addressing this at all, and I do not identify with either camp. I don’t know who, if anyone, will ever read this, but I suspect neither camp would claim me, and both would probably critique if not disown me. I am not in favor of abortion, nor am I in favor of criminalizing abortion.
Promoting “a woman’s right to choose” strikes me as a slogan for autonomous individualism. The logic doesn’t seem too different from those who argue against Covid-19 vaccinations and masks as threats to their individual freedom (even though typically from opposite sides of the political spectrum). My Christian theology and ethic precludes making myself the focus. I must always be looking out for the well being of others, especially the orphans, widows, aliens, weak, sick, poor. In public square, this means the common good is a higher value than personal liberty. I won’t go into a theological or exegetical study here, only assert this witness to my convictions.
Conversely, I find “Pro Life” truncated and disingenuous when abortion is, as it were, ripped from the single cloth of the fabric of life. I do believe variations of opinion on specific issues are legitimate, but ignoring them is untenable to me. I have written elsewhere of my ethical position on war and military service as a follower of Jesus. To be pro life seems to me to necessarily also include capital punishment, poverty, violence in life not just entertainment, racism, access to medical care, environmental threats, compassionate end of life care. Again, for me the biblical witness and Jesus’ life sees orphans, widows, aliens, weak, sick, and poor as the warp and woof of the single cloth of the fabric of life.
So, I have had my digital vent, so I can move my mind to more constructive things and see what develops.
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