What Will The New Abortion Bans Succeed At

 One could imitate a ringside announcer in introducing the two fighters in the abortion contest. In the the corner to my right are the Anti-Abortionists who call themselves Pro-lifers. Many times they believe in sending everyone who is involved in an abortion to jail. There are those times when they settle for making a get rich quick piñata by filling it with money and beating it with our legal system--see the Texas abortion law.

In the corner to my left are ideologically wild women who believe that abortion should be legal and accessible up until the time that the unborn fully exists its mother. They believe that this kind of access to abortion will free or enable women to become equal to men because they will have their cake of sexual freedom and eat it too.

And like the relationship between one's biological sex and gender equality where there are gender identities that lie in between the two opposites but their biological sex will be forced into choosing between one of two options. So too are all of those groups that lie in between those two fighters in the abortion contest. They will be counted as being in the camp of either the fighter in the right corner or the one in the left corner. And such overly simplistic thinking plays a major role in making a controversial issue into an unnecessarily high divisive one.

Oklahoma is the latest state to pass a restrictive abortion law since the Mississippi abortion law was heard by the Supreme Court. One has to wonder if those states that are passing restrictive abortion laws have some inside information regarding the upcoming SCOTUS decision on the Mississippi abortion law. That is because if SCOTUS rules significantly against the Mississippi abortion law, then state governments like Oklahoma must return to the drawing board of the abortion issue having just wasted their own time and taxpayer money in formulating new laws.

As a pro-lifer myself, one of my concerns, besides the lives of the unborn and the women involved, is how these laws will unnecessarily cause this nation to be even more divided than it is today. That isn't because I think that national unity is more important than human life, it isn't. But the more divided this nation becomes over this issue, the more each side, including the pro-life side, will be condemned to singing only to its own choir when discussing the issue either privately or publicly. And from my pro-life perspective, laws alone will not stop abortion, changed minds and hearts will. But the more divided we are about this issue, the less we will listen to each other and thus the more we will become solidly fixed with our current commitments.

Also, the more divided this nation becomes, the less that many of my fellow pro-lifers will refuse to listen to women as they share about the dilemma they face when pregnant. That abortion is not just about the lives of the unborn, it is about women and the sacrifices and risks that nature calls on them to make when carrying a child. And in a very true sense, a woman's labor begins after the child is born. All of that occurs in a context of the frailty of human relationships and in ever changing economic and social worlds. For some women, pregnancy is life threatening. And unless one has seen a women deliver a child,  one will never know that giving birth can be traumatic for many women because of the stress and strain put on the body. And all of us pro-lifers, especially those who have reduced the abortion issue to just the life and rights of the unborn, need to listen to a wide range of stories by women who have become pregnant with some who have carried their child to term while others have decided to get an abortion.

Unfortunately, the giving birth and raising of children by women is a victim of the oppression of women in our society. It is a victim by virtue of guilt by association. It has been unfairly associated with past, even present, male oppression of women. When the Sex Revolution began women were so often made dependent on men by society and its systems. And many women who had entered the workforce were, and still are not, treated as equals to men. And because giving birth and raising a child has been so strongly associated with men keeping women down, those women who struggle with that oppression have been understandably swayed into seeing motherhood as a tool of that oppression and thus are reluctant to recognize the human life that the unborn are because of what they think they need to do to be free of male oppression and be counted as equals to men.

In many ways, the fighters introduced at the beginning of this article are examples of the Pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men praying (see Luke 18:9-14). In that parable, the Pharisee thanks God that he is a righteous person who shares none of the sins and faults of the person considered to be one of the worst in society at that time: the tax collector. So the more we become like one of the two fighters described above, the more we become like that Pharisee and that is displayed by how we talk about those who reside in the camp of the other fighter. That is why making abortion into such a divisive issue is so harmful to this nation. And such makes is less and less likely that we can resolve the abortion issue in a fair and just manner. 

Is The Abortion Debate A Microcosm Of The Incivility Of Our Society?

The new Alabama law on abortion has made the issue of abortion a very hot topic now. On the pro-choice side, we have memes showing a vast hypocrisy of many, not all, of those who oppose the legalization of elective abortion. Those memes describe how hypocritical it is for opponents of elective abortion when they do not also demonstrate the same care for children who are born as they do for the unborn. And those memes speak an inconvenient truth about many opponents of elective abortion who also show little to no concern for the children of asylum seekers who are locked up in cages. That inconvenient truth is that these opponents of elective abortion are unable to credibly claim that they care about children.

But if we take the converse of those memes, isn't another hypocrisy revealed? For how can one claim that they care about children regardless of their sincere concern for children of immigrants when they allow for the killing of those in the womb. After all, it isn't the children of immigrants who might infringe on the freedom of a woman to pursue a career or who could cause great distress in the taking care of the child if born, it is those in the womb.

The combination of the memes with their converses give a modern illustration of Jesus's parable of the two men praying (click here for the source):

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

It seems that both sides have forever been mirror grumbling at each other as the Pharisee grumbled about the tax collector. And that grumbling serves the purpose of causing onlookers to regard the issue as not worth their interest and effort. Thus we have what seems like a forever stalemate. And it is the political parties that use their respective groups on this issue who truly benefit from the stalemate. For each political party knows that for as long as they can portray themselves as either supporting or opposing the legalization of elective abortion, they can slide on so many other issues.

But if we looked at those in the abortion debate who keep accusing their opponents of hypocrisy as the only ones to whom Jesus's parable applies, then we have leaped without looking into the role of the Pharisee in the parable. For whenever we speak against some injustice without remembering the times where we have been unjust to others, we have passionately embraced the role of the Pharisee. For the point of Jesus's parable is that because we are all sinners, we can't afford to look down on others.

There is a solution to enabling fruitful discussions about the abortion issue. That solution is to be an advocate for either the pro-choice side or the anti-elective abortion side as the tax collector from the parable. So instead of touting our own moral superiority because we have chosen the right side of that issue, we become more and more connected with our failures and sins. That is because the more we are connected with our failures and sins, the more tolerant we will be with those with whom we disagree. And the more tolerant we are with those with whom we disagree, the more we will listen to them even if listening to them never changes anyone's mind.







 

Another Shot At The Question That Stopped Trump

In his article titled, Why Don’t We Punish Women Who Have Abortions? (click here for the article), Joe Carter, from the Acton Institute and The Gospel Coalition (click here for a very brief bio), tries to answer the question that may have prevented Donald Trump from getting the Republican Party's Presidential nomination.  Though I myself am not a big fan of Carter, abortion is an issue on which I am in general agreement with him. And though I find his answer to this question to be unsatisfactory, I think the same can be said of any answer giver by us pro-life advocates to the question. This question is that tough.

So what does Carter say? He first resorts to history and it is very helpful. When abortion was illegal, Carter's research indicates that no woman was ever prosecuted for seeking one. And this should seem to save pro-life Christians from the wrath of some pro-choice advocates. In fact, Carter's research here contradicts the claims of some pro-choice advocates I know who believe that Trump accidentally express part of the pro-life agenda.

After citing history, Carter continues to state why women would not be punished should abortion become illegal. In the end, Carter states that the focus of enforcing anti-abortion laws would be on the abortion providers. And that though women seeking abortions are accomplices in the act seeking to end the lives of their unborn, the exception of not prosecuting women is made in an effort to catch the worse culprit. Carter here quotes several experts in making this case including a Minnesota Supreme Court on Helen Clayton, Frederica Matthewes-Green, and Joseph Dellapenna. Why is the exception being made here? It is because the goal of passing anti-abortion laws would be to stop abortion, not to punish women. So only the providers of abortions would be prosecuted.

The problem here for Carter in his unenviable task of trying to answer this question is that he fails to answer the question of what if the expectant mother herself attempts to abort her own unborn child? Should she be prosecuted? Here, one side of Carter's article would say 'no' because the woman seeking an abortion should never be punished while the side that believes that only abortion providers should be punished would have to say 'yes.' 

Well, we don't need to wait for the overturning of Roe v. Wade to get our answer here. There are women who have already been criminally prosecuted and are serving jail sentences for seeking to end their own pregnancies (click here). Thus, Carter's article provides an understandably incomplete answer to the question. But he really took on a tough task and said what he could.

Why is the answer to this question so tough? It is because several complex issues are involved in the question. From the pro-choice side, this question is both a fair question and a trap. It is a fair question because it is only right that we ask about the future of women seeking abortion should it become illegal. But it is also a trap because of the definition that abortion is murder, the pro-lifer is forced to choose between inconsistency and selfdiscreditation with the latter when answering whether women seeking abortions should be prosecuted because of the current acceptability of the answer.

In addition, the question ignores the difference between the how society views the victim in abortion from how it views the victim in what we have legally defined as murder. For decades now, we have had no clear and consistent societal message stating that the unborn child is a human life and deserves rights. So if we add that to the other factors that make considering getting an abortion such a complex and personal issue, how could we regard expectant mothers seeking abortions in the same way as we view those who voluntarily take what society has been easily recognized as human life for centuries and even millennia?

At the same time, this question can be used by pro-choice advocates to switch too much of our focus to the trials of the expectant mother that we give less and less consideration to the status and plight of the unborn child. This has an emotional effect of making excusable the taking of human life because of the extraordinary circumstances involved. Yes, some might admit that an unborn child is human, but because of the trials of the expectant mother, we will have to make an exception to valuing and protecting human life by allowing her to choose abortion if she feels the need to. This is the part of the question Carter is trying to answer that he never addresses.  But he is never meant to according to the intentions of many a pro-choice advocate who would ask the question.

But there is another unaddressed issue at hand. When Matthews quite logically asks Trump what sanctions should be placed on the expectant mother who seeks to end the life of her unborn child, Matthews presupposes that legal sanctions must be punitive and thus must require time in jail. And it is quite right for him to assume that the law would result in punishing the mother because we simply live in a very punitive society. Criminals must be punished, not helped, according to our legal system. And full credit for that punitive mindset belongs to the very first settlers many of whom were religiously conservative Christians. So, in other words, Conservative Christianity deserves full credit for Chris Matthews' logic when he asked Trump about how mothers seeking abortions should should serve time in jail.

But what if we started to change our legal system so that some actions would merit access to resources, personal help and counseling instead of harsh punishments? Then, the answer to Matthews' question to Trump which Carter attempted to answer could be both consistent with the notion that the expectant mother played a role in the death of her unborn child while recognizing the difficult predicament that any expectant mother faces when she even considers to undergo an abortion.

Abortion is very much a serious and sensitive issue. For it involves somber situations that pregnant wome are forced to face: a woman's personal and human rights and liberty, and the definition of human life. Is the unborn child a human who deserves human rights? It seems that with the question Carter tried to answer and the context of that question provided by Chris Matthews' interview of Donald Trump, determining the definition of human life and the human status of the unborn child have the lowest priority in our national debate on abortion. And being that the definition of human life is an objective one, ominous results lay on the horizon for any society if it attempts to bypass addressing the issue of whether or not the unborn child is a human life deserving human rights. 

A Welcomed Change Of Subject And In Tone

With the release of videos showing an alleged link between Planned Parenthood and the selling of the body parts of aborted fetuses has come a change in subject for many a Christian blog and writer. Instead of writing about how America's sky is falling because same-sex marriage is now legal, we are writing about abortion. And one of the most welcomed articles on the Christian view of abortion comes from the Calvinist International website (click here for the article. The article is written by Joseph Minich (very brief biography is attached to the article.

The best one word description for Minich's article on abortion, or more precisely on how Christians should respond to pro-choice logic, is the word 'balanced.' Does Minich demonize those involved in either seeking or providing abortions? No. Rather, he seems to want us to be able to relate to both. Or does Minich fuel our fires of anger so that we are inspired to respond harshly to pro-choice defenders? No. Rather, the kind of interaction with pro-choice advocates he encourages is both Christian in spirit and biblically rational in content. Thus, Minich does a wonderful job in his article in describing how we should respond to pro-choice advocates.

First, let's talk about how Minich's description of abortion participants is balanced. Does he say that abortion is wrong? Yes. But how does he say America should look at these participants? He suggests holding a mirror up to our past with our ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land and the enslavement of Blacks. And what the participants of abortion, those who violently removed Native Americans from the land, and those who sold and enslaved Blacks had in common was the desire to experience a good ends.

The recipient of an abortion would receive a continuance of her freedom and that freedom is a good that should be pursued while the doctor is enabling the woman to gain this freedom and both being free and helping others gain freedom is a good that should be pursued. In the past, many Anglo-Americans found Manifest Destiny to be inspiring. We could add that once one sees the "superiority" of our society to what once dominated the land, then the old adage about the necessity of breaking a few eggs to make an omelette holds in check any rising pangs of conscience.

And finally, what could be possibly wrong with kind of aristocratic society that was sought in the South? Who could oppose those results? Those who had to suffer the most to gain those results could.

This blog's take on Minich's approach here is that the principle of justice applied in the justification of and employment of abortion is the same principle of justice once used to create the society we now enjoy. Here, justice is not thought of in terms of recognizing the worth of the recipients and thus treating them as they deserve. Rather, justice here is defined by what is necessary to build what is seen today as an ideal or most desired society.' And to build that kind of society, one group must be denied their rights so that the other group's rights can be recognized. So it is here that we have the rub. Yes, most, if not all, recognize at least some degree of the ugly truth about abortion. But the unsightly can eventually be covered by the ends.

How should we respond to the pro-choice case and it proponents according to Minich? First, we should acknowledge the legitimacy of the goods being sought while noting that these are not the only goods involved in the issue. Yes, one's personal freedom should be sought, but one's personal freedom is not the sole criteria in deciding about abortion because the goods of another party are involved.

Second, our desire for justice should mimic the justice we have received in Christ in that just as justice for us has become redemption, so we should hope for the redemption in the change of heart in both the women who seek abortion as well as the doctors who provide it. Basically, Minich is telling us that the kind of justice we seek in the practice of abortion should be should  molded by the Golden Rule.

Finally, we need to appeal to the good in others. Here, Minich wants to carefully define what that good in others is lest some see him as denying the doctrine of total depravity. By the good in others, Minich is referring to the 'remaining vestiges' of being human which still remains after sin. Here we could say that Minich wants to appeal to a common morality that can exist in society. And thus rather than those who support the pro-choice side as aliens, we need to relate to them according to what views and morals we have in common.

Minich's article here is excellent and should be read. And the following is what could be added. For not only should Minich point to our nation's treatment of Native Americans and Blacks as showing how we allow ourselves to override justice for others in our pursuit of a good for ourselves; from the beginning of our nation, our nation's elites have pursued a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society, to borrow the language of Martin Luther King Jr. 

We should note that The Constitution itself was written in order to preserve the status quo of protecting the property rights of elites. One only needs to read about the events, like Shays Rebellion, that caused the writing of The Constitution, which is briefly documented in Henry Knox's letter to George Washngton and the Constitutional debates to understand the context of The Constitution. We should go back to this time because of both The Constitution's concern for property rights and the following quote by Martin Luther King Jr. (click here for source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Today's emphasis on property rights over the welfare of people as demonstrated in Free Market Fundamentalism and Neoliberal Capitalism  is not less than the emphasis on such rights that existed in the writing of The Constitution. And from what we can see from King's statement is that when a society values things over people, the value of each person is less and less intrinsic and more and more determined by what that person contributes to those with or who are seeking privilege. Here we should note that when justice is determined by what creates some desired society, justice is determined by what establishes or maintains a privileged position for those who have or who are seeking such. 

Here, the common good we can seek when discussing abortion with pro-choice advocates is to seek agreement on the correctness of favoring a person-oriented society rather than a thing-oriented society. That to support a thing-oriented society because one is in the position of enjoying the status quo of such a society is to support a tenuous existence for oneself. For, in a thing-oriented society, if one's value depends on privilege, one's value in society depends on which group(s) can maintain privilege. In addition, to fail to recognize the intrinsic value of others is assault both the one who gives worth to each person as well as to hurt one's own humanity by abusing someone a fellow person. 

Yes, we should cite the Scriptures in discussing abortion. But we should follow Minich's advice in how we do that and in adding common concerns which both Christians and nonChristians share. And we should also note how issues like the intrinsic value of humans are tied to issues other than abortion and sometimes to issues that are sacred cows to us.

ONIM For July 15, 2013

• Christian News
• Fighting Corruption Is Everyone's Responsibility -- Christian Today (U.K.)
• Church Seminar Addresses Radicalization Of Youth -- Christian Today (U.K.)
• Why We Love Institutions -- Christianity Today
• A Christian Case Against Early Marriage -- Christianity Today
• The Abuse Of Solitary Confinement -- Religion Dispatches
• It Is A Crime To Insult Religious Feelings In Russia -- Religion Dispatches
• Pro-lifers Take On 'Bro-Choicers' -- Christian Post
  
• World News
• Treatment Of Palestinians Is Apartheid -- Israeli Occupation Archive
• Snowden Honored By Ex-Intel Officials -- Truthout.org
• Secret Intelligence Report A Precursor To Tyranny -- Truthout.org
• 'Underware Bomber' Was Working For The CIA -- The Guardian
• The Five Totally Reasonable Demands That Prisoners In California Are Willing To Die For -- Prison Photography
• A Child Explains The Egyptian Revolution -- ZNet
• Russian Journalist Killed -- Human Rights Watch
• America's Dirty, Global War On Journalists  -- Popular Resistance
• Mexico's Disappeared -- Truthout.org
• Israel: High Court Rejects Legal Ban On White Phosphorus -- Human Rights Watch
• How Cash Secretly Rules Surveillance Policy -- Truthdig.com

The Fundamentalists' Faux-Pas: Pro-Life = Anti-Abortion

While talking with a fellow fundamentalist, pro-lifer, and friend, something was said that clarified today's  Pro-Life dilemma. My friend was bemoaning Obama's "nanny" state and  his "cradle to grave" care. Such comments are intended to shame anybody who has even the smallest sense of self-reliance and independence so as to make any welfare state, even Obama's, repulsive. In response I asked if one places an unconditional value on human life, wouldn't one want to welcome a "cradle to grave" provision. Then my friend shared his deepest fear. That fear was that he would have to pay for loafers, for those who refused to work.

Never once did he express a concern for the working poor, the elderly, the disabled, or those who have limited to no opportunities to support themselves. Rather, his primary worry was that welfare cheats would become parasites and attach themselves to his paycheck.

This is when it hit me about the current Pro-Life movement and the liberal portrayal of it. Their narrative claims that Pro-Lifers are only concerned with the unborn. This is wrong. Rather, conservative Pro-Lifers, at least the ones I am familiar with, are more concerned with who's footing the bill and who is paying for whom than who needs what to live.

The term Pro-Life indicates being for life, for the right to live. And like the statement in the Declaration of Independence about all men, should be all people, having the right to life, the implications are underestimated. For it is a cruel joke to tell people that they have the right to life but make what is necessary for life, such as housing, food, a healthy environment, affordable healthcare, and education, inaccessible. A broader view of Pro-Life was put forth by Ron Sider during the 1970s. But while conservative Pro-Lifers rightfully oppose elective abortions, they are too concerned with their own prosperity to embrace his definition. In addition, many conservative Pro-Life advocates are far too eager to support our military interventions in the name of patriotism even though what could be more pro-death than unnecessary wars. At the same time, we have Pro-Choice advocates who have enthusiastically adopted some of Ron Sider's definition of Pro-Life.

Conservative Pro-Lifers cry foul here. They say that there are no guarantees, life is tough and so everybody has to make of it what they can. But, if life is tough and we have placed an unconditional value on human life as Pro-Lifers do on human life in the womb, shouldn't we be more willing to share than be resentful for having given?

Anyway, we have Pro-Lifers who proudly beat their chest and claim to be the defenders of the defenseless who also feel robbed and violated when their money is used to support life preserving social and environmental programs and are oblivious to the death and destruction caused by the wars their taxes fund. The result here is that the Pro-Life attempts to shelter the unborn are too easily discredited by hypocrisy and self-centeredness.

We who care about the rights of the unborn must make a decision here, we must decide on a new name for ourselves. This is because we have others who are defending life in other ways, including some of the ways Ron Sider specified,  who also deserve the Pro-Life monicker despite their views on abortion. We must therefore expand the Pro-Life tent to include them.  And then we must be able to distinguish Pro-Lifers who oppose elective abortion from those who do not.

At the same time, we must recognize the one obstacle that stands in everybody's way from becoming more consistently Pro-Life. That hurdle is individualism. For conservative Pro-Lifers, their denial of life's interdependencies in order to justify the maximizing of personal profits stands in the way of welcoming the necessary sharing a consistent Pro-Life ethic calls us to. For those Pro-Lifers who defend abortion rights, reproductive and individual freedoms keep some from recognizing the humanity of the unborn.  Perhaps, this is why such Pro-Lifers currently frame the question of what is in the womb as whether it is a human person than a human life. The implication here is that an unborn child could not become a person until those outside the womb interact with him or her. Regardless of when we assign "personhood" to the unborn, each unborn child is a living human.

In Jesus' parable of the prayers of the pharisee and the tax collector, one person bragged about his own righteousness and condemned the other while the other could only see his sin and need for mercy. If we were to rewrite that parable to reflect today's Pro-Life debate, we would more often than not describe two groups of pharisees praying rather than tell of a groveling tax collector who found forgiveness. This is tragic because, in the end, none of us are in the mood to listen to our own shortcomings that are inconsistent with the Pro-Life name.

Fundamentalists bear the brunt of the responsibility here, and thus guilt, because of the Pro-Life name with which we have cloaked ourselves. We are the ones who have exclusively bound the term with the abortion issue. And in so doing, we have both excused ourselves from other Pro-Life responsibilities and covered up our own sins. If we are to prove our critics wrong, we are the ones who need to expand our definition of Pro-Life according to what its name implies and then find a way to distinguish the two groups of Pro-Life advocates.