Abortion, Christianity, and Public Discourse

While we’d would like to think we’re open to considering other people’s opinions with an even hand, most of us, myself included, have generally landed on one side or another of the hotly contested issues of our day. People who are serious about their faith seem especially keen to take immovable positions on lots and lots of issues. In my opinion, there are way too many issues that become “hills to die on” for us Christians. But we’ll explore that in another blog.

For now, I’d like to look at abortion, the Christian faith, and the way we talk about it in our public dialogue.

To put my cards out on the table, I believe life begins prenatally somewhere around week 8, though I hold the specificity of this loosely. 60% of fertilized eggs fail to form an embryo and 20% of embryos implanted in the uterine wall fail to become a fetus. They are flushed out. Because I believe in an intelligent and loving Creator, it’s hard to imagine God designing the body so that the majority of humans fail to even come to full term.

But pinpointing the exact moment that a sacred human life begins feels a bit like one of those mysteries that the psalmist in Psalm 139 calls “too lofty for me to attain.” I believe life begins before birth for a few reasons I won’t go into here, but exactly where is too wonderous for me to know.

In saying this I also acknowledge there are Biblical arguments for life beginning after birth. For instance, Genesis 2 it says, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” That “breath of life” phrase is also used in Genesis 7. The word for breath in Hebrew is sometimes used for “spirit.” Therefore, an argument could be made that the “breath of life” is the moment that one becomes a living, spiritual being.

Now, just because I don’t happen to agree with this reasoning doesn’t mean I denigrate those who do. I can hold a traditional pro-life position without indulging in defamation of character, which is a pretty serious sin since it usually springs from hatred. Everyone I know, whether pro-life or pro-choice, generally embrace the sacredness of human life. We just disagree about its beginning, sometimes by just a matter of weeks.

Another consideration is that abortion will never be a personal decision I need to make. I’m not a woman, let alone a poor woman, or a woman who feels utterly unsupported to undergo pregnancy and birth. I’m sure it is an agonizing set of lose-lose choices for women who are under supported in bringing life to this world. To abort, to birth and raise, or to give up for adoption – these are all consequential decisions that are easier to speak about with certainty when one doesn’t face those hard choices.

Finally, when I say that I embrace a pro-life stance on the issue of abortion, I feel compelled to support gun control, since death due to gun violence is so ridiculously high in our country. Or to oppose the death penalty or euthanasia or going to war. But I recognize these are nuanced issues. I might find there are times when going to war is the final bad choice to prevent even greater human suffering, though I may put that line differently than others – i.e. WWII yes, Vietnam or Desert Storm no.

There is grace on these pro-life issues for me as well. Most are hypothetical to me, and I have life-honoring friends who see things differently. I do not consider my gun-toting, pro death penalty friends as lovers of violence, but broken, fallible people just like me doing their best to make sense of complex ethical dilemmas.

So, back to the question of abortion. As a pro-life person (in the larger sense of that word), how does this issue fit into deciding who to vote for?

I know pro-choice people who rejoice that the rate of abortion has been declining since 1973. We want the same thing! To reduce the demand for abortion. Rather than locking horns over this, it feels way more productive to lock arms in reducing the demand for abortion together.

Ultimately, a given administration doesn’t seem to have that much impact on reducing the number of abortions. It looks like from the graph in this Snopes article that the demand for abortion drops more quickly under Democratic administrations (note: the article debunks a myth that abortions rise under Republicans and fall under Democrats). But declining birth rates are probably a factor here. Perhaps the availability of social services for unwed mothers. It would certainly be hard to argue that pro-life administrations are responsible for dramatically reducing abortions.

Furthermore, I don’t think a candidate’s position on this issue is the ultimate litmus test of their fitness to govern well.

If God is love (I John 4:8), then love is the highest human ideal. But how do we measure the strength of a candidate’s love? The Apostle Paul might include a few other qualities he calls the fruit of the Spirit. “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  (Galatians 5:22-23). These characteristics are hard to discern in people we don’t know well, but we must do the best we can with what we can see. Does our candidate exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, especially the quality of love?

These profound questions of life are wonderous and mysterious. It’s time to embrace a little humility, to confess some holy uncertainty and stop looking for candidates who agree with my best guesses on these issues, but rather, exemplify the highest human ideal of love.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.” (I Peter 4:8).