Abortion Reduction Makes Washington Post Front Page
Today's Washington Post featured a front page article on the so-called 'collaboration' between 'anti-abortion' pro-choice advocates and pro-lifers, entitled "Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban to Reduction". The title reveals all: It is not a collaboration, but a one-way compromise—pro-lifers ceding moral high ground to pro-choicers. I consider myself among the ranks of those who are pro-abortion-reduction by as many ethical means as possible, including social/economic means that work. I'm "pro-life after birth." But I'm not—and we must not—be content with either/or. Keeping fighting the good fight.Thanks to M.Worrell for inspiring me to add the above photo to this post.
I want to preface my comment by saying that I have been around the block on this issue. My experiences related to abortion extend beyond holding up signs on the side of the street. It’s touched my life in at least three ways - one that I chose for myself, and two that were out of my hands.
ReplyDeleteI fear that our thinking on abortion is drifting from the urgent to the academic only because the victim is voiceless and out of sight. But the gross violence done to a human person is documented in photos, easily available to anyone who wants to find them online. I’m not recommending that we return to the days of pro-life groups handing out photos of dead unborn children at county fairs. But those photos presented the grim reality of a moral outrage. They are the equivalent of the photos of dead soldiers that prevent us from becoming detached in our thinking about war.
Our law must stand squarely on the side of the innocent victim, and currently it does not. That is an affront not just to our God, but to our constitutional ideal. Working with urgency to correct it will not in any way prevent us from pressing hard to address the painful societal dysfunctions that make abortion an attractive option. But it will immediately make abortion a less attractive option.
There is a decidedly pro-choice faction of Christianity that is using the “love vs. law” argument to blunt the efforts of conservative Evangelicals and Catholics to legislate in opposition to their ideology. It is the same tactic that has been used in the past to trample down the fences of sound doctrine in denominations that have since drifted into apostasy.
Increasingly I hear professing Christians argue that, because “good people disagree” on whether or not an unborn baby is actually “human” (in the “entitled to human rights” sense), we need to set the “Roe v. Wade” issue aside and focus on areas where we can find agreement.
We know that we can address child abuse in part by improving the circumstances that lead to it, and we must. But the raw brutality of an adult inflicting violent injury on a child is a thought so horrifying to us that we would not for a second stop standing firm with our laws on behalf of the abused. We’re not attempting to legislate morality by making child abuse unflinchingly illegal. We’re attempting to legislate compliance by the abuser on behalf of the victim.
Two cents, spent.
Two cents very well spent. Public opinion matters, because in a democratic and pluralistic society, the majority (or at least the powerful) rules. Thank God we have a constitution; otherwise the laws of our land would be in perpetual, nauseating upheaval.
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