understated reaction
Coming of age in the young years of the “pro-life” movement and the early days of AIDS was a minefield. Although I escaped with all of my extremities in tact, many of my friends did not. The messages were decidedly complicated and I yearned for youthful righteousness. As a religious liberal, I rallied around the cause of women’s reproductive choice, actively opposed the nomination of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, and lamented the role of the church in persecuting the already vulnerable gay community.
Given my liberal credentials, my lack of visceral reaction to yesterday’s announcement that the Supreme Court had backed a ban on “partial birth abortion” was inexplicable. If I could identify any emotion in reaction it could only have been relief, which of course is nothing short of treason for a pro-choice preacher. Confused not by the decision but by my response, I found myself reading the morning news with more genuine interest.
Although I am old enough to have heard the horror stories of the pre-Roe days, I am young enough to have never faced those draconian choices personally. Undoubtedly, this privilege is a piece of the calm with which I read the news. Not having faced the back alley myself, or with my friend, or (God forbid) with my daughter, I can afford to be open minded.
I’ve also been blessed with a friend whose instinctive opposition to abortion is as innate as my passion for choice. Only once have this friend and I talked candidly about our positions, knowing that such conversations are fraught with explosives. Nevertheless, in this brief and poignant exchange I was touched by the genuine faithfulness of two apparently oppositional perspectives.
Mellowing happens with age, and to be sure my response (or lack of same) to the news is indicative of my aging. Yet I am increasingly concerned about the danger of either pole in this particular culture war. Clearly the pro-life drive to outlaw all abortion, prohibiting access even to such basic interventions as the “morning after pill”, will drive us back into the frightful coat-hanger alleys. The opposite pole, where I am more likely found, has become increasingly uncomfortable for me. Not because I have any less commitment to women’s moral agency. I do not perceive an embyro to be synonomous with human life. I believe in all options counseling and understand many situations for which abortion is a responsible choice. Yet I find myself unsettled in discussions about late term abortions. Perhaps my growing sense of unease is best summarized by Martin Luther King’s lament that “our scientific minds have outpaced our moral ones”.
With the momentous advances in medical technology, the creation of life and the ability to sustain and nurture life far outpace any expectations in 1972. Although neo-natal science doesn’t change the essential notion of woman’s moral agency and thereby right to make the choices for her own body, the definition of when life begins and when another moral agent is present certainly begins to get more complicated. Late term abortions and premature babies seem to have disturbingly similar gestations periods.
I am no less offended by the vitriol of the so-called pro-life movement than I was the day before yesterday. Regardless of my stance on the morality of abortion, the right to safe and legal options seems to me a fundamental human right. The dogmatic refusal to acknowledge any impact of science on choice, on the other hand, seems irresponsible. I yearn for conversation that brings the moral quagmire out into the open, allowing questions to be candidly expressed and science to be honestly explained.
Perhaps such conversation rightly begins in our community of faith.
