Ender,
Thank you for your thoughtful post. I have been thinking the issue over, trying to clarify my position to myself and figure out how to communicate it to you (and others). Perhaps this time around I will be clearer.
First, I have no ultimate objection to people dying. I am saddened by death, and some sorts of death sadden me more than others (the deaths of those to whom I am close, for example, or the deaths of children). I am angered by some deaths more than others (the deaths of those who are killed as innocent, for example, or the victims of war). But when it ultimately comes down to it, I view death as an important part of life, and I think that any attempt to prevent and stave off all death by whatever means possible is misguided and harmful. (And as Christians, what do we have to fear?)
For this reason, I am not willing to let the notion of “saving a life” trump all other concerns. I will not, to use an extreme and silly example, vote for a bill that would earmark $2 trillion annually for the federal government to find all persons who are homeless and station 24-hour bodyguards with them so as to prevent them from being killed. I appreciate the value of life, and the way that our society sweeps certain people under the rug and allows them to be abused angers me, but I don’t think that particular strategy is the answer.
It matters to me how things are done. In terms you are probably familiar with: I care about the means, not just the ends. (Incidentally, one thing that has been attracting me to the Catholic Church is the liturgy, wherein there is tremendous care taken with how we worship.)
When it comes to abortion, my first opinion is one you probably all share: ideally, I would prefer if no one were to choose to have an abortion. In that case, a law would not even make any effective sense, right? There would be nothing to prohibit. I realize this is not the way things are, of course. Given that it is not the way things are, how am I going to respond to the real situation in which I find myself?
As I mentioned, there are any number of approaches that I think are good ideas. In our town, we recently had a large get-together devoted to prayer about the abortion issue – praying that people would make better choices, that doctors would give up the practice, etc. I do not know anyone who is pregnant, but I suspect that one of the single most effective deterrents to abortion would be the counsel of close friends and family members. I also think we live in a culture where life is commodified and no longer viewed as sacred (see, for example, the industrial food complex… ::shudders:: ). I think that working to cultivate a sense of respect and awe for life in myself and in those around me goes a long way toward addressing the issue of abortion. I could go on and on with examples of strategies that I think are productive, but you get the picture.
Now what about the law? Well, go back to my position that how things are done matters. There are a million concerns in relation to the law, of course. For example, I would support overturning Roe v Wade, because I think that these legal decisions should be made at a local level (the state level, although more localized would probably be better) rather than a federal level.
What about the legal prohibition of abortion specifically, on whatever level we are considering? As I said before, I don’t support it. I do not think it is a good way to address the issue. (Of course, I am not running around adamantly opposing it, either – if there were a ban, it probably would not do that much harm, and might do some incidental good.) Why not? In the first place, we are not dealing with a bunch of cold-hearted killers and sociopaths here, but rather with women (and men) who find themselves in deeply vulnerable, emotional, and complex situations. I do not think that waving the blunt billy-club of the law in their face, threatening them with imprisonment or capital punishment or whatever, is a proper way to approach and deal with them. In the second place, I recognize that we are working within a cultural context wherein the law has all too often worked toward the oppression and exploitation of women at the hands of men, and that the issues surrounding sexual intercourse (including rape), pregnancy, child-bearing, child-rearing, and so forth have been a big part of that. I do not feel comfortable wielding a weapon with that immanent history in this situation. (I know that you disagree; that is fine with me. We don’t have to agree on this point.) In the third place, I think that prohibitions may lead to a great deal of problems (think, for example, of all the problems caused by the prohibition of drugs), and for that reason may be an imprudent approach. Finally, I think the law is at best a sort of “band-aid” on the problem. Perhaps having a prohibition would make some conservatives feel better about themselves and their country or something like that, but the real issue is that people are making choices to kill their unborn child (fetus). If we [try to] stop them at the last second, we are at best merely dealing with symptoms, not with the disease.
So take all of those considerations, roll them together, and you have someone (me) who is not convinced that prohibiting abortion is a great idea.
(Continued in next post)
