“Thou shall not kill.” (KJV Exodus 20:13)
“You shall not murder.” (NRSV Exodus 20:13)
“No murder.” (The Message Exodus 20:13)
While the context for policy about the death penalty is logically in community and by extension in the policies and laws set forth by the people who are the government, the context about abortion rights is in the family and more specifically in family planning. I think some folks may have forgotten the lesson we learned with prohibition: You can’t legislate morality no matter how much you wish you could! All you can do is teach individual responsibility. Maybe who should teach this should be considered since some families are dysfunctional and unable to do it. And so, the topic of abortion rights rears its ugly head again. I first wrestled with this issue in the 1970’s with my mother. When I was 9, she taught me about “the change” that was going to happen to my body and my responsibility to use my capacity to procreate wisely. She did her job as a parent to share the science and the spirituality of sexuality. During Michigan’s vote on abortion rights years later, she choose pro-life because she thought the law promoted sexual promiscuity. I chose pro-choice because I believed what my father had told me: I could be anything I wanted to be, but it was my choice. Ironically, I never married and focused mostly on my career. At my age now, maybe I really shouldn’t care because the law no longer applies to me personally. Yet, I have a sense of compassion for the many women who will be denied effective healthcare for their bodies.
We have come a long way since the 1970’s with in vitro fertilization and frozen embryos, so maybe it is time to return to this issue and wrestle again with how the community should respond. Join me in a calm and I hope, entertaining exploration of this issue. Remember my desire is not to change your mind. I only wish to walk with you in the wrestling, sharing some stories from my life experiences and what I learned from these stories. It is also my understanding that the majority of citizens also favor the position of pro-choice. In a democratic republic I thought that mattered. I believe that God is sovereign over every woman’s womb. It is ultimately God who gives life and takes it away—that is what God’s attribute of Sovereignty means. I may not understand in the moment, what God is up to, but I know God’s purpose will ultimately be fulfilled for God’s glory. And I can trust God’s grace in difficult decisions.
Since the 1970’s when abortion rights went to a vote in Michigan, I agreed with the law as written. It allowed the termination of unwanted pregnancies and gave incest and rape victims the right to abort. It could prevent crack babies and unwanted pregnancies for women who did not have resources to raise the child because the social safety net for these folks was poor or non-existent. I believe that every child should be deeply wanted, and each family should have the resources to rear that child to responsible adulthood. It protected life that could remain viable outside the womb with the best medical intervention at the time. I also believed that civil authorities had no real right to be involved in my life at this intimate level. I believed in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because of my religious faith, I knew that if I became pregnant for whatever reasons I would probably not abort, but I had no right to make that decision for any other woman, her partner, or her family. So, the law was good enough for me to embrace its enforcement in the community. That is why my position on this issue is reluctantly pro-choice. I think that is the best we can do in a pluralist society.
The fifth commandment was given to a community as a rule to follow. Let’s update Luther’s explanation: “We should fear and love God so we should not endanger your neighbor’s life, nor cause her any harm, but help and befriend her in every necessity of life.” Inclusive language puts an important spin on this commandment. While some folks would call a fetus or frozen embryo their “neighbor”, these products of conception do not yet breathe or walk the planet. When does the soul enter the body is not a question the civil authorities need to consider. We, in communities in the 21st century have failed to provide for the necessities of life for lower income women who are faced with challenges in raising their children. Healthcare is especially rationed disproportionally. Racism is institutionalized. Hagar was the first surrogate, and her child, Ismael, while eventually rejected by Abraham, received the same promise from God that he would become a great nation. God’s grace does rule for God’s glory.
I said you never know what God is up to! Let me share some of my experiences in both science and ministry:
1. I arrived at work one afternoon in a hospital laboratory and found a coworker waiting at the fax machine with red tear-filled eyes. She said she had cramped up and passed some tissue the night before and was waiting for her doctor to send orders for genetic testing on possible products of conception. She had asked for the day off, but needed to get the orders before she could go home. She was newly married at age 40 and about three months after their honeymoon. Then she walked me over to the cytology table and picked up a container holding what seemed to be a perfectly formed 1 inch fetus. “We will try again if the tests come back negative.” My heart bled for her. She would never really know why she spontaneously aborted. Some experts believe that up to 1 in 5 pregnancies spontaneously aborts as conditions were not favorable for continuation of the pregnancy. I have since often seen products of conception and each time I am struck with awe and wonder over what God created and why it did not survive. Many healthcare workers on the front lines have similar experiences.
2. I made a home visit to a farm in Iowa where the farm wife confessed that she had a pregnancy once that did not survive. She had a long list of children, and this happened in the middle of their births. She had been drinking the well water as did their one cow who also aborted during the time. Her husband had the well tested and it was found contaminated with nitrites. So they dug another well that was safe to drink. She came to realize that the well water had caused her middle child’s demise and she was, years later, harboring some guilt over that situation. Of course, we prayed for her to know God peace from the guilt and shame. Her faith was strong, but she was learning a personal lesson in God’s grace. It was one of my more meaningful home visits. God’s grace and forgiveness is sufficient when we humbly confess.
3. My mother had a coworker who became pregnant again. She was black and was already a single mom of one boy. She asked my mother for money for an abortion and my mother talked her into keeping the baby who had a different father from the first child. My mother put her faith in action and emotionally supported her for years and the two boys visited in our home. Then the gal asked my mother if she would be willing to take custody of these two boys as their ward if something happened to her. My mother had to give a hard look at her life and resources. As a white woman on a fixed income trying to get two of her own children through college, she decided she would not be able to provide for those boys and delcined to be named their ward in her friend’s will. Well, the worst-case scenario happened, and my mother’s friend died young leaving a 9-and 6-year-old who the state awarded to the grandmother. That was not really their mother’s wishes. And the grandmother was not happy about it either. My mother had to make a tough choice and had some guilt because she was involved in the decision to not abort the second child. The State of Michigan failed to help this young single mom in her every need as well. We have limited resources in this world and the challenge will always be to use them not only well, but for the glory of God.
4. I tried once to get hired by Planned Parenthood to do testing in their laboratory before clients went to counseling and possible abortion. My motive was to provide accurate results so Rh-negative women would receive Rhogam to prevent any future problems if they chose to have another child. I got as far as the interview. The site director did not believe my religious background would make me a suitable candidate. I told her that I valued the organization’s focus on empowering women to plan their pregnancies and their families. She told me that for some women, abortion was their method of choice for birth control since they did not want to take the pill. I tried to convince her that I was 100% pro-choice and believed that was their right under the law and none of my business. She said she had other candidates who were less religiously oriented that she would prefer to interview. I did not get the job. I was too great a risk for her because I would have contact with the clients to draw their blood. Someone else with less religious knowledge would have to “befriend her in every necessity of life.” I didn’t think for a minute that I could be labeled murderer if I had gotten the job. God knew my heart and my motivation. The 5th commandment was not given to the Jewish community at Sinai for consideration in the context of the womb. Notice that I don’t usually take the easy road on difficult issues.
5. I baptized a baby once whose parents were 16-year-old unmarried classmates. The father accepted his title as father, but did not have the means to assume responsibility—actually he was kinda proud that it happened. And we all know pride goes before a fall. His family attended the baptism and he wanted to be there and stand with the mother and baby and that was amazing to me. The mother also seemed immature, still playing with dolls and a little overwhelmed with the situation. Both families had discussed this outcome and reached a plan of action where her parents agreed to raise the child until the couple matured enough to determine when and how they would continue with the baby’s development and if they would become a family unit. Everyone wanted them to finish high school first. It was the maternal grandmother who insisted on the baptism and since she agreed to take the baby for now, everyone consented to the ritual. This was small town Iowa and both families were actively involved in the planning of this child’s future. It was a great witness at the baptismal font! I have also prayed with families who chose to abort the unwanted pregnancy of their teen daughter.
6. My jaw dropped, and I could not help but stare at her as she walked past me in the ward of the mental hospital when I was a student chaplain at seminary. The nurse told me she was only 12 years old and 7 months pregnant by incest when social services placed her there with the diagnosis of schizophrenia. She was scheduled that week for a cesarean delivery. Her father who impregnated her was also suffering from mental illness. I could not even begin to image what her life had been like for the first 12 years, let alone what her future would entail. The baby was destined to be a ward of the State of Ohio and would probably have some physical and mental health issues due to the genetics of the parentage. There was no chance of adaption for this child. My tax dollars would be at work here. This brought context of family into a larger context of community that would have to effectively provide for this baby’s on-going care. I still wonder what God was up to. I also pray that communities do a better job of preventing such circumstances. That is where the context of laws that protect the innocent are appropriate. And where we need to seriously improve access to mental health services.
7. We all have friends who tried IVF and either succeeded or failed. There is intensive genetic testing involved with IVF and frozen embyos to ensure a healthy baby is delivered. Sometimes the tests come back with genetic issues that would cause the couple to seek aborting that pregnancy. In fact, normal genetic testing is now part of the prenatal workup, and any couple may be faced with the issue of their fetus having a genetic anomaly that would need extra support in life if indeed life was possible. Of course the couple can also choose to not have genetic testing and accept whatever may happen with the pregnancy. The point is they get a choice. These difficult ethical issues women, families and doctors grapple with on a regular basis. Do politicians belong in these conversations? Most congregations of a certain size have at least one-member who is mongoloid. That is just a statistical reality. I had a seminary professor who had one mongoloid daughter and he privately confessed as he got older that he struggled with having her because who was going to take care of her after he and his wife were gone? My experience with mongoloid folks is that they share a special sense of God’s love and innocence with us that other people with only 23 chromosomes don’t usually demonstrate. Sex is messy, and birth is also messy too. So why do we expect these issues to be neat?
I think God is honored more by our humble wrestling with these situations because in so doing, we are considering God as creator and bringing more glory to God than if there were cut and dry laws about it. I suspect that for each womb God is probably a situational ethicist. How do you legislate that? The time from conception to viable life outside the womb is still the huge gray area of moral and ethical challenges. You can be pro-raging hormones, pro-odiferous phenomes, pro-causal sex, pro-cloning, pro-frozen embryos, pro-the pill, pro-no premarital sex, pro-the morning after pill, pro-promiscuity, pro-sexless marriage, pro-abstinence, pro-abortion, pro-conception, pro-fetus, pro-genetic engineering, pro-birth, and/or pro-choice. But all these labels are convenient brands that are too simple for the complex issues involved. There are many options available that may or may not need to be considered as policy “to promote a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” I reluctantly still chose pro-choice knowing that how each woman, man, and family makes their choices may not be spiritually or religiously informed. God will not be mocked, and God really does not need people who defend one part of creation over and above another part of creation imposing their will and desires on us. The psalmist declared that God saw into the womb when he was conceived, and he realized that he was fearfully and wonderfully made. Of course, God did! God did not need a sonogram. However, this is a declaration of faith made by someone who made it through birth to breathe and walk on this planet and realized how precious his life truly was. As a living human being he came to glorify God. I may have to be more vocal and take more action to uphold the right to choose against others who seek the power to oppress without regard for ways “to help and befriend her in every necessity of life.” When we as a people legislate morality, I don’t think we honor God because the motive is usually power and not humility in God’s Kingdom. My wish and goal for anyone is that they come to know and relate to God and Jesus as their reason for meaningful existence and the force for their life’s work. That seems to me to only happen when you have a choice. Again, thanks for reading my rant and wrestling with the issues.
For Your Consideration:
Please consider at least one or more of the following to do or answer:
1. Do you have a particular life experience that informs your position on this issue? Please share it with me in the comments.
2. We have not yet created an artificial womb, but they are working on it! What would you think about a baby factory in the 22nd century where every fetus was allowed to live in an artificial womb until birth? What would you want to see happen to these babies?
3. China a few years ago tried to limit families to one child. Do you think that is a good idea for our country or the planet?
4. I have heard the phrase “If men could get pregnant, abortion would not be an issue”. Do you think this is true and why or why not?
5. The religious right believes in the cultural separation of bigender roles, yet society has shown greater variations can and do work. Stay-at-home dads and women professionals are using skills that were once unexpected and even currently unacceptable to some Christians. How do you feel about the culturally assigned role of your gender? Were you able to live up to all you think you could have been according to its cultural customs?
6. Are the laws in your area sufficiently balanced between the right to liberty and the right to life? Do you think this deserves national legislation at some minimum level? What minimum level are you in agreement with?
7. How does education influence this issue and how do you believe the STATE should set and enforce policies about sex education?