Mercy and Abortion

I think that the far sides of the abortion debate both get it wrong. Here’s why.

1. Pro-abortion: a failure of mercy.

A womb is the sacred place where life is created. Abortion makes a womb a waiting-room next to the grave. (Though burial in any sacramental sense rarely if ever follows an abortion.) Through abortion, death enters this place for the creation of life.

And a mother who ends her pregnancy early isn’t merciful to her unborn, over whom she has care.  (I wonder whether this is true of the unborn who have such illnesses that their lives would be only suffering.)

A New York Times guest-columnist recently defended abortion-rights. The writer supported her decision to end a long-ago pregnancy. The column was articulate and thoughtful and chilling. The writer explained that she did what she did because she "didn’t want" another child.

I was unsettled because she spoke of ending a pregnancy with a phrase that a person might use toward a brand or model of car. The column unsettled a friend of mine with whom I shared it, too. I wonder if it unsettled many who read it who are on both sides of the abortion debate. I recently saw a poll in which 48 percent of Democrats believe that abortion is not moral.

The hard cases are rape, incest, and severe disability. But in cases where the burden on the mother is greatest, the mercy also is greatest. A woman who chooses to bear a child when that child will be a burden, or a great burden, is a saint.

Calling the early-term unborn mere "tissue", or whatever term de-humanizes them, only emphasizes their helplessness. They are so helpless that they do not even yet resemble what they almost inevitably will become if allowed to prosper in the womb and pass through birth. I think that too much of the debate about abortion has been unproductive combat over labels. I will speak of that more when I speak of the anti-choice side.

2. Anti-choice: a failure of mercy.

Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens that they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them." (Luke 11 (NIV).)

That, in 33 words, is how I perceive anti-choice partisans. They tend to be conservative. That usually means that when a child is born, their protectiveness dissolves. They surrender the child to the Darwinist, every-family-to-itself philosophy that largely prevails in modern conservative thought, unlike liberal thought, which believes that government should provide a social safety-net. I’m not defending or denying the rightness of the social-safety net. I’m just pointing out the change of attitude of the anti-choice partisans before and after a birth. It makes the anti-choice partisans like the experts in the law that Jesus spoke of.

The anti-choice partisans make no distinction between a person, like the New York Times guest-columnist, who simply didn’t want another child, and a woman who, by bringing an unborn to term, will suffer overwhelming financial burden, risk of death or infirmity, or profound shame.

And they judge. That’s something that Christians are commanded not to do. (Matthew 7; Luke 6; Romans 2.) I’m not saying that only observant Christians don’t judge (or aren’t supposed to). Members of other religions might or might not be faithful to this principle, just as Christians might or might not be faithful to it. But it’s a core part of the New Testament. (I admit that I might be judging here. (Romans 2).)

This urge to judge adds to wrangling over when "life" begins, and whether the unborn is "human". The debate could be about the strength or the mercy or the capacity for burden of the woman who considers an abortion. But there seems to be an eagerness to condemn. And the harshest label in the anti-choice dictionary is "murderer". So they choose that harsh label for a woman who chooses to end a pregnancy. Arguing that "life" begins at conception and that the unborn are "human" is a conduit to this condemnation.

I don’t doubt that the belief that abortion is murder is sincere. Buts it’s judgmental in the extreme and it doesn’t move us to a solution.

What I’m about to say might seem like a diversion, but it isn’t. Historians have considered why slavery in England was ended without the rancor with which it was ended in America. ("Rancor", of course, falls short of describing the up-to-the-bridle blood of the American conflict.) There were many reasons for the relative ease with which England ended slavery. One was the language of the anti-slavery partisans in England. They tended not to use language of moral condemnation against their opponents, unlike abolitionists in America. The American abolitionists harshly condemned the pro-slavery partisans in America, leading to bitterness, anger, resentment, and resistance. In contrast, in England, the anti-slavery partisans tended to be like Abraham Lincoln: they did not condemn the morals of those that took the position opposite of theirs. England’s slavery was ended by law. America’s was ended by war.

3. Conclusion.

This history provides a path to start to resolve a controversy that has embittered partisans on both sides. The harsh rhetoric hurts more than it helps, however much it thrills pride to condemn another.

And both sides need more mercy: pro-abortion partisans need more mercy toward the unborn; anti-choice partisans need more mercy toward travelers who must make a particular choice of direction in their passage between life and death.