An Answer for Jared on the Abortion Question
May 26, 2012 | 5 Comments
Recently, Jared asked:
The curious thing is that I can’t recall finding anything specifically related to birth control in my readings of the New Testament. Exactly what theological justification do anti-abortion activists cite? Something in the New Testament? Something in the Old Testament? The Ten Commandments, particularly the one that says “thou shalt not kill?”
A valid question, Jared. Let’s discuss.First, regular commenter R. Mowat notes that “[t]here is a lot of Christian belief and practice that is not explicit in the Bible itself. Indeed, this is a key reason why there are so many different Christian creeds and denominations.” This is significant; many people (myself included) do not see the bible as the absolute, 100% accurate word of God. The bible was written by humans who are (as argued in the Bible!) fallible. It’s neither perfect (as written/translated) nor exhaustive. What it truly is is a tool through which we hope to discern the message of God.
One needn’t even be acquainted with the Bible to be a Christian. God can speak to everyone, and he doesn’t assign a summer reading list.
But, let’s get back to the Bible itself. Jared is correct to point to ‘Though shalt not kill’. I’m not going to argue that abortion is murder, but if you believe (as the standard pro-life argument assumes) that a fetus is a person, then that commandment would apply. Of course, that’s an Old Testament thing, and if we’re looking for an explicit Christian thing, we’d probably want the New Testament to back it up.
In the New Testament, Jesus says something to the effect of ‘that which you do to the least of my children, you do to me’. So, again, let’s take as given that a fetus is a person. Can you think of someone who is more “least” than a fetus? A person who cannot survive unattached to another person would be the very type of person Christ was compelling us to care for.
Of course, if you’re not going to sign on to the fetus-as-a-person argument, then none of this would be persuasive, but that just brings us back to the elemental difference between pro-lifers and pro-choicers.
Oh, and I generally hate writing about abortion.
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5 Responses to “An Answer for Jared on the Abortion Question”
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May 31st, 2012 @ 1:37 pm
Thanks for the reply, Jonathan. The reason I ask this is because, from what I’ve seen, most vocal pro-life activists, particularly the Evangelical Christian ones, base their beliefs on their faith. It ties back into what I find to be a rather odd disconnect among some segments of conservatism in their rhetoric about reducing the state’s influence in people’s lives, and their willingness to use the power of the government to tell other people how to live their lives when it comes to things like abortion and gay marriage.
It’s one thing to deride various left-wing interventions as being part of a nanny state, but then I’m wondering how the social conservatives who make such arguments justify trying to restrict abortions or marriage. To me, that simply leads to a conservative nanny state, where the social conservatives are the ones telling people how to live their lives. It comes across less as these conservatives wanting less government meddling and more as if they want to be the ones doing the meddling and wielding the levers of power.
I suppose you could call me pro-choice, because as a man with no children I would be EXTREMELY loath to have any government intervene in something as sensitive as a woman’s maternal health choices. If a woman wants to keep the baby, that’s her choice. If a woman wants to abort it, again, that’s her choice. That’s why I’m aghast at Rick Santorum’s comments that female rape victims who become pregnant should accept their children as a “gift from God”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091170/Rick-Santorum-Rape-victims-gift-baby-pregnant.html
Any woman who finds herself in such a horrible situation is and should be the only one who decides what to do, using her own individual freedom and conscience. She doesn’t need government coercion telling her what to do.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
May 31st, 2012 at 1:50 pm
This is all true, Jared (though a lot of it will be about perception – if you think abortion is murder then criminalizing it is no more intrusive than criminalizing murder). I think this also clarifies the myth that conservatives are inherently small-government advocates. Some are, some aren’t. Some are in certain ways, but then if you get to jails, police or military spending, they aren’t.
I don’t find that social conservatives tend to be inherently small–government advocates. They often are, but that is more because they don’t like the activities of the government. If they could reliably push through their own big government agendas, they’d have no qualms.
There is a lot of faith-based opposition to abortion, but I think something you have to remember is that not all Christian sects place the same amount of weight on the bible. Some are strict to its teachings and their worship involves close study of the scriptures, others put less stress on it and their worship and faith is more about experiential.
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Jared Milne Reply:
May 31st, 2012 at 4:13 pm
I’m well aware of the variances between Christian sects, Jonathan. What I was wondering in this post was what sources the Evangelical Christians and other faith-based social conservatives used to justify their opposition to abortion.
Indeed, I’m a non-denominational Christian myself in that I prefer to adhere to my own interpretations of the Scriptures in combination with my own experiences.
For example, the subtext I’ve found in several of Jesus’s sayings (such as rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, his condemnation of the hypocritical Pharisees, or his talk about going down into a well on the Sabbath to retrieve a sheep that’s fallen down there) and Paul’s evangelizing to the Gentiles while getting into disputes with his fellow Jews as emphasizing the importance of adhering to things like kindness, mercy and compassion over the strict letter and intent of the law.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
May 31st, 2012 at 4:29 pm
“…emphasizing the importance of adhering to things like kindness, mercy and compassion over the strict letter and intent of the law.”
This seems like a good distillation of much of the New Testament.
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June 3rd, 2012 @ 12:39 am
Jared: there are all kinds of things that could be said to expand on or respond to what you and Jonathan have raised here, but I’ll focus on one of them. You suggest that at least some of Jesus’ and Paul’s words or actions “emphasiz[e] the importance of adhering to things like kindness, mercy and compassion over the strict letter and intent of the law.” Although I don’t think this is precisely what you were getting at, one could read your statement as suggesting that virtues matter more than rules. From this perspective, living a good life is not primarily a matter of doing the required actions and avoiding the prohibited ones, but rather of acquiring good attitudes, maintaining admirable motives, developing sound character, and being a good person. And looking at the issue in those terms might also reveal one of the factors involved in some Christians’ opposition to abortion.
A writer whom I respect once noted (if memory serves) that abortion pits a mother against her own offspring (and obviously, it often pits the father against his own offspring too, since real-world abortions are often chosen with the support of, or even due to pressure from, the father). This is one of the things that make abortion objectionable at first blush. The developing individual in the womb is not an alien being or a random stranger: s/he is the parents’ own child, and to reject him/her is to forget one major purpose that we, as creatures with reproductive systems, fulfill–we’re not just individuals, not just workers, not just lovers, but also parents. From this angle, whether or not the embryo/fetus is a “person” is not necessarily too important. She is certainly the parents’ offspring, and to deliberately have her snuffed out and discarded in the garbage does not, all things being equal, look like the sign of a loving parental attitude.
Perhaps many Christians might more or less agree with what I’ve just said, but it wouldn’t appear to be a viewpoint specific to Christianity. There are various other ways in which abortion might seem to run counter to the sort of attitudes, motives, and character that Christians admire. Abortion gets associated with the mind-set promoted by its staunchest defenders: “my body, my choice,” etc. Though that’s obviously a slogan, it does sum up much of the outlook of the pro-choice movement, and, more importantly, a central value of our society, which partly explains why abortion rights have gained so much purchase here. But the man whom Christians claim was divine said things like “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” And the apostle who wrote much of the New Testament told his readers that “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” It’s not hard to see why a practice associated with the determined assertion that I *do* belong to myself, and that I do have the right to do what I want, wouldn’t resonate that much with Christians, and might, in fact, set off warning bells in our heads.
The (poorly articulated) point I’ve tried to make here would probably be unsatisfying to those who want to talk about whether or not abortion should be *forbidden*. But arguably, our society is too inclined to approach thorny questions in terms of what is permissible or impermissible. Instead of spending all our energy deciding whether a given practice is *acceptable* or not, we might want to pay more attention to what kind of people we become as a result of our practices.
I certainly can’t speak for other Evangelical Christians on this issue; in any case, what I’ve said here probably reflects only a relatively minor part of how most of us see the matter. I think it’s interesting to consider, though.
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