April 19th, 2008 at 7:55 am
On the Civil Religion blog of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kim Wallis posts several things about her pro-choice thinking which bear analysis.
Right off the bat, though, she starts with a blanket statement about her side that is refuted by evidence:
And I just want to put this out there: nobody is pro-abortion. Regardless of when you believe that life begins, nobody is advocating or encouraging abortions.
I would like to believe that. Unfortunately we have abortion groups putting on “Screw Abstinence” parties, thus engaging in the behavior that leads to more abortions.
Wallis, a Jew, provides links that state that Jewish law doesn’t consider fetuses children until they are born, yet from her own experience she believes that she felt life in her womb sooner. That is a commendable admission.
I was reading her links on Jewish law, and they cite Exodus 21:22-23 for that view. I am curious though how that squares with Jeremiah 1:4-5, where the Lord tells Jeremiah he knew him before he was formed in the womb. But I am most disturbed with the rabbinic teaching from that article:
Rabbi Yom tov Lippman Heller, known as Tosafot Yom Tov, in his commentary on this passage in the Mishnah, explains that the fetus is not considered a nefesh until it has egressed into the air of the world and, therefore, one is permitted to destroy it to save the mother’s life. Similar reasoning is found in Rashi’s commentary on the talmudic discussion of this mishnaic passage, where Rashi states that as long as the child has not come out into the world, it is not called a living being, i.e., nefesh. Once the head of the child has come out, the child may not be harmed because it is considered as fully born, and one life may not be taken to save another.
So if the wrong body part comes out first, the child can be destroyed. Grisly.
Back to Ms. Wallis’s post. One of her notes states:
Although I am pro-choice I too am sickened by this “abortion art” in Sherry’s post. However, when we live in a country where we celebrate freedom, inevitably there are going to be those who challenge the extent of that freedom.
The revulsion is righteous. The act may even be a hoax. What she did was not “performance art” but a sick cry for attention. It should equal the horror were an exhibit released, “What I did at Columbine High School,” or “How Many Kurds Should We Gas Today?”
I hope Ms. Wallis’s continued contemplation of her experiences as a mother lend her the insight that the life in the womb deserves the protection of law.
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April 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
If people were truly ‘pro-abortion’, they’d do something similar to ‘pro-life’ groups: stand outside obstetricians’ offices, try to block pregnant women from getting the healthcare they need, and yell at patients to abort their babies. I have yet to see that.
Also, unless ’screw abstinence’ parties involve orgies without the use of contraception, I have a hard time believing they are ‘engaging in behavior that leads to more abortions’. One could argue that abstinence only sex ed does lead to behavior that leads to more abortions - every study has indicated the program does nothing to stop teens from having sex, but it does encourage the risky behavior of not using contraception.
While I reserve judgment on the Shvarts girl, I truly believe that we are on a slippery slope when we award civil rights to fetuses. God gave us free will, but many times I think we, as Christians, try to thwart free will by legislating morality. I believe that God rewards us in the afterlife for living a good life and helping others, not trying to dictate to others what we believe to be His will.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Talulah, thank you for your comments.
I want to address your third paragraph in particular. I actually did not use religion to argue the issue, though I did provide a comment how rabbis handled the ethics.
As medicine is able to save babies born earlier and earlier, it makes less sense to deny the right to exist to a child depending on which side of the uterine wall they are on. There are children in Newborn Intensive Care Units young enough to be terminated if their parents wished. Right now, Roe v. Wade forces state governments to sanction those activities.
We have been bludgeoned over the head with the “cannot legislate morality” argument so much that we do not recognize that the law does proscribe good and bad behavior. It sets bounds, which if a person crosses, it punishes. We prosecute perjury, theft, murder, polygamy, and indecency all the time. And this is a good thing.
The “cannot legislate morality” argument comes from a desire not to mix religious law and secular law. I appreciate the intent. We do not want an Islam or a Mosaic law. But I think this sentiment is used to deny us the body of evidence that God tells us about ourselves. It really is OK to use information that scripture tells us about ourselves. We don’t put our knowledge away for six days just to break it out for church. Using that knowledge does not mean we legislate the Ten Commandments. That is a knee-jerk accusation.
God in fact does disclose his will with Holy Scripture, and he desires that everybody knows about it. He disclosed his will to purchase our lives from eternal wrath, not with our good life and good deeds, but with the death and resurrection of His only Son. Christians have allowed themselves to be shamed into pluralization. Our participation in the world does not require the assimilation of its values.
But “God said so” is not why we argue for the lifting of Roe v. Wade and the restoration of the states’ right to prohibit abortion as tightly as they see fit. We argue for it because over 48.5 million abortions have been conducted since that 5-4 Supreme Court decision. It doesn’t take a Christian to figure out that isn’t a good thing.