Wonderfully Made

One thing I’ve noticed is that when Trump supporters are feeling defensive about his lies, threats, and undermining of democracy, many raise the issue of abortion. In other words, no matter how distasteful and reprehensible the things Trump says nearly every day, they aren't regarded as important as the evil of abortion. From there, it's a short distance to believing that Kamala Harris and the "Demonicrats" are evil. Once you arrive at that conclusion, Harris' gestures and facial expressions appear sinister, only proving the point.

I think Harris herself is partly to blame. She’s focused on the issue of abortion more than I’d prefer. She may be gaining some voters, but I suspect she’s alienating a number of potential supporters who are fed up with Trump. I appreciate many things about her, including the values behind many of her policies which align well with my Christian values. I’ll put her flaws against Trump’s flaws any day. She believes in the importance of our democratic institutions and promises to accept the results of the next election. Those things are huge, non-negotiables, in my mind. It’s our democratic institutions that make it possible for us to have vigorous debates over issues like abortion without fear of censure or retribution.

So I’m going to stick my neck out and share some personal thoughts on abortion that no one is likely to agree with completely. In my last blog post, I talked about abortion being what sociologists call a “wicked problem,” meaning it’s a problem that defies simple analyses and solutions. Many of us are uncomfortable with complexity and quickly resort to binary, black-and-white thinking that prevents us from hearing and learning from one another. Ideally, we would say about abortion, “This is complicated. Let’s come alongside one another and figure out a way forward as best we can. And then we can make course corrections as we go.”

A lot depends on how we name or frame the issues. In the Bible, one of God's first tasks for humans was to name the animals. Naming is a skill that requires seeing into the heart of things. I find that a lot of the naming that happens around abortion, by both the right and left, leaves a lot to be desired. For example, simply calling a fetus "tissue" doesn’t do justice to this miracle that's unfolding in a woman’s womb; and, on the other side, calling abortion "murder" misses the mark as well. That's saying more than even the Bible says about abortion. (In fact, the Bible doesn’t directly say anything about abortion.)

On the other hand, some describe abortion as “terminating a pregnancy.” That's skirting the fact that to terminate a pregnancy, a life has to be terminated. I’m not saying it's a fully human life, but it is human, for want of being any other kind of life. At least it’s a human life in the making, which is a big deal. As a Christian, I believe it's an image of God being in the making. All of this is a wonder. The fact that 40-75% of conceptions naturally miscarry before birth makes the life that survives these challenges all the more amazing. (It should also make us cautious about viewing abortion as murder. Does a human body commit murder whenever an embryo miscarries?) The psalmist says something similar:

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Psalm 139:13-15

I suspect that abortion is part of a larger "culture of death" that permeates our nation. It includes our dismissal of people of other races, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and politicians and political parties we disagree with. This culture of death is also reflected in our reluctant, often skeptical response to climate change. Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, our obsession with Mammon (wealth) numbs us to what our consumeristic values and practices are doing to our planet, literally come hell or high water.

I'm convinced that all of us share responsibility for this culture of death, partly through the lack of creative solutions. Take abortion as an example. We’ve been at this long enough to know what doesn’t work. For instance, we know that abortion bans don’t work. Abortion rates have gone up since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, even after several states have instituted prohibitions. The percentage of adults who believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has shot up as well, even in red states, and is now at an all-time high of over 75%. So, partly because of these bans, the number of abortions is increasing, and the number of people who believe the right to abortion should be protected is increasing. So trying to ban abortion is proving to be an ineffective strategy for even decreasing abortions.

Condemning people who have abortions or condemning people with unwanted pregnancies also isn't an effective strategy. Unwanted pregnancies have always been part of the human story. That’s not going to change. People are going to have sex, and that's sometimes going to have unintended consequences that may feel overwhelming to both women and men. That’s the given we have to work with.

It makes sense that women would feel strongly about this issue. After being subordinated, denied, judged, and abused for millenniums, of course women would object to anyone else deciding what they can or can't do with their bodies, including what's growing inside them. They're not about to allow a bunch of mostly old white guys who have no skin in the game to make that call – those unwilling to lift a finger to help mother and child once the baby is born. That’s being pro-birth, not pro-life, and it reeks of hypocrisy.

It reminds me of something Jesus said about the rule enforcers of his day:

They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them (Matthew 23:4).

The problem is compounded by the fact that historically, women have often been forced into having abortions when men didn’t find a pregnancy convenient. Many times women have seen no other option when men abandoned them and they were overwhelmed by the challenges of their situations. In ancient Greco-Roman society, it wasn't uncommon for men to tell their wives to abort the child or, if the child was a girl, to expose her to the elements.

So why should women trust men with this issue?

At the same time, I'm not sure that focusing on the word "rights" is the best approach. The word "responsibility" seems more appropriate to me. The word “right” is very American and focuses on personal wants and desires, while “responsibility” acknowledges that the welfare of others is at stake, whatever the stage of their development.

Who should have the responsibility to decide? I’m going to pause here and suggest that the pro-life and pro-choice groups are both right and wrong in their approach to abortion. The pro-life camp is right to view the embryo or fetus as having inestimable value. That’s not the same as saying an embryo or fetus is a full human being or person, which is where I believe pro-life folks overreach. One doesn’t have to assign full personhood to an embryo to emphasize its worth. It is a human in the making, even an image of God in the making, and it is amazing.

Where the pro-life camp is wrong and the pro-choice camp is right is in discerning who should decide the future of the embryo or fetus, especially during the first several months of pregnancy. I realize there is something counterintuitive about having just one person who may be distressed make such a consequential decision. But the alternatives are even more problematic. I’d argue that there are no objective parties.

Take the Republican Party as an example. Observers have noted that the Republican Party has used, I’d even say exploited, the abortion issue to promote its economic policies. On their own, the Republican Party’s economic policies have not been very popular. So the Republican Party has used abortion and other culture war issues to expand its base. That’s why, with the shifting popular winds around abortion, the party has abandoned its pro-life stance in this year’s platform. The relationship between the Republican Party and abortion has always been transactional, which tells me they can’t be trusted with the issue of abortion. As I’ve already said, Donald Trump couldn't care less about abortion. One day he can say that women who abort their children are murderers and should be put in prison. A few years later he’s saying that women who are concerned about reproductive rights are going to love him. (Personally, I don’t believe Donald Trump can be trusted with any matter of importance.)

It was the Moral Majority that first made abortion a first-tier issue for evangelical Christians. But its leaders were no less transactional. Abortion wasn’t initially on the radar of the Moral Majority's founders. They were concerned with the IRS challenging the segregation policies of Christian academies like Liberty Christian School and Bob Jones University. Realizing that maintaining segregation wasn’t likely to mobilize the masses, they turned to the issue of abortion. I’m not questioning the motives of most pro-life evangelicals today. But the roots of this movement are questionable.

I also see Christian leaders using this issue to unify their members as they struggle with decreasing church attendance and cultural influence. I’m not saying these pastors don’t have personal convictions about abortion, but other agendas can easily sway any of us. Many of the culture war issues that Christian leaders use to solidify their base are matters Jesus never talked about. What are neglected are the issues Jesus did address – like the toxicity of wealth, racism, sexism, nonviolence, love for enemies, forgiveness, visiting prisoners, care for the poor and homeless, and welcoming strangers (e.g. immigrants). In other words, our preoccupation with abortion has blinded us to the same weaknesses Jesus identified in the religious communities of his day.

We all tend to have our agendas. Laws and lawyers, judges, panels, local communities, states, and national legislative bodies often have hidden agendas. So who is in the best position to decide what should happen to the life growing in a mother’s womb?

Could it possibly be the mother herself?

Maybe, instead of forcing women into a particular choice, we could spend our common energy informing her about that choice. I think the idea of pregnancy centers is a good one. There could be government pregnancy centers and centers offered by religious communities and other nonprofits. What if pregnancy centers were designed to present pregnant women with different medical, philosophical, and religious understandings of what’s happening in their womb and even what it means to be a human being? These centers would talk about the kinds of resources that the sponsoring communities as well as government agencies have to offer before and after the child is born. Service providers would emphasize the woman’s agency and her responsibility for deciding whether to continue her pregnancy. The emphasis would be on informing, supporting, and empowering pregnant women. I suggest that informed, empowered women, rather than women whose agency is being challenged, are much more likely to make responsible choices for the child and themselves. I'd be very surprised if abortion rates didn't go down.

And decreasing abortions should be a goal we can all get behind.

Given the alternatives, it makes sense to give women the responsibility to decide, at least until a particular stage in the pregnancy. As a society, we should take responsibility for creating the conditions that would help families flourish. I'm not talking about a handout but a hand-up. Considering the current cost of housing, childcare, and healthcare, and the lack of jobs that pay enough to support a family, we can't responsibly expect people with few resources to carry this burden alone. That's why abortion is a “wicked problem.” Any genuine pro-life position requires a holistic approach, not just a legal one.

Like I said, we’re all responsible for this culture of death, which means we share the responsibility for changing it. That will require some sacrifice from all of us. Telling people what they can or can't do will likely always be counterproductive. Doing what we can to put healthy supports in place is part of the solution. While I’m uncomfortable with how Harris talks about abortion, I like what she’s saying about the need for policies that support young and middle-class families and small businesses. I realize these things cost money and require good oversight, which can be complicated. That's why we need two healthy parties working on this together. Having one party make the rules and then punt when it comes to crafting and funding policies just won't cut it.

We should remember that Donald Trump is responsible for removing the pro-life plank from this year’s Republican Party platform. He’s never had any genuine convictions about this issue. For Trump, it's all about winning, and he doesn’t see being pro-life as a winning strategy right now. As David French and others have written, the Republican Party is officially no longer a pro-life party. That’s why French has decided to vote for Harris. While conservatives like French disagree with Harris on many of her policies, they acknowledge that, historically, Democratic policies have lowered abortion rates, and they believe Harris is committed to respecting our democratic institutions. January 6 and Trump’s rally rants make clear that he doesn’t. Instead of respecting life, he threatens to retaliate against his opponents. While Harris smiles and laughs at hecklers, Donald Trump has encouraged people at his rallies to rough them up – and said he’ll pay the legal expenses! (Yeah, right.) (Okay, that was in 2016. Now, he tells people he won’t tell them what to do, though he says he wishes he could but fears being sued.)

As Christian historian Kristen Du Mez wrote recently:

An NPR report has found more than 100 times where Trump has asserted that his rivals and critics “and even private citizens should be investigated, prosecuted, put in jail or otherwise punished.” These include promises to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Biden and Harris, calls for Obama and Liz Cheney to be sent to military tribunals, threats to prosecutors, judges, courtroom staff, and a grand juror involved in his own criminal and civil cases, and calls to jail election workers, journalists, and also private citizens who criticize SCOTUS.

Clearly, we have a long way to go to move beyond being a culture of death. Fortunately, we’re not only that. There is so much that is good and beautiful in our nation – including in the people we disagree with. It’s sometimes easier for me to see the good in the lives of people who align with my politics, which is still about half the country. But it's not just a half-full vs. half-empty way of looking at things. There’s a lot of beauty and goodness in the lives of most of the people I disagree with as well. Many of them, many of you, are better, more generous people than I am. You are not only wonderfully made, you're wonderful people.

But we're all a mixed bag, aren't we? Our founding fathers knew that about us and consequently created institutions with checks and balances to protect us from the worst aspects of ourselves. I hope and pray those institutions will hold no matter what happens after November 5. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump's former Chief of Staff, says that Trump fits the definition of a fascist, while retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, Trump's former Joint Chiefs chair, has said former President Trump is "a fascist to the core." In spite of the threat Trump poses and the chaos a Trump presidency is likely to create (especially without people like Kelly and Milley to inhibit him), David French thinks our institutions will hold. I'm hoping and praying he's right. I hope and pray even more that we won't have to find out.

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