No Easy Answers
Of all the issues that concern Americans, none appears to divide us more bitterly than abortion. In recent months we have been assaulted by images from an escalating pro-choice vs. pro-life battle, as each side digs its trenches (and digs in its heels) for the long haul.
On one side, women and men brandishing coat hangers and signs reading "Keep Abortion Legal" claim that abortion is a woman's right, graphically reminding us of the women who died of self-inflicted and illegal abortions in years past. On the other side, women and men holding signs proclaiming "Equal Rights for Unborn Women" and "Abortion Is Murder" -- some bearing graphic depictions of aborted fetuses -- uphold the fetus' right to life and call the 1.5 million abortions that are performed each year in this country a holocaust.
What triggered the recent intensification of the abortion war was a Supreme Court decision. On July 3, 1989, the court handed down its widely awaited ruling in the Missouri case of Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services. In anticipation of the decision, pro-choice advocates feared that the court might overturn its landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, which established abortion as a constitutional right. Pro-life proponents, on the other hand, hoped the court might take the opportunity to make a historic reversal.
In the end, no one was entirely satisfied. The high court upheld the constitutionality of a Missouri law that sharply restricts the availability of publicly funded abortions. In addition, it backed up a Missouri statute requiring physicians to test for fetal viability -- the fetus' ability to survive outside the womb -- at 20 weeks rather than the commonly accepted 24 weeks, thus placing potential additional restrictions on late-term abortions. Although the ruling only applies in the state of Missouri -- and many argue that the determination on late-term abortions is more symbolic than real, since only a tiny fraction of abortions take place after 20 weeks -- the impact of the decision reverberated around the nation.
Pro-life advocates claimed a limited victory, citing the Webster decision as the first crack in the foundation of Roe vs. Wade, which had stood untouched for 16 years. And pro-choice proponents breathed a barely discernible sigh of relief that Roe remains the law of the land, while at the same time contending that Webster was an ominous sign for the future of legalized abortion, a potential first step toward overturning Roe altogether. What both sides agree on is that the Supreme Court, by opening the way for states to impose restrictions on abortion, threw down a gauntlet that is likely to spark contentious battles in almost every state of the union.
THE ISSUE OF ABORTION HAS ALWAYS been a complicated and difficult one for us at Sojourners and for many others with whom we share common commitments. From our founding, we have advocated for the rights and equality of women. And also from our inception, we have upheld the sacredness of all life -- including life threatened by nuclear weapons, on death row, and suffering under poverty and racism.
In 1980, after input from many friends and much wrestling with the issue of abortion, we decided that unborn life needed to be included among that life which is sacred and to be protected (see "What Does It Mean To Be Pro-life?" November 1980). And again in 1986 we affirmed this position (see "To Preserve and Protect Life, " October 1986). It is a perspective we have come to call a "feminist pro-life" position. Others have called it a "consistent ethic of life"; and a movement embracing this commitment calls itself the Seamless Garment Network, acknowledging that all life issues are interconnected and interwoven.
This view sees abortion as violence -- not only to unborn children but to women, who are also its victims. At the heart of this position is an understanding that we need to build a world in which women and men are equal and children are cared for -- a world, as others have put it, in which abortion is unthinkable.
But how do we get there? That is the question that last summer's Supreme Court decision raised with renewed vigor. Again we have struggled for clarity -- this time on the troubling "legal question. "
SOME ARGUE THAT THE ONLY WAY to be consistently pro-life is to work for outlawing abortion. Our laws reflect our morality, and today our law states that abortion is acceptable -- both as a form of birth control and as an answer to a no-win dilemma that pits the rights of women against the lives of unborn children. They point out that women are physical and emotional victims of abortion -- both legal and illegal -- and that more than 20 million children have lost their lives in this tragedy since Roe made abortion legal in 1973.
These proponents of making abortion illegal argue that our society's lack of support for women and children is directly related to the easy availability of abortion. In other words, our legal acceptance of abortion is a sign that we have given up on creating a world where there is justice for women and children, where there is responsible sexuality, and where men share responsibility for the children they father.
Others who share a feminist pro-life commitment argue that, until there is justice and adequate support for women, abortion must be kept legal. At a time in which there is substantial backlash against progress toward women's equality, keeping abortion legal is viewed as a crucial safeguard against erosion of women's rights in other areas and as a foundation for moving toward more gains.
This view acknowledges that a government that is comprised almost entirely of white men -- which has never made the concerns of women and children a priority -- cannot be entrusted now to represent these concerns and make decisions that dramatically affect women's lives. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that women who feel alone and desperate aren't prosecuted for their choice of abortion.
These advocates of keeping abortion legal recognize abortion as a tragic wrong, but they acknowledge that women with resources will find ways to get abortions. It is poor women, who feel pushed to desperation because of an unwanted pregnancy and a lack of options and resources, who will suffer most. Although women have died from legal abortions, regulating abortion has made the procedure safer and saved many women's lives.
FOR THOSE OF US WHO WANT to protect a woman's right to equality as well as a child's right to life, there are compelling arguments on both sides. We face a very complicated dilemma. So, once again, we at Sojourners have turned to our friends for help.
Several people whom we invited to write on this topic declined, feeling that the question of whether or not to make abortion illegal is simply too complex and confusing. Some of those who did agree to write expressed how difficult the assignment was. So you will find below both strong opinions and honest struggles.
The Supreme Court's decision in the case of Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services guarantees that there is a long and messy war ahead. The images continue to assail us, as the current debate on abortion erupts again and again in vocal forays between those labeled by the other side as either "baby killers" or "woman haters."
In a time such as this, what is needed most is reasoned, compassionate dialogue. The only way to participate helpfully is to refuse the current terms of the fray and look at the question with respect for the complexities. In that spirit, we offer the following perspectives, with gratitude for those who accepted the challenge.
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
From Contested Ground To Common Ground
Once a long time ago in a meeting, someone produced a phrase so immortal that I noted it down and saved it in my letter drawer. I found it again several weeks ago, and it has helped me as I've been reflecting on this question of illegal/legal abortion.
The sentence, scribbled in felt pen on a scrap of coffee-stained paper, is this: "How we get to where we don't know we're going determines where we end up." In Gandhian terms, we could say that the ends are determined by the means, and contained therein.
I believe we're called to build the Beloved Community, to bring shalom to birth, to live together in love and compassion and in harmony with the natural world. The Beloved Community will not be based on domination and power; rather, it will be a partnership of service and caring. That's where I hope to end up, so I have to think about how to get there.
In my experience of the U.S. government, both legislative and judicial branches, I have found it to be an instrument of power rather than justice, certainly with no systematic interest in mercy or compassion. To be in U.S. jails is to understand them as instruments of power meant to force powerless ones to stay in their places. Even laws that make sense in principle, such as illegal-drug laws, become instruments of exploitation and domination in that system.
To place the question of abortion in that arena is to cast the struggle as a struggle of power, domination, control. It seems clear to me from the responses of pro-choice people that legal action regarding abortion is perceived as dominating behavior meant to keep women in a powerless place.
The reactions on both sides of the abortion controversy are defensive and angry, and in my experience neither side promotes thought or open discussion. The argument seems to degenerate to the level of "Yes, I can, too!" and "No, you cannot!" In the process, many people who have seen abortion as a moral failure that must sometimes be allowed have begun to argue in terms that accept abortion as a positive good, or at least an acceptable form of birth control.
We become so busy arguing over the right to choose that we lose sight of whether the choice itself is a good choice for people to have to make. Mercy and compassion are lost, and no more nuances of position remain. Both sides become less and less tolerant of questions from within. People who try to reflect openly on the issue are labeled traitors.
Because trying to make abortion illegal casts the question as a power struggle, it seems to me to be counterproductive. It distracts us from the issue of making life possible for everyone in this society by creating justice. It is a tactic that easily and quickly divides us. It allows us to be used by forces with which we have deep disagreements.
IT WOULD BE MOST HELPFUL, especially for those of us who see all the issues as connected, to give up the contested ground of the law and define another arena for discussion. Rather than operating in a power mode, enforcing beliefs and decisions, perhaps we could invite people to come together in a discussion of the most gentle and loving possible responses to unwanted pregnancies.
If both sides in this argument are concerned for the welfare of women (and men) and children, then we should be able to discuss in depth the best way to achieve it, and agree on some common proposals that would create viable options for people who now feel they must make impossible choices. It might allow us to admit our failure and our sin together, and to vow amendment as a people.
If we talk seriously about what is best for mothers (and fathers) and children, we will not all agree on every point. But the issues underlying the struggle over abortion might become clearer, and such a clarification would bring us closer to the Beloved Community than the present pitched battle is likely to do.
I am still groping on this question: unhappy with the way it is approached by nearly everyone, and searching for a way to ask the question that allows some fruitful dialogue. It is especially hard to know that, while the battles go on, women are still becoming more impoverished, children are suffering in our streets, and the unborn are being cut off as they grow.
But the current arguments, and the likelihood of pitched battles over abortion law in many states, will not prevent any of these from going on. Giving up the attempt to take power and control may make life possible for more of the unborn than any law we could get on the books.
When this article appeared, Shelley Douglass was a founder of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action near the Trident submarine base in Bangor, Washington, and was relocating to Birmingham, Alabama, to help in the work of tracking trains carrying nuclear cargo in the Southeast.
Another Realm
RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES and practices, by definition, are characterized by free choice. On the contrary, law may be generally defined as enforced political rules. This reality, along with my years of experience as a practicing attorney and legislator, convince me that secular law is not equipped to resolve the moralities of abortion and is not the chosen arena of Christianity for such resolution.
Whether law changes or not, its underlying dependence for its security remains in the legitimization of institutional violence, which by nature is un-Christian. Therefore whatever the Supreme Court decides ultimately on the abortion issue is essentially a decision of another realm of life and death.
Christians live by a higher "law" not coerced or enforced by violence to do or not to do an act. Our values are not subject to secular law and the kingdoms of this world, for Jesus did not succumb to that temptation of power in the wilderness. Neither are we called to make such laws or abide by them. God's way places the highest value in creation and the life of all creatures.
So Roe vs. Wade or any variation is not the issue for me; nor is Christianity determined or enhanced by it or without it. We should not look to the state to compel women to complete, nor to allow them to terminate, a pregnancy. Rather, God calls us to be our own people and our own community -- to witness to the world's scandal, to love and bind up those harmed by its values.
If the energy now being poured into attempts to affect Supreme Court decisions were dedicated to establishing viable alternatives to abortion and substantive support and long-range care for victimized women, "unwanted" children, and families struggling with poverty, mental illness, and domestic violence, perhaps we would begin to see Christian community being born in our midst -- a light to the nations and a sure refuge for these needy ones.
William Durland was an attorney and founder of the Center on Law and Pacifism when this article appeared.
A Moral Obligation
I hold a feminist pro-life position on abortion, which can be characterized as a "consistent ethic of life," held by many peace and justice activists. I ground my position on the rational conviction that all human beings are of equal intrinsic moral worth.
This egalitarian ethic has engendered the democratic tradition of Western societies. The radical claim is made that -- despite differences and inequalities of wealth, health, sex, race, intelligence, age, character, or achievement -- no human being can be held to be morally inferior to another or used as a means for another's ends without consent.
In this ethic, all members of the human family possess inalienable human rights -- just because they are human. This moral premise moves its adherents to the claim that those persons in society endowed with power, ability, and goods have moral obligations to protect and aid those who are in need, those who are vulnerable or dependent upon others.
When applying this moral ethic to the specific case of abortion, I cannot justify excluding the human embryo as a member of the human community. It is an immature, dependent human life which, like a newborn, is on its way to being like us. I see no moral reason why immaturity, or size, or an early stage of development or vulnerability excludes an embryo (which I once was) from having the equal intrinsic moral worth of other human lives. It is totally dependent human life; but in reality all human lives are interdependent, all are in need of nurture and environmental sustenance at some point in the life cycle.
When the fetus is counted as a dependent human life in need, then others in the human community have moral obligations toward its claims for protection and nurture, just as they do toward other vulnerable lives. The woman who alone has the power to sustain the human life in her womb has a corresponding obligation to protect and nurture it.
While humans have many intrinsic, inalienable human rights, it has long been recognized that the most fundamental and necessary for all the others is the right to life -- or the right not to be killed. This intrinsic right to life is more basic than the right to self-determination or liberty.
While no right is ever absolute in all circumstances, a fundamental human right can be overridden only for a moral cause, only to obtain some greater claim of justice which continues to support the original human right. Thus a woman, too, has a fundamental right to life, and medical abortions to save her life or health in emergencies morally support the basic human right to life.
But abortions that serve social ends, or are used by a woman for contraception or for family planning, infringe and negate the basic principles of the moral equality of all human life as well as the fundamental right of all humans to life. In social abortion, the life of the fetus is given over as a means to a woman's, or to a state's, ends.
Once we justify inequality and violations of intrinsic rights for pragmatic goals, then a woman's own human rights, vis-a-vis more powerful males, will be endangered. Protection of vulnerable, dependent fetal life becomes a moral imperative for the whole society, a test case of our ethical commitment to human equality, human solidarity, and human rights.
WITH A LIBERAL PRO-LIFE VIEW, one can hardly retreat from efforts to try to change the abortion laws in the cause of justice. People who fight for civil rights, equal rights for women, equal rights for the handicapped, and spouse and child abuse laws, will struggle for just treatment of the unborn.
The law and morality never completely overlap, and no law is ever fully enforced; but in serious, fundamental issues such as protecting human rights to life, the law must take a stand. Laws should never be underestimated as a socially determining force in our culture. Law constitutes our society as well as regulating it. Our laws are one way we tell our story to ourselves and make sense of our collective lives. For many people the law is a teacher of what is morally right and acceptable.
The feminist pro-life movement will want to see the law on abortion changed, protecting women and families as well. Our campaign plans should seek to ensure new aid and alternatives for women and children to match each restriction achieved on abortion on demand. In a democracy we must rationally persuade citizens and moral leaders and make legal progress step by step.
First, we could surely get support for measures to ensure better choices than abortion, with provisions for waiting periods, mandatory counseling by neutral non-providers of abortion, and mandatory consultation and offering of information about alternatives such as adoption. Other concerned parties, such as male partners and families, can also be brought into the counseling and decision-making processes.
Next, there would be support for banning late abortions -- so obviously close to infanticide -- in all but the gravest threat to the mother's health and life. Public funds for abortion on demand could also be further limited, with curtailment or at least severe regulation of the profit-making abortion industry. Eventually the indications for abortion would be regulated, and arbitrary social abortion on demand would be severely restricted.
As the community legally intervenes to protect the pre-born, it must be politically forced to offer care and support for born women, children, and families. Parental leave, child care allowances, day care provisions, health care, housing and educational and employment opportunities are long overdue pro-family measures of our political agendas. Family life education and anti-drug educational programs must start in kindergarten -- adolescence is too late. Addicted women should have first priority in drug rehabilitation programs.
But before these social changes come about, can we in justice struggle to restrict abortions? Yes. I think we must assert the most fundamental inalienable human rights first -- on moral principles -- or other practical changes will not take place. Our society can never foster sexual responsibility and women's empowerment and equality without giving priority to moral claims, individual human rights, and the recognition of the seriousness and value of sexuality and women's childbearing.
If we do not recognize our communal moral obligation to the dependent and helpless fetus, why should women, children, and families be helped? Otherwise, abandonment to abortion, exploitation, and violent solutions in the name of autonomy, privacy, and liberty, will continue. Unless the law changes, the ethic of domination and expediency -- the law of the jungle and marketplace -- will have won the day.
Sidney Callahan was a professor of psychology at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York when this article appeared. She is the author of several books on parenting, abortion, and sexuality.
Reversing A Trend
THE SITUATION before Roe vs. Wade was intolerable. Women suffered botched abortions, and some died. Support for pregnant women was inadequate, and they were abandoned to the act of despair which abortion is.
After Roe, women suffered botched abortions, and some died. One woman in Missouri died from an abortion that was not merely legal, but court-ordered; she never requested one, but had been judged mentally incompetent. "Back-alley butchers" now advertise in the Yellow Pages. Support for pregnant women is still inadequate.
But there is one major change: Emotional support groups now exist for women who have come to realize that their abortions were a trauma and an injustice against them. However, when these women have done what comes naturally to citizens in a democracy and proposed legal reforms so that other women are not victimized in the same way, they've been told by male judges that their input into abortion policy isn't allowed.
The Webster decision reverses the trend of fanaticism on the Supreme Court and allows women more latitude to affect abortion policy. It allows for some creativity and some new approaches that empower women, such as expanding their right to redress. It is high time that women no longer be deprived of this power.
Rachel MacNair was president of Feminists for Life of America when this article appeared.
Love and Litigation
When the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Roe vs. Wade in 1973, some abortion advocates literally danced in the streets. Now it is the pro-life movement's turn to celebrate: For the first time in 16 years, there appears to be light at the end of what often seemed to be a dark and endless tunnel of death.
We would do well, however, to heed the words of Oscar Wilde, who said, "Be careful what you ask for, for you just might get it." For while the Webster decision has opened a door of opportunity, it has also presented us with a new set of challenges.
Although some pro-lifers portray the "typical" abortion patient as a self-absorbed yuppie who is afraid that a child would disrupt her affluent lifestyle, those of us who have worked with women in crisis pregnancy situations know better. More often than not, abortion is the choice of the disenfranchised, those who feel that they really have no other option -- the young, the poor, black women, brown women.
Indeed, although abortion is often thought of as a "white" issue, it has had an enormous impact on the African-American community. In 1983, according to Planned Parenthood, the abortion rate was 55.8 abortions per 1,000 women of color, compared to 23.3 per 1,000 white women. In the same year, the number of black babies killed by abortion corresponded to 2 percent of the black community. Put simply, for every three black babies born, two are aborted.
While both sides in the abortion controversy claim to have the majority, polls show that most Americans fit somewhere in the uncomfortable middle. While the public generally does not support an outright ban on all abortions, a consensus does exist for significant restrictions. Most of us would approve of a life-of-the-mother exception, but what about other instances that are not so clear-cut -- such as pregnancies conceived through rape or incest?
While we do have within our grasp the opportunity to pass legislation that would ban most abortions -- and should take advantage of this opportunity -- we must realize that in the long run, this battle will be won through love, not litigation. Even the most sanguine of us must admit that, even if our fondest dreams were realized and a Human Life Amendment were enacted tomorrow, abortions would still be performed.
It is more important than ever before to work actively to change the conditions that lead so many women to seek abortions, including the lack of support for families, especially low-income, single heads of households. We must be willing to take our platitudes off our placards and put our ideology into action.
For example, we often hear adoption touted as an alternative to abortion but are told that there is a shortage of babies to adopt. But all over the country, "special needs" children lack stable, loving homes. How many of us would be willing to adopt a mentally or physically disabled baby? And how many white pro-lifers would be willing to adopt a Latino or black child?
In short, we must be tireless in our efforts to bring about the kingdom, or, as Faye Kunce of the Seamless Garment Network has said, to "create a world where abortion is unthinkable." As Christians, we are called upon to do no less.
Melissa Simmons Tulin was coordinator of Feminists for Life of Pennsylvania when this article appeared.
A Compassionate Middle Ground
The abortion debate in America has featured two incommensurable positions: on the one side, those who talk of the fetus as a person with a right to life; on the other, those who talk of a woman's autonomy and her right to reproductive freedom. But polls have consistently indicated that most Americans occupy a middle ground in the debate.
They think abortion should be legal in some instances, but they are opposed to the idea of a blanket right to abortion. (They think it is inappropriate, for example, to use it as a means of birth control.) They don't think the state should start prosecuting women who have abortions, but they do think developing human life deserves some protection.
This middle territory is where many of the mainline churches find themselves. Though not interested in criminalizing abortion, they are clearly uneasy with a generalized right to abortion. A United Methodist statement speaks of "tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion," and goes on to condemn abortion as a means of birth control or gender selection. Episcopalians and American Baptists have both gone on record as decrying abortion as a means of birth control or, as the Episcopal Church puts it, for "any reason of mere convenience."
Is this middle ground morally feeble and politically irrelevant? It often seems that way, in part because of the hold Roe vs. Wade has on the discussion. By framing the abortion issue in terms of constitutional guarantees, Roe has helped limit debate to the vexed question of fundamental rights -- do we come down on the mother's right to choose or the fetus' right to life?
THOSE IN THE MIDDLE ARE trying to articulate a different approach. They sense that abortion cannot be addressed only under the rubric of rights, for it raises a variety of interlocking concerns -- concern for respecting human life, for ensuring the health of women, for meeting the practical dilemmas that parents face, and also for the vision of sexuality and reproduction that our society upholds. What's promising about the court's ruling in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services is that it opens up the possibility of getting beyond the terms of Roe and forging a piece of legislation that begins to articulate this network of moral concerns.
Some encouragement for thinking a move in this direction is possible comes from Mary Ann Glendon's survey of European approaches to abortion in Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (Harvard University Press, 1987). Glendon finds that several European countries have been able to balance different interests on abortion and creatively articulate a broad sentiment -- and they have done so through legislative action, not by handing the issue to the courts.
The French law is a striking example. It begins by asserting respect for human beings "from the commencement of life" and says there shall be no exceptions to this rule except in cases of "necessity." It turns out that "necessity" includes instances in which a woman is in "distress" prior to her 10th week of pregnancy -- a category with considerable latitude.
However, the law requires a woman seeking an abortion to have an interview with a counselor who offers assistance and advice "with a view toward enabling her to keep her child." That's not a coercive measure, but it is a way for the state to indicate that abortion should not be casually undertaken.
Physicians are required to furnish information on adoption and public benefits for women and children. The law also declares that abortion is not for purposes of birth control and therefore calls on the government to take "all measures necessary to promote information on birth control on as wide a scale as possible. "
One can imagine how such a bill might be greeted by activists in the United States, given the tenor of the current struggle. Abortion-rights advocates would decry as unconstitutional any attempt by the state to influence a woman's decision, while abortion opponents would find the law virtually meaningless because of its permissiveness regarding abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
But what about those in the middle? Doesn't this bill, which avoids all talk of rights and which tries to balance respect for human life with the desire to give women choice in the early weeks of pregnancy, get close to addressing their concerns? At least closer than Roe? Perhaps compromise is not so impossible.
One of the significant functions of law, Glendon points out, is that it is the vehicle by which a society articulates to itself the values it holds. For all the debate we have had on abortion in the United States, we have not spent much legislative energy trying to do just that. That would appear to be the next agenda for all of us, especially those in the middle.
David Heim was managing editor of The Christian Century when this article appeared.
The Law of Conscience
I contend that the best government is the least possible government. I believe each of us has the law written in our conscience, purified by grace, community, and God's word. I resist political power, in its myriad forms, from a firm biblical basis.
In the Old Testament, the governments of foreign peoples were never seen as legitimate or salutary. Nothing but persecution, war, devastation, famine, and evil could be expected from kings of the earth. Israel had a minimal political organization, was "governed directly by God." Then Israel demanded a king, rejecting God, and thereafter the government of Israel itself could not endure scrutiny.
In the New Testament, two lines of thought can be seen. One is favorable to authority (represented by the famous text from Paul: "The authorities that exist have been established by God.") The other, found in the gospels and Revelation, is hostile to authority. Jesus' attitude toward political authority is radically negative. He refused to become king, or to participate in the political conflicts. He counseled disciples not to imitate the kings of nations but to question and resist them.
"My kingdom is not of this world!" In the third temptation, Jesus is in implicit agreement that the kingdoms of the world belong to Satan, who gives authority over them to those who worship him, who serve the power of evil. That is the consistent and unique teaching of the gospels.
Political authority and organization are constantly tempted to rival God. Their power must be constantly challenged. They become acceptable only when they are weak, when they serve the good, when they maintain their humble status as servants of humanity.
The U.S. government, which spends almost a billion dollars a day for the destruction of life, cannot be considered a legitimate authority. Nor can we expect from it anything but the fruits of that seed of violence and death. Nor can we respect such abuse of authority.
Legalized abortion in the United States is predictable and consistent where capital punishment is legal, war is big business, and, on the streets of major cities, life is cheap and growing cheaper. That the issue of legalized abortion divides people who could otherwise be acting together to build the "kin-dom" of God is insidious, if not demonic. The arenas in which the conflict is enacted are still less encouraging: support for political hopefuls and protests at abortion clinics.
So-called pro-life forces that campaigned for Reagan or Bush on their opposition to abortion and pro-choice forces that marshal around would-be political saviors of abortion rights all fall into the deadly habit -- endemic to the North American personality -- of seeking instant solutions to serious human concerns. In protests at abortion clinics, name-calling, polemics, and flagrant hatred make all forget their own sisterhood and brotherhood and the humanity of sisters beleaguered with a problem pregnancy, who themselves are seeking instant solutions. On both sides of the issue, we become poisoned and crippled by complicity with a war-making government, ready to commit omnicide; how can silence toward the threat to all life prepare us either to win the rights of women or protect unborn life?
I LONG TO GET BEYOND the "I'm right, you're wrong!" traffic in the pro-choice vs. pro-life conflict. I long to see if we can't talk with, and help, one another to understand why this issue is so central among us today.
Since the alternative to law sanctioned by government is the law written within the individual conscience, the process would require that we ourselves become vulnerable, willing to lay out with one another both the content of our own conscience and the formation of that conscience. Conscience might then be available to others, evaluated by others -- in its integrity, and by the life that flows from that conscience and from compassionate and just conduct.
Could such a sharing, nationally and locally, enable us to understand and be part of the struggle of women to be valued and respected in this country -- not treated as property, as adjuncts of men, as mere bearers of children? Could such a sharing, nationally and locally, enable us to begin to work together to build a more just world, to protect children, to value life -- our own and the lives about us -- unborn, starving, hurt, as well as strong, alive, and growing?
Where do we start? Do we place the onus of valuing life on those whose lives count for naught in this society; or do we work together to build a culture in which life is valuable in its infinite variety?
Elizabeth McAlister was a founding member of Jonah House, a resistance community in Baltimore, Maryland when this article appeared.
No Disposables
IN ONE WEEK LAST SUMMER, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled on two cases from my home state, Missouri. One decision concluded that the death penalty is appropriate and constitutional for the mentally retarded and for those as young as 16 years old when their crime was committed; the other stated that, while states may now regulate abortion, the killing of the unborn may continue. There are, it appears, disposable children.
But if God is our loving parent, then there are no spare children, no disposables. In order that we might fully believe in the love of God as our own parent, God sent a son, Jesus. Jesus was an oppressed person in an occupied country, at one time the unborn child of a poor, unwed mother. A perfect candidate for abortion, a perfect candidate for a life of crime and eventually the death penalty.
When asked about the death penalty, Jesus simply stated that no one was qualified to administer it, and he told the story of the woman caught in adultery. He then went on to show us that not only would he not condemn another, but he would take the punishment himself. For all of us. Forever. The last spare child -- the last disposable. There should be no more: not in the womb, not on death row, nor in military uniforms, nor on account of old age or mental illness or physical handicap. We are each a child of God, with no replacement.
But what of justice? What of the victims of crime, the oppression of women, the quality of life? We cannot wait for justice to come before we act justly. We must do justice now. Where we find no love, we must put love, and then we will find it. For God is love, so there is certainly enough love to go around, even for all of those we would label "disposable."
Faye Kunce was director of the Seamless Garment Network, an organization promoting a consistent ethic of life, when this article appeared.
Neither Murder nor Liberation
Historically, there is certainly no remedy sought in the quest for equality and human rights in this nation more than the legal remedy. Indeed, probably no other people on earth have as impressive an array of legal protections against infringements on their rights, including protections against other laws and legal protections.
The struggle for suffrage, for abolition of slavery, for equal access to public facilities and civil rights, for the right to unionize, and countless other progressive movements in the United States, to some degree or another, were movements to protect by law the rights of some group. It is natural that progressives on both sides of the abortion argument may look toward legal mechanisms and assert that, as far as abortion goes, there ought to be a law.
There are clear cases on both sides. Having a child is not only an economic commitment that parents -- frequently single mothers -- shoulder for more than 18 years, but it absorbs time, energy, and resources at a time when working people are generally in their professional "make or break" years. And women have experienced a steady economic deterioration in the last 15 years, a phenomenon now being called the "feminization of poverty."
Adoptive parents on the whole belong to an economic stratum with expectations that are high, and many fetuses being aborted now would not be desirable for adoption by those parents. When abortion was not constitutionally protected, many infants of troubled pregnancies were raised by grandparents, by a single parent, and in institutions.
Many progressives look at just these data and emerge from this analysis arguing that abortion is a sacred right and should be protected by the Constitution. The specter of women seeking illegal abortions is often evoked, and the argument is made that we must guarantee equal access to abortion.
I believe it is time that we start looking at abortion as a medical procedure, not as something akin to the right to vote. We have to concede that all medical procedures have political ramifications and that the struggle to guarantee public funding for abortion can be, and certainly has been in this country, channeled to what are clearly genocidal goals. It is a fact that, in many areas, pregnant adolescents are encouraged to put their infants in the adoption market if they are white and to abort if they are members of minority groups -- due in part to racism and in part to which infants are coveted for adoption.
I believe that the progressive elements in the pro-life and pro-choice movements should explore the root reasons for more than a million abortions per year in this country. We, as a society, have failed to see to what degree having abortion as a constitutionally protected right has constituted substantial pressure to restrict programs that support human needs. In the area of the rights of women in the workplace related to maternity and unexpected child-related duties, we can most directly connect the attrition of programs to support human needs to the availability of abortion. I think it is important to note here that abortion is the only medical intervention that is (or was, by the interpretation of Roe vs. Wade) protected as a constitutional right. No one in this country can claim a constitutional right to prenatal care -- or even to a roof over an infant's head.
I WONDER IF THE TIME has come to see abortion as neither a crime nor a constitutional right. Many abortions sought by poor women in the 1960s, before legalization, were dangerous, even fatal; but most illegal abortions were performed safely for exorbitant rates on persons who could afford to pay. Legalization lowered the price, the risk to the mother, and the legal risk to the physician. If a law were made to make physicians who perform abortions technically criminals, prosecution will be arbitrary and capricious.
I believe that abortion is neither murder nor an act of liberation. It is a decision that virtually all who make it deeply regret. The fact that many see it as an unavoidable necessity is a message about the failures of this society, not about the need to arrest, try, and convict more persons and build more jails.
I wonder if those who are in favor of taking the "opportunity" that the Supreme Court has given us to more "law-making" in the area of abortion have fully considered what a law can and cannot do. The truth is, a law can make an action a criminal or civil offense. It cannot make it unnecessary. It cannot make it unusual. It cannot make it unthinkable, but only illegal.
Consuelo Sague was a pediatrician and medical epidemiologist working in public health research when this article appeared.
Fully Pro-Life
Although I consider myself to be "pro-life," I feel strangely ambivalent about the July Supreme Court decision on abortion. While the decision may serve to protect more unborn children, it does little for their often-desperate mothers, and thus falls short of being fully pro-life.
We sadly miss the point of being pro-life in today's world if we limit the debate to such questions as exactly when human life begins or how to save unborn children. We who are pro-life must not seek only to end abortion on demand but also to create better alternatives and support systems for women with unplanned pregnancies -- especially poor women.
A thorough presentation of abortion alternatives and a waiting period must be legislated so that women can be empowered to make fully informed, rational decisions. Adoption procedures and incentives must be restructured to better serve the infant, mother, and receiving family, and the stigma of both placing a child for adoption and being adopted must be worn away.
Job security, financial support, nutritional programs, counseling, and private and state-run crisis pregnancy and child care centers must be made available. Equal opportunity and pay for women in the workforce must be enforced, and maternity (and paternity) leaves and allowances to care for sick children granted. And we must be willing to attack the problem of abortion at its roots -- before pregnancy occurs -- with a healthy understanding of sexuality and contraception, as well as sexual behavior and its physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences.
Any solutions to the problem of unwanted pregnancies will have to involve not only the judicial branch of government but also the legislative branch and the private sector. The Supreme Court will need to continue, to the best of its ability, to mold a legal framework within which life-protecting, life-respecting abortion laws can be developed by legislators elected and empowered by the people. But we must not surrender our power to the court. All three sectors must work together to address the epidemic of unplanned pregnancies and unwanted children.
Those who care that more than a million children are being aborted each year in this country must demonstrate their compassion for those children -- and for their mothers -- both before and after birth. We must not allow life to become cheap or expendable. To be truly pro-life, we must simultaneously work to build the legal barriers to abortion and create the alternatives that help women's, men's, and children's lives to be more joyful and meaningful, as Jesus intended -- from the moment of conception by two people who love each other to its birth into a world that welcomes and respects the wonder of life.
Kathleen Hayes was director of publications for Evangelicals for Social Action and JustLife when this article appeared.
To Respect Life
I believe in the sanctity of life both inside and outside the womb. I believe that women are human beings, and that their lives should not be regarded as if they do not belong to them; women have rights, and those rights should be respected.
Abortion is an incredibly poor response to make to the beginning of a new life. But the society that has created the necessity for women to consider that it might be better to take life than to give life needs to examine itself and try to discover how it evolved to this point.
It has been a long time since this nation has had true respect for life. This fact is evidenced historically by our practices of genocide against Native Americans, by our past wars, and by the continued, constant preparation for future wars -- as well as the willingness to invest in prison construction and capital punishment instead of investing in the lives of poor children in an attempt to break the cycle of poverty that leads to crime.
Even the debate over abortion itself shows little respect for life. While passion and even militancy are acceptable expressions of emotion, I have been struck by the seeming disgust that many of those debating the Webster decision seem to have for each other. Of course, ironically, they were all white and seemed somehow to me, an African American, not connected to the core of the overall struggle necessary for planetary survival of the human community.
While I am not one to evade an issue, even when it is a tough one like this, I realize that to take a stand for the right to life and to stand up for the rights of women might sound as if it is an unwillingness to take a stand. But I don't think so.
I think that it is, first of all, an unwillingness to try to reduce a complicated human dilemma to a simplistic, politically debatable issue which can be won or lost. It is a willingness to live in the space of the conflict that is created by wanting to be able to tell a young pregnant woman that the unborn person inside of her has a right to life -- while knowing full well that she has a right to life also and that the chances that either she or her unborn child will have a life of quality are highly doubtful.
Furthermore, it is a willingness to try to look at all the sides of this issue and to examine my own complicity in being part of a society that doesn't have enough psychic and spiritual space for children and their mothers. It requires that I hear the cry of fear, the sense of victimization and loss of control that is manifesting itself in many of those who are debating this issue. And it requires that I try not to practice psychological abortion against them by killing them in my heart because their loud, angry voices stir up my own fears -- fears about lack of and loss of control, the fear of being vulnerable in the face of the realities of the age in which we live. Thus, the issue of abortion brings home to all of us some profound places of woundedness both personally and collectively and must be faced finally on that basis.
While the debates will continue, it seems crucial for conscious persons who are willing to be called to stand in the middle to continue to engage in passionate and humane debate. And at the same time, we must work very hard to create the space for the possibility for many among us to have life with greater quality, thus making it possible for a woman to believe that to choose life for her child is better than choosing death.
I want to spend my life working to make a few secure and safe spaces in this world, so that the option of abortion becomes null and void, and so that the rights of women will be held in respect. I want to help make spaces where choice is possible because of the viability of the support in the community and the commitment to the idea that human beings allow life to be given through them, that human beings respect life.
Catherine Meeks was an instructor and director of Afro-American studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia when this article appeared.
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