After the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe vs Wade, the decision about abortion in the U.S. goes to the states, meaning the debate has simply shifted from federal to state government. So there are decisions to be made and votes to be cast. And a lot of popular talk on both sides (especially in memes) consists of non-factual nonsense. As an obgyn and a Christian Bible scholar, I want to see the discussion grounded in facts, but also a lot more compassion for each other and for the people involved in abortion. In that light, I’ve listed a number of inconvenient facts that will have to be considered. They are inconvenient because neither side takes them all into account. (A few of these might be subject to reasonable argument, but for the most part they are just facts, like them or not). Statistics from Pew Research. We won’t all agree, but we should be able to share a common set of facts and straightforward moral judgments.
- Public opinion in the USA on abortion rights has been pretty consistent for about 30 years, 60% in favor of abortion rights, 40% in favor of abortion restriction. No reason to think this is going to change much in the foreseeable future.
- 35% of women support banning abortion, vs. 41% of men. Abortion restriction is not about men vs women. Women make up a substantial part of the voice opposing abortion.
- 52% of Protestants and 42% of Catholics support abortion rights. This is not about religious people vs non-religious people. Christians make up a substantial part of the voice supporting abortion rights.
- The issue of abortion is complex involving three very different judgments: a moral judgment (what’s right), a legal judgment (what’s legal, or should be), and a personal judgment (if you’re in that situation, what are *you* going to do?). These three do not necessarily align.
- E.g., almost everyone would agree that adultery is immoral but is not and should not be illegal (we don’t want the police chasing adulterers and nosing into our sex lives). And then still you have to decide what *you* are going to do.
- The moral judgment on abortion involves the conflicting interests of the mother and child. Given that, no moral solution is going to be completely satisfactory. Either way, someone’s interests are going to suffer, and we’re going to have to live with that moral ambiguity, like it or not.
- The Bible offers no guidance whatsoever on abortion. The issue is never brought up. No point continuing to quote Jeremiah or Psalms about how God cares for us even before birth; these verses are not about abortion and offer no guidance on just when our moral responsibility for a child begins. There is no single “Christian response” to the problem of abortion, like it or not. The Bible offers no guidance, and Christians do not agree on what we should do.
- Discussions of when life begins or whether the fetus is a person are unanswerable or circular, not helpful. The focused moral question is at what point we have a moral responsibility to protect the life of an unborn child.
- It is unfair and untrue to claim that abortion opponents don’t really care about the life of unborn children (or their mothers). They really do, regardless of whether they may hold contradictory opinions in other matters like social policy or whether other issues about gender and sex may also be in play.
- It is unfair and untrue to claim that abortion rights advocates don’t really care about unborn children and their mothers. They really do, simply offering a different judgment about ending a pregnancy versus the woman’s autonomy to accept all the consequences of pregnancy and childbirth.
- Almost everyone believes (in general) that we do have moral obligations to children not yet born. This comes up all the time in discussions about what kind of world we leave them. We have some obligations to children not yet even conceived. The question remains at what point our obligation to them overrides obligations to the living.
- To end the life of a fertilized single-celled egg is not the same as ending the life of a 3 year old. It’s just not. Talk of ‘murdering babies’ is inaccurate, unfair, and inflammatory (i.e., tends to provoke violence).
- It is arbitrary to pick one point at which our obligations to an unborn child go from zero to 100%. Human development, from egg and sperm to born baby, is a continuous process without sudden leaps ahead.
- Most people focus on developments of emotional impact, such as heartbeat, movement, ‘looks like a baby,’ fingers and toes, etc. Emotional impact is not the same as moral significance.
- No reasonable person supports abortion in the third trimester, when babies are fully formed, neurologically active, and able to survive outside the womb. You *would* have to actually kill a baby to do this. Even Roe vs Wade did not permit this. (Contrary to a lot of silly talk, including from a certain former president).
- It is unfair and untrue to trivialize the anguish of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. For her, this is not just an inconvenience but a personal disaster. While occasionally you come across irresponsible people using abortion repeatedly for birth control, most women who seek abortion do so in anguish, at the worst moment of their lives.
- What makes sense from a moral point of view is a graduated obligation to protect the life of an unborn child, an obligation increasing with increasing gestational age. At some point (most obviously after birth) it becomes morally untenable to simply end the life of the child, regardless of the mother’s (very real) anguish. But early on it makes sense to value our concern for this mother’s situation and autonomy over the continued life of an embryo. In between these two points, issues are harder to decide, from a moral point of view.
- A legal judgment about abortion will not allow for shades of grey. It’s either legal or not, at any given point. Here’s where moral judgment and legal judgment have to part ways.
- Given the real and insuperable difficulties in making a clear moral judgment reasonable people would agree on, the legal judgment comes down to who is going to decide. At the worst moment of her life, is a woman going to make this decision herself or have it dictated to her by the government?
- The American tradition of personal liberty speaks strongly against government interference in our personal lives where the public interest is not at stake. Given the unclear moral issues concerning abortion in early pregnancy, it makes sense that the government should allow women to make their own decisions about their lives and bodies. That does not mean that everybody (or anybody) thinks abortion is great, or even OK; it’s just the difficult choice made by a woman in a crisis.
- Abortion rights are consistent with conservative principles of minimal government and personal liberty (Barry Goldwater supported abortion rights).
- Since the law requires a watershed “before and after” point, where abortion is either legal or not, the most reasonable legal watershed is viability. Roe vs Wade did not permit abortion after viability, and that seems a reasonable approach to continue. Even in the worst circumstances (e.g., a teenage rape victim who didn’t reveal the pregnancy until very late), at some point the life of the child has to be protected regardless.
- If you are in this situation yourself (the personal decision on abortion), the decision comes down to a simple question: regardless of what anyone else thinks, what decision can you live with? This is a decision between A and B with no third option, and if you can’t live with A, you go with B, even if you’re not really happy with B. And after you implement your decision, you don’t look back. Whether you have the baby or abort, you’re making the best decision you can in a crisis, and it’s useless to look back with regret.
Mark A. Plunkett
Columbus, GA
August 2022