The eCrozier

The recent signing into law of the so-called “heartbeat bill” by the Governor of Georgia has brought the issue of abortion rights back into our moral reflection. Abortion is one of those moral issues that’s complex with no easy solutions, no matter how some on the extremes of the discourse might want it to be otherwise. For example, people who favor abortion rights are often unwilling to acknowledge that abortion ends a life. Scientists and theologians will debate whether it’s a “human life” or a “potential human life,” but still a life is ending when an abortion occurs. If we don’t acknowledge that, then we’re not being honest. Ending a life on purpose should be above the pay-grade of human beings. That’s true at the beginning of life or in the prison execution room.

Those who are opposed to abortion rights are equally unwilling to have, it seems, any empathy for the significant struggle women have when trying to make such a decision. Ironically, these are often the same people who are stridently opposed to the state infringing on their 2nd Amendment rights. They’re quite willing, however, to have the state criminalize abortion with threatened prison sentences and infringe upon a woman’s right to decide about her own body. Neither side seems willing to grant even a small point to the other. They’re afraid that if they do so, then the whole basis for their moral argument will collapse. I don’t think that’s true, but that’s what they fear. And that’s what’s preventing us from having a compassionate and merciful conversation about this deeply complex moral dilemma. I can think of no other contemporary moral dilemma that’s more difficult to discern.

As I see it, there are no “totally good” choices on any side of this issue. So what do we do? I don’t know, but I try to think about it from the “least bad” end desired and then work back from there to start reflecting morally. Can we really have a just society where women are forced to bear children they don’t want or can’t care for? I know Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, is fiction, but that kind of state control of women’s bodies is frightening to imagine. It’s demeaning and degrading to their personhood and their citizenship and could never be seen as just. And yet, that seems to be the logical consequence of the recent legislation. From the other perspective, do we really want a society where human life (or potential human life) can be disposed of? We say we don’t, but we already buy into such a disposable view of life through our toleration of gun violence, thinking that mass murder is the price we all must pay in order to justify a particular, narrow reading of the 2nd Amendment.

I don’t know what the definitive answer is about abortion. I do know, however, that it has to begin with compassion and mercy to the women who face this dilemma. Criminalizing this difficult and complex moral issue will do nothing to support women who face a decision that doesn’t have a perfect option. At best, women have only a “least bad” choice. A compassionate and merciful response would avoid coercive tactics by the state and rather begin with fully respecting a woman’s personhood and then supporting those who face this dilemma with substantial medical and emotional care. I hope that’s where we end up when have worked through all this.

+Scott