Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: 5 surprising facts to bridge the gap.
I think I can say this is the single most important political view to many, especially thinking of Christians. It seems impossible to bridge the gap. I grew up my entire life going to churches where voter guides were passed out to know where the candidates stood on various issues. Most congregants scanned down the list to find where the candidate stood on abortion and then knew exactly how one was supposed to vote.
In the last 15 years I’ve had conversations with people from every side of this debate you can imagine and here are five bits of knowledge I was surprised to realize.
- Very, very few, if any, people are excited about an abortion. Even the caricatured feminist is not skipping with glee to make this decision. For the vast majority of women this is a very serious and somber moment, that involves a lot of considerations like their own health and the ability to care for a child. This first occurred to me when listening to a song by Ludacris and Mary J. Blige called “Runaway Love” about a young woman in very difficult circumstances. For some stories of women who had second trimester abortions, watch this short video, all of them wanted to have the baby, but for various reasons that seem to never get brought up were left no choice but to have an abortion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8-vbOhCqJ0
- Many if not most pro-life* proponents base their beliefs on the Hebrew Bible. The central verse for this comes from a poem, Psalm 139. In this, one of the most eloquent poems in the Biblical library, it says “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” This poem also includes the author “rising on the wings of the dawn” and other beautiful, poetic language. This is beautiful but Jewish people and the majority of Christians until probably about 1979 did not take this empirically/scientifically. To the extent there is a scientific assessment, Jewish interpreters of the Bible are nearly unanimous (that is rare!) in saying that life begins at first breath. Throughout the Bible breath is constantly equated to life. Starting with Genesis 2:7 “God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” If you know the Bible you know that the connection between breath and life is an often repeated refrain, places such as Gen. 6:17, 7:15, Psalm 33:6, 150:6, Ezek. 37:5–9, Acts 17:25 and many others. Humans do not breathe until after they come out of the womb.
- There is an abortion procedure prescribed in the Bible. I was as surprised as some of you are, while I didn’t linger in the book of Numbers too long, I did read the whole thing at minimum 4 times and I somehow missed it until recently. Numbers 5:11–31 is not one of the most pro-women parts of the Bible, but it does include an abortion procedure. The author gives an example of a woman who is accused of sleeping with someone other than her husband and the priest gives her water mixed with dust from the tabernacle saying “may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!” (Num. 5:22) That is an abortion.
- Historically speaking, the two biggest drivers for abortion are unwanted pregnancies and lack of financial and social networks to care for wanted pregnancies. Therefore, the best way to limit abortion is when social and economic conditions are better for women. Funded sex education, contraception, living wage jobs, publicly funded college, affordable housing all help women to be in positions where they are not reliant on men, thereby allowing them to make their own choices, preventing unwanted pregnancies. Strong maternity and paternity leave, with access to child care, and other social services make wanted pregnancies for those less financially and socially stable more likely to be carried to full term. If we are serious about cutting down on abortion, we must consider programs to assist women. Abortions have gone down the most under Democratic presidents. https://qz.com/857273/the-sharpest-drops-in-abortion-rates-in-america-have-been-under-democratic-presidents/
- Last but not least, the Southern Baptist Convention (largest conservative/evangelical denomination) has a policy that likely we can all agree on from 1971 and reaffirmed in 1974. It says: “Be it further RESOLVED, That we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/13/resolution-on-abortion this was reaffirmed in 1974: http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/14/resolution-on-abortion-and-sanctity-of-human-life
(The SBC took down this 1971 resolution from their website in 2020, but it can still be found in other places)
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*I say pro-life out of respect to those who identify in such a way, but, often pro-life only means anti-abortion, or forced birth. https://www.redletterchristians.org/will-the-real-pro-life-political-party-please-stand-up/
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Taylor Storey is probably either in Santa Barbara County, California where he grew up or in Berlin, Germany where he has been doing a MA in Cultural Studies.
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