Pro-life or pro-choice
Leave no room
For a third voice
One or the other
With no in between
Opponents at odds
From polar extremes
Do I have to take a side
Abandon the child
To support the mother
Forsake the woman
For the unborn other
Can’t there be
A middle way
That lifts up both
A higher state
A path more nuanced
A way more grey
But better able
To navigate
Better prepared
To negotiate
The complexities
Of actualities
And realities
Forsaking neither
Life nor choice
Representing perhaps
A middle voice
Pro-choice does not equal
Pro-abortion per se
Regardless of what
Their opponents may say
The truth is almost no one
On either side of the deep divide
Wants the number
Of abortions to rise
Pro-life does not always
Mean anti-female
Though the patriarchs do
Pair it up with pro-male
As part of a platform
Of power and control
That serves their privilege
Their rule and role
Both sides honor life
Mother and child
It’s not so clearcut
It can be reconciled
But the rhetoric runs
Too fast and too wild
Cooler heads must prevail
Where tempers are riled
Words must moderate
Accusations must stop
Middle ground can be found
More listening, less talk
Perspectives can change
When empathy grows
If hearts and minds
Choose to open not close
Multiple positions have been
Reasoned out
And employed to defend
Rooted in varied traditions
And argued well from end to end
With science and faith
Both in the blend
No absolute right
Or absolute wrong
Can be proven out
Beginning to end
To think otherwise is illusion
It does no good
To posture and pretend
For some believe
That life begins
At the moment of
Conception
Others hold
A babe’s first breath
As the point
Of life’s inception
Some consider
Viability
The line of
Demarcation
While others think
The first heartbeat
Represents a life
That’s nascent
Some traditions
Instead hold
To when a life
Becomes ensouled
It’s not black and white
But shades of gray
Regardless of what
Anyone might say
No clear absolutes
Biologically
Nor definitives
Theologically
Much less for sure
Emotionally
Regardless of what
Your conviction might be
Though you may
Hold it strongly
Don’t force it on me
Nor me on thee
None but God
Knows for sure my friends
The point in time
The soul enters in
Mysteriously
And a person begins
Ensoulment seems
To me the line
Where a miracle happens
By a touch divine
Where biology ends
And a person arises
But a soul must have
A place comprised
Wherein it can abide
Where body, mind, and spirit
Together can reside
If mind has not
As yet been formed
Where consciousness
Can there be born
A self cannot yet be
At least that is
The way that things
Logically, Convictionally
Theologically
Biologically
Appear to me
At the present time
To be
The complex
Multiplicity
Of circumstance
And probability
That may arise
Ere birth can be
Lends itself not
To simplicity
Or clear cut lines
That seek to define
In black and white
The wrong and right
Here the blunt edge
Of the law
Is limited
And greatly flawed
But the wisdom
Of doctor and patient
Both respecters of life
The extant and the nascent
Wielded with knowledge
And trust and light
Committed to that
They hold to be right
Enables the best
Decisions and sight
For child and woman
Both alike
It seems to me
The utmost of
Hypocrisy
To defend the life
Of the unborn
So adamantly
And ferociously
While choosing to
Neglect those born
To injustice, abuse
And poverty
If you’re for life
Then uphold life
In every situation
Care for those
In utero
And those
Of every station
Immigrant, refugee
Rich and poor alike
Widow, orphan
Prisoner, free
You cannot
Pick and choose
Whose life deserves
To wither and lose
Let us see
Consistency
A modicum of
Integrity
No matter what
Philosophy
You promulgate
Or policy
You advocate
Or law that you
May legislate
Or conviction you
May now embrace
That may change
With the turn of the page
As experience
And wisdom
Reserved not just for the sage
Knowledge
And understanding too
Tend to grow with age
Pro-life or pro-choice
Leave no room
For a third voice
One or the other
With no in between
Opponents at odds
From polar extremes
Do I have to take a side
Abandon the child
To support the mother
Forsake the woman
For the unborn other
Can’t there be
A middle way
That lifts up both
A higher state
A path more nuanced
A way more grey
But better able
To navigate
Better prepared
To negotiate
The complexities
Of actualities
And realities
Forsaking neither
Life nor choice
Representing perhaps
A middle voice
D. Gee, Fall 2022 — Spring 2023
The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. — Proverbs 18:17
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. — Romans 12:18
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. — Matthew 5:9
The topics of abortion and reproductive rights have been one of the most divisive and emotionally charged topics of my lifetime. And those issues have only become more charged in our current legal and political climate.
As for my own views, they have evolved over time based on exposure to a broader range of perspectives, traditions, circumstances, and factual data. I remain pro-life, but with a much more broad and nuanced view of what that means and how it can/should be best achieved. The rhetoric and strong emotions around this topic are not helpful. Too many of us have drawn absolute black and white lines in places that really are in many ways uncertain and unknowable even after having been studied and pondered by greater minds than ours for millennia.
The question of when a life that is fully human begins is not as simple as many of us have tried to make it. Various cultures and theological traditions have answered (and continue to try to answer) that question in different ways over the course of history. There is no absolute certainty to any of those answers, with the exception that all of sane mind and good conscience would agree that the latest point at which human life begins is the time of birth. Modern findings of biology and neuroscience have provided new understandings and insights, some of which are clarifying and some of which are not. None provide a hard and fast, clear answer.
In response to much of this, it has been easy for many who are pro-life to take the posture that “if I’m going to err, I will err on the side of life” by holding up the point of conception (i.e., successful fertilization of an egg by a sperm cell) as a potentially “clearcut” answer. I held this view myself for decades and recognize the underlying sentiments and rationales. But I have seen great harm caused by those who drive a hard line on this view and essentially make no allowances for the life of the mother, for contraception, for fertility treatments, for in vitro fertilization, or for ethical pursuit of stem cell research because such allowances can and do involve manipulation, loss, or destruction of fertilized eggs, blastocysts, and/or early-stage embryos.
I do find it fascinating and extremely hypocritical to know how supportive Christians who adamantly oppose abortion from the point of conception onward tend to be of fertility treatments in which fertilized eggs are routinely created and destroyed in the interest of trying to initiate a viable pregnancy. And no, I don’t believe the ends justify the means. If the one is murder, then the other is murder. Some of the more stridently extreme anti-abortion voices are at least somewhat consistent on this, but not very many.
At the earliest stages of pregnancy, I personally don’t believe either is murder because a collection of cells up to and including an early-stage embryo just simply does not yet represent a true human life in my view. I don’t believe a human being, a human soul, can possibly be present in the first trimester of pregnancy, which is when the vast majority of abortions are performed (most in fact by medicated abortion at the very earliest stages of pregnancy, or potential pregnancy, when calling a cell or small collection of cells a human being is really not reasonable). Based on developmental biology and neuroscience, it is arguable that the same might be said up to the mid-pregnancy putative “viability” period (20–24 weeks-ish), so maybe our more common abortion-limiting laws have not been so far from the mark after all.
Mid to later term abortions (20 weeks and beyond) most often are performed in response to a serious health issue or threat to either the fetus or the mother — often at points in the pregnancy where the parents want to carry to full term but find themselves confronted with a terrible set of circumstances and associated decisions that you and I cannot really understand and should not try to make for them. That’s the place for the attending physician(s) and the parents to dig in and discuss possible options and outcomes carefully and make a hard, deeply personal, difficult, and impactful decision together in a setting free from outside, ignorant and intrusive interlopers. I’m willing to respect other voices, but I’m not willing to allow those voices to shout down all others and claim to have an ultimate answer that they do not possess. That is simply self-righteous elitism of another stripe and flavor that thinks it knows best about someone else’s life and should be empowered to make decisions for them (for their own good of course) when you boil it all down.
Just look around at the present-day harms being actively done to women and to health care providers in association with the extremist legislation that has followed the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the most conservative states. Places like Texas have effectively created a police state along with a culture of hard-core vigilantism around basic women’s health care. These are areas that should not be the business of the state and certainly should not be subject to threats (and realities) of penalties and imprisonment for both patients and physicians. Nor should such laws and measures be coupled with incredibly invasive controls on where and how individuals can freely travel and seek reproductive health care that may be essential for their health and life (including abortion care according to their beliefs, convictions, and choices wherever that is available).
I remember beginning to read The Handmaid’s Tale many years ago and being horribly offended at what I felt was a gross mischaracterization and misrepresentation of my Christian convictions and beliefs. I picked up the book again this past year and found myself dumbfounded by its accurate prophetic quality with respect to what I can only call the fundamentalist church’s war on women actively being waged today at the national and state level. This is a war with the subject of abortion at the center, but with a broad range of oppressive, misogynistic measures being purposely promulgated and promoted with restrictive, reactionary tendrils extending deep into the lives of women in America and beyond.
In the leadup to the 2020 election, I found myself under attack by some on social media for being a “baby killer” due to my deeply moral opposition to Donald Trump and my vocal support for Joe Biden as the much more qualified, competent, and decent candidate. I can’t tell you how disturbing and distasteful I found all of that, rhetorically, socially, politically, theologically, morally, and personally.
One of the things I have come to recognize and believe is that bans on abortion are much less effective at limiting the rate of abortion than policies that care for and actively support women and families and the poorer segments of our society in tangible ways. Such policies naturally lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies and better resources available to mothers, families, and babies/children. Democratic policies tend to incorporate and implement these types of principles, which not only wind up protecting the lives of the unborn but also the lives of vulnerable children and adults of all stripes.
Ironically, the contrary has been customarily true of “pro-life” Republican policies, which have a demonstrated track record of cutting resources and programs that serve the underprivileged and poorer segments of our society while promulgating laws that limit access to abortion and other reproductive care (including contraception). I have heard it claimed that the “pro-life” movement is only pro unborn life and has shown little care for the same babies once they have been born. Sadly, as a former “pro-life” Republican with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, I find that is a telling and far too accurate characterization. The irony is not lost on me, particularly when extended to corollary life-centered questions of capital punishment, gun laws, treatment of refugees, immigration law, systematic racism, and the like.
Simply outlawing abortion is not a viable policy or legal solution. It’s simply not; abortion-related and abortion-adjacent care is critical to provision of high-quality health care for women. Further, none of us wants to return to the ugly days of backroom abortions conducted on desperate women and girls by poorly trained individuals of various motivations using crude instruments and methods. That was literal carnage and should never come again, but in a Dobbs-created world the potential (and probability) is plainly present.
I have my own convictions on all of this, but recognize the need to hold them loosely and continue to subject them to theological, moral, ethical, and scientific examination on an on-going basis as facts, information, and arguments are put forward by a variety of thoughtful people. Maybe we all should take a less-strident posture and take some time to listen to a variety of voices and explore information outside of our normal channels. We might all just learn some new things and find more common ground than we think.
In the process, we just might find ourselves collectively on a path of actually upholding life in a more comprehensive and holistic manner than before. At least that is my hope and prayer. If we are going to care about life, let that include all lives and particularly the lives of those who have already been born. In contrast to the unborn, those are the ones with an awareness and consciousness who can fully ponder, understand, and experience what is being done to them and therefore have the capacity to suffer much more deeply than the unborn, and most of them are arguably just as innocent and vulnerable as the unborn.