Why we line up on opposite sides
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Like the rest of the country, I’ve been thinking a lot about abortion since we heard about the leaked document from the Supreme Court that suggests Roe v. Wade will soon be overturned. I’ve thought about my life as a mother and teacher, and as a friend of people who have experience with abortion. And I have observed how impossible it seems to be to talk about the issue in any sort of honest way without being labeled as one of “us” or “them.”
As a candidate in the ill-fated state representative race of 2020 I was called a “baby killer” before I even tried to explain my position as “prowhole-life.” This was mostly by people who couldn’t hear anything else once they knew I was recruited to run as a “Demon-rat.”
There were also those strident members of the Democrat party, instate and out, who wished I’d not been recruited. I remember a conversation with one possible donor who declined to support me because I was reluctant to label myself pro-choice. They were no more open to the concept of “pro-whole life” than fundamentalist pro-lifers.
It was a pickle, as it is for any honest moderate of any party. Which is, I imagine, why there are so few of us who run for office. And precious fewer who manage to be elected.
On the morning of Mother’s Day I shared that day’s column—a response to two letters to the editor that I found offensive—on Facebook, then hardly thought about it again till that evening. I’d been too busy having breakfast in bed, making fresh strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream for my mom, then visiting with her and the rest of the family at my brother’s house while the men of the Triple F Ranch served us dinner.
When I checked Facebook late that evening, I found a troubling thread of comments between two of my friends who have never met each other in person.
One leans pretty far left, and the other is a libertarian. As happens all too often on social media, their conversation accelerated quickly from disagreement into name-calling. Each made wrong assumptions about the other, and neither one spoke with real respect or kindness.
It was clear each man thought he was right and wanted to be understood. Instead of understanding, however, the outcome was high conflict between two strangers who are both loving fathers, hard workers, and good friends to me. There was no resolution. It made me sad.
But I’ve been guilty of the same thing. I mostly think I am right and long to be understood. So does every other human being I know. And it is easy to lose sight of our better selves when we feel misunderstood, embarrassed, or threatened.
The problem we seem to have in America right now is that, as Amanda Ripley writes in “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,” this “distills into a good-versusevil-feud, the kind with an us and a them.” In this mindset, “we feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side.”
Cable news and social media set us up for this false dichotomy and draw its polemics out in us by appealing to the good and natural need we have to belong. But tribalism—this us versus them-ness—is, in the words of Irish theologian and poet Padraig O Tuama, “belonging gone bad.” That is the toxic culture in which we live. Like a dirty fishbowl we can’t escape, we swim around in water gone bad. It is everywhere, the norm. It’s the polluted air we breathe.
I’d like to suggest we clean our filters—or for some of us, acquire a new one. Replace the sieve that screens everything according to what our social group, whether it be online, political party, church, or whatever else, accepts. And be brave enough to use a better one that filters what another person is saying with a goal to understand, rather than demanding we first be understood.
We gain understanding by researching facts, asking experts, and learning things for ourselves, rather than blindly swallowing cultish Koolaid. And it’s important to have humility. Especially with a moral issue like abortion there’s the temptation to believe our way of thinking is the only righteous way.
But as it is written, there is none righteous; no, not one. No matter how many Bible verses we can quote. Subjects this controversial for these many years usually remain that way because whether or not either side wants to admit it, there are good arguments on both. Even if we disagree completely, even if we see the issue as black and white, it is still wise, fair, and respectful to try to understand the other perspective.
Another thing O Tuama says is that agreement is not a requirement for loving. Respect is, but we can respectfully disagree. Like a healthy family, we as Americans and Arkansans can disagree but still seek to understand and love each other.
I believe the best way to truly understand abortion—or any other issue—is to humanize it. Before you decide you want the government to make abortion a crime, and punish those seeking abortion as criminals, remember Greg and Sydney Adams, who at about 4½ months pregnant found out through ultrasound their baby would not have a brain. After prayer, consultation with their pastor, doctor, and family, and after Sydney began having complications, they decided to induce labor and deliver. Greg held baby Kerry, who was the size of his hand, and sang hymns to him while he died.
When I was a kid I knew a family in my church who got the same diagnosis but decided to carry the baby to term. I don’t remember how long the baby lived; it wasn’t long. A few months maybe. But I do remember the stories of her crying while they rocked her, and the agony on that mother’s face. I never saw the mother look happy again.
Consider Robin, who as a teenager was drugged and raped on a date by a person she knew. Her parents gave her no choice but abortion, and the experience haunts her even now, as she plays with her grandchildren. Then there’s the beautiful teen with good grades and her whole future ahead who got pregnant. Her parents, pro-life, devout Assembly of God members, said it was her body, her choice. They were on the way to an abortion clinic when she changed her mind.
Finally, think of the 12-year-old in my hometown who got pregnant this past year. Think of what it means to be born to parents who don’t want you; a mother forced by the government to carry a child to term. Think about all of those babies in Arkansas who will be born into poverty, hardship, and despair.
One in five are hungry while our government boasts of a billion-dollar surplus. Does the same government care for children’s whole lives, or just the time in utero? Is there any reasonable interpretation of Jesus’ teachings that could support the latter?
We who vote for Christian values must hold our leaders accountable, and tell the truth ourselves. For those of us who preach the sanctity of life, what about a mother’s life? We already have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Do we care about those teenage children having children? Jesus did; his mother was one.
This territory of real people in real life is where we become most honest with ourselves and others. It is where everything becomes most blurry and difficult. That’s why people don’t want to go there. Holding signs and moral high ground, judging others as ignorant, or sinners, or whatever: Tribalism is easier in the short run. Humility, admitting uncertainty, not having a pat answer—these things are scary. This path is for the brave.
You don’t have to be that brave, though. Like me, you might just become so weary of the meanness and division in the world that you decide trying for a better alternative couldn’t be more frightening than the way things are.
And like Atticus told Jem, “You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” Either way, our people here in Arkansas are worth it. Mother Theresa said, “if we have no peace it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.”
Let’s come together and do the hard work it takes. Let’s seek to understand even when we disagree, and create the kind of belonging that leads to peace.