Debate more nuanced than just pro and con
Last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade should make all of us — regardless of our personal views — take a deep breath and shift gears from emotion to reason. Let’s dial back the polarization and recognize that the abortion issue is not black and white, but fraught with ambiguities. Neither scientists, legal scholars nor theologians — let alone politicians — can establish when a fetus becomes a human being.
In 1968 (five years before Roe v. Wade) the flagship evangelical magazine “Christianity Today” quoted Professor Bruce Waltke from uber-conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, who declared, “God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed.” His statement is predicated on a verse from the first book in the Bible: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
Prior to the 1970s, evangelical consensus claimed that life begins at birth, not conception. The Southern Baptist Convention passed resolutions both in 1974 and 1976 — after Roe v. Wade — affirming the belief that women should have access to abortion for a variety of reasons and that the government should play only a limited role in such matters. The Rev. W.A. Criswell, renowned and beloved pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, praised the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” he asserted, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
The Bible certainly hasn’t changed during these past 50 years, but the rise of the religious right has been effective in convincing many to regard abortion as a form of murder. This has poisoned our national discourse. While we can all agree that abortion is nearly always heartbreaking, why must it be criminalized? There is no compelling case to be made — scientific, historical, political or biblical — that an unborn fetus is a person.
Imagine for a moment what would happen if the U.S. Supreme Court declared that vasectomies were not a right guaranteed under the Constitution, allowing states to regulate them as they saw fit. If men’s bodies were subject to state law, how might the court intervene?
It’s not a simple binary question of prolife vs. pro-choice. Many pro-lifers support the death penalty. And many pro-choicers balk at the prospect of late-term abortions. This discussion demands more nuance, less audacious presumption. Let’s lower the temperature, listen to one another, and be willing to temper our position. After all, a woman should have the right to control her own body. And the point at which a fetus becomes a person is impossible to determine.
Emery J. Cummins, Crown Point