I definitely did not plan on writing about abortion for my first post back. Honestly, it’s a subject I tend to avoid, largely because I feel like all the arguments on both sides have been elucidated a million times already and I don’t think I have much to add, and because conversations on the topic seem to go absolutely nowhere. But here we are, and for obvious reasons, I am feeling the need to do a bit of reflection.
My religious faith calls me to be on the side of life, especially vulnerable life, which means that I am not neutral about abortion. I don’t know how not to see the ending of potential human life as a loss, even as something tragic (even when it’s the best option). If there is inconsistency in passionately caring about life inside the womb but not afterward, the reverse is also true. I would like to live in a society with fewer abortions.
My religious faith calls me to be on the side of life, especially vulnerable life, which means that I have to take the needs of pregnant women absolutely seriously. I cannot overlook or downplay them as secondary. One of my baptismal covenants is to respect the dignity of every human being, and this means that I cannot approach this issue except through that framework.
There is a tension between these two commitments, and I know that. But this my best attempt to honor both of them. Because of my first commitment, I support any and all measures to reduce the abortion rate which also empower women. This means things like access to birth control, child tax credits, universal healthcare, and measures aimed at making pregnancy and child-rearing a serious, life-altering responsibility for fathers and not just mothers. But because of my second commitment, I cannot support measures that are coercive to women, or paternalistically curtail their options and right to make their own decisions.
I am also influenced by data suggesting that criminalizing abortion will quite likely have little effect on the abortion rate, but will lead to the deaths of women, because desperate women will do desperate things, and because of situations like doctors feeling pressured to withhold care for fear of prosecution. That concern weighs heavily on me.
I find myself in the murky middle on the question of when human life begins. I don’t know how even to begin to draw a line. In the face of that kind of philosophical ambiguity, I find it reasonable to say that moral judgment of the pregnant woman, who after all is best acquainted with her unique individual circumstances, takes priority over the moral judgment of the state.
It is not surprising to me, though it is nonetheless unsettling, to see the correlation between religious groups which tend to see women as roles (as wives and mothers) rather than as people, and which circumscribe their authority in other areas, taking a hard-line position that women do not get to make choices in this instance, either. To be candid, knowing how often anti-abortion activists hold those views make me wonder how much of this is about protecting babies, and how much of it has to do with keeping women in line. I do realize, however, that that isn’t always the case, and could probably do a better job being charitable to those who disagree with me.
Honestly, I hate both the terms pro-life and pro-choice. But that’s my best attempt to articulate my current position. I’m not interested in making abortion less legal, but I am definitely interested in making it less necessary. I’m not attempting to persuade anyone; I’m not sure that we’re at a cultural moment where that’s even possible. But because I do take my faith commitments seriously, that’s my best attempt to think through how they currently shape my approach to this question.
Thanks for your thoughts, Lynnette. Just to pick out one particular point, I so agree that there needs to be so much more focus on causes of unwanted pregnancies in the first place, like lack of access to birth control, or ridiculously bad sex education. It’s horrifying to me that so many people are so blithely unconcerned with how unwanted pregnancies occur in the first place (irresponsible ejaculations never seem to be on their radar) or what happens to children after they’re born, but they’re laser focused on this single event, as though it could be disconnected from any surrounding context.
“I find myself in the murky middle on the question of when human life begins. I don’t know how even to begin to draw a line. In the face of that kind of philosophical ambiguity, I find it reasonable to say that moral judgment of the pregnant woman, who after all is best acquainted with her unique individual circumstances, takes priority over the moral judgment of the state.”
Best and most concise summary of the situation that I have read anywhere so far. Thanks !
Thank you for writing this piece, Lynette. I agree with it so much.
Fathers should be accountable the same way mothers are. I’ve always felt that if a woman cannot back out of a pregnancy, that the man who impregnated her shouldn’t be able to either. Yet we see so many fathers who refuse to step up to the plate. There are even men who insist on keeping the baby, only for him to change his mind later on and step out of the picture without consequence. That is wrong on too many levels to list.
I also agree that providing better care for families through better healthcare, birth control access, child tax credits, improved access to daycares, improved/increased respite care for disabled people and their families, increased and paid family/maternity/paternity leave, and more paid time off would decrease abortions. The government, private sector, and social services need to step up and work in tandem to make this happen.
Overturning Roe without holding fathers accountable and without the necessary safety nets will lead to so many negative consequences. More women will die either through botched abortions or of domestic violence. More women will become victims of marital rape, denial of birth control, and forced pregnancy/birth. Many women will become victims of human trafficking trying to cross into states or other countries with abortion access. The foster care system will become clogged due to so many women surrendering their babies at birth. Quality third-party care centers for the disabled will quickly run out of room and such centers that are already overcrowded, poorly run, and underfunded will become even more so. This will lead to disabled babies and the children, teenagers, and adults they will eventually become being victims of abusive and predatory behaviors. Poverty, homelessness, and crime will increase overall.
On the other hand, I know many women who are now scared of dating, marriage, starting families of their own, or adding to the families they already have because of this ruling. In that vein, the United States could see a baby bust and major population decline that may never reverse itself. I truly hope the SCOTUS and the politicians who supported this are careful of what they wish for.
Thoughtful post.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were given further enlightenment/revelation in this topic? Maybe we could grasp the spiritual/ethical logistics and dimensions that would help us navigate these old and new technologies.
Sadly, I have come to believe that inspiration about this topic will not arrive through the established patriarchal order, but through women, who are the stewards of this mortal process. And since we have no global revelatory mechanism for them in Mormonism (or most other major faiths), I think it’s unlikely we’ll see any progress in this area. We’re just going to continue to have best-they-can-do-with-a-stab-in-the-dark-policy-by-committee (of men). And that policy is incongruent with the church’s stand on capital punishment, and war. The policy also fails to acknowledge a woman’s bodily autonomy (or call it stewardship, or adult free will) at all. They want her to defer to a PH leader. Her body must first be violated before this “right” is partially acknowledged. The policy isn’t logical.
Ziff, the lack of interest among a lot of anti-abortion crusaders about why women might want abortions in the first place always stuns me (though it goes along with the point in your post about lack of interest in women’s experience).
Raymond Winn, thanks!
JC, yeah, the consequences of this, both intended and unintended, scare me a lot. The fact that opposition to abortion got seized by a group of people who also have high opposition to government aid really is the worst of both worlds (I’m thinking about how historically, you can find opposition to abortion combined with wanting a social safety net, so it doesn’t have to happen that way). And to your point about people opting against having families, watching some of the first reports of doctors being nervous about treating life-threatening conditions in states with total bans is definitely making me think that many women in red states are going to be legitimately hesitant to get pregnant, because if anything goes wrong, too bad for them. That boggles the mind, really, and yet here we are.
Mortimer, I like the idea that revelation should be coming through women on this one, though it’s true that there isn’t really an institutional channel for that. But in the context of the Mormon idea of stewardship, how is this not the woman’s prerogative? I’d never though of it quite that way; thanks for articulating that.
Lynette,
What I probably clumsily articulated is my feeling that we have precious little revealed in our doctrine/beliefs about women, the creation process in mortality and eternally, heavenly mother, women’s divine nature, and even the qualities/purpose and I’ll say it- permanence of gender (sorry- the Proclamation is not a synonym with revelation.) And I think that even though we don’t have a mechanism for church-wide revelation through women, it seems that it would be important for the mode to be the message, for the deliverer(s) and recipients of an expounding revelation about women come from and for women- without men as intermediaries. If the message contains expansive ideas about women’s divine equality and their noble nature – it needs to not just revealed, but demonstrated.
It seems like the male-focused mindset of the brethren is to create policy- to set doctrine, to be rule-makers, function in strictly the ritualistic “priestly”’way. If they proceed in this manner, it truly would deprive women of their prerogative regarding this extremely personal topic. I am not craving that, certainly not wanting to hear about life in-utero from the brethren (as much as I appreciate their work in other ways). I would hope we could receive more light and knowledge about these cloudy women’s universal questions, which could help women in their own decision-making and eternal journeys. Without stupid policies. Or mandates.
*Im using the concept of “women” here because it’s the gaping black hole in religion, but everything I’m talking about also applies to the other non-male genders/non-genders.