Pastor Julianne D. Smith
Many years ago, during my seminary internship, I attended an event at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, in Bexley, OH . There are two things I remember about that event. First, that I sat with Dr. Ralph Klein for dinner one evening. Second, that Dr. Stanley Hauerwas was on of the speakers.
Dr. Klein mistook me for an ordained minister (which left me pleased to no end!) and Dr. Hauerwas gave me a handle when it came to talking about abortion.
In the course of one of his talks, Dr. Hauerwas spoke about using common language when talking about difficult subjects. He gave the example of talking with someone about abortion. People opposed to abortion often speak of the right to life. Dr. Hauerwas argued that no one has the right to life, a shocking statement in the eyes of many. Instead, he said, “Life is a gift from God, not a right.” However, he also said that if we are talking with someone who talks about the right to life, we had better be ready to use their language.
Several years later, when I had was in my first call, another person gave me another perspective. She told me that she personally thought abortions were horrible, but, that she also recognized that there were times when that was the better option. She didn’t want to prevent any woman from not having the choice if abortion was illegal.
And later yet, a colleague observed that if we took the time to talk with someone whose opinion on abortion differed from our own we might find that we agree on 98% of the issue. We’d find more in common than we thought.
Gift, choice, common ground.
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I live in the State of Ohio, where there has been a lot of talk about right to life and abortion rights. In fact, on November 7, our State passed Issue 1, which will amend the State’s Constitution to give individuals the “right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including abortion.
The rhetoric on both sides of the debate on Issue 1 were a bit extreme. The conversations centered on the rights of the unborn verses the rights of the woman. No one talked about life being a gift. Not even the religious groups. Some talked about choices, but usually in terms of a woman having, or not having, the right to choose an abortion. No one wanted to admit to common ground.
If someone had asked me (nobody did) I would have said that I do not see abortion as a solution to an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy. Making it illegal, however, will not get rid of abortion, it will only move it underground. If we really want to halt abortion we need to make it obsolete. This means we need to teach about contraception, including abstinence. We can’t pretend that teenagers or unmarried adults aren’t having sex. And we need to train men to respect women and not rape them. For those times when a woman, or a couple sees abortion as the better or only option there needs to be a support system for them.
I once received a letter from a pro-abortion person who assumed I was anti-abortion, with an article she had written on abortion options. I had asked her to remove me from her mailing list. In her letter she suggested that I wouldn’t bother to read her article because I was closed-minded. Ironically, it was her article, when it had been published in “Christian Century,” that had helped me to sort out my thoughts on abortion.
I write this not to convince anyone to my point of view or to have you change mine. I write it because life is a gift, and life is messy. And sometimes the choice is not clear.
Random Thoughts from a Random Mind 