I am pro life. I am pro choice.
(Dear reader, This is the longest post I have ever posted. My hope is that you read it to the end. Thanks.)
I am pro life. I am for life in the womb and out of the womb. I am for nourishing life in and out of the womb. I am for the health of mothers and their children and for women before they become mothers and whether or not they become mothers. I am for a society that cares about life, all life, and supports life with loving compassion.
I am pro life. Therefore, I am against death in our streets, schools, grocery stores, theaters, and for addressing underlying causes of these deaths. I am against capital punishment. I am against war. When my draft number came up during the Vietnam War, I sought a conscientious objector status and was grateful for a nation that allowed me to serve by doing alternate civilian service working with youth.
I am against the huge amounts of money spent on war preparation, funds that could be used to support life, humanitarian aid, learning the ways of peace, and operating justly in the world.
I am pro life. I am for the care of the other creatures who share our earth home. I am against the disregard for these creatures and the choices that lead to their extinction.
In almost all circumstances, my wife and I are not for choosing to end life in the womb. At what point that life becomes a human person, I do not know. I know that it is potentially a human person. The first speck of life on this planet was potentially human in the evolution of life. I think of what happens in the womb as something similar. I am quite simply for life, for being.
I am pro choice. I am for facing the choices before me and making a decision. Sometimes the choices can be very narrow. For example, whether it is time to enter hospice or not. Nothing can take the act of choosing from me. Even in prison, there are choices.
Of course, the kinds of choices I make are affected by the choices others make. Some people have a wider range of choices than others, and one person’s sphere of choices limits another’s. White supremacy, patriarchy, classism, etc. affect and limit the choices available to others. (And affects the choices of those caught up in White supremacy, patriarchy, classism, etc.)
Laws can narrow the choices. Laws and governing bodies historically have limited the choices for women and especially women of color. Men in power (White men), by the means of laws, have exerted control over women’s lives, and more so with women of color. Of course, laws can be defied. The civil rights movement is a powerful example of choosing to defy laws in order to bring about change.
Lawmakers make choices that affect our choices. They make choices from many different life experiences, motivations, attitudes, commitments, and agendas. They make just choices and unjust choices.
I have taken part in many actions and demonstrations over the years witnessing against unjust choices, laws that have brought about the mass incarceration of people of color, laws that have treated drug abuse as a crime rather than a health problem, laws that do not prevent banks from creating predatory loans, laws that diminish various human rights, etc. I have demonstrated against our nation’s wars. Still, our government has decided for one war after another and brought great suffering and loss of life across our globe.
Nevertheless, I view government and lawmakers as necessary and capable of doing good. Government is capable of providing laws that regulate health and safety, address environmental concerns, and respond to inequalities and injustices that are present, if it would.
But government is also very limited in providing help for our personal decisions and adds much to our confusion and breakdown. From a place of solemn silence, Thomas Merton viewed the governments of the world:
“It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of Day in solemn silence at which the sun appears, for at this moment all the affairs of cities, of governments, of war departments, are seen to be the bickering of mice.”
There are critical limits to what bickering mice can provide us in the way of help for our choices. The decision of the Supreme Court concerning Roe v. Wade now moves to Congress and to state governments where discourse often breaks down into power plays, disingenuous appeals to culture issues in order to hold onto power, grandstanding, dishonesty, and self-righteous moralism, ways of operating that are not conducive to decisions that encourage life and love. Lost are the experiences of real human beings who cannot simply be forced by law into a decision, particularly when there exists other pressures, circumstances, and life situations. Many women will still feel constrained by circumstances and life experiences to seek an abortion regardless of laws passed by legislators.
Like others, my wife and I have a faith stance and a view that gives form to our choices. Other people have their own stance and view, as well as circumstances—often of an intense and complicated nature—that give form to their choices. We make decisions based on what we see and others do the same. We each must make our own decisions without judging the other. Adding the power of government (the bickering mice) to decide for women only complicates and aggravates the choice they have to make for themselves.
As it is, the issue of abortion is complicated by a culture that makes much of individual choice and little of life—a problem for those on the right and the left. They each have their favored freedoms and rights. And they each have their varying attitudes toward life.
Many in the pro-life movement support war and capital punishment and tend to minimize society’s responsibility for equitable sources of nurture, health care, and resources that support life. While making much of personal responsibility, many do not exercise responsibility for changing the societal context of people’s circumstances and decisions. The pro-life movement undermines its message by its anti-life stances in relation to life outside the womb.
Many in the pro-choice movement undermine their message when they diminish the significance of the choice. Simply having a choice (a right) is not the fundamental issue (although, when we do not have the right, it certainly moves to the forefront). It is what we decide in every situation that is critical, whether the available choices are many or few or very hard.
With every exercise of a right, with every choice we make among the choices available, we are deciding about ourselves and what we are becoming. We are deciding what kind of a society we, along with others, are building. We cannot escape making choices about life in one way or another.
We decide to love or not to love and how we are to love others and how to love ourselves, at times in the midst of great trials. We decide whether or not to undergo struggle or suffering in order to lovingly serve others. We decide for life and wholeness or decide to find a way out of making the hard choices (the life-changing choices) that life and wholeness require. And we often make choices based on what we think we are capable of, not realizing that with God we are capable of far more.
But the cultural reality is this: In a society that accepts some laws almost unanimously (laws against murder and theft), a majority of Americans see a place for abortion, at least within limits. This fact (among other issues, including suggestions above) tells me that, with abortion, we enter an area where laws are incapable of addressing this issue. In the end, each of us must make our own decisions; we must each engage questions of right and wrong and the ways of love and life.
We all have many ethical choices to make without norms set by civil law. This appears to be one of those kinds of choices. Like most choices this one has to be left to individuals to make in times of “solemn silence” and in consultation with their doctor, their families, and those they choose to go to for guidance.
Furthermore, as a society, we can address some of the underlying reasons women have for choosing abortion. For example, we can ensure that all have a living wage—a wage that can support a family. We can ensure that child care and health care are available to all equitably. We can also provide, at the least, a thoughtful “comprehensive sex education” for youth (who are bombarded by sex through various mediums of communication and often left without guidance). Faith communities can offer a holistic spirituality that provides a foundation for healthy decisions and healthy relationships as well as providing a community of support.
Finally, those of us who are pro life must be more persuasive, not by our talk, but by the lives we live, by our compassionate care for all life: for the weak and the vulnerable and the dependent (which is all of us). And by doing justice, loving mercy, and living faithfully. We may find that what the law cannot do, a change in our culture can.