Saturday, June 25, 2022

Let's Start with the Hypocrisy

 Abortion is hard for me to write about or advocate for because it's not a choice I've had to make, and it's not a choice I want any woman to have to make. I love life. Yesterday, after the Dobbs ruling, I sat in my backyard and noticed the way summer sunshine looks and feels when filtered through the leaves and branches of a tree. I listened to bird songs. Later, I sat by a fire and ate a perfectly toasted marshmallow. I fed people. I love life. I love my children. But this issue is more complicated than just life vs. not life, and the disingenuousness of reducing it to such compels me to try to parse out the complexities. Perhaps because I am angry, I want to start with the hypocrisy. I hope later to come back to the idea of human rights for women and maybe, when I’m less raw, to some more personal anecdotes about the extremely life-shaking acts of carrying, birthing, and caring for children as well as a story about someone I love as much as life itself whose life was probably saved by an abortion.  As I said, I feel deeply the complexity of this issue, but I want to start with the logic and ethos rather than the pathos. I want to call out the elephant in the room (and I mean that both in its idiomatic sense and its political sense.)

The self-righteous hypocrisy of the “pro-life” movement infuriates me. If this movement was really about loving life, we'd provide support for mothers and children--healthcare, paid leave, access to formula and nutrition, living wages, and equitable education. If it was about life, the life of the mother would matter. If it was about life, we'd be doing a heck of a lot more about guns in this country. If it was about life, we'd get rid of the death penalty. If it was about responsibility, men would be forced to pay for and care for the baby and healthcare and missed access to income. If it was about responsibility, we’d sterilize men who impregnated women against their wishes. If it was about responsibility, the rich would pay taxes commensurate with the benefits they receive from our system. If it was about democracy, we'd make sure every single citizen voted.  If it was about “states’ rights” (*cough cough* please see pro-slavery and Jim Crow South for why I don’t find this a compelling argument,) we would have let New York pass the gun safety laws its citizens voted for. What gets me is that the people who worked to overturn a woman’s constitutional right to privacy and bodily autonomy in favor of “life” and freedom seem to be the same people who block healthcare, block gun safety regulation, enable and/or promote voting restrictions, decrease regulations on corporations that pollute and take advantage of workers, and on and on. The dots don't line up.

One more take on the hypocrisy: I believe many of the people who advocated the overturn of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood did so as Christians. I am a Christian. I am not aware of any words of Jesus about abortion. I do believe, though, based on the commandment that “Thou shall not kill” and Jesus’ repeated healing of the diseased, disadvantaged, and, a couple of times, the already dead, that we are called to care radically for the lives and the well-being of others. But if we, as Christians and Americans, were to do so without hypocrisy, we’d need to think about a few salient issues. First, as an American, do we believe in the separation of church and state? If yes, can we impose our Christian understanding on non-Christians via the government? I’d say we cannot. If we no longer care about the separation of church and state, does that mean other religions can impose their religious priorities on us? It’s something to consider. Second, if we hold the example of Christ as our rationale for banning access to abortion, is that where the Bible would have us start? Wouldn’t the words of Jesus lead us first to selling all that we own and giving it to the poor? Wouldn’t the words of Jesus compel us next to care for the sick, visit the prisoner, and refuse violence, even in matters of self-defense? Didn’t Jesus quite radically show compassion for women others were looking to shun or punish? And anyway, aren’t we advised to take the logs out of our own eyes before taking the specks from our neighbors’ eyes? Aren’t we told that we can only throw the first stone if we are completely without sin? And didn’t Jesus himself decline to throw a stone in that scenario? Doesn’t this mean that even if we were to dismiss the separation of church and state, we’d only be able to punish others for their actions AFTER we had already meticulously followed the very tall order of completely turning ourselves over to the wellness of others, at which point we’d be loath to punish others because our hearts were more concerned with caring for them than punishing them?

All of that Christianity talk is not to say that I think Christians should not work to reduce non-medically necessary abortions. I think we should. But we should do it through radical giving and hospitality, through compassion and support and community rather than punishment. We shouldn’t make laws that punish others for making choices we find immoral; we should pass laws that make it easier for people NOT to make those choices. See above. We’d pass laws that provide for women and children and families. We would give, not punish. An additional benefit to this strategy is that evidence indicates that these measures are far more effective at actually preventing abortions than legislating against them. It comes back to the ideas above. If it was really about love and life, we’d behave differently. If you’re concerned with punishing women for being in terrible situations rather than helping them out of those situations or helping them avoid them in the first place, you’re not acting Christ-like. You’re using Christ’s name and work in the worst kind of hypocritical way. And while we’re talking about what Christ would want, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a fan of hypocrisy. If I remember the Gospels correctly, very little made him lose his composure, including temptation and crucifixion, but hypocrisy made him throw tables. Same, Jesus. Same.

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