Pro-Life Meets Pro-Choice

Let’s start with a story.  In March of 1975 my wife baked a birthday cake when our first child was three months old.  We took it to church that Sunday and shared it with friends as a celebration of our son’s “first birthday” as a statement that he had been alive and a real person in God’s eyes since conception about 1 year before.  Roe v. Wade had just been decided and our church and many other Evangelical Christians were joining Catholics in the Pro-Life movement.  I subsequently made the trip to Washington with other folks from my church several times during the 1980s to participate in the annual March for Life.  In the early 1990s I made the trip to the nearby city of Rochester, NY to participate in an Operation Rescue.  This was a direction action group that actively blocked the doors of abortion clinics in order to get arrested doing it.  I have a criminal record for trespassing and a couple other misdemeanors that I can’t remember.  My wife and I have been actively supporting the crisis pregnancy center in our town for a number of years now and plan to continue that support.  All this to say that I have pretty strong pro-life credentials.

All of this began to change about 2 years ago.  I started to have some nagging doubts about the absolute rectitude of my pro-life position especially as expressed and legislated by folks on the far right.  Then I had the opportunity to meet several women who had an abortion, women who I respected.  Their stories were not the stereotypes I was hearing from the pro-life folks.  And then I read my Bible more seriously and I was rather surprised with what I found.  I also got a re-education in the biology of conception and pregnancy.  Yes, a little embarrassing for a father of three children.  This is still a work in progress (aren’t we all) but I would like to share with you my journey from right wing pro-life to a less political and I hope more Christian and nuanced holistic view of this divisive issue.  Basically, I am still pro-life, but I am looking for common ground where we can meet and solve the real problems that are embedded in this highly charged issue.

This may seem odd to my readers, but this reconsideration of mine has almost nothing to do with the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade that occupied our headlines.  This has been a long gradual process for me that started sometime ago and is probably not done yet.  I would only ask my readers to put aside the political slogans and consider with me the original and basic issues and to have patience with my journey.

Bible

The question we are faced with in examining scripture in light of the abortion debate is when are we recognized by God as humans or when do we gain souls and become the eternal creatures that are made in His image?  That would affect decisions about when to terminate a pregnancy.  Unfortunately, the Bible is not absolutely clear on this and certainly not as clear as I used to think it was.  Let’s look at some scriptures.

Psalm 139:13-16 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Ps 139:13-16 is a wonderful section of scripture worshiping God for this wonderful act of creation in the womb; it demonstrates the love and care that God has for the psalmist.  Unfortunately, for our purposes here, it does not clearly answer when we become souls or persons.  It does show considerable reverence for the forming, knitting, making, and weaving processes of the inward parts, the frame, and the unformed substance.  And this all happened when the days that were formed for me as yet there were none of them.  In other words, all this forming seemed to happen before day zero, pre “me”.  So here we have a very strong scripture that appreciates the forming process but seems to say that “I” was not started yet.  My own takeaway here is we should have great reverence for the preformed person but are not specifically commanded to count it as a completed work in the same way as a teenage boy or girl.

I am not a Bible scholar and was nervous about my interpretation of these critical verses and so I checked several Bible commentaries.  The older authors focused on the poetic nature of the verses and on God’s marvelous creative powers.  Only a more modern author used verse 13 as a pro-life proof-text and, interestingly, did not comment on the ”as of yet…” ending to the passage.

Isaiah 44:24 “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.’”

Psalm 127:3-5a “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!”

Isaiah 49:1, 5 “The Lord called me from the womb… formed me from the womb to be his servant.”

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s body, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart to serve me. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Luke 1:15 “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”

The previous five scriptures have a common theme and can be addressed together.  In these verses we see that God “formed you from the womb”, and that “the fruit of the womb a reward”, the Lord “formed me from the womb”, God “formed you in your mother’s body”, and John was appointed “even from his mother’s womb.”  In three of these cases the person is formed “from the womb”. 

Analogies are helpful if incomplete.  We might say that the bread was formed in the oven or that the corn was formed in the field, or that the rain formed in the cloud.  We can only really identify the bread, corn, and the rain as it exits the oven, the field, and the cloud.  If the analogy holds with the formation mentioned in these verses, then we can only identify “me” as I exit the womb.  The fruit of the womb verse adds to this.  When is fruit picked and is a reward?  When it is ripe at harvest.

The other aspect of the last three scriptures is the call that seems to come before birth.  Here we touch the mystery of predestination.  God would not be fully God if he did not know or did not ordain our destinies from before our births, even before creation.  This adds to the mystery of when what’s in the womb becomes “me”. Apparently, in God’s eye, Martin Root first happened when God first put his plan together before the hills were dusty.  A long, long time ago He said that He was going to create a rather nerdy White guy and was going to call him Martin Root and in 1972 he is going to marry a gorgeous and really smart lady named Constance that He was also creating, and he will be a foot taller than her and that will be His little joke.  So, Martin was called a long, long time ago, but when did Martin get a soul or arrive in the flesh?  It’s a little hard to tell exactly according to these verses.  That said, do we know God’s plan for every fertilized egg? No.  More about that in the biology section below.  But we should have some respect for the possibilities that are inherent in that embryo and increasing respect for it as it grows.

Luke 1:41, 44“When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. [And she exclaimed], ‘when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.’”

This happened when John was about six months in the womb if we understand the scripture correctly.  It is fun to think of little Johnny leaping in the womb when his cousin comes into the house.  It is clearly a leap in faith to fully believe that a six-month old fetus fully comprehended the situation.  But we do now know that Johnny was at the beginning of the third trimester and pretty fully formed.

Exodus 21:22-25 “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”

This is a very interesting verse since it is used by both pro-life and pro-choice folks.  The gist is that if two guys get in a fight and accidentally hit a pregnant woman so hard that she miscarries (some translations suggest a live birth) then the penalty is a hefty payment to the husband.  It is important to note that the offender is not charged with murder, assuming a death.  A rather confusing passage.

This is a good time to add two points.  The first is that other traditions have different interpretations of these scriptures.  I just read an interesting article from a Jewish scholar who understood this to refer to a miscarriage and thus supported her pro-choice position.  Remember that what Christians call the Old Testament is the Jewish scripture.  If a Jew says that the Jewish scripture should be interpreted a certain way, we should definitely give it some weight.

Second, none of the arguments I am making are new.  This is all very old ground and has been discussed, written, and argued about for years and even millennia.  I cannot pretend to be an authority beyond what others have said, and neither should anyone who wants to disagree with me.

Num 3:15 Count the Levites by their families and clans.  Count every male a month old or more.

Here and at one other place in scripture, children are not even counted in the assembly until they are one month old.  So, never mind the question of being counted as human in the womb.  The suggestion here is that they are not even counted until they have been around for a month.

Num 5: 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.

Gen 38; 24-25 About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”  Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”

Both of these scriptures are the culmination of longer stories that reflect the laws and customs of the time.  Both suggest that it is acceptable to kill a pregnant woman together with the child in her womb for the crimes that the woman alone had committed.  Apparently, the death of the child in the womb was not considered.

So, what are we to make of the scriptures about life in the womb?  It is certainly precious and revered and is about the forming of the person.  It certainly has potential and can be called for a purpose.  But from the scriptures that I see here, the culture and outlook of the biblical writers seems to suggest that I become recognized as a person about the time of birth.  This was a huge change for me and reflects the fact that the biblical writers did not write to provide clear simple answers for our 21^st century problems.

The church’s view on abortion has been mixed over the years.  From early church literature, we know that there were strictures against abortions. This seems to have held true off and on until very recently.  The extreme medical risks involved in abortions seems to have played some role.  Until the late 18^th century Christians in the US generally supports laws allowing early abortions.  But these were slowly overturned in the early 1900s under pressure from the medical profession, due to the risks involved.  Even into the early 1980s, many evangelical denominations, including the Southern Baptists had more nuanced and open positions on early abortions.  Presently of course, the official Catholic position and most common Evangelical positions are uniformly opposed while more mainline churches have more open views.

Social Issues

Who were getting abortions in America?  The demographics have changed some over time.  An article in the New York Times just prior to the Roe reversal drew information from a variety of sources including the CDC.  There was no “typical” client.  They came from a wide range of backgrounds.  That said, the average woman was in her late 20s, was unmarried and already had children.  She had some college education and was poor.  The abortion rate had been going down for decades and was lower in 2022 than it was when Roe became law in 1973.  Still, a large number of women, about 25%, had at least one abortion in their lifetime.  Over 90% of abortions were performed in the first trimester.  Very very few were performed in the third trimester.  Most clients had only one abortion in their lifetime. The number of women aborting with prescription pills had been growing.  Prescriptions were becoming easier to obtain.  Hispanic and Black women had abortions at about 2 times and 3 times the rate of White women. 

Folks on the pro-life side sometimes suggested that most abortions were for convenience and were used as a method of birth control.  This was an oversimplification.  This suggested that women were being lax about other forms of birth control because they knew that abortions were an easy contraceptive.  If this were true then more women would have been on their second, third, or fourth abortion.  But this was not what the data was telling us.  Also, from the testimonies that I read and heard, most women who decide eventually to have an abortion described it as one of the hardest decisions of their lives.  Or think back to the pre-Roe days when abortions were illegal.  Women were still getting them, quite a few women, often in terrifying conditions.  Would these be classified as a matter of convenience? Hardly.

In America, abortion is a highly racialize issue.  Medical services and child support are much harder for Black and Hispanic women to come by in this country.  So, when faced with an unexpected pregnancy, the choice to carry a baby to term is complicated by these issues.  Also, the bare fact is that White babies are much easier to find adoptive parents for than Black and Hispanic babies.

Another oversimplified solution I have heard from the pro-life side is that woman should have better protected sex.  There is indeed some truth in this.  We all are pretty much aware of how babies are made and the first step in not making a baby is not having sex or in having protected sex.  In fact, one of the reasons that abortion rates have been falling since the early 1980s is because of the increased use of contraceptives.  Also, fewer and fewer teenagers have been having sex and unprotected sex and so the number of teenagers seeking abortions has been falling. So, there is some good news here.

It was commonly quoted that about half of pregnancies were unintended.  About 40% of these pregnancies ended in abortions.  It was easy to say at this point to stop having sex or unprotected sex.  And I am sure that you, the reader, are probably thinking and considering the woman involved.  But let me turn your attention to the other partner involved here and ask my fellow men in the room, “Are you going to stop having sex or unprotected sex so as to prevent these unintended pregnancies and abortions?”  (Pregnant pause) I didn’t think so.  There is culpability here that is too often disregarded, and this is only the start.

Common sense conventions of our culture suggest that the fetus is not a full person.  Our age is marked by our “birthday” not our “conception day.”  A mother is not considered a mother until after the birth.  While we do mourn with a woman who has lost a child to a miscarriage, we still do not typically call her a mother.  Nearly 50% of pregnancies are spontaneously miscarried yet there are few memorial services.  We give no names to those offspring or hold funerals for them.  If a child dies in utero an hour before birth (a still birth), a fetal death certificate is sometimes issued.  The document cannot be used to prove identity, or for any other legal purpose.  However, if a child dies an hour after birth, then an official death certificate must be issued.  It is a legal document.

Biology and Medical Issues

These are some of the facts that really got my theological head spinning about conception, personhood, and abortion.  By day 21 of pregnancy about 2/3 of fertilized eggs have failed to progress and have disappeared.  Another 10% will miscarry, usually before week 8.  What do we make of this if we truly believe that every fertilized egg is a person created and called by God?  About ¾ never leave the womb.  What does this say about abortion in the first trimester, within 13 weeks?  What it does say, of course, is that those enduring embryos are real survivors.

A misconception that I hear sometimes is that full term births, sometimes called “doing the nine”, are safer than an abortion.  Considering the many ways that pregnancies and deliveries can go wrong, this is a fallacy.  Maternal mortality rates in the US are among the highest in the developed world.  Especially since the advent of prescription (medication) abortions, the already low risks of abortions are decreasing even more.  Add to this the pain, costs, and social complications for those women who cannot afford the expenses of prenatal care, or the costs associated with delivery.

Another misconception is that unwanted pregnancies happen due to unprotected sex.  An NIH funded study showed that about half of unexpected pregnancies occurred in women not using contraception, 43% were in women who used contraception inconsistently or incorrectly and 5% were in women whose contraceptive method was used correctly but failed.  So, about half were at least trying to avoid a pregnancy.

A series of publications from The Turnaway Study have dispelled some myths around the effects of abortions on women’s subsequent lives.  They compared women who were turned away from getting an abortion by being too late, usually because they did not realize they were pregnant, with very similar women who were on time and received a relatively late abortion.  The turned away women fared worse subsequently.  Their relationships with family suffered.  They were more often in poverty and depression.  They had lower self-esteem and satisfaction with what life had brought them.  And on and on.  The women who had the abortions rarely looked back, had very little regret, often had subsequent children, and were happier.  Often the pro-life side tries to point out the life-long regret and trauma from women who have had an abortion.  The result of these studies and others suggest that this is a minority view even for women with late abortions.

Political Issues

Abortion is a highly charged political issue.  Let’s start with what Roe v. Wade actually decided and go from there.  The case was largely decided on the issue of a woman’s privacy and many consider that Roe elevated privacy to an almost constitutional right.  Importantly, Roe was not decided on the issue of personhood.  The court did consider the point of viability.  They decided that before the point of viability, at the end of the second trimester or 26 weeks, it was the woman’s choice, without interference from the state.  After the point of viability, the states can step in and regulate abortions.  Most states now ban abortions in the third trimester except when the mother’s life is at risk.  Many states also allow abortions in the case or rape or incest, although these are relatively rare (about 1.5%).

One simple question to ask is what will happen to the rates of abortion now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned?  A recent well-researched article in the NY Times estimates that abortion rates would drop about 14%, based on which states are likely ban abortions in which regions and which would still be open.  So would overturning Roe be a complete victory for the pro-life side and the end of abortions in America.  Not by a long shot.  Women are just going to travel farther and it will cost more.

In comparing states with various levels of restrictions on abortions before this recent reversal, an interesting trend emerged on the types of abortions that were performed.  As restrictions increased across various states, so did the more risky and dangerous forms of abortion.  As we have determined above, the number of abortions will probably decrease only modestly in states with increased restrictions, but the number of dangerous abortions will increase substantially.

One of the arguments made by more extreme pro-choice versions is that since we cannot determine when personhood begins, then we are free to perform abortions into the third trimester without restrictions.  Medical science tells us that by the third trimester this child is probably viable outside the womb.  Also, just to look at it, this baby is remarkably full grown, is very actively moving, seems to have periods of activity and rest, and reacts to outside stimuli.  Without resorting to a definition of personhood, this creature is a lot like us in many ways and deserves protection.

It is interesting to note that one common and rather compassionate solution to unwanted pregnancies has been the advent of many crisis pregnancy centers around the country.  This is a welcome and needed support system for women who choose to continue through their pregnancy.  However, an interesting development has come up around their funding.  Many red states are passing legislation that partially fund crisis pregnancy centers with a very questionable nod to the separation of church and state, even as churches seem to be slacking in their contributions to these agencies in their communities.  Shouldn’t pro-life congregations be doing the lion’s share of support here?

One argument I have heard from the pro-choice side is that access to abortion via Roe was a constitutional right.  At the least, this is an over-reach.  Constitutional rights are rights protected and guaranteed in the US Constitution and its amendments.  While our Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of the meaning of this document, a “yea” from that court in a ruling such as Roe only extends the reach of the Constitution but does not make them Constitutional.  Only an amendment does that.  And in the case of Roe, access to abortion was an extension of the previously extended so-called “right to privacy”. So, at the very least, Roe created a “right” that is a second cousin to a Constitutional right.

Sadly, this one issue has often become the one litmus test that determines how a person votes.  I will admit that it is the sole reason that I voted for George W. Bush.  In subsequent years I came to regret the shallowness of my vote.  While Bush was in many ways a perfectly fine conservative president, my own views of what I expected from our government grew and I came to realize that a one-issue vote was steering us in the wrong direction on other important issues.  We have all learned from our high school American history classes that our forefathers were able to establish this nation largely on their ability to compromise on important issues that they felt passionate about.  As we lose this foundational ability, our democracy stumbles.

My Own Conclusions

The three big things that steered me to change my opinion to a more open view on abortion in America were these:

• The scriptures that I held so dear as the bedrock of my Christian belief in the personhood of the unborn has been deeply shaken by a more careful reading.  The unborn are precious in God’s sight but seem to be unformed and not full persons.  To my conservative Christian friends, I would strongly suggest that you reread those critical verses in your Bibles as I did and consider if they unambiguously support all the weight that you are putting on them.
• ¾ of all fertilized eggs never make it to birth.  What does this say about the personhood of embryos?
• Even overturning Roe will only slightly decrease the number of abortions.  What it will do is increase the cost and pain of abortions and greatly decrease the safety of abortions.  Can we find a compromise that works for everyone to make abortions early, rare, and safe?

So what middle ground is there to actually decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies, avoid late abortions, and care for women in these difficult decisions?  What would it take to actually continue to decrease the rate of abortions, that has already been decreasing for most of 40 years now?  We must think harder about the causes of unwanted pregnancies and how they happen.  Here are some suggestions

• Talk to our boys.  When we think about avoiding pregnancies, we tend to think about the behavior of our girls and our daughters.  But this is really only half the problem.  A big part of the problem is with the boys, our sons.  In our age of “sex-by-consent only” this has given boys and young men easy cover for promiscuity.  
• Better access to contraception.  Teachers should have candy dishes of multicolored condoms on their desks.  The message is that if you are going to have sex, at least be responsible.  Why not free condoms in drug stores, gyms, doctor’s offices, churches?  Are we serious about unwanted pregnancies or just talking?
• Contribute more to your local crisis pregnancy center.
• Make access to Plan B easier.

My opinion is that the question of personhood is the wrong question.  Scripture seems to suggest that we are being formed in the womb and that it is a marvelous process.  Common sense in our culture seems to bestow personhood at birth, but that is only the capstone of a long and gradual process.  We seem to invest increasing human value on the fetus as it grows and looks increasingly like one of us.  So, can we shape our legal system around an increasing value that balances the needs of the mother at earlier stages with the needs of the fetus at later stages?  Many folks agree that abortions should be available in the first trimester and prohibited in the third.  The real problem as I see it is the second trimester, before real viability but after the fetus starts looking really human.

Christians in the US now live in a pluralistic society that strongly favors leaving abortion decisions to women and doctors in the first and second trimester and is strongly opposed to abortion in the third trimester.  Can we find a compromise between what a subculture of evangelical protestants and many but not all, Catholics want and what the society at large wants?  The Jewish writer I mentioned earlier made an interesting point.  If we ban abortions, this will align with conservative Christian views but will actually prohibit her from practicing her religious views which is that access to early abortions is ethical, needed, and appropriate.  Can we trammel the religious rights of a religious minority?

I am coming to the rather odd conclusion that I was reasonably happy with the original state of Roe v. Wade.  It did not take a stand on personhood but was pragmatic in deciding that the state should step in at the point of viability.  It allowed Christians of many stripes to form crisis pregnancy centers to reach out to those in need.  It allowed for safe abortions rather than illegal ones, knowing full well that unwanted pregnancies and abortions would continue regardless of the law.  Unfortunately, it did not force any legislature to address the deeper social causes of unwanted pregnancies and births.  Also, unfortunately, it had become a supporting pillar for our near constitutional right to privacy.

The battleground for me is the second trimester.  Fortunately, only a few abortions are performed here, but it is a sad few for these precious ones of the Father.  Any help that we could give to hasten abortion decisions to an earlier time would be great.  This is a complicated issue and I do not have all the answers.  Anyone who professes to have all the answers has not considered all the questions.