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President Obama will soon be proposing a nominee to become Justice of the Supreme Court. This will doubtlessly be a contentious appointment in the present political environment. In approaching this task, the President has said that he does not have a litmus test for making the nomination, which is code for saying that a nominee would not have to be pro-choice on the question of abortion to receive his nomination. This is meant to mollify those in the Congress for whom opposition to abortion is a litmus test for an acceptable nominee. I don't believe the President would nominate a candidate who was not pro-choice, but this is part of a little dance that he's doing in the run-up to his decision.
The controversy over abortion creates a deep divide between Americans and between Christians, and it is a divide that will not soon be healed. But I do believe that pro-choice people, like myself, often give much too much away in their thinking and debating of this issue. We allow moral high ground to those who declare that all life and not least of all fetal life is sacred. On this telling, abortion is always to be prohibited and failing this, deeply lamented. And you will often hear people who are in favor of legal abortion say that though they defend its necessity, they nevertheless view the termination of fetal life as a moral compromise of the sacredness of life. I think this is mistaken.
Abortion is at least problematic for reasons that all surgical procedures are problematic. No one wants to have to undergo such things. It is additionally a great sadness for women who want to give birth to a child and who have conceived but cannot carry the fetus to term for one reason or another. They mourn the loss of a possible child, and this grief is not to be taken lightly. But these are practical matters that having nothing to do with the sacredness of fetal life. Indeed, from a Christian point of view, human life, fetal or otherwise, is not sacred. What is sacred for Christians is God. For Christians, the importance of all creatures, including human beings, is due to their relation to God. Human life is not the ultimate good. God is the ultimate good. This is by no means to suggest that life and human life in particular is not to be cherished. Indeed, it is respect for life that should guide Christian thinking on the subject of abortion and on all ethical issues. But respect for life is not the same thing as the sanctity of life, and the distinction is important. The sanctity of life position is cut and dried, which is why those who hold it feel compelled to prohibit abortion (and as often as not birth control). The respect for life position requires discernment that can be difficult, but it has the advantage for Christians of being faithful to the Christian understanding of God.
A God worth having guides us in our thinking and deciding about real issues in the real world. A God worth having does not bind us with dogmatic principles but rather shapes us lovingly to understand our worth and the worth of all creatures in God's sight. One place where that shaping occurs is in a church, a moral community where faith seeks to understand what it believes.
The President is being politic in saying that legal abortion is not for him a litmus test in selecting a nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court. But it should be in order to preserve the freedom to decide about how best to show our respect for life.
Blessings in your quest,
Jeffrey Eaton, Pastor |