The Abortion Debate - What Comes Next?

Photo by Fibonacci Blue

The following is a guest post by contributor Ross McIntyre. We support the sharing of ideas relevant to humanism here on our blog, but the views expressed in any guest post do not necessarily reflect the views of Humanists of Linn County.

There is an increase in the drama that has been building over many years about whether the Supreme Court will uphold the Roe vs Wade decision of 50 years. Many in the US have been strategizing for several decades to accomplish a review, and now it seems that might happen. What does this mean?

First, it means that decisions like Roe vs Wade should be done deliberately and properly to avoid such bitter division as abortion rights has inflamed. None other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that the decision in 1973 was not properly made with a design for long-term success.

Second, it means one of the great unifying strategies (i.e., anti-Roe vs. Wade) of the Conservative cause is possibly going to dissipate, and we will see how divisive groups can become when their unifying force is removed. When there are such disparate groups as Catholics, Mormons, and Christian Fundamentalists working together so closely, there are a lot of things that are necessarily overlooked for the occasion.

Third, it means that at some point soon, reasoning itself is going to demand consideration. This does not mean only theological reasoning, but logic also. One of the arguments before the Supreme Court now is how the interests of the fetus are accounted – this premise on its own makes little sense if the concept of viability is not included. One of the definitions that is both subjective and crucial – and therefore devilishly difficult – is the definition of “life.” The attempt at defining “life” brings us inescapably into the realm of theology.

Theology is what the abortion debate hinges upon, for there is very little scientific ground to allow for a position against abortion, especially for the assertion that “life begins at conception.” Yet theology is disturbingly silent also – at least Christian theology, of which I am most familiar. From Genesis 2, where God creates a “living soul” by the breath of life, to the counting age from a person’s birthday (rather than conception), every way that the Bible measures life is in terms of breath and from birth, not sooner. There are commands to drain blood from meat, and this has nothing to do with the origin of the life of the animal.

One of the few scriptural passages that can be used to support the idea that “God is Pro-life” or other slogans on signs all over Iowa is in Jeremiah 2, where God tells Jeremiah that “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…and appointed you…” A little bit of consideration will show that this serves, first: to contrast Jeremiah with the condition of the rest of humankind; and second: to say nothing about abortion unless abortion before conception is possible. Both considerations deplete its usefulness as a “pro-life” argument.

It is not good that theology – however misguided – has such a central role in our laws and regulations. The abortion debate is a great place for Americans to reject the temptation to lean toward theocracy. It is true that social traditions, even though grounded in theology, should not be discarded carelessly. It is also true that social traditions should not be maintained just because they are grounded in theology. The USA was intentionally designed as a Democratic Republic, not a theocracy, and it should not be abandoning those founding principles now.