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| The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 66 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy, and slightly under 1.2 percent after 21 weeks. |
The following appeared in today's issue of the Daily News-Record, an op ed piece I submitted Monday:
In this election season the economy, COVID, climate change, racial injustice and abortion continue to be divisive issues.
The economy, having done well for most since its steady recovery from the 2008 recession, now appears to be on life support. Which candidate or party can offer the most help?
The pandemic also remans a volatile issue, sparking debate over how it should have been handled, and why the US has experienced more deaths from it than any other nation, more than all of our fatalities from all of our wars since WW II.
Extreme weather events, which climatologists are now convinced are caused by human activity, have also created a storm of controversy. Who is responsible and what if anything can we humans do about unprecedented wildfires in the western US and in the Amazon basin, and about massive hurricanes causing flooding and unimaginable destruction? And we still argue over whether our planet would have been better off had a more environmentally minded president been elected in 2000 rather than one who led us into two unfunded and protracted wars.
Also creating new levels of division and mistrust are the disproportionate number of African-Americans suffering injustice and even death at the hands of police and criminal justice systems meant to protect them—along with inflammatory accusations of massive looting and lawlessness by protestors. Who can best help us arrive at truth and experience much needed reconciliation?
Then there’s abortion, another issue that has remained extremely divisive. But might it offer us the greatest hope of our being able to work together? Thankfully, the number of abortions in the US has been in steady decline since the spike in reported cases following Roe v Wade (reported is the key word here). This reduction has happened under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and in Red and Blue jurisdictions alike, suggesting that factors like the availability of better education and healthcare may matter far more than who occupies the White House, the Congress or the Supreme Court.
So what if progressives, conservatives, evangelicals and all people of goodwill could work together to help make abortions rare, and collaborate in helping provide better healthcare for all mothers and all children?
While we may not all agree on when ensoulment happens or personhood begins, could we at least agree that a precious form of human life is present at conception and continues through the time we all draw our first breath and until we breathe our last? And could we support pro-life values that would help us combat such anti-life foes as war, disease, racism, poverty, climate change, homelessness and gun violence?
Catholic Sister Joan Chittister reminds us that simply being anti-abortion isn’t enough. “Your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed… That’s not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”
2 comments:
I am waiting to meet a truly pro-life person, but up until now I've run across a bunch of pro-birth folks. They seem to see Food Stamps, Head Start, affordable housing and medical care as Communistic welfare. Oh, lets not forget that we need to be tough on crime so of course the death penalty is justified. If you think that overturning Roe V Wade will eliminate abortion think again. It will merely make it illegal and if we study history we should know how successful that might be. I am ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Americans to try to eliminate a woman's need for an abortion. Life is a complex and often messing matter and painting everything black or white, or seeing things as them against us isn't quite how it works.
Here is a letter I sent to two Mennonite Pastors I know personally. It focuses on how the 'abortion issue' has been manipulated to get Mennos to vote for Trump.
Fred, an apostle of Christ to Wes and Stan, and the saints who are in the red states: grace and peace to you.
We pray for you and your congregations at this time of great upheaval; pandemics, economic uncertainty and the drama and division forced upon you by an intense election cycle.
Jesus, our Lord and master did not live in a democracy and didn’t tell us who should get our vote. However, he did teach us about love, justice and mercy.
I beseech you as part of the Mennonite family, rooted in an Anabaptist vision for freedom of conscience, to be mindful of powers and principalities who manipulate your good intentions.
In the fervor to faithfully support a party that protects life, your congregation may have unwittingly been used to gain political power. By aligning with members in your congregation on abortion, Republicans have used this issue as a lever to gain power. When this issue is seen as the primary concern to motivate a vote, it leverages a political agenda that may have unintended consequences. These include gun rights, environmental deregulation, tax cuts and medical care for only those with financial resources, and a justice system that privileges them.
This is not a ‘pro-life’ agenda. Concern for life must be prioritized after birth. The decision to have an abortion is often fraught with pain, guilt and shame. When pregnancy is the result of violence or lack of judgement, we need to show mercy. Women bear the burden of bringing life into our world and pregnancy and child-rearing is not an issue where women need to feel stigmatized.
This is a complex issue and one that should not be manipulated to gain political power. I beseech you as leaders and pastors to encourage your Mennonite Church communities to think about more than this issue when they cast their vote. I realize that it is asking too much to go against traditional voting behaviours in your communities and vote for the Democrats. However, in this election, with the presidential ticket as presented by the Republicans, I would implore voters in your flock, disposed to support Trump and Pence to renew the Mennonite tradition of political agnosticism and stay home.
For generations our forbearers were suspicious of the political sphere. We must use this discretion to extricate ourselves from being implicated in a political system of violence and oppression.
In conclusion, let me quote from another Epistle:
14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:14-16)
American elections have global impact. Please respond in love as you consider the implications of your flock in Pennsylvania and Indiana voting Republican in this election.
Your brother in Christ from north of the border
Fred W. Martin.
August 24, 2020
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