If you really want to prevent abortions, you need to stop stigmatizing single mothers and restore funding to Planned Parenthood (which allocates far more resources to pre-natal care than to abortions).
Of course, if you care more about punishing women for having sex outside of marriage than you do about saving those unborn fetuses you pretend to be concerned about, then carry on with what you're doing, social conservatives.
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Monday, January 24, 2011
I Am Not an Athiest
I am not an athiest. I don't usually write much about my personal beliefs, but I want everyone to understand what shaped my opinions in my subsequent posts. I was very religious in my youth. In fact, as an adolescent, I thought I might be called to the clergy. My pastor, however, was dismissive of my questions about theology and biblical scholarship, and he did not encourage my interest, despite the fact that our church had ordained women for years.
I began looking into other denominations, hoping to find one that seemed right. I wanted to reconcile my understanding of Christ's teaching and the historical contexts in which the books of the Bible were written with church doctrine. I came to realize that the vast majority of organized religions are just as concerned with preserving the authority and prerogatives of the clergy as they are with bringing the truth and spiritual comfort to their flock. I could not in good conscience promote any of them. I became a "sole practitioner" -- a description more common among neo-pagans than Christians (who are very big on that "whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name" thing).
I respect sincerely held religious beliefs, even when I vehemently disagree with them. I oppose any attempt by someone else to force me to live by their religious beliefs, however. Any laws passed by our government must serve a secular purpose to promote the general welfare and/or public safety. The ten commandments are not the basis of our legal system. Our legal system is rooted in English Common Law, which evolved from pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon traditions. There are many areas of overlap, just as there are areas of overlap with Solon's law code and other ancient legal texts. Every civilization has an interest in promoting the personal safety and property rights of its citizens.
Something that most American Christians do not understand is that ancient prohibitions against abortion were not about saving the lives of innocent babies (most of those cultures did not recognize the humanity of a child until after it was named, since so many died at birth). Those prohibitions were about protecting the father's property. In many ancient cultures, a man had the legal right to kill a child born to his wife or concubine. If the child had a birth defect or was suspected to be another man's bastard, it could be left to die outside of town. The decision was always the legal father's, not the mother's. A woman who killed her child or aborted her pregnancy was thwarting her husband's property rights. It was seen as an attack on her husband (just as Medea killed her children to punish Jason for abandoning her).
Many in the pro-choice movement believe that those old patriarchal property rights still motivate large segments of the pro-life movement. That Brazilian bishop who excommunicated a mother and doctor for providing a life-saving abortion for an eight-year-old girl but did not excommunicate the stepfather who raped and impregnated the girl demonstrated that those attitudes still exist within parts of the Catholic Church hierarchy. The pro-life activists who picket clinics with signs saying "Don't punish a rapist by killing his child" also demonstrate that old attitude. They seem to believe that a woman's body only exists to be a vessel for a man's seed, and that decisions about pregnancy should always be made by a man.
My next post will explain my take on the "life begins at conception" argument. Please read it before commenting on this one (your comment may be more relevant if you attach it to the other post).
I began looking into other denominations, hoping to find one that seemed right. I wanted to reconcile my understanding of Christ's teaching and the historical contexts in which the books of the Bible were written with church doctrine. I came to realize that the vast majority of organized religions are just as concerned with preserving the authority and prerogatives of the clergy as they are with bringing the truth and spiritual comfort to their flock. I could not in good conscience promote any of them. I became a "sole practitioner" -- a description more common among neo-pagans than Christians (who are very big on that "whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name" thing).
I respect sincerely held religious beliefs, even when I vehemently disagree with them. I oppose any attempt by someone else to force me to live by their religious beliefs, however. Any laws passed by our government must serve a secular purpose to promote the general welfare and/or public safety. The ten commandments are not the basis of our legal system. Our legal system is rooted in English Common Law, which evolved from pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon traditions. There are many areas of overlap, just as there are areas of overlap with Solon's law code and other ancient legal texts. Every civilization has an interest in promoting the personal safety and property rights of its citizens.
Something that most American Christians do not understand is that ancient prohibitions against abortion were not about saving the lives of innocent babies (most of those cultures did not recognize the humanity of a child until after it was named, since so many died at birth). Those prohibitions were about protecting the father's property. In many ancient cultures, a man had the legal right to kill a child born to his wife or concubine. If the child had a birth defect or was suspected to be another man's bastard, it could be left to die outside of town. The decision was always the legal father's, not the mother's. A woman who killed her child or aborted her pregnancy was thwarting her husband's property rights. It was seen as an attack on her husband (just as Medea killed her children to punish Jason for abandoning her).
Many in the pro-choice movement believe that those old patriarchal property rights still motivate large segments of the pro-life movement. That Brazilian bishop who excommunicated a mother and doctor for providing a life-saving abortion for an eight-year-old girl but did not excommunicate the stepfather who raped and impregnated the girl demonstrated that those attitudes still exist within parts of the Catholic Church hierarchy. The pro-life activists who picket clinics with signs saying "Don't punish a rapist by killing his child" also demonstrate that old attitude. They seem to believe that a woman's body only exists to be a vessel for a man's seed, and that decisions about pregnancy should always be made by a man.
My next post will explain my take on the "life begins at conception" argument. Please read it before commenting on this one (your comment may be more relevant if you attach it to the other post).
Does Life Begin at Conception?
For the last half-century, the Catholic Church has actively taught that life begins at conception. They did not always advance that argument. In the middle ages, priests developed texts known as "penitentials" that were designed as guides in the confessional. They provided standard penances for a wide variety of confessed sins. The penitentials provided different punishments for women who had an abortion depending upon whether it was before or after "the quickening" (the point at which fetal movement can be felt by the mother). If it occurred after the quickening, the woman was assigned far longer penance than for an early abortion. This seems to indicate that, earlier in the history of the church, life was considered to begin at the quickening, not at conception.
Jewish tradition teaches that the soul enters the child at birth. Even today, many Orthodox Jews will not address an unborn child by name or even set up a nursery in anticipation.
The tricky thing about Catholic Church doctrine is that, according to the Church, it does not change over time. When a new doctrine is developed in response to a change in society, the Church claims to be simply clarifying and articulating something that was always true. For many centuries, there was no need to worry about the Virgin Mary being a carrier of original sin, because the mother was believed to be just the vessel for the father's seed. She may shape her offspring, as a plant's roots grow in the shape of the pot, but she does not pass on her nature. Gregor Mendel's studies of genetic inheritance, however, made people aware that Jesus must have inherited genes from his mother. Thus, the Catholic Church developed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, whereby Mary was the product of a specially-blessed union and was miraculously conceived without inheriting original sin from her parents.
When birth control pills became available, women had the ability to control their reproductive destiny far more effectively than ever before. The pills prevented pregnancy before it ever happened by suppressing ovulation and possibly also by preventing implantation if a woman did ovulate. Since medical science recognizes pregnancy as beginning at implantation (since a great many fertilized eggs are naturally expelled by the body for a variety of reasons), conventional birth control pills do not end a pregnancy.
It was after the pill became available that the Catholic Church began teaching that life begins at conception, not implantation nor the quickening. Many Protestant churches followed their lead. This doctrine is logically problematic for a couple of reasons.
First, the Church condemns hormonal birth control for the stated reason that it can prevent a fertilized egg (which the Church now says is a human life) from implanting in the womb, and thus the pill kills babies. However, the Church encourages breast feeding, even though lactation causes hormonal changes similar to the pill and also can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. Why does breast-feeding get a pass when birth control pills are condemned? If the Church is more concerned with making a woman's body subordinate to a baby than with saving the lives of fertilized eggs, the difference makes sense.
Secondly, prior to implantation (and even for a short while afterward), it is still undetermined whether that fertilized egg will grow into one baby or two or three (or even five, in the case of the famous Dionne quintuplets). If the soul enters at conception, does it split when the zygote does? Do twins each possess only half a soul? Also, twins sometimes merge during the course of a pregnancy. This even happens with fraternal twins, who grew from two separate fertilized eggs. Some people are born with different DNA in different body parts as a result of such in-utero mergers. Do these people have two souls?
My faith does not require me to believe that life begins at conception, and my knowledge of science and of church history does not allow me to believe it. Therefore, in my opinion, any legal restrictions on first trimester abortion are based entirely on the desire of some people to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Jewish tradition teaches that the soul enters the child at birth. Even today, many Orthodox Jews will not address an unborn child by name or even set up a nursery in anticipation.
The tricky thing about Catholic Church doctrine is that, according to the Church, it does not change over time. When a new doctrine is developed in response to a change in society, the Church claims to be simply clarifying and articulating something that was always true. For many centuries, there was no need to worry about the Virgin Mary being a carrier of original sin, because the mother was believed to be just the vessel for the father's seed. She may shape her offspring, as a plant's roots grow in the shape of the pot, but she does not pass on her nature. Gregor Mendel's studies of genetic inheritance, however, made people aware that Jesus must have inherited genes from his mother. Thus, the Catholic Church developed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, whereby Mary was the product of a specially-blessed union and was miraculously conceived without inheriting original sin from her parents.
When birth control pills became available, women had the ability to control their reproductive destiny far more effectively than ever before. The pills prevented pregnancy before it ever happened by suppressing ovulation and possibly also by preventing implantation if a woman did ovulate. Since medical science recognizes pregnancy as beginning at implantation (since a great many fertilized eggs are naturally expelled by the body for a variety of reasons), conventional birth control pills do not end a pregnancy.
It was after the pill became available that the Catholic Church began teaching that life begins at conception, not implantation nor the quickening. Many Protestant churches followed their lead. This doctrine is logically problematic for a couple of reasons.
First, the Church condemns hormonal birth control for the stated reason that it can prevent a fertilized egg (which the Church now says is a human life) from implanting in the womb, and thus the pill kills babies. However, the Church encourages breast feeding, even though lactation causes hormonal changes similar to the pill and also can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. Why does breast-feeding get a pass when birth control pills are condemned? If the Church is more concerned with making a woman's body subordinate to a baby than with saving the lives of fertilized eggs, the difference makes sense.
Secondly, prior to implantation (and even for a short while afterward), it is still undetermined whether that fertilized egg will grow into one baby or two or three (or even five, in the case of the famous Dionne quintuplets). If the soul enters at conception, does it split when the zygote does? Do twins each possess only half a soul? Also, twins sometimes merge during the course of a pregnancy. This even happens with fraternal twins, who grew from two separate fertilized eggs. Some people are born with different DNA in different body parts as a result of such in-utero mergers. Do these people have two souls?
My faith does not require me to believe that life begins at conception, and my knowledge of science and of church history does not allow me to believe it. Therefore, in my opinion, any legal restrictions on first trimester abortion are based entirely on the desire of some people to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Safe, Legal and Rare
The State of Pennsylvania finally shut down a horrific "clinic" and arrested a doctor for performing illegal abortions under medically unsound conditions, leading to the deaths of at least two women and several viable infants who were allegedly born alive and then killed with scissors.
The State ignored complaints and did not properly inspect the facility for years. The doctor, Kermit Gosnell, was not even an obstetrician/gynecologist. He employed unqualified, untrained (and possibly underage) assistants who, under his direction, performed medical procedures without licenses.
How did he get away with it? Why did women keep coming to him for abortions? For one, he worked cheap. Poor women on medical assistance did not have access to abortions in legitimate medical facilities, because Pennsylvania law does not allow taxpayer funds to be used for abortions. They had to pay out of pocket.
For another, he was willing to perform abortions far later than the law allows. He even told some women that their pregnancy was less advanced than it really was.
The legal authorities finally performed their responsibility and shut down this illegal operation and arrested Gosnell, as they should have done years ago.
Why was this horror show able to thrive in Pennsylvania? Perhaps for the same reason that rum-running flourished under Prohibition. Studies have shown that abortion rates are relatively similar in countries which outlaw the procedure as they are in countries which allow it. The most effective way to reduce the number of abortions isn't to make them less available or more onerous, but to empower women to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place and to increase support for pregnant women.
Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. We should work to teach girls how their bodies work and not feed them lies like "you can't get pregnant if you don't enjoy the sex" and "abortion causes breast cancer". Girls who are ignorant and taught to be subservient to males are much more likely to be coerced into sex (as shown by the high rate of teenage pregnancy in school districts with abstinence-only sex education programs). They are also more likely to ignore the signs that they are pregnant (leading to a whole abhorrent reality show).
We should work to make the alternatives to abortion more attractive. We should strengthen open adoption laws. Right now, only a couple of states will uphold an adoption if the birth mother changes her mind and decides she wants her baby back. This discourages adoptions where the birth mother is included in the baby's extended family, which has the effect of discouraging young women from going through with a pregnancy if they are not prepared to be mothers. Many young women who choose abortion have expressed an unwillingness to give their baby to strangers. We should also avoid treating unwed mothers like pariahs, unless you would rather punish them for having sex than save the lives of their unborn children.
Stop picketing clinics and harassing doctors, unless you want to see the return of back-alley abortion mills like the one in Pennsylvania and the one in Indiana that killed Becky Bell.
The State ignored complaints and did not properly inspect the facility for years. The doctor, Kermit Gosnell, was not even an obstetrician/gynecologist. He employed unqualified, untrained (and possibly underage) assistants who, under his direction, performed medical procedures without licenses.
How did he get away with it? Why did women keep coming to him for abortions? For one, he worked cheap. Poor women on medical assistance did not have access to abortions in legitimate medical facilities, because Pennsylvania law does not allow taxpayer funds to be used for abortions. They had to pay out of pocket.
For another, he was willing to perform abortions far later than the law allows. He even told some women that their pregnancy was less advanced than it really was.
The legal authorities finally performed their responsibility and shut down this illegal operation and arrested Gosnell, as they should have done years ago.
Why was this horror show able to thrive in Pennsylvania? Perhaps for the same reason that rum-running flourished under Prohibition. Studies have shown that abortion rates are relatively similar in countries which outlaw the procedure as they are in countries which allow it. The most effective way to reduce the number of abortions isn't to make them less available or more onerous, but to empower women to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place and to increase support for pregnant women.
Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. We should work to teach girls how their bodies work and not feed them lies like "you can't get pregnant if you don't enjoy the sex" and "abortion causes breast cancer". Girls who are ignorant and taught to be subservient to males are much more likely to be coerced into sex (as shown by the high rate of teenage pregnancy in school districts with abstinence-only sex education programs). They are also more likely to ignore the signs that they are pregnant (leading to a whole abhorrent reality show).
We should work to make the alternatives to abortion more attractive. We should strengthen open adoption laws. Right now, only a couple of states will uphold an adoption if the birth mother changes her mind and decides she wants her baby back. This discourages adoptions where the birth mother is included in the baby's extended family, which has the effect of discouraging young women from going through with a pregnancy if they are not prepared to be mothers. Many young women who choose abortion have expressed an unwillingness to give their baby to strangers. We should also avoid treating unwed mothers like pariahs, unless you would rather punish them for having sex than save the lives of their unborn children.
Stop picketing clinics and harassing doctors, unless you want to see the return of back-alley abortion mills like the one in Pennsylvania and the one in Indiana that killed Becky Bell.
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Importance of Separating Church and State
I remember reading something recently about how Americans are so much more religious than Europeans. The writer seemed to find this fact surprising. I did not find it at all surprising. I believe the reason is not because our ancestors for the past two hundred years have been more religious or better at passing on their faith, but rather because our government has been less religious.
We do not have a monopoly on religious tolerance here in the U.S. Most E.U. nations have had similar policies of religious tolerance for several generations at least. The Netherlands and Switzerland were allowing freedom of religion back when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was forcibly converting the local native tribes (the "Pilgrims" came to this country after a sojourn in Amsterdam, not for the right to freely practice their religion, but for the right to impose it on their neighbors).
What we do have that most of Europe lacks is a government that is prohibited from favoring or establishing a state religion. Our founding fathers understood that combining church and state damages not only the state but religion as well. When the two are entwined, the church inevitably becomes corrupted by political power and political agendas, causing the faithful to become disillusioned and irreligious.
A good example of this is France. The Catholic church in France was tightly entwined with the ancien regime. By the time the revolution hit, the rabble hated the church every bit as much as they hated the royal family. Of all the world's majority-Catholic nations, France is the most strictly secular. The clergy cannot even perform legal marriages there; church weddings are sometimes held afterwards, but the legal ceremony is at City Hall.
Russia also had a corrupt official church that supported (and was supported by) a repressive regime. The Bolsheviks opposed religion of any kind largely because of that history. Now, of course, history is repeating itself, with Vladimir Putin backing the Russian Orthodox Church and prohibiting new religions (not only Scientology, but also Protestant churches) from proselytizing in Russia. Only religions that existed in Tsarist Russia (meaning Orthodox Christianity, Ukranian/Roman Catholocism, Judaism and Islam) enjoy the freedom to grow in Putinist Russia.
Unfortunately, in our zeal to oppose Communism in the days of the Cold War, we missed the point. Imposing religion (by adding "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" to our currency, for instance) is every bit as bad as imposing atheism. It creates a backlash and damages the ability of our citizens to freely practice their own faith.
Too many Americans do not understand the real importance of separating church and state. We cringe when a political party in Turkey seeks to establish Sharia (Islamic law) as the basis of the nation's legal code but look the other way when the state of South Dakota passes a law that forces doctors to tell women that having an abortion will increase their risk of breast cancer (even though there is no evidence to indicate a correlation).
Yes, the abortion issue is primarily a church versus state issue. Is abortion murder? The answer to that question depends entirely upon one's religious beliefs. Devout modern Catholics believe that human life (with a soul) begins at conception, so abortion is always murder (church writings regarding abortion were more complex in the Middle Ages). Mormons believe that human life begins at implantation, so extra embryos that are fertilized in vitro may be discarded (or used for stem cell research) without murdering a human being. The Jewish faith teaches that the soul enters the body at the moment of birth. So, while a devout Jew may oppose abortion on moral grounds, just as he might oppose cruelty to animals, it is not murder.
The state has no natural interest in preventing abortions, as they do not threaten the security of society. U.S. citizens have never had to live in fear of being aborted, even when the procedure was at its most available in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are plenty of individuals in this country who are willing and able to reproduce, so we are not in danger of depopulation. Laws restricting abortion are really about enshrining religious rules as the law of the land. Religious leaders can sermonize about the evils of abortion, but they cannot force even their own flocks to obey (much less non-believers). They can, however, pressure lawmakers to force such obedience.
The U.S. government is not in the business of saving souls, nor should it be. When churches try to sub-contract that business to the state, both are corrupted. The state does have an interest in protecting its citizens from religious terrorism, however. I hope Randall Terry comes to understand that.
We do not have a monopoly on religious tolerance here in the U.S. Most E.U. nations have had similar policies of religious tolerance for several generations at least. The Netherlands and Switzerland were allowing freedom of religion back when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was forcibly converting the local native tribes (the "Pilgrims" came to this country after a sojourn in Amsterdam, not for the right to freely practice their religion, but for the right to impose it on their neighbors).
What we do have that most of Europe lacks is a government that is prohibited from favoring or establishing a state religion. Our founding fathers understood that combining church and state damages not only the state but religion as well. When the two are entwined, the church inevitably becomes corrupted by political power and political agendas, causing the faithful to become disillusioned and irreligious.
A good example of this is France. The Catholic church in France was tightly entwined with the ancien regime. By the time the revolution hit, the rabble hated the church every bit as much as they hated the royal family. Of all the world's majority-Catholic nations, France is the most strictly secular. The clergy cannot even perform legal marriages there; church weddings are sometimes held afterwards, but the legal ceremony is at City Hall.
Russia also had a corrupt official church that supported (and was supported by) a repressive regime. The Bolsheviks opposed religion of any kind largely because of that history. Now, of course, history is repeating itself, with Vladimir Putin backing the Russian Orthodox Church and prohibiting new religions (not only Scientology, but also Protestant churches) from proselytizing in Russia. Only religions that existed in Tsarist Russia (meaning Orthodox Christianity, Ukranian/Roman Catholocism, Judaism and Islam) enjoy the freedom to grow in Putinist Russia.
Unfortunately, in our zeal to oppose Communism in the days of the Cold War, we missed the point. Imposing religion (by adding "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" to our currency, for instance) is every bit as bad as imposing atheism. It creates a backlash and damages the ability of our citizens to freely practice their own faith.
Too many Americans do not understand the real importance of separating church and state. We cringe when a political party in Turkey seeks to establish Sharia (Islamic law) as the basis of the nation's legal code but look the other way when the state of South Dakota passes a law that forces doctors to tell women that having an abortion will increase their risk of breast cancer (even though there is no evidence to indicate a correlation).
Yes, the abortion issue is primarily a church versus state issue. Is abortion murder? The answer to that question depends entirely upon one's religious beliefs. Devout modern Catholics believe that human life (with a soul) begins at conception, so abortion is always murder (church writings regarding abortion were more complex in the Middle Ages). Mormons believe that human life begins at implantation, so extra embryos that are fertilized in vitro may be discarded (or used for stem cell research) without murdering a human being. The Jewish faith teaches that the soul enters the body at the moment of birth. So, while a devout Jew may oppose abortion on moral grounds, just as he might oppose cruelty to animals, it is not murder.
The state has no natural interest in preventing abortions, as they do not threaten the security of society. U.S. citizens have never had to live in fear of being aborted, even when the procedure was at its most available in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are plenty of individuals in this country who are willing and able to reproduce, so we are not in danger of depopulation. Laws restricting abortion are really about enshrining religious rules as the law of the land. Religious leaders can sermonize about the evils of abortion, but they cannot force even their own flocks to obey (much less non-believers). They can, however, pressure lawmakers to force such obedience.
The U.S. government is not in the business of saving souls, nor should it be. When churches try to sub-contract that business to the state, both are corrupted. The state does have an interest in protecting its citizens from religious terrorism, however. I hope Randall Terry comes to understand that.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Some Questions for Pro-Lifers
1. Should a pregnant woman who is diagnosed with cancer be forced to delay her radiation treatments and chemotherapy so that she can deliver a healthy baby?
2. Should a mother be legally forced to donate a kidney or bone marrow to save her child's life?
3. Should a pregnant woman be legally forced to have surgery during her pregnancy to repair a fetal heart defect, since the chance of a successful recovery is much better while the heart patient is in the natural ICU of the womb?
4. If you answered "no" to all of the above, do you believe a woman should be legally allowed to have an abortion in order to avoid serious risks to her health?
5. Do you oppose the use of oral contraceptives?
6. Do you oppose the use of medications or food supplements that may cause similar hormonal changes to oral contraceptives, and thus possibly prevent the implantation of a fertilized zygote, if those supplements were not consumed for the purpose of contraception?
7. Do you oppose the practice of breast-feeding, since it causes hormonal changes similar to oral contraceptives, and may thus possibly prevent the implantation of a fertilized zygote?
2. Should a mother be legally forced to donate a kidney or bone marrow to save her child's life?
3. Should a pregnant woman be legally forced to have surgery during her pregnancy to repair a fetal heart defect, since the chance of a successful recovery is much better while the heart patient is in the natural ICU of the womb?
4. If you answered "no" to all of the above, do you believe a woman should be legally allowed to have an abortion in order to avoid serious risks to her health?
5. Do you oppose the use of oral contraceptives?
6. Do you oppose the use of medications or food supplements that may cause similar hormonal changes to oral contraceptives, and thus possibly prevent the implantation of a fertilized zygote, if those supplements were not consumed for the purpose of contraception?
7. Do you oppose the practice of breast-feeding, since it causes hormonal changes similar to oral contraceptives, and may thus possibly prevent the implantation of a fertilized zygote?
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