Can We Be “Anti-Abortion” in Ways That Actually Affirm Life? (a response to a “consistent ethic of life,” part 1)

I know, intellectually, that there is a lot to love about Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren’s recent New York Times opinion piece, You Can’t Protect Some Life and Not Others. But I found my blood boiling as I read it. 

Because any true “consistent ethic of life” would include concern for women’s lives. And in her piece, I found nothing of the sort.

Busting Up the Two-Party System

I’m in agreement with Warren on so many things. I join her, for example, in wanting to totally bust up the current U.S. two-party political system that leaves so many of our views unrepresented. 

(I generally find myself to the left of both major parties; Warren seems to find herself somewhere in the middle. But I wholeheartedly agree with her that we’d all benefit from more views being represented; from major parties rethinking their deeply entrenched but counterproductive ways of operating; from third parties having a real chance.)

I’m also all for the kind of life-affirming ethic that includes gun control, abolishing the death penalty, and avoiding war. 

These are all huge things. And good things. They are all, to me, profoundly Christian things—which is not necessarily to say that most people who embrace the name Christian are for them, but that they best serve the overarching biblical love and justice ethic that I want to follow.

But the way Warren talks about being anti-abortion as part of this “whole life” ethic strikes me as…muddled? Disingenuous? It’s a little hard to tell. But it isn’t working for me.

What Does “Anti-Abortion” Even Mean?

What does Warren mean when she says she’s “anti-abortion”? Quoting from her piece, I gather that:

• It means not “withholding [compassion] from the unwanted child in the womb.”
• It means seeking to “consistently champion life”—“from womb to tomb”; that is, refusing to “protect some life and not others.”
• It means seeing “widespread elective abortions” as part of a broader “throwaway culture” that degrades both human life and our environment.

Personally, I see value in all these things. (At least in some ways of understanding them.) 

Yes to compassion toward fetuses that have the potential to grow into humans. Yes to consistency. (But what does full consistency look like?) Yes to building a culture that honors human life and all sorts of life on earth—a culture that does not take the destruction of any life lightly. 

(I feel like I’ve learned a lot about this last point from reading indigenous thinkers like Tyson Yunkaporta, Randy Woodley, and Kaitlin B. Curtice. And when it comes to abortion, I’ve learned that some indigenous communities have a history of using certain plants and ceremonies to end a pregnancy if doing so serves the health of the woman and the community—for example, during long forced marches of displacement, so that women would not have to go through childbirth in such a time. I like the idea of a ceremony: appropriately serious, not taking the decision lightly—while also acknowledging that the woman is making the best decision possible under the circumstances and affirming that her community is there to support her in it.)

But none of these things, to me, points toward supporting the kinds of anti-abortion legislation we’ve seen in so many states since Roe was overturned a year ago. 

Warren does not directly say that she supports laws that criminalize abortion providers. But if she’s talking about feeling split between the two main political parties, and most of her non-abortion stances (environmental protections, gun control, etc.) seem to land her on the more progressive side of the aisle, I can only assume that she supports the kinds of Republican-driven anti-abortion legislation that we’ve seen. 

What Could “Anti-Abortion” Mean?

A “consistent ethic of life,” the way it’s being framed, fails to question the political right’s assumption that “anti-abortion” means legally penalizing medical professionals who perform abortions, and/or women who have an abortion. 

But if we’re talking about “expand[ing] [our] moral imagination” as Christians, there’s a whole wide world of other directions we could go in. And none of these directions need to—or, I would say, should—involve anti-abortion laws.

Many Christians may be “against abortion” in the sense that we say we would not choose this path for ourselves except in dire circumstances. But those of us who say this would do well to examine our privileges as we do so. 

Those of us who—often due to an inheritance of systemic racism, as well as economic policies that only benefit a privileged few—find ourselves in economically stable positions cannot judge the choices of those who are struggling to make ends meet. Those of us who have a good partner (or otherwise solid social support network) cannot judge those whose partners are unreliable or abusive. 

We can wish abortion were less common, while also recognizing that we have no business trying to prevent pregnant people in difficult circumstances from making the best choices they can make for themselves and their families. (I’ve written more in a similar vein over at Sojourners and Feminism and Religion.)

Being “anti-abortion,” at its best, could mean that we want to see abortion rates decrease because we’ve built the kinds of social safety nets that enable people to raise children in the safe, secure, loving environments we all want for the next generation. It could mean supporting policies that actually make abortion less prevalent: things like paid parental leave, better healthcare and medical insurance, affordable childcare.

If we really want to “champion” fetal life, we can “champion” the social support systems that help women and families experiencing a surprise pregnancy to see a way that they could provide for a child. 

(This is part 1 of a 2-part post; click here for part 2.)