Abortion as a (im)moral choice [Updated]

UPDATE: While Hosea6:6 (see below) offers the one of the best intellectual comments against abortion, Paula Loughlin presents the best reason (spiritual, emotional, and grounded in the realities of what a girl might face) to actively speak out against those who present abortion as a viable alternative condoned by the church:

Right now there is a girl who considers herself a Christian. She attends church, she believes the Bible and recites the creeds with all sincerity. She may even be active in her youth group and trys her best to witness the love of Christ to all.

But she like so many of us thought she was ready to have sex. Maybe she is planning on marrying the boy. Maybe she fell victime to a moment of temptation. It might have happened once or many times. But she had sex and she is now pregnant.

The church she attends does not talk much about sex or pregnancy or birth or abortion. The pastor and youth leaders trust the half hour of Sunday school and the hour of Tuesday night youth group have given the girl and others all they need to make a good moral decision. They let it be known that sex should be saved for marriage but that pretty much all they let be known.

Now she is pregnant. She prays and prays about what to do. Because she does want to live her life as a Christian she decides to find out what churches teach about abortion. Whether it can ever be a moral choice which not only is not wrong but will glorify God and bring her closer to Him. If she belongs to any mainstream Protestant denomination she will soon find that abortion though viewed as a imperfect choice remains a valid one in any number of circumstances. The circumstances range from being a threat to the life and health of the mother or needing to complete one’s education. Still the girl has doubts but decides to speak with someone at a local abortion clinic. There she meets with a spiritual counselor. A clergy man or woman who is a from the very same denomination as the girl. Told all the Christian reasons why an abortion is the best choice for her she makes the appointment.

Then the feet in the stirrups, the pinch of the needle, the numbness, the sound of the vacuum, the tugging and cramping and the invasion. That awful invasion. A glass of juice, a rest, a prescription and an aftercare sheet. No baths, no douche, no sex. Call 911 if you start bleeding heavily. Have a friend drive you home.

It is only then she discovers that the church she trusted to lead her into Truth, has lied. That the serpent has left the garden and is in the rectory.

Original Post: From an ordained cleric writing for RH Reality Check (via Stand Firm) [boldface mine]:

. . . At another point, a few years later, I did have an abortion. I was a single mother, working and pursuing a path to ordination in the Episcopal Church. The potential father was not someone I would have married; he would have been no better a candidate for fatherhood than my daughter's absent father. The timing was wrong, the man was wrong, and I easily, though not happily, made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

I have not the slightest regret about either of these decisions, nor the slightest guilt. I felt sorrow and loss at the time of my abortion, but less so than when I'd miscarried some years earlier. Both of my choices, I believe, were right for me and my circumstances: morally correct in their context, practical, and fruitful in their outcomes.

That is, both choices were choices for life: in the first instance, I chose for the life of the unborn child; in the second, I chose for my own vocational life, my economic stability, and my mental and emotional health and wholeness.

Shortly after my ordination to the priesthood, I was asked to speak at the National Abortion Federation's annual meeting, on a Clergy Panel, with the theme of "Abortion as a Moral Choice." I wondered skeptically who would attend such a panel, but to my surprise, the room was packed with people - abortion providers and other clinic workers. Our audience was so eager and grateful to hear their work affirmed, to hear religious authorities assuring them that God was on their side! I understood that I had a responsibility, indeed, a call, as a pro-choice religious professional, to speak out and to advocate publicly for women's reproductive rights and health, and I have tried to be faithful to that call.

To talk theologically about women's right to choose is to talk about justice, equality, health and wholeness, and respect for the full humanity and autonomy of every woman. Typically, as moral theologians, we discuss the value of potential life (the fetus) as against the value of lived life - the mature and relational life of a woman deciding her capacity to continue or terminate a pregnancy. And we believe that, in general, the value of that actual life outweighs the value of the potential. . .

The author of this piece is associated with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) (and no, I'm not linking to their site). Having read through the RCRC website, I know that they do promote the idea that deciding to abort one's child is blessed by God. And in one of their justification papers, the author describes having an abortion as "self-defense" for a woman.

I think the best comment at Stand Firm is from Hosea6:6 [boldface mine]:

Let me get this straight, the author made a free will decision to engage in sexual activity with a man who she was not married, did not plan to marry and was not a good candidate to be a good husband or father, as a result from this evening’s “entertainment” was an undesired new life with unique DNA, an unintended externality.

Individual Rights - Since this new life, a daughter, has unique DNA, it is not a part of the woman’s body. Since this is a developmental stage of reproduction of humanity, it is incorrect to claim the same status as virus or other pathogen with unique DNA. The desirability has no impact on the right, as loathsome speech is still protected. Therefore this mothers choice violated her daughters right to be born as she had been and every other adult was given the chance.

Distributive Justice—If mom had been given life the daughter should be given life.

Utilitarian—Utility must be on the whole good not the good of a specific individual. While the mother and father certainly benefit from the mothers decision to forgo any responsibility of killing the child and rationalizes using a utility argument, she abuses the theory for the utility of the good of the daughter is not counted, neither of the benefit to society this life could contribute or the happiness of her future husband or the contribution of grandchildren after but purely focuses on the mother’s tangible prosperity which is an improper use of this theory.

Hmmm ... her moral choice seems to fail by three secular theories, in fact two outright make claim for her action to be an immoral action.

I think this author needs a good Catholic school education (where I was taught logical ethics to a level that seems more emphasized then my Protestant schooled friends), for theological heritage of thinking about ethics and moral goods. I was reminded by of this a weekend ago listening to a Catholic lawyer go through result of unintended evil by a good act (thus mitigating the former) or the good resulting from an evil act (thus negating the former), but this is evil result from an evil act.

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Pure Christan ethics are much simpler and she still fails Thy shall not murder.

Also that bit forbidding of sacrificing a child to the god of prosperity (which is actually what this is at it’s root, child sacrifice for the offering of prosperity - I bet this priest never thought of it that way but her own words in this article betray her to prove that’s exactly what she did and thought, but a new nifty name mane child sacrifice acceptable).