Rethinking the Abortion Debate from a Liberal Christian Perspective

I have been thinking about this for a long time. See The Rise of the Religious Left -- Why Christianity Isn't Just for Conservatives, AlterNet on Evans Liberal Politics, October 17, 2009, by Anna Hartnell.

See The Human Sacrifice Encouragement Act of 2011 (Updated), Daily Kos on Evans Liberal Politics, February 5, 2011, by dengre: In this bill, Republicans wanted to turn pregnant raped women who are about to die during pregnancy away from hospitals and out in the streets rather than allow abortion of any kind, ever. I'm not quite sure what ever happened to this legislation.

See John Stewart on Sen. Kyl's "political strategy known as lying', The Raw Story on Evans Liberal Politics, April 12, 2011, by Kase Wickman:

... one of the last sticking points in reaching a budget deal to avoid government shutdown was whether Planned Parenthood would receive federal funding or not. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) argued that abortion is "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," when abortions actually account for only 3 percent of PPFA's services. When confronted, his office said that it was "not intended to be a factual statement."

One of the best religious articles I read on the subject of abortion was Liberal Christians and Abortion, Anitra.net, no date:

One thing to understand about Liberal Christianity is that it tries to adhere to the spirit of scripture and not necessarily to the letter. There are often no specific scriptural texts on a particular subject. Or the specific texts may say the opposite, taken literally, than what a Liberal Christian would understand to be the spirit of scripture as a whole.

If you ever go back to look at the 19th century debates about abolishing slavery, you will see what I mean. Not a single text in the bible says that slavery ought to be abolished. On the contrary there are specific instructions to slaves to be diligent and obedient to their masters. So the supporters of slavery had lots of scriptural backing for their position, and the abolitionists had very little. But the abolitionists based their case on what the bible teaches overall about the nature of human beings, and God's love for each and every one, and drew the conclusion, in spite of what a surface reading of scripture seems to say, that slavery was morally wrong and ought to be abolished.

When it comes to abortion, I cannot speak for all Liberal Christians, but this is my take on it.

1. Every conception creates a human life and God loves and honours that human life and wants it to develop to its full potential. Every abortion is tragic insofar as it ends a human life.

2. Every woman's life is dear to God as well. God loves the mother as much as the child and wants childbearing to be a joy for her. God never values the child above the mother (as most anti-choice advocates do) nor the mother above the child.

3. In some circumstances, bearing a child would bring great hardship to the mother and to others in her family. In such a case, one may have to weigh whether the cost of bringing a new life into the world is justified when the impacts on other lives are considered. This is a never a judgment to be made lightly, nor is there a simple rule one can follow, as the circumstances vary so much from one situation to another. All things considered, in some circumstances it is better not to continue the pregnancy. (Just as, in some circumstances it is better not to continue a marriage.)

Also see Sex and the Liberal Christian, National Sexuality Resource Center, July 10, 2006, by Timothy F. Simpson.

Also see Abortion Access: Current beliefs by various religious and secular groups, Religous Tolerance.org, no date, which has a pretty complete listiing of mainline and liberal Christian denominations which support a woman's right to choose.

Also see Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes, September 16, 2008, by David D. Kirkpatrick, which discusses how the abortion issue contributed to splitting the Catholic vote in the Presidential election of 2008.