This subject has become extremely volatile lately.  It’s been bandied about in classrooms, blogs, pubs, buses … everywhere (in fact) that two or more are gathered.  Just the other day, a good friend of mine and I were catching up on the phone and she exasperatedly said, “Well, I’m voting pro-life, and that’s that.” She quickly moved to another topic, and left me to wonder, “what does that even mean any more?”  I’m not sure I know what “pro-choice” means either, for that matter.  So I’ve been doing a lot of sewing and thinking.

Scot McKnight put up a question about the issue of abortion and pro-life vs. pro-choice at Jesus Creed one day a couple of weeks ago.  I don’t often comment in a thread there and I have not started a conversation based upon one of his since the early days of my blog.  But this one is personal.  I’ve spent a long time thinking this one through, for a number of reasons.  Not the least of which is that LightGirl now reads my blog and I wanted to have the chance to talk to her before I posted this.

I’ve seen Obama referred to more than one place as a “pro-abortion zealot” and in other places as simply “pro-abortion.”  I’ve seen other folks say that they cannot possibly vote for a president who is not pro-life, or who will “kill the innocent.”  And I’m genuinely confused by the rhetoric.  You see, I have something in common with candidate that gives me a unique perspective on this subject.  Both of us are the products of a marriage brought about by our mothers’ pregnancies with us.  His parents’ marriage ended in divorce, my parents are still married.

When you know that your mother got married because she was pregnant with you, it challenges any settled conclusion you think you might come to on the issue of abortion.  Every time you get to one place or another, you remember your mom and her particular set of circumstances.  What if …

Among many things, it decidedly does not make one a “pro-abortion zealot.”  I cannot speak for the candidate personally because I do not know him.  I can, however, speak for myself.  I know that I see the issue as incredibly nuanced and far more filled with shades of gray than with the black or white that most true zealots would like us to believe.  In my heart of hearts I have occasionally wondered what might have happened to me, had abortion been legally available to my mother when she discovered her pregnancy in the fall of 1960.  But as she is fond of saying to me, “Stop playing the what if game.” 😉  It was not available, and now I’m here … for better or worse (my words, never my mother’s).

This argument, this issue has become incredibly divisive and words have become bombs that are thrown at one another.  Witness the exchange between the candidates during the last presidential debate.  As Senator Obama reminded us, “no one is pro-abortion.”  Even those who are the most ardent supporters of “pro-choice” secretly hope they never have to take advantage of that choice.  I would hope that we can all at least agree on that.

I’ve lived on both sides in this war.  I marched in one of the largest pro-choice rallies in Washington back in 1989 and carried an ancient “Don’t Tread On Me” flag.  My mother, husband and several cousins walked too.  I’ve been pro-life as a member of an evangelical church for fourteen years … and written letters to politicians, etc.  I’ve supported our local Crisis Pregnancy Center with donations and prayers.  But after all of it … I think they’re all wrong.

I want to begin with a reveal of sorts.  I have had an abortion.

I could tell you it was the lowest point in my life and I’d been raped or something horrible like that.  But it would be a lie.  I was engaged to LightHusband and the baby was due about a month after our scheduled wedding.  The truth is, I had terrible anger issues at the time.  We had no money.  There was no money for child care and no money for me to stop working.  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I had a baby then I was certain to abuse the child.  I was terrified.  Horrified.  Guilty if I did and guilty if I didn’t.

That all sounds weak and thready now.  But at the time, we (LightHusband and I) were in a deep hole with no way out, no one to talk to and nowhere to go.  As ridiculous as it sounds, out of wedlock pregnancy is still a stigma in our culture.  It is a gross and abject failure of huge proportions for women on so many levels that one cannot bear to acknowledge it.

Many of my friends (regardless of their faith) have had abortions.  Others have given up babies for adoption.  Some have had the horrible fate to have done both (some as the result of unmarried sex, others as the result of rape or incest).  All have gone on to raise families.

My oldest cousin is a woman now in her sixties.  When she was in her thirties, she was a director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in her town.  She had two daughters about my age (early teens at the time) and found herself pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy.   It was the source of many uproarious jokes in my family and still is.  However, she went on to have that baby, who is now a wonderful woman in her own right.

My point in all of this is that when we engage in the abortion debate, we forget that it’s not about theology, or exegesis or theory … it’s about individual women and men, as well as the babies that everyone wants to hang their hat on.  Individual women (and men) who, in a very dark hour, are making a Hobbes choice.  There is rarely a good outcome; only frightening and intolerable.  Abortion and adoption have long running ramifications that leave scars.  Getting married and raising the baby at a young age is a risky choice that only rarely works out well (my parents are a rare exception to that rule).  And we all know how well unwed motherhood works.  We can wave the Bible around all we want, but until we’re ready to show individual women that they indeed have another way out, it’s all just so much hot air.  Or as Paul might have said, a clanging gong.

I’ve changed as the years have gone by.  There is too much at stake to use a hatchet, when a scalpel is called for.  Or perhaps analogies of cutting implements are insensitive in this instance.  Perhaps when all is said and done, we should not be putting our hope in the law.  I’ve often thought (as have others much smarter than I) that the law cannot change hearts.  Sure, say those of a more conservative bent, but it draws boundaries around behavior.  Yep, I agree.  However, I began think about about a deeper law and a deeper magic.  I began to think about it in terms like this:  Jesus said things like “I have come to fulfill the Law.”  and “Perfect love drives out fear.”

Before He came, the Jewish law was convoluted and nearly impossible to fill perfectly.  Our way to the Father was blocked at almost every turn by jots and tittles.  So He sent His Son to fill them all.  To make the way straight and give us a way in.  His perfect love would straighten things out and we would not have to be afraid anymore of not knowing.  And this morning ASBO Jesus posted this which perfectly demonstrates, for me, this issue:

The whole issue is complex, complicated and far too delicate to be left to lawyers and politicians. Nor is it something that can be abolished with laws. Unplanned pregnancies within and without marriage are part of the imperfectness of this world that we live in. We cannot make them stop happening by virtue of changing laws, but our response to them can change through one avenue … love. We can only respond to each of them within the context of an individual relationship. Going after them with the hatchet of the law can only breed contempt, fear and anger. For the life of me, I can’t find those in the Gospel of Jesus. So … mark me, pro-human and pro-relationship. I’ll leave the debate to the zealots.