My brother Peter has to do a school project on the subject of abortion. I offered to give him a little help on the subject by summarizing some arguments by the important Christian ethicists
Richard Hays and
Stanley Hauerwas and adding a few of my own. I thought that it might be worthwhile to post an outline of an approach to the question of abortion on my blog. I (and, more importantly, Peter) would greatly appreciate any feedback that anyone can give. I am going to be posting this in three sections.
Asking the Questions
The first, and perhaps the biggest, problem that Christians face in tackling the moral issues of the day is that of terminology.
Many Christians are seemingly blind to the influence our framing of a question can exert over our answering of it. All too often the church’s attempts at ‘contextualization’ have merely resulted in us bowing the knee to the authority of our cultures and submitting to their frames of reference. However, the church is a distinct culture with a distinct way of acting, relating, thinking and speaking. The church is not so much a subset of a larger culture, as it is a counter-culture. The church is relevant to the world, precisely because she is so different from the world.
All of this has great bearing upon the question of the morality of abortion. Within the West today we have generally bought into worldly ways of framing our questions. As a result, we all too easily succumb to worldly answers. In one sense these may be the ‘right’ answers, but they are the right answers to the wrong questions and are therefore of little use to anyone. Before we learn how to answer, we must learn how to question. To learn how to question we must allow the Bible to ‘start the conversation’ and not merely approach it expecting that it is there to answer our questions. Perhaps it is trying to answer different questions entirely. Many of our difficulties would dissolve if we would spend more time assessing problems before we jump to solutions. If we learn to ask the right questions we have more chance of arriving at the right answers.
The Problem of Abortion
Abortion is a big problem. Most people would readily admit this. However, this does not mean that we find ourselves in agreement. The problem of abortion is not the same for the church as it is for the world.
For most people within the world, the fundamental problem in abortion is that of the conflicting interests between the ‘foetus’ and the woman. Whatever their proposed solution to the problem, their assessment of the problem is pretty much the same.
As Christians we must ask ourselves if this really is the problem of abortion. The world’s assessment of the problem is framed in terms of its model of morality. As Hauerwas points out, the legal model ‘provides the constituting morality in liberal societies’. Within this framework of morality the problem of abortion is a problem of ‘rights’. The solution must be a legal solution.
We need to critically examine this model of morality to see if it is the biblical model that we must operate in terms of. I believe that Hays and Hauerwas are correct in their assessment of this. As Hauerwas writes:—
…the church must refuse to use society’s terms for the abortion debate. The church must address the abortion problem as church. Abortion is not fundamentally a question about the law, but about what people we are to be as the church and as Christians.
Christians must learn to biblically reframe the question if they are to arrive at a biblical answer. The biblical question, I believe, should be framed in terms of vocation rather than rights. The problem of abortion, for the church, has to do with their calling and duty as the people of God. Hays writes:—
To locate the discussion within the Christian community (in the first instance) is already an enormously significant move, methodologically speaking. The first task of normative about New Testament ethics is to form the thought and practice of the Christian community. Regardless of what others may do or think, regardless of what the law allows, how shall we as people who belong to Jesus Christ live faithfully under the gospel with regard to our treatment of the issues of pregnancy, abortion and childbearing?
Christians are used to framing the question in such a way as to make the problem a problem for the world, rather than a problem for the church. I believe that reframing the problem in this way can be helpful as it emphasizes our duty as the light of the world. This is a way of framing the question that does not permit us to stand back in detached moral judgment, but impels us to work out and embody the solution to the problem.
When we reframe the question in this manner, we re-contextualize the debate. Indeed, the debate is now no longer framed in ways that are meaningful to people within the world. We might as well be speaking a different language. In fact, in a real sense, we
are speaking a different language.
The Language of the Debate
Naming things is a sign of authority. When God created man He gave man the task of naming the animals. This act of naming the animals served as an expression of man’s authority over the animals. The person who names things, claims things. At the heart of many modern debates over abortion lie opposing claims of linguistic power.
We must remember that the language we use to frame the debate sets the parameters for the solution. If we start calling abortion ‘the termination of pregnancy’ we are situating the debate within the framework established by the medical profession. Our solution to the problem will be, to a considerable degree, moulded by this fact. Part of our task as Christians is to resist the medicalization (as Hauerwas terms it) of abortion.
The term ‘abortion’ is not a nice one. People do not like using it. The pro-abortion argument is seldom expressed as for the ‘right to abort unborn children’. If it were expressed in such language it would not gain the support that it now enjoys. No, the argument is for the ‘right to choose’. This terminology is very clever as it avoids any direct reference to the reality of abortion.
As Christians we must frame the abortion debate in terms of moral designations. By this means we will claim that it is God who has authority over the debate.
It amazes me that doctors can talk to one woman about her ‘baby’ and another woman about her ‘foetus’, the only difference between the two women being the fact that the second one is preparing to have an abortion. I believe that the euphemistic language used by those who practice abortion is generally a reflection of the fact that other language frames their actions within a moral sphere. If the language of abortion is reduced to the language of biology and the medical profession, the moral aspect of abortion can be conveniently ignored.
The Language of ‘Rights’
By framing the abortion debate in terms of ‘rights’ we have adopted an alien way of thinking. The language of rights is tied up in the individualism of Western cultures. By this language we have privatized the lives of individuals. We see the body in terms of capitalist property rights. The talk,
Plumb Line Libertarianism, (download by right-clicking on the link and selecting 'Save Target As', then listen from 11:28—26:44) is a deeply illuminating example of this sort of approach to the question of abortion. As Christians we have generally submitted to the same framework for debate. We argue in terms of natural law and inherent rights. I hope that the talk above should prove that, at the very least, this way of framing the debate is wrongheaded.
One of the things that Hauerwas brings out is that the pro-choice/pro-life debate pits the right of the mother to choose against the right of the unborn infant to live. Women and children, particularly unborn children, are amongst the most vulnerable groups in society. In the abortion debate we end up setting their rights against each other (and the responsibility of the father is conveniently sidestepped). Consequently, whether the rights of the woman or the rights of the child are deemed to take precedence, we cannot claim to have arrived at a true solution to the problem. The Christian faith must provide a far better way.
Perhaps the most important thing for us to recognize is that Christians are not people who believe in ‘inalienable rights’. As members of the new nation in Christ we do not believe that we have a right to do what we want with our bodies. There is no such thing as a ‘right to choose’ anything. As Christians we believe that life is a gift of God. There is no such thing as a ‘right to life’. We are not our own. We have been bought at a price and we are to glorify God in our bodies.
By stating this fact from the outset we have set the debate in a radically different frame of reference. We must add to this fact the fact that we are members of the body of the church. None of our actions can be abstracted from this fact. We exist for God in Christ and in Christ for each other. We lay down all rights to our lives for God in Christ and in Christ for the brethren. We are not private individuals. We belong to God and we belong to each other.
The question of abortion must be dealt with as a problem for the body of Christ, not as an abstract moral dilemma. We can never talk about ethics without talking about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and true ethics can only exist in the people of God. Many Christians believe that ethics is merely about how individuals deal with specific moral issues. However, true morality can only exist within the church of Jesus Christ.
Our answers to the moral questions raised by abortion are only truly meaningful within the church and they are addressed to the church. The church is the only place where true moral living can exist. As the morality we are dealing with is to do with the vocation of the new humanity in Christ, this morality cannot be abstracted from the new humanity itself. Many Christians want to frame the debate in such a way as to allow for the existence of moral living outside of the church. However, if people in the world want to live moral lives, they must first become members of the new humanity and live out the new life of the community of the faithful.
Man has sought to wrest ethics from the church. Man wants to believe that moral judgments can be arrived at without reference to a particular god. By framing our moral arguments in such a way we deny man his claim to autonomy.
None of this is meant to deny the relevance of the church’s moral solutions to the problem of abortion. I will be arguing that the church’s solution to the problem of abortion is so relevant to the world
precisely because it is so foreign to the world.
Christians are people without rights. If we deny this fact at the beginning of the debate, how can we expect to arrive at a Christian conclusion? There is no neutral ground on which to frame the debate. We must learn to approach this question as Christians.
What is NOT at Issue
Rights
I have already argued that rights, whether rights of privacy, a right to life, a right to choose, or a right to ‘evict’ are not at issue in the abortion debate. The following things that are equally not at issue are, for the most part, corollaries of this.
When Life Begins
If the debate is framed in terms of ‘rights’ and, more particularly, the child’s ‘right to life’, this becomes a crucial question. However, it is quite irrelevant for our purposes, as Hauerwas and Hays both point out.
People within the world generally think that life is sacred and that, consequently, life should never be taken. Of course, how anything can be ‘sacred’ in a world without the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a question that is hard to answer. Life, however, is not an overriding good. A problem with this view is that it neglects to recognize that there are things worth
dying for.
As Christians we see life as a gift from God, not as a right. We are stewards of this life and we must bear responsibility if we terminate it. Whether we see the infant in the womb as a ‘life’ or not, we recognize that the creative power of God is at work. As we do not create ourselves or belong to ourselves, we should not assume the authority to dispose of life that is not our own. We are not, as Hauerwas observes, the sort of people who question at which stage life begins. ‘Instead, we are the kind of people that hope life has started, because we are ready to believe that this new life will enrich our community.’
It is a Christian hope that guides our attitude towards the unborn infant. The existence of abortion is a product of a society that has lost its hope. In the past the future was seen as something to look forward to. People would build cathedrals to stand for centuries or millennia to come. Britain celebrated the second millennium since the birth of Christ by building a dome to last for one year. Our society has lost its hope for the future. Hope seems utterly irrational in a world like ours. However, as Christians we are people with hope. Hauerwas writes:—
We are able to have children because our hope is in God, who makes it possible to do the absurd thing of having children. In a world of such terrible injustice, in a world of such terrible misery, in a world that may well be about the killing of our children, having children is an extraordinary act of faith and hope.
By asking the question of the exact time of the beginning of life we can undermine our Christian faith and hope. Throughout the Bible pregnancy is seen as something to be celebrated. It is never presented as a problem. As Hays observes, in the picture painted for us by Scripture, abortion (leaving aside the question of its morality) is unthinkable and unintelligible.
When Personhood Begins
The question of ‘personhood’ is a corollary of the question of rights. Only persons have rights. If rights are the issue, then how we define a ‘person’ is crucial. However, when we frame the debate in terms other than those of rights, ‘personhood’ ceases to be a real issue.
The lives of mentally retarded people have been sinfully devalued by the approach that emphasizes rationality as the basis for personhood. Some people think that abortion is justified in the case of seriously disabled children, for example those with Down’s syndrome. By thinking in such a manner, an implicit value judgment is cast upon the lives of all of those with these conditions. This is sickening.
As Christians who see life as a gift of God we ‘believe that we ought to live in a profound awe of the other’s existence’. If we are governed by faith, hope and love we will not ask such questions as these. Whether the child is a ‘person’ yet or not, the child is still a gift from God, which we receive with joy, in love, in faith and in hope.
