Kids’ Doc in Jos

Part 1: Summary of Steve Knight’s Position

This week I came across a blog post by Steve Knight on the subject of the politics of abortion. His post was triggered, he explains, by the fact that he was mentioned in a national news article as a young, pro-life, evangelical voter who now supports Obama for president. I hesitate to add to the millions of paper and web pages written on the subject, but since Steve and I have a lot in common (even belonging to the same mission organization) yet differ on this issue, and because his blog entry and comments are cogent and civil, I’d like to respond. Anyway, that’s what a blog is for, right?

I will try to summarize Steve’s arguments here but it would be best, of course, to read them in context, so I recommend reading his entire post first.

Steve explains that, although he still considers himself a pro-life evangelical,  “I simply do not believe that criminalizing abortion is the best way to reduce the number of abortions in this country.” He goes beyond that, however, to bring into question the whole moral position of the pro-life movement, and whether abortion is really as wrong as pro-lifers make it out to be. His main arguments are these:

1. Many women and girls are caught in a cycles of poverty. We should be doing more to help them escape from this state. Meanwhile, we should not stop them from having abortions which, he implies, could help them cope. Having a child can be a burden to women that they should not be forced to bear. (See also point 4)
   

   “We had the means and the desire to keep a child. My concerns are for the many women who are in desperate situations where this is not the case.”

   Lack of access to abortion in some states would create “all kinds of problems for young women who find themselves in these desperate situations. Parents who can’t even say the word “sex” around their children will now have their pregnant teens fleeing to states where abortion is legal.”

2. The early unborn baby or fetus (”fertilized egg” is what he calls it) does not have rights commensurate with those of the mother, or he is “uncertain” about those rights.
   

   “I suspect there may be many like me who have serious questions about the “human rights” of a fertilized egg.”

   “So I have to admit that I’ve become somewhat agnostic when it comes to the question of ‘When does life begin?’”

   “I would give deference to the life of the [woman] over the potential life of the fertilized egg inside her.”

   “When most abortions take place, it is hardly more than a fertilized egg that is “killed” (basically the size of the head of a pin). To be sure, the potential for that fertilized egg to grow into a fetus and into a baby is there.”

3. People shouldn’t go to jail for having or doing abortions.
   

   “I don’t believe a woman or a doctor should be put in jail for having or conducting an abortion.”

   “Who goes to prison if Roe v. Wade is overturned?”

   “How do you plan to pay for all of the new prisons that will need to be built?”

4. Pro-life people do not care adequately for the “women and girls who are caught up cycles of poverty and desperation.” In fact, they are more aligned with the racist oppressors, the Republican party. Since they are not doing much (or not enough) to help these women, they have no right to make their plight worse by preventing them from aborting their “fertilized eggs.”
   

   “I also find myself disillusioned by the apparent hypocrisy within the pro-life movement, which has tightly aligned itself to the Republican Party with its economic policies which seem to say to women, ‘You have to carry your baby to full-term, and we’re not going to do much to help you financially.’ It’s an almost Darwinian ’survival of the fittest’ political platform that is inherently racist when you realize the abortion rates are highest among black and Hispanic women.”

   “I’d just like to challenge you and others who are in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade to continue articulating … what real, concrete assistance is being given to women and girls who are caught up cycles of poverty and desperation.”

   “…my point is that if you’re not willing to ‘pay the price’ to adopt a child, support a pregnant teen, financially invest in a woman living on minimum wage to help her make the choice to keep a child, then your ‘pro-life’ advocacy is cheap and easy.”

   “How can we work together to seek justice for the poor and the oppressed who do not feel they have a safe, supportive environment in which to bring a child into this world?”

5. Most pro-life people have never been personally affected by the issue and so, it seems, should not judge others.
   

   “To be honest, abortion has never had any real-life implications for me. [For most] people in the abortion debate, the actual people affected by abortion are just hypothetical and theoretical to us, and what happens on a daily basis has no real impact on our lives. I say this to my own shame, but also to hold a mirror up to my pro-life friends who fervently believe abortion should be made illegal in this country.”

6. Decreasing the number of abortions is a good goal but overturning Roe v. Wade is not the best way to do it. Overturning Roe would be an undemocratic abuse of judicial power, would put people in jail, and would increase the oppression of the poor and minorities. Steve would support a ban on late-term abortions.
   

   “…but the rallying cry of the pro-life movement is ‘overturn Roe v. Wade,’ and I have to confess that is something I no longer support.” (emphasis in original)

   “… the dominant narrative right now, in my opinion, is simply one of fear that suggests the only/best solution is to get conservative judges on the Supreme Court so that they can legislate from the bench. ”

   “While the partial-birth abortion ban is a good thing, I would personally support a late-term abortion ban, covering other methods.”

7. “Much of the birth control used by evangelicals essentially promotes ‘abortion’ by not allowing the already fertilized egg to implant on the uterine wall.”

I think we can condense these points further as follows:

• Many pregnant women are in desperate situations which will be made worse by having a baby. Many are impoverished, uneducated, minorities, young, afraid of what their parents will say, and so on. In other words, they are victims. Abortion provides them some measure of control and the means to improve their situation, or, at least, prevent it from worsening.
• Many if not most pro-life supporters are actively or passively complicit with the oppressors and, as such, lack moral standing to judge their victims’ attempts to help themselves. Many evangelical pro-life supporters are hypocritical by supporting the Republican party policies, using abortive methods of contraception themselves, and failing to help the very women who need it.
• The question of when personhood begins, in terms of a being having a right to protection, is controversial and perhaps unanswerable. Therefore, it is reasonable to support the welfare (rights?) of the woman over that of the developing or potential person. At some point in development, however, abortion should be banned (”I would personally support a late-term abortion ban”).
• Abortion is a bad thing but, in the balance, it would be worse to criminalize it by overturning Roe.

Steve makes many thought-provoking points indeed, especially telling against a knee-jerk, closed-heart anti-abortion stance. I’ll look more at some of these points in my next post. Meanwhile, I still don’t know who I’ll vote for!