Perhaps you have seen the topic during this election cycle. It is a title frequently used by those on the right to attack those on the left when all else fails. And, it is the case, that many here in America are "single issue voters" and that the one single issue that is at the top is abortion. Perhaps you have verbally critiqued someone for voting for a party that "stands for killing babies." Or, perhaps you have been verbally critiqued as such.
Why does this question even matter? For some it does, and for some it doesn't. For me it matters because in church circles, we hear the rhetoric, "I could never vote for him/her because of his/her stand on abortion." And many times, it seems that the conversation and decision are not around getting that candidate's position but on that candidate's party affiliation. Here is an illustration of that: "I will support anyone who is AGAINST killing babies. If you choose to support those who are killing them, there will come a day when you will have to answer for that. Aren't you glad your mother didn't decide to kill you?" A vote for Biden is a vote for abortion.
Back when I was a younger man, a staunch Republican, I wrote an article for a Christian magazine under a pseudonym. It was pretty outrageous. I'd studied what happened in abortions, so I pieced things together and wrote an article as if I were the young woman in a first person sort of way. One woman who worked with us in the youth ministry was offended that I'd do that. It was descriptive insofar as I could tell at that time. However, it was before I actually knew women who wrestled deeply with this issue. I am somewhat chagrined that I ever wrote that, but it was a reflection of then and not now. However, the article was well received by our conservative readership, as I recall.
Now the shoe is on the other foot, so I hear things about people like me. "Oh, so you are a Democrat, so that must mean that you favor abortion," "you are a member of that baby killing party," "or your party pushed the Roe v. Wade decision," or any number of things along those lines.
In this bifurcated world in which we live, some of us have a hard time stepping out of our binary thinking. Say that again? Some of us see the world only in yes/no, black/white, either/or ways.
This issue is fraught with many a pot hole. At the end of the day, I want to be true to my theological foundations, to the God who made us all, and to the worthiness of people all around us. People matter. I think our tables are too small, too short, too narrow. After all, it is Jesus who does the inviting and we are the ones who encourage folk to sit beside us. We are all image-bearers. We all mess up. We are all messed up people. We are all standing in the need of grace and mercy.
So, for the record, I am pro-choice and generally anti-abortion. I also believe that the decision is between that woman and her God, not made by a bunch of men in suits and ties sitting in some chamber somewhere. I want there to be fewer and fewer abortions. I want support for pregnant mothers to be a high priority in our country.
On the other hand, my opinion, strongly stated here is that my friends and family on the right are "pro-birth." Yes, I said it, "pro-birth." Generally speaking, my friends and family on the right are more concerned about getting the baby born than keeping the baby alive, fed, nurtured, educated. Look at our programs by party. I think we should be pro-life from conception to the grave, and that means lowering the incarceration rate and doing away with capital punishment. While that is another complicated topic, there are too many innocent people being executed. We can do better.
I worked in the arena of providing therapy, teaching therapy, and supervising therapists both pre-graduation and post-graduation for licensure for years. Across all of those categories I have seen women, young and older, wrestle with whether or not to have an abortion. I have seen the father of the child included as well as excluded from the discussions. I have seen families of the pregnant woman included and excluded from the discussions. At most of those points of discussion, the consequences were deeply considered, and pored over thoughtfully and painstakingly. I agonized with them. My job was not to be king of the universe and make decisions for them, but to walk alongside them and ask the deliberate hard questions before and after, when they had abortions and when they carried the baby to term. In other words, it was my decision to make this challenging problem their issue and not mine to control. Nobody died and made me king of the universe to control people and their decisions. My decision was to be inclusive and to walk with them, to agonize with them.
Here are a few things for your consideration.
Abortion rates are going down. They have gone down fairly consistently since Roe v. Wade. In 2019, one source found the abortion rate to be its lowest since Roe v. Wade. Apparently fewer women are getting pregnant. This is a complex issue, and thank goodness for google. Another good source for stats in this area is the Guttmacher Institute. Check out this and other sources.
There are some who insist that abortions are lower in administrations with Democratic presidents. Although this is, again, a complicated issue, here is one source that looks at all sides of things. Generally, in my opinion, abortions trend downward in Democratic administrations due to programs and services for the women. Here is one source that supports this notion. It uses CDC data and provides summaries.
Across America, there is a wide mixture of opinions about these matters. Per a recent Gallup poll survey, 79% of Americans say that abortions should remain legal or legal under conditions. Only 20% said not at all. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey indicated that 70% of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade overturned while 28% wanted it overturned.
Another Gallup Poll found that 48% of us identify as pro-choice, 40% of us as pro-life, and no opinion at 6%.
A curiosity is that some people think that attitudes toward abortion are party-affiliated. This survey found that not to be true. There are some Republicans who are pro-choice and there are some Democrats who are pro-life.
One of the commitments of the Republican party has been to get a president elected and to have that president appoint conservative judges so as to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now that the current president has stacked the courts with his appointees with the help of a Republican leader of the Senate who blocked nominations of all sorts under Obama, our Supreme Court does have a 6-3 majority leaning conservative. Does that mean that they will take up the Roe v. Wade issue the way Focus on the Family and others have wanted it to since the 1970s? Who knows? Maybe so. But if that does happen and if they do overturn Roe v. Wade, then the issue reverts to the states and state laws. Those state laws are pretty diverse and pretty complicated. This paragraph is obviously dated as I wrote this back before the SCOTUS actually overturned Roe v. Wade. I decided to leave it here for the sake of providing a context for my current thinking.
So, bottom line, if you want there to be fewer abortions in America, support programs that prevent pregnancies, and in my opinion "abstinence only" is not an effective strategy. I think it should be abstinence plus.
Opt out of generalizations that do no good. Your party, whichever party it is, has members who are on both sides of this issue. There are believers in your churches on both sides of this issue. Develop a theology that is well thought out and articulated that engages people rather than shames people.
Bottom line for me? I can no longer be a single-issue voter. Life is too complicated. If you are going to vote single-issue, at least choose a candidate who has been in line with that point for years, and not just of late out of convenience and gaining votes. Make sure that their lives line up with what they are now saying. Too much is riding on that these days.
And now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution says nothing about abortion, they have essentially toss the issue back to the states. States, many of them, have had "trigger laws" on the books such that when the SCOTUS makes a ruling, like in the case of abortion, the law becomes immediately effective. Some of my friends vote in line with that way of thinking. Some of my friends vote the opposite. Some of my friends are divided about the issue, but choose not to be a single issue voter. Some of my friends will support the woman in her decision-making much as I described above.
People in leadership roles in our community will attempt to make this a simple issue. They are wrong. They are seriously wrong.
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