Hilton Head Island, SC – April 18, 2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Matthew 23:1-8; Matthew 22:34-40
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:27-29 (RSV)
The Bible says nothing anywhere about abortion. Probably women tried abortions in biblical times, but not like they are performed today in hospitals or clinics. They likely jumped several feet out of trees or off large rocks or by another, similarly dangerous method. Afterwards, if they survived, either they knew that the pregnancy was or wasn’t over. Back then, miscarriages and abortions were totally a private matter, and had almost no social ramifications at all.
Up until the twentieth century, most rural families needed as many children as they could produce, and even many urban families needed children, depending on how they collectively made their living. But for the past four or five generations, there has been a rapid increase in world population, which led to an increase in unplanned teenage pregnancies and pregnancies outside marriage as well as within marriages. An unplanned pregnancy snatches freedom away from at least two people, but particularly from the woman. Without question planned parenthood is the most responsible type of parenthood.
Birth control was haphazard until “The Pill” came along. That did not prevent all unwanted pregnancies though, because too many couples were too careless about birth control, and thus the demand for abortions increased. In this country, laws governing the availability of abortions were generally at the discretion of state legislatures. Politically liberal states had laws that made abortions more available, and conservative states made them more difficult to obtain. In addition, states where Roman Catholicism was strong generally had far stricter abortion laws. But the Catholic Church also opposed birth control, except for the “rhythm method,” which no one for decades has seriously considered to be dependable.
Because of the average age of this congregation, a sermon about abortion is not what anyone here would claim to be a personal existential issue. But because of the culture wars, it is a major national issue. The radical religious and political right keep trying legally to abolish abortion altogether. Therefore it has become a constant moral matter for everyone, but especially for women who find themselves to be carrying an unwanted fetus. I deliberately say “fetus” and not “child,” because linguistically and philosophically they are not at all the same.
Almost fifty years ago the United States Supreme Court made a famous or infamous judicial ruling, depending on one’s point of view. Roe vs. Wade declared that under fairly narrow legal guidelines, a woman has the right to receive an abortion. Their decision was made on the basis of privacy laws. Ever since, legal scholars have argued whether that was the best choice for rendering a decision on the matter. That legal wrangle, however, is not an issue that will be addressed in this sermon.
From Roe vs. Wade to the present, a growing number of state laws have attempted to make abortions increasingly difficult to obtain. Recently, over thirty bills in state legislatures have been introduced to render abortions nearly impossible. The South Carolina legislature just passed such a law saying that abortions may not be performed once a doctor is able to detect a heartbeat in a fetus. Our governor quickly signed it. On the day of the final passage, he sanctimoniously declared, “If there is not a right to life, what rights are there? We have a duty to protect life above all else.” The matter immediately was appealed to a federal court.
The problem with that law is that sometimes a heartbeat cannot be heard until the end of the third month of the pregnancy, and after that many state laws, including South Carolina’s, forbid an abortion. In effect, a woman is therefore forced into carrying the fetus full-term to birth.
The State of Arkansas just passed a law making abortions almost impossible in that state. The law doesn’t even include exceptions for rape or incest. Put yourself in the place of a woman who became pregnant under those horrendous circumstances, and answer honestly whether you think such a draconian law is even remotely morally acceptable.
Most so-called “right-to-life” advocates emphasize “life” primarily for fetuses. What about the life of the potential mother? Shouldn’t she also be considered? Shouldn’t she receive the first consideration before all others? Besides, it is only an opinion and not a fact that a fetus is “alive” in anything other than a highly technical sense. A fetus cannot live on its own. For that matter, a baby cannot live on its own either, but a fetus is not alive in the normal sense of that word until the moment of birth. Right-to-life supporters sometimes appear to show too much concern for fetuses and too little concern for people, especially for pregnant women.
For generations men were the only members of legislatures, whether state or federal. Even now, males considerably outnumber females in almost all legislative bodies. Of course there are many women legislators who also oppose abortion under all circumstances. Still, it is mainly males who make the majority of the legislative decisions, and thus they determine legislative outcomes. However, it is not men who are faced with the personal question of whether to have an abortion; females are the only ones confronted with that excruciating choice.
There has always been something fundamentally unjust in that arrangement. Why should men be the primary people who determine what women do with their own bodies? Furthermore, when the Supreme Court declared that abortion is a right for all women, why should various states be allowed to seek to curb that right or to abrogate it altogether? It isn’t right by law to curb or to nullify a lawful right! It is unjust! It is even immoral!
On the other hand, it is completely acceptable that people who oppose abortion should be allowed to try to convince others to accept their views. The right of free speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that. I agree with the anti-abortion people that abortion should never be perceived as a means of birth control. Too many couples are too careless about birth control, and they make too many mistakes. But many of the anti-abortion folks are also the most opposed to the widespread dissemination of birth control information and materials, because they fear it will encourage “illicit sex.” Human beings have engaged in careless and inappropriate sex for as long as there have been human beings, and it is better that they use birth control than to use abortion as the last, most desperate form of birth control.
The 23rd chapter of Matthew is Jesus’ clearest and most extensive attack on the rigid religiosity of the Pharisees, his primary theological adversaries. He said to his disciples, “Practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but they do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on people’s shoulders” (23:3-4).
There is something that is ethically out of kilter when it is mainly men who pass laws intended to restrict or to negate the right of a woman to choose what to do about an unwanted pregnancy. Who is anyone else, male or female, to tell her what she must do in such a painful dilemma? Only she is capable of best deciding whether it is wise or unwise to continue with a pregnancy. In the minds of everyone else, she may be right in what she decides or she may be wrong, but only she has the right --- and the inescapable burden --- of making that incredibly heavy decision.
How can anyone dare to try to prevent any woman from making a decision which ultimately is only hers to make? Passing laws which say that a woman cannot have an abortion is akin to saying it should be illegal for a woman to be a lawyer or doctor or professional wrestler. It would be like saying it is illegal for a woman to smoke cigars or pipes or to wear pants. Anti-abortion laws are essentially anti-female laws. They remove a right that only a woman can have, does have, and should have.
To make it easier to understand, passing anti-abortion laws would be like passing laws saying that men cannot shave their legs or wear perfume or crochet doilies, although these days not even many women crochet doilies, and not many people even remember what doilies are. Passing culture-war laws to make abortions illegal would be like telling a one-armed man that he cannot box or that people who are brunettes cannot dye their hair blonde. Perhaps more to the point, it is like telling a man that for the sake of the future of the human race, it will be illegal for to get a vasectomy. Have you heard any noises from right-to-lifers in that direction?
Most of these hypothetical examples are just that, hypothetical, but preventing a woman from having an abortion by law is a major infringement of one of her fundamental rights as a woman. Nonetheless, throughout the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, laws are being passed in numerous states to negate a legitimate choice for women, and they are being passed precisely because they are women. After all, only women can have abortions.
The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence begins with these famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men” (by which they meant all persons) “are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” If a woman is confronted by a pregnancy she does not want and feels she cannot responsibly carry to a full-term birth, she may conclude her life and the lives of others may be irreparably damaged, that it would diminish her liberty too much, and that whatever levels of happiness she has had or could hope to have would be too imperiled were she to become the mother of the fetus within her. It is a legal, political, and moral injustice for anyone else to force her to complete a pregnancy she wants to terminate. Further to complicate matters, it is always tragically too-short a window of time she has for making the decision which only she can make. No woman is free to take months to decide.
Of all branches of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church has had a long and illustrious history of interest in what is called “natural law.” It was a “natural” if also very unfortunate process that made her pregnant. Do you suppose that “nature” gives a woman the right to end a pregnancy that she, in good conscience, feels she must terminate?
An expert in biblical law once asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind….And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
Love ought to be the primary basis for everything we do. Everyone is our neighbor, including women in early pregnancies. Most pregnancies bring great joy to the prospective parents, and to their family members and friends. However, for many reasons, that is not true for all conceptions, as we all have seen or can easily imagine. Too many people are committed to fetuses, which are only potential persons, while ignoring the women and girls who become pregnant, who are actual persons. To show more love for a fetus in utero than for a woman in crisis is to misconstrue what biblical love is all about.
Every pregnancy should find completion in a wanted child. Unwanted pregnancies are far more likely to result in unwanted children who will live in unhappiness. Surely nobody wants that.
Everyone should be both pro-life and pro-choice. “Pro-life” should mean loving everyone who is alive, and seeking the best for them. “Pro-choice” should mean understanding and showing support for everyone who has to make the painful choices which confront all of us from time to time. Political and legal opposition to abortion is a highly limited form of support for life, but it limited to potential life, and is not a concern for the lives of actual women who are actually alive.
It is cruel for elected representatives to pass laws which are meant to take away a right which the United States Supreme Court, and perhaps nature itself, intended every woman to have. Love especially requires us to place the welfare of the woman-neighbor above that of the unborn fetus, which does not yet exist in this fallen world. Every form of love is demanding and difficult. What does love demand of us regarding women who are confronted with one of the most vexing decisions they shall ever have to make? How do you answer that question?