Doug at Metacatholic has written a provocative post on abortion. The background information is supplied by Michael at Euangelion:
Sadly, the proposed bill in the British parliament to lower the time limit for abortions (down to 12, 14, or 22 weeks from 24 weeks) was soundly defeated.
Coincidentally, Doug was carrying out a funeral:
This morning I buried with appropriate prayers the remains of a miscarried foetus which terminated spontaneously at 19 weeks. The family were distraught, not least because he looked so like a baby when he was stillborn.
Doug drives home the moral of the story with a question: “How long can we, as a society, live with this kind of moral and emotional double-mindedness about where life begins?”
Having wrestled with this issue for years, I have formulated a few core convictions:
- Abortion is wrong, and the very large number of abortions carried out in Western democratic countries is a blight on our nations.
- Recriminalizing abortion is not the way to set things right. This is a social issue that requires a social solution (not a legal solution).
- Nor is picketing abortion clinics a sufficient response. The Church needs to roll up its sleeves and offer concrete assistance, to expand the range of viable choices available to women. Poverty and lack of social support lead pretty quickly to the conclusion that abortion is the least bad option.
- Obviously some women will opt for abortion even when poverty and a lack of social support are not at issue. Even in those cases, I don’t think recriminalization is the appropriate response.
- The Church’s goal should be to significantly reduce the number of abortions in Western democratic nations. And the Church’s method should be parallel to the method Christians use for evangelism: i.e., the means to our goal should be persuasion, not coersion.
In part, I think this is right because society-at-large is not Christian. We Christians must not impose our moral convictions on non-Christians by force of law — not even with respect to such a grave issue as this.
In part, I think this is right because the Church must be a non-coercive institution. That should be a general principle which Christians apply in all circumstances: The Church does not coerce.
