What is the Meaning of "Life"? -- Seeking Common Ground on Abortion Reduction

For too long abortion was seen as the only "life" issue in our culture and politics, but there is a growing conviction among Christians that poverty, disease, war, the health-care crisis, human trafficking, the death penalty, nuclear weapons, and the worldwide deaths of 30,000 children every day from preventable causes are also key life issues.

Sojourners and I have advocated for a holistic and "consistent ethic of life" approach for years, and it is good to see the broader life issues receiving more attention. (See "The Meaning of 'Life'" in this month's issue of Sojourners magazine.) However, I also believe our nation is ready for a new kind of politics and leadership on the issue of abortion.

The abortion debate has too often been used to score political points, rather than to identify what kinds of church practices and public policies could actually prevent and reduce abortions. But with a tragic 1.2 million abortions a year in the United States, Christians must work together to stop the politics of blame and work toward common solutions.

While many Christians disagree on the legal questions surrounding abortion, together we can and must pursue practical steps that actually reduce abortion rates. Three-fourths of women who have an abortion say a primary reason is that they cannot afford to raise a child, so reducing poverty and supporting low-income women is a good place for our candidates to start.

Recent research affirms that social and economic support for women and vulnerable families are effective solutions to lowering the abortion rate, including greater access to health care, poverty reduction, adoption reform, and pre- and postnatal care.

Republicans and Democrats must learn to work together on this issue - tell the presidential candidates to lead the way, beginning at this Wednesday's debate. We must look forward to the day when both poverty reduction and abortion reduction are nonpartisan issues and bipartisan causes.

Both Senators McCain and Obama have offered themselves as agents of change, anxious to transform the culture in Washington. They could start at Wednesday night's debate by offering a comprehensive "life" agenda and committing to work with both sides of the political aisle to dramatically reduce abortions in the United States.

Despite their differences over issues of choice, both the Democratic and Republican platforms open up the prospects for serious abortion reduction. And Christians could and should hold both political parties accountable for protecting human dignity and life from "womb to tomb."

With the final debate Wednesday night, there is still time to ask the candidates to cross old divisions and support life and human dignity.

Sojourners will continue working with both Republicans and Democrats in the next Congress to push for common-ground efforts to reduce the number of abortions in the United States.

Will you join us? Click here to take action today.

Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening, Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.

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Comments

[fanno]

Legal contraceptives are just not as attractive as the obvious standbys like good old starvation and war.

[egal]

It's hard to take these alls seriously when those making them tend to consider contraception--prevention of fertilization, and thus prevention of the creation of a life just as is abstinence--as if it is murder or as if it must not be taught because that might give people an excuse to have extramarital sex.

Until those who claim the moral highground push for the most effective means of preventing abortions--as these are the most effective means of preventing conception--then any calls for solidarity sound like preachy hypocrisy.

[goedel]

Ridiculous that a million and a half, if that's the number, abortions is a tragedy! What would be a tragedy would be the birth of a million and a half unwanted children.

People of Faith are not empiricists, by definition. Some may have analytical minds, but their philosophical foundations are puerile. A course in linguistic analysis is recommended, but I doubt any would profit from it because they have been brainwashed since childhood.

Questions such as "What is the purpose of life?"; "Why are we here", are nonsense. The latter may be answered with "To maximize the experience of pleasure." That precludes accepting a pregnancy that is unwanted, a mistake. Christianily and other religions demand suffering on earth in order to have something better to offer their acolytes. They are deranged acceptably if they don't try to make others live as they do.

[DEFIANCE]

Its nice that your narrow and self-centered view works for you. Its moronic and hypocritical for you to say that it is THE only view (by your simplistic summation of the meaning of life)

You deride others for making people live as they do in one breath and at the same time dismiss the beliefs, needs, and desires of Billions of people around the world because their view differs from yours.

Try looking at your own behavior when JUDGING others, you might see that you are not exempt from the behaviors you dislike simply because you find your own BELIEFS superior to theirs.

[goedel]

You call me moronic and hypocritical. You are angry. That is not a mood nor a disposition that is conducive to reason.

My summation of life is not really mine. It is called epicureanism. It is not self-centered, because it recognizes that my own happiness is related to the happiness of people in society, generally.

Judge others? Of course! If they promulgate beliefs (where intelligible) or attiturdes (where unintelligible) that cause widespread unhappiness (the birth of unwanted children), I condemn them for it.

I have not claimed my beliefs are superior to others'; only that mine are founded in reason and reality, whereas the author's (Wallis's) are Faith-based, blind to observation.

I don't think I shall have gotten through to you with this reply, because you do seem to be highly overwrought, but others will read my reply and may profit from it.

[Scott Swenson - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm just curious how you equate one platform, that supports evidence-based comprehensive sex ed, promotes contraception and clearly states that women and families should have the social supports to choose to have children and the tools to plan that wisely, with another platform that promotes failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and calls for a ban on all abortions. One seems to be looking toward the future, while the other seems mired in the past. We should not apologize for standing, as people of faith, for women's lives and providing the tools for families to be strong and make the best choices for them and their families. We can be consistent only when we stop buying into the far-right framing and "equating" ideology with the actual facts of life, including medical facts about sexual and reproductive health. If conservative pro-life Catholics realize its time for the debate to change, surely progressive people of faith can stop pretending that the two parties platforms are equal and stand up for women. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/10/04/another-major-prolife-scholar-endorses-obama-citing-proprevention-policies

[clevelandchick]

Thank you Scott. What an eloquent answer to Mr. Wallis's post. For nearly 20 years the strategy of the right wing faithful has been challenging the legality of not only abortion but hormonal contraception as well.

The religious right were estatic at the appointment of Samuel Alito to SCOTUS because in 1985 he wrote a road map for dismantling Roe V Wade including the promotion of the idea that doctors tell their female patients that hormonal birth control (The Pill) is an abortifacient.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060206/lerner

As far as the ironically named Pro-Life movement is concerned, I see no 'defense of life' as a motive, but a desire to force women into pregnancy, not just by eliminating abortion but by eliminating birth control. If they're real motive was to reduce abortion, they would wholeheartedly agree with sex education and birth control.

[0whole1]

A consistent policy of life -- I assume -- raises the "welfare state" bugaboo for the right. I think *this* is where the cognitive dissonance lies.

How can *that* divide be crossed?

[kathy001]

"...so reducing poverty and supporting low-income women is a good place for our candidates to start."

Really? This seems like closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted. How about starting with education on birth control methods? How about continuing with making birth control more easily available to women with low-incomes? How about we stop allowing pharmicists to stand in judgement on their customers when presented with a prescription for birth control?

Let's bring a little common sense into the solution.

[sdskelton03]

I would like someone who is pro-choice to explain to me why abortion is "tragic" or why we should work to reduce the number of abortions.

[ElBruce]

Because it's always a regrettable decision. I've known many women who - although they wouldn't have chosen differently and would never want to have had the choice taken out of their hands - had a tough time dealing with the psychological aftermath of having had an abortion.

Nobody's saying abortions are good. It's not a debate between pro-abortion and anti-abortion. It's a debate about whether abortion should be ILLEGAL. Out of the vast array of tools we could use to change what's going on in this country, "pro-lifers" always reach for the bluntest instrument.

The problem with that is criminalizing abortion will instantly create a black market for it. You can't accurately measure how many abortions are taking place if it's illegal. There are many other ways of reducing the demand for abortion, likely to levels below that achieved by merely criminalizing it. However, if it were illegal we wouldn't know whether those methods were working or not.

Just because you're against something doesn't mean you have to outlaw it. That kind of thinking is so simplistically linear that it pretty much invalidates itself.

[sdskelton03]

If abortion is the taking of a human life, it should be eradicated, not reduced.

If abortion isn't the taking of a human life, then why should anyone care how many occur.

[sdskelton03]

What you call simplistic, I call moral clarity.

I am against child abuse. I am for ending the practice, not merely reducing the number of victims and ensuring we have some accounting method.

I am against child pornography, and I don't care that by making it illegal we create a black market for it.

There is right and wrong in the world, and if we can just get out of our own way we will be able to see it clearer.

[kathy001]

No, it is not always a regrettable decision. Maybe you have know many women who had a tough time dealing with the psychological aftermath of an abortion but I guarantee there are more that do not have trouble with it. And I believe the constant bombardment of pro-lifers claiming that abortion is murder - a statement that is largely a philosophical or theological conviction - has a great deal to do with creating the psychological problems many women suffer over an abortion.

[jalapeno]

Sterilize men at age 12 or 13 , and ONLY after marriage and family planning reverse procedure.

There wan't that easy?? Fix men, they are the problem here !!!

[sdskelton03]

After proposing that, you should never make the 'keep you laws off my body" argument ever again.

[DEFIANCE]

Its funny that you don't support the proposal since you seem to be fine with keeping laws on anyone's body.

[clevelandchick]

That was her point.

Men are so willing to make laws governing the bodies of women but propose a 'good for the goose, good for the gander' idea and they go crazy.

No sperm, no problem right? So why should it only be up to the woman to prevent pregnancy? Jalapeno's idea would work, if all men were sterilized at their age of sexual maturity and only had it reversed when they wanted to have a family, then women wouldn't have to worry about unwanted pregnancy.

[Rockerbabe]

A comprehensive view of sex education would be helpful as well as reinforcement of the values "everyone" seems to think is desirable. Might also be helpful, if there was less sex-marketing to young women and men. It is as if young women are good for one thing only - sex for boys and men.
No wonder so many young and not so young women are confused, less confident and a bit hostile at all the interference with their lives. Stop preaching; women, yes women, make their own decisions on reproduction and the rest of you need to just chill and be respectful. In the end, the choice to have a child or nor is no one's business, but the pregnant woman's.
And, the truth be told, no one really cares. The local government doesn't care, the state government doesn't care - except that woman with children may need assistance and we all know how overjoyed the state governments are to have women make demands on them for assistance!? The feds don't care either; affordable healthcare, afordable house, day care, equal pay and opportunity are not really a right for woman. And God bless the "taxpayer" who thinks he/she is being overtaxed, but wants better roads, bridges, schools, protection from wildlife in the suburbs, etc; the free lunch, really isn't free.
Then there is the male-dominated churches - forget them. Talking out of both sides of the mouth, just leaves those of us looking at you, a bit more than sick.

[kathy001]

Well said!

[stateretiree]

Why does life end at birth? Why do people not seem as concerned about the quality of life that every human deserves after birth? Why is it OK to call innocent lives lost in meaningless war collateral damage, does this not diminish those lives.

[MOregon]

Jim Wallis is talking about a CONSISTENT ethic of life, which addresses your point and challenges us all.

[benne]

Can you say sex education?

[ConstanceReader]

The best way to reduce the occurrence of abortion is to ensure convenient, timely, affordable and dignified (nonjudgmental, non-stigmatizing) access to contraception.