The Michigan Telephone blog

I guess it all depends on your point of view.  If you read this MLive.com article, you’ll get the background on this story, in case you haven’t heard it already (it was fairly big news here in Michigan, but I don’t know if it played across the nation). You might also want to skim the comments left by readers of the article, which actually give you a better idea of why this guy was so controversial.

The anti-choice people have a real problem here.  On the one hand I’m sure they’d like to portray the victim as a martyr, if only to discourage any future attacks against pro-life/anti-choice protesters.  At least in theory, it’s a deterrent to harm from your opponents to say that “if you kill one of ours, you make us stronger.” The problem in this particular case was that the victim, by many accounts, allegedly wasn’t a particularly nice guy. For those who like to ask “What would Jesus do?”, I somehow can’t imagine Jesus shoving graphic photos of aborted babies in the faces of small children going to or from school. Every movement has its looney fringe, and if the pro-life folks every hope to be taken seriously, they ought to distance themselves from those whose actions harm their cause.  Unfortunately, we seem to be living in an age when those on the fringes seem to get all the attention, due to the apparent lack of any sort of journalistic standards in this country.

As a side note, it amazes me that the FCC is still mulling over whether that half second shot of Janet Jackson’s breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show was indecent, because kids might have seen it, but they don’t seem to have any problem with kids seeing ghastly photos of violence of any kind, whether real or manufactured. We REALLY need to have a serious dialog about what is truly indecent in this country. I don’t notice European children becoming particularly maladjusted because they live in areas where it’s not considered gross indecency to see certain parts of the anatomy.  In any case, if it were up to me, I’d say that showing pictures of dead babies (or dead kittens or puppies, for that matter) to small children is indecent.  If letting a child see a female breast might, in theory, cause them to grow up to be a sex pervert, then doesn’t it follow that letting them see photos of aborted babies might cause them to grow up to be child abusers? Just asking — I’m trying to understand the logic here, and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, the debate over abortion is not one that is likely to go away soon, despite the fact that the Supreme Court supposedly settled the matter decades ago.  Most thinking people have their views on the subject, and many are confused.  A while back, the Gallup Poll reported that 51 percent of Americans now identify themselves as “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice.” I suspect that as the “religious right” falls out of favor, more people will be willing to voice their qualms over abortion.  I’ve thought for a long time that the far right crowd has actually done a disservice to the pro-life cause, because people who would normally feel queasy about abortion (but who don’t hold a strong view – that is, it’s not a major issue for them) have been a bit reluctant to speak their viewpoint, for fear of being lumped in with the lunatics and terrorists that are on the fringe of the anti-abortion movement.  As the loonies become more marginalized, I think people will be more willing to say, “hey, maybe that really is a baby that’s being killed” – at least when it’s a late-term abortion.

The real problem is that the subject cannot be discussed openly and honestly because the two sides each have extremists that have a financial interest in their respective positions.  Consider this:

On the pro-abortion side, there are abortionists that are making a career out of ending the life of unborn children.  They certainly want to see abortion legal.  Then there are all the organizations like Planned Parenthood, who get money from various sources (maybe you, if you contribute to the United Way and your local United Way supports Planned Parenthood) to offer “family planning” services, which include abortions and/or abortion referrals. And there are other pro-abortion organizations as well.

On the anti-choice side (yes, I am deliberately using the terms most pejorative to each position) you have many of the churches and religious organizations.  The interest of the church should be obvious – the more children a churchgoing family has, the more potential church members in a couple decades or so. For the church, banning abortion (and perhaps birth control) is like an investment in the future – more folks to warm pews and put money in the passing collection plate. But in addition, many church organizations and other anti-choice organizations share an interest with some of the more militant pro-abortion folks.

That interest is fundraising potential.  Every fundamentalist televangelist knows that a mailing with pictures of cute children spared from “the evils of abortion” is a goldmine – the sheep will mail in their money and sign the “petition opposing abortion.” After the mail arrives, the checks are cashed and more often than not, the petitions go into the nearest dumpster (probably after being shredded, lest “20/20″ or “60 minutes” find them).  On the pro-abortion side, invoking the image of coat-hangers and back alley abortions is a sure fund-raiser. Both sides take the most extreme positions and refuse to admit that there could ever be any middle ground – either all abortions must be legal or all abortions must be banned.  They know how to play to their respective audiences. Of course, the average American is nowhere near as sure about the subject, but then the average American probably isn’t writing checks to either of those types of organizations.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that there’s no moral issue involved here – what I do mean to say is that when the people at the fringes are doing all the shouting, it’s no wonder we can’t broach the subject without it becoming a red-hot issue. And worse yet, each group tries to inject themselves into the legislative process, throwing their support behind candidates based only on this one issue, as if it were the only issue that mattered.

Well, I have a news flash for the extremists – there ARE other issues that are far more important.  Like war, for example, or hunger, or health care.  Do you really think it’s moral to fight to bring a child into the world, only to see them maimed or hungry or diseased and not give a damn? And do you think it’s right to fight for the right of a woman to choose abortion as a form of birth control without giving any consideration to the serious psychological damage that many women suffer post-abortion (not to mention that in some cases, women have suffered actual physical injury – remember, if a doctor is willing to take the life of an unborn baby, chances are he doesn’t really care all that much about the life of the mother, either).

In the political arena, the Democrats pander to the pro-abortion crowd, and the Republican pander to the anti-choice crowd.  And make no mistake, it IS mostly pandering.  They will make speeches at “prayer breakfasts” and other gatherings and make it sound like they’re really concerned about the issue.  Then they go back to Washington and do pretty much nothing – maybe a few token gestures, but nothing has really changed since Roe vs. Wade.  The very mis-named “religious right” (who in reality, are not all that religious and seldom right) in particular seems to live in the fantasy world where if only the Republicans had a majority in the government, they would end abortion once and for all.  They just don’t get it that for most Republican members of congress, abortion is probably less of a concern than who won that 2004 Super Bowl. Meanwhile they continue to help put lousy candidates in office just because that candidate will proclaim that they are “pro-life.”

I’m not saying that we don’t need to have a serious discussion of this issue… but I just wish the news media would stop running to the extremists for the sound bytes.  The fundamentalists and the abortion-rights groups do NOT represent most Americans, and in my opinion they do what they do mostly for the money, and because it gives their leadership a sense of power (just because you get to hobnob with politicians doesn’t make you right!).

There is one other point that is seldom brought up in the abortion debate.  That is, abortion would probably not be nearly so popular these days if the family courts weren’t so anti-male.  Ask any guy that’s ever been through a divorce and unless he was extremely lucky (or there were no minor children at the time of the divorce) he’ll have horror stories about how the family court and/or the mother of his children screwed him over.  Almost every guy has heard these stories – young men hear them from the older males in their families, or from other older men they know – so if their girlfriend gets pregnant, many times the young man will encourage her to have an abortion, out of fear of financial ruin (and the possibly of having to do jail time, and/or live in squalor if the court demands more than he can provide).  For the prospective father, it’s often (at least in part) a financial decision – but before you think too harshly of him, remember that it takes two to create a child, and the family courts seldom penalize the mother to the same degree they do the father.  If the anti-abortion organizations really cared about these unborn children, they might set up funds to at least help take some of the burden off the young fathers – but of course that would come into conflict with some of their other values, which basically seem to be that once you’re born they don’t care what happens to you, because they certainly won’t lift a finger to help. Not to mention that those running the anti-abortion organization might not be able to live the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.

Now of course, if you have ever been involved with an anti-abortion organization you will know that their answer is adoption.  So rather than putting a poor woman through the psychological trauma of abortion, they’d rather see her go through the trauma of giving up her baby.  I will grant that most folks would say that the latter is far less traumatic, and I’d tend to agree although I speak from an uninformed position, because I’m not a female. But here’s the point – who’s likely to adopt the child?  Well, many of these pro-life organizations will try to get the child into a good “faith-based” family unit (that’s an euphemism for “fundamentalist religious nutjobs” in too many cases).  So guess what – the child is likely to be raised in such a way that he or she will because a pew-warmer and collection-plate contributor when he or she grows up.  Yes, folks, there’s a reason church groups get behind those organizations – an unwed mother might not raise her child “in the faith” but the rich fundamentalists who can afford to adopt a baby probably will. I don’t mean to imply that all children that are adopted through these agencies wind up in the hands of religious fundamentalist parents, but that may be only because there aren’t enough to go around.

In this article, I have deliberately tried to paint a somewhat negative picture of both sides, just to cause you to think.  I will tell you what I believe, but it shouldn’t matter what I believe because I am not trying to be anyone’s moral authority.  That said, I believe that the Bible is entirely silent on when “life” or “the soul” or whatever you want to call it enters the body of the unborn baby – you can torture some verses to try and make the Bible take a position, but I can give you a more plausible alternate rendering for any of the verses commonly used (whether you might accept it or not is another matter).  So basically, the fundamentalists are arguing their beliefs, and it’s a belief system that’s been imposed by the church and not by the Bible, which (to them, anyway) ought to be an important distinction. That said, the fact that we don’t know for sure ought to give us pause – if we feel we can destroy human life for the sake of convenience, that cheapens all human life. So I do think adoption is preferable to abortion, and that abortion should be very rare, an option of last resort for a serious medical problem, not something to be done lightly or as a matter of convenience.

However there is also the question of whether any one particular group’s beliefs on the subject ought to be the law that everyone is obliged to follow.  The fact that the religious fundamentalists are so adamant that protection of life ought to be codified in law scares me a bit, because if they can get that part of their beliefs imposed on everyone, what else will they try to impose on us? Some Christian fundamentalists are nearly as bad as the most extreme fundamentalists in the Middle East, and think that anyone who does not believe as they do is not worthy of any rights, and certainly not any respect for their conflicting beliefs.  I understand that they believe that abortion is murder, and that you don’t compromise on murder.  But just because they believe that doesn’t necessarily make it so! Many others believe that a soul is eternal, and that it cannot be destroyed, and that every human soul experiences multiple lifetimes.  Therefore, if deprived of the chance to take human form because the mother has an abortion, the soul will either move on and be born of another mother, or in some rare cases will actually wait until the same mother is ready and come back again at a later time, to be born in a different body. You can understand that those who hold to the latter beliefs would not see abortion in the same way as those who might believe that a soul only gets one chance at life – and neither group can “prove” they are right.

The purpose of this article has been to cause you to think more deeply about the subject.  Personally, I would wish that abortion were very rare, something that most women would never even consider.  But you cannot legislate what someone believes, and when you try to legislate morality you often run into trouble because not everyone agrees what is moral, therefore resulting in (usually) the “tyranny of the majority”, where the majority imposes its will and beliefs on the dissenting minority, or (sometimes) the imposition of the beliefs of a vocal minority on the majority. I also wish that the protestors on both sides would try to be considerate of those on the other side — if Jesus said to love your enemies, doesn’t that mean you should not be shoving offensive photos in their faces? And doesn’t that mean that maybe the prospective mother ought to be fully informed about what might happen after an abortion (including having dreams/nightmares about the baby they carried) instead of whatever propaganda the pro-abortion folks are handing out?  And shouldn’t the pro-abortion organizations be more upfront about the history of their movement and the real reasons it was started, including the beliefs of some of the founders?

There are times you want to say “a pox on both your houses” but then I realize that you can’t judge any movement by its most extreme supporters.  But in case you have been hiding under a rock during the last week, the lack of good old-fashioned civility is becoming a real issue, and I think it’s high time that the news media stop portraying the outspoken extremists as if they were representative of the majority of the members of a movement. And, in my opinion, if a person is on the extreme fringe of a movement, then that person’s untimely death should not cause him to attain martyr status. Unfortunately, parts of the media seem to have been taken over by lying scoundrels who’ll say anything, and give air time to any extremist in order to get ratings, thus pouring gasoline on the smouldering fire of emotions in this country. But that’s another issue, perhaps for another post someday.