Can You Be Both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice?

A continued dialogue with David on the issue of abortion.

Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash

David,

I am so pleased to have triggered such a well-written and thoughtful response. In keeping with the spirit of friendly dialogue, I have the following comments and responses to your post (the link copied below).

My original post…

Please correct me if I am imprecise, but I summarize your stance on abortion as that it is immoral, but you are concerned about addressing women’s safety and the realities of the split in our population’s attitudes towards it. In this, you believe we should focus on shifting people’s minds and hearts first. And at this high level, I think we are generally in agreement, and my intent below is to address our disagreements. But even there, I think we might find agreement when we explore the details.

Concern for Safety of Women

In what I believe is a general concern for the safety and welfare of women in these circumstances, you describe yourself as follows:

I consider myself both pro-life and pro-choice, finding both sides’ arguments compelling in different ways.

I suggest that you cannot really be both, just as you cannot be both pregnant and not pregnant. It is always and everywhere immoral to kill an innocent human being, or it is not. Even the slightest exception betrays. But there’s still hope for acting morally, even in those exceptional cases where a mother’s life is at risk. Let me explain…

First, you state that:

…abortion amounts to killing a human life legitimate and thus in almost all cases apart from the rare ones in which the mother’s life is literally in danger then abortion is an immoral act.

I believe this encapsulates the stance of many self-described pro-lifers. But I must point out that in this stance there is a common misunderstanding that in a life-threatening situation, abortion can somehow not be an immoral act. It is never moral to directly kill an innocent human being.

However, even when a mother’s life is in danger, we can act morally to save the mother, and with no added risk to her. In these cases, the principle of “double effect” comes into play. Our first priority is to save the mother, even if that means in the process the baby may die. This is not to place greater value on the mother than on the baby—both lives are precious—but we must place the priority on the mother because if she dies, the baby will most certainly die as well. As an example, there are, I am given to understand, extremely rare cases where being pregnant can be fatal to the mother – it is akin to a violet allergic reaction – and the baby must be removed in order to save the mother’s life. Even in these cases, though the baby will most certainly die in the process, the intent is not to actively kill the child as in an abortion, but to save the mother. Though tragic and undesired, this is a perfectly moral approach to take.

Put simply, there is never a need to intentionally, actively kill a child to save a mother’s life.

Second, you mention:

…the mantra of “safe, legal, and rare” still resonates with me as the ideal.

By ideal, I assume you mean this is the best we can hope for in this fallen world. But even with that, I have to disagree. Again, we can’t make an exception for an intrinsically immoral act, even if our general motive is the safety of women.

In a nutshell, the ends can never justify the means. We can’t make abortion “okay” sometimes in the hopes it will be a safer experience for the woman choosing it. The better and moral solution is to offer more care, support, and services for women in these circumstances, such as that offered by pregnancy centers.

Politics and Winning the Hearts and Minds

I’m not sure we have much disagreement in dealing with the legality of abortion in the pollical realm, a topic I was chiefly trying to address in my original post. As I mentioned in my post, we cannot abandon the political realm, but I do think you are quite correct that we must prioritize winning the hearts and minds of the public on this issue.

You also wrote:

I am indeed one of those ‘principled conservatives’ and have grown tired of every year just following the common injunction that ‘we must choose the lesser of two evils.’ I don’t demand a perfect candidate who I agree with on every policy - I demand one which has a moral minimum. And when I can’t find that, I simply won’t vote for either.

I cannot disagree with this! And, frankly, this is something I could have expanded upon in my original piece. I would not morally compel anyone to vote based on the lesser of two evils. Individually, it is a valid and very moral approach to take; however, I do not think it’s a good or winning strategy for a local pro-life organization or movement to take. I could have made that point more clear.

My only caveat is another item that I left unsaid in my original piece. I am fine with (and even applaud) “principled conservatives” demanding better candidates and abstaining from voting when those candidates do not fit the “moral minimum.” But when that stance expands beyond that to actually helping the far greater evil candidate win, that’s a problem. I will not here draw a precise line in the sand as to where that begins, but if you are doing anything that promotes the other side as a better alternative, you have crossed it.

That said, here’s my “positive” approach to this in a nutshell:  1) I will support the nominee/candidate that best represents my principles. 2) If that is not an option, my “principles” will never give aid and comfort to the enemy.

In closing, I really appreciated your expanded biblical study, which was quite well done. As to my “Shrewd as Serpents” reference, I also do not believe Christ was referring to politics. However, as there are two general senses in which to interpret Sacred Scripture, the literal and the spiritual (including the allegorical, moral, and anagogical) senses, I was simple-mindedly applying it to how we might deal morally with the jaded politics of our age.

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this important issue again.

---