A Better Conversation about Abortion – #2
While I was still in seminary, I served as the part-time pastor of a tiny Methodist church in New Jersey. One fall afternoon, while I was in the sanctuary preparing things for Sunday worship, a middle-aged woman wandered inside. I did not know her or recognize her. Appearing nervous, she asked if she could speak with the minister.
Because the small church did not have an office for the pastor, we sat down in a pew. I could tell she was uncomfortable being in the sanctuary, talking with a pastor. I could tell too that she was exhausted and that she had been crying. The woman proceeded to tell me about her nineteen year old daughter, ‘Rachel,’ who had a drug and alcohol problem. ‘Rachel’ did not have a job, was not in school, and had recently become pregnant. Rachel’s mother cried and shared how confused and overwhelmed she felt. Rachel was her only family. She had no one to whom she could turn. Rachel, she knew, was not able to raise a child and, given her addictions, she worried what would be the resulting health of Rachel’s baby.
Rachel’s mother suddenly asked me if it was wrong for her daughter to get an abortion. “Does the bible say that it’s wrong?” she asked me.
Looking back at that conversation, what most strikes me is not the inadequacy of my answers. What strikes me most is that this woman and her daughter had absolutely no community to turn for comfort, help or discernment.
Last week I mentioned in a post that abortion is an issue that calls for discernment because there are no scriptural texts we can use as direct references. Texts, for example, that speak of God ‘knowing us even in our mother’s womb’ are primarily poetic texts that speak volumes about God’s providence but say very little about how that broad confession applies to a particular moral question.
The best text to apply to the question of abortion, I believe, is one that, on the surface, would seem to have nothing to do with the issue.
Biblical scholar, Richard Hays, argues that Christians looking for moral guidance on abortion can read scripture in a paradigmatic mode. In other words, the New Testament, in particular, contains several key texts that, while they do not speak to abortion explicitly, do commend certain behaviors that can inform how Christians approach multiple moral issues, including abortion.
The first paradigmatic text that Hays turns to is Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, which is found in Luke’s Gospel (10.25-37). In Luke’s telling, Jesus is asked by a lawyer how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus replies, in good rabbinic fashion, with a reference to the Shema from Deuteronomy 6.5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; you shall your neighbor as yourself.”
This would not have been a surprising answer to the lawyer; he probably anticipated just this reply from Jesus because he pushes back, pressing Jesus to be more precise: “Who is my neighbor?” Most likely, the lawyer also knew that, according to the Jewish law, ‘neighbor’ in this case meant a fellow Israelite.
Luke tells us that by asking Jesus this question the lawyer sought to justify himself. That is, the lawyer wanted Jesus to narrowly and specifically define who counted as his neighbor. With the parameters of moral obligation more narrowly defined the lawyer could be comforted that he was a righteous, justified person.
Jesus instead surprises the lawyer with an unexpected, upsetting story about a Samaritan showing loving mercy where righteous Jews did not and then turning the question back onto the lawyer: “Who was the neighbor?”
Samaritans, in the first century world of Jesus, were not only hated and mistrusted outsiders, they were non-Jews. In telling this story, Jesus refuses narrow definitions of our ethical obligations. Jesus expands the reaches of our moral duty and, by casting a Samaritan (a non-neighbor by Jewish law) as a neighbor, Jesus actually creates a new moral obligation where none existed before.
How does this story inform Christians’ reflection on abortion? It’s not simply that unborn children are our neighbors. Richard Hays notes that this parable reminds Christians that our call to show mercy to the helpless extends beyond the obligations defined by convention or by culture.
Our obligation to be neighbors to the helpless includes both the unborn and the mothers and families of the unborn.
Jesus’ parable also cautions Christians against approaching the abortion debate with the same questions that the culture often asks. Hays argues that when Christians become preoccupied with asking questions such as: ‘When does life begin?’ and ‘When is a fetus a person?’ we risk casting ourselves as the lawyer in Jesus’ story instead of the Samaritan. We risk limiting the scope of our ethical obligation rather than recognizing the expansive reach of our call to be merciful.
The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that, when it comes to the issue of abortion, our first step as Christians is to resist the culture’s definitions of neighbors and to recognize that we have a duty to all involved.
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