For So the Children Come
For each child that’s born
A morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are
On November 12th of this year, three congregations co-ordained me, giving me a new name – Reverend Deanna Vandiver. On the morning of December 21st, Katherine Grace was born and I received another name – Aunt De!
Beloveds, that every child born could arrive so loved, so cared for as my beautiful niece, baby Kate… For so the children come into this world, into our lives, and we – we are called to love them enough to begin what Howard Thurman called the work of Christmas: “finding the lost, healing the broken, feeding the hungry, releasing prisoners, rebuilding nations, making peace among brothers [and sisters], making music in the heart.”
There is no such thing as “somebody else’s baby.” They are all our children, our beloved miracles of life to care for, to care about, and to commit to healing a broken world so that they may not suffer unnecessarily. As our nation grieves the death of the slain children in Newtown, CT, we are deeply aware of our accountability for their lives and the lives of all children who are harmed by violence and the devaluation of life.
Unitarian Universalist theology tells us that we are a part of an interconnected web of creation, related to and in relationship with each thread of creation. Our society tells us that we are isolated individuals, worth only what we can produce or inherit, and that violence is a credible response to violence. We tenders of the web of life know that violence increases alienation & fear, hides the connections we have to each other, allows us to become numb to the miracle of life, to the wonders of this universe.
My mother has a calendar of days in her bathroom. On the day my niece was born, the wisdom of the calendar instructed “Give people a piece of your heart, instead of a piece of your mind.” Navigating the dynamics of multiple families, hospital policies, and fear for my baby sister’s health with very little sleep, that nugget of wisdom was salvific for me. Life lived from a place of gratitude and wonder is very different from a life lived from a place of ingratitude, anger, and fear.
We who grieve the beloveds of Sandy Hook Elementary are also called to grieve the 800 “civilian casualties” of our country’s drone strikes in Pakistan in the last four years, for the children who are caught in cross-fire in our urban centers, for every child who has lost a parent in the endless US military actions. We understand that we are not called to stand on the side of love for some children. We are called to stand on the side of love for all children. No matter what we think about their choices, their policies, or their cultures, our hearts are called to honor the inherent worth and dignity of all creation.
Beloveds, each child that’s born is a holy child. You are a miracle. So is your neighbor. As we swim through the ocean of the universe, may we remember this wisdom born of a child called Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself – and beloveds, love yourself – because if you cannot have compassion for the spark of creation that is your being, you will be able to deny compassion to other sparks of creation.
Give yourself and your neighbor a piece of your heart instead of a piece of your mind. See how quickly this begins the work of Christmas…
For so the children come, and so they have been coming for thousands of years…may each child born find peace and love in our hearts and good will toward all of creation as we commit to doing the work of Christmas.
For each child that’s born
A morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are
YOU GOT PEOPLE
You Got People
This Public Service Announcement brought to you by a Unitarian Universalist minister who has just been creatively reminded by the universe of this important truth.
Beloveds, in the crush of this season of holidays, remember that YOU GOT PEOPLE.
Contrary to the images of loneliness and unworthiness being projected onto us during this commercialized season – you are intimately and ultimately connected to all of creation.
Whether you buy or receive holiday gifts, send cards, light menorahs, kinaras, or bonfires – during the longest nights of the year and during the longest days and every time in between, you are not alone.
The myth of our culture is one of worth based on stuff and perfection.
The myth of our culture says you have to earn grace.
The myth of our culture is deeply isolating and numbing.
These are not life affirming myths.
These are not myths to live by.
Sister Joan Chittister declares that “The paradox is that to be human is to be imperfect but it is exactly our imperfection that is our claim to the best of the human condition. We are not a sorry lot. We have one another. We are not expected to be self-sufficient. It is precisely our vulnerability that entitles us to love and guarantees us a hearing from the rest of the human race.”
In this season of need and greed remember:
You are enough.
You belong.
You are not alone.
You got people.
On Abundance
“We are the people of abundance, people who have known suffering and will know suffering. We are the people of abundance, people who have known love and offer our love as a blessing to our world.” ~ Naomi King
We are a people of abundance. We know struggle in abundance and strength in abundance. For every story we know about “not enough,” we know an answering story of “lots.” Not enough time? Lots of meaningful work to do. Not enough money? Lots of sustaining relationships.
Since the Flood of 2005 in New Orleans, I have an abundance of friendships that grew out of people coming here to stand in solidarity with and bear witness to our struggle. Now these beloveds are woven into the fabric of my life and I walk with them through the joys and struggles of their lives – adoptions, divorces, cancer, new vocations, the death of parents, the building of treehouses – they are now a part of my life and my life is more abundant.
Abundance is not inherently good or bad – it simply is. We celebrate when joy is abundant, we mourn when grief is abundant. When it is time to sit down and write, I sometimes have an abundance of reasons to keep getting up and doing something else. When it is time to sit down and write, I sometimes have an abundance of words pouring from my fingertips.
To our dominant culture framed by a scarcity narrative, I offer this truth of abundance. When we see that our days are replete with abundance, we are less afraid. When we are less afraid, we connect more. The more connections we see in our lives, the more abundance we notice. Sometime the abundance will wear us out. Sometimes it will fill us up.
Live lived from the narrative of abundance is not easy. It is, however, a more loving way to move through the world than a life lived from scarcity. Come – choose to err on the side of love and generosity. We are a people of abundance.
Voting as Spiritual Practice, as a Neighborly Act…
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
~ Wendell Berry ~
On this eve of a national election, so many conversations begin with “well, depending on who wins the election, …” In our representative democracy, a lot does depend on who wins elections.
Because of how the presidential election is decided, via the electoral college, it can feel as if your vote doesn’t count, especially if you tend to vote the opposite slate from the majority of voters in your state. I have heard more than a few people wonder out loud if they will even vote this year “since their vote won’t count anyway.”
What is imperative to remember during these bouts of feeling disenfranchised is that your local votes also change the world. It matters who sits on the city council seat, who becomes judge, whether that change to the city charter or the state constitution becomes law. It matters in daily life to real people.
Detention policies, educational opportunities, the right to marry – all of this is decided by voting at the local level. The roots of change have always been local. So read up about the local issues. Discuss them with your peers. And then vote, if you can, my friends. Think of it as a spiritual practice: Read, Reflect, Act.
Our votes matter very much to our neighbors and our selves. May this weekend be a time of spiritual practice for you as you prepare to vote for the sake of your local community next week.
Salvation
I am a Unitarian Universalist who believes deeply that salvation is an inherent aspect of my 
faith. Not just my own personal salvation, though through this faith that has happened, but the salvation of the world.
My faith is not about the salvation of individual souls for a perceived afterlife. I believe that whatever happens to one of us when this physical human life ends, happens to us all. I do not believe in the “Divine Sifting” of souls. That afterlife might be a heaven, or it might be a continuation of being, or it might be reincarnation. But whatever it is, it will happen to us all equally. We are all saved.
No, the salvation that I speak of is salvation in this world, of this world, and for this world. To use Christian language, the salvation that I believe in is the creation of the Realm of God here, and now. It is the reconciling of humanity with each other, and with the world in which we live.
This, I believe, is the vision of salvation that rests at the heart of Unitarian Universalism, a faith which calls us to work with our time, our talent, our treasure, and our dreams to heal this world, to make this world whole.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of racism and human slavery.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of war and genocide.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of poverty and inequality.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of greed and political apathy.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of torture and injustice.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of the closed mind and the closed heart.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from many more evils than this, but it also means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good…
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in loving your neighbor as yourself.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in learning to love, and forgive, yourself.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in protecting the environment, without dividing ourselves from others.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in joining with others in communities of right relationship, be they found in the family, in the church, in the workplace, in the nation, or (could it be possible) in the world.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in finding where your values call you to bring people together, instead of tear them apart.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in working with others to find their own call to work for this salvation.
This is, for me, a mission of salvation… truly a mission to save the world. It is a mission that I believe must be inspired by a religious vision of what our world would be, could be, will be like when we, the human race, finally grow up. It is a vision of creating the Realm of God here and now… not of depending on God to do it for us.
This is my vision of salvation, and the power behind my Unitarian Universalist faith.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David
The Connection of Church and State
I am a big fan of the separation of church and state. I do not believe that it is appropriate for the government to privilege any religion, or impose any set of religious beliefs on its citizens. I don’t think that anyone’s religious views should be allowed to determine who may or may not get married. I don’t think that anyone’s religious views should be allowed to determine laws around abortion or access to contraception. I don’t think that we need to set aside time in schools to pray, and I don’t think that “under God” should ever have been inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance. There is no reason at all to teach “creation science” in biology class, as if any science were involved in the religious stance that all the overwhelming evidence for evolution should be set aside because the Bible says something different. It is not the place of a free, democratic government to impose the religion of some set of people on other people who may not share those views.
On the other hand, I’m absolutely in favor of people making political choices based on their religious views. How would you not? If your religion matters to your life at all, surely it has to inform your decisions about what laws and which individuals will work for the things that matter to you. If you follow the one who said “ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me….Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” then surely you will vote for the candidate who seems the most likely to provide for the poor, care for the ill and have compassion for the immigrant and those in prison.
If you call yourself religious, it is your job not only to hold a core set of values that you understand to be at the heart of your religion, but also to go out and practice and advocate for those values in the world.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I would say that freedom is a central value among my religious peeps. But it’s not at the very center. At the core, the value we hold most dear is ever and always love. That’s why you see UUs in bright yellow t-shirts that read “Standing on the Side of Love” at rallies in favor of marriage equality and compassion for immigrant families. Love is where it’s at for us. When I vote, it’s on the basis of the practical application of the principle of love. Love for our neighbors, love for citizens of the wider world, love for the planet which we share with so many non-human beings. I am Voting on the Side of Love.
What values are at the very heart of your religious life? Where do you see those values taking shape in the political sphere? How will you vote for the heart of your religion?
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A Grandson’s Rage
Politicians throw about plans for health care, Social Security, and Medicare as if they were stand-up comedians trying joke after joke to see what gets a rise out of their audience. To many of us, the effects of these plans are abstract and distant. We intellectually engage with them, thinking that our rational side is best when evaluating how our nation should take care of its old, poor, and vulnerable.
Perhaps instead, we should feel something. This week, I’m feeling anger—make that rage. Why? Allow me to introduce you to my grandpa.
My grandfather turned 87 last week, and I visited him to celebrate and take him out to dinner. Grandpa has an amazing history: Born in Marseille, France, he served in the French Merchant Marine, and then fought in the French Resistance until the liberation of France from Nazi rule in 1944. Soon after, he came to the United States, where he met and married my grandmother and became a U.S. citizen.
Grandpa worked on the docks in Brooklyn, unloading cargo ships, until his back was injured at work, forcing him to find less-physical labor. For years after that, he worked for an independent governmental agency. When he retired from that agency, he was promised a pension as well as health insurance for life (the same health care given to retirees from New York City employment).
Knowing that this was assured, he worked a series of jobs with few benefits: he managed a McDonald’s, he drove a commuter van, he managed a boutique. Then, at the age of 65, he graduated from Police Academy, becoming a special forces policeman in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. There, he was a crossing guard and worked events like parades and school dances as extra security. When he finally retired from work altogether, he was 75 years old.
In late 2010, the governmental agency he worked for was closed down by the state and city. Legislators could not reach a deal to keep the agency, which was supposed to make money, solvent. When the agency was dissolved, retirees got a letter saying that the city and state would no longer be providing them with health insurance. The courts ruled that this was legal, despite the promises that were made by generations of politicians. My grandfather’s health care was left to the whims of Medicare.
No more dental insurance, either, apparently (it was part of the package he was promised for life). For a birthday gift, my parents, brothers and I paid for my grandfather’s dental bill. One of his teeth had become infected, and the extraction and subsequent false tooth cost some $2000. Grandpa otherwise couldn’t have afforded it, and he would have lived with a big gap in the side of his mouth.
Did I mention that my grandparents live only on Social Security checks and that small pension check (thankfully, it’s against the New York State Constitution to renege on the promise of a pension)? From their less-than-$2000 a month in income, they have to pay rent, utilities, food, car insurance, gas (thankfully, they don’t drive much), doctor’s bills and medicine.
Which brings us to Medicare. My grandfather has asthma. My grandmother has high blood pressure. It’s not like they take a raft of pills every day, but those conditions require constant medication. Here in September, they find themselves in the infamous Medicare “doughnut hole.” Apparently, the asthma medication costs $400 a month, and the blood pressure medication $200.
My grandparents don’t have $600 a month to spend on medicine, but because they would die without this medication, they find a way. They beg their doctors for free samples so that they don’t have to refill their prescriptions quite as often. Grandma is currently calling the drug companies to try to qualify for discount programs. Neither of them can wait until 2014, when the Affordable Health Care Act closes that hole.
Because every spare dollar is going to pay for asthma medication, they can’t afford the health care they need, either. My grandfather’s back hurts so much (from that injury 45 years ago) that he can hardly get in and out of a car. I watched him struggle to go out to dinner with us, and I could hardly believe it. His doctor thinks that regular physical therapy would help—but he can’t afford the three-times-a-week co-pays. I’m going to be paying them for him.
Thankfully, my grandfather has a family who can help. But at 87, he doesn’t want to have to ask for it, and he knows that we have other financial considerations. My parents are retired, too, and not exactly flush with cash. My next youngest brother supports his family of 4 on his income. My youngest brother is about to start graduate school. I’ll be paying for grandpa’s physical therapy.
Which makes me mad. Our society is failing our elders. It is utterly contemptuous that someone who worked hard all of his life could be reduced to having to decide whether to seek the medical care he needs or ask his grandson for money. It is beyond the pale that my similarly hard-working grandmother (none of whose jobs left her with retirement security either) has to call the doctor and beg for another free asthma inhaler.
So the next time a politician says something about the “doughnut hole,” I want you to think of my 87 year-old grandpa. The next time a politician mentions the promises that we make to our senior citizens, think of my grandpa. The next time someone decides that cutting Medicare spending is the only way to save our nation, think of grandpa. I know I will be.
Run for Your Life!
I have always been fairly athletic, and I enjoy playing a good game that gets my blood pumping. But I loathe exercise. I’ll run all day long if I’m on a court or a playing field, but ask me to run to get or stay in shape and I’ll kindly decline. I’ve tried several times in my life to become a runner, hoping to experience that “runner’s high” that I’ve heard so much about. In fact, when the running craze first hit the East Coast in the early ’70’s, I was among the first to buy a pair of bright blue Nike’s with the yellow swoosh on the side and take to the roads. I lasted about three weeks before pain and boredom overcame me. Two to three weeks seemed to be my limit every time I tried to get on the running bandwagon.
Then early this summer my daughter called and told me she had started the “Couch to 5k” program, and that I should try it too. I was skeptical, but she was persistent. “It’ll be fun,” she said. “Right,” I replied. “Like pulling fingernails is fun.” Eventually, she wore me down and I decided I’d give it a try. “C25k” (as we in the know call it) is an interval training program that starts off with lots of walking and a little running. By the end of nine weeks, you’re not walking at all, and you’re running the full 3+ miles.
I’m proud to say that I have stuck with the program and am now a “C25k” graduate, and that I’ve kept up my running since completing the program. My daughter and I have started looking for a 5K race we can enter together to celebrate our accomplishment.
But the truth is that I still find running really boring. I run a 3 mile loop around town that keeps me mostly on residential streets and a couple of busier roads. I was told that running on pavement is easier on your joints and muscles than running on the concrete sidewalks. So, when it’s not too narrow or busy, I opt to run in the road (always facing oncoming traffic as I was taught in grade school). I watch the oncoming cars carefully, to be sure that they see me and keep a safe distance. When a car gives me a wide berth, I usually give a little wave to acknowledge the driver’s awareness and kindness.
Lately, I’ve developed this little interchange between drivers and me into a kind of spiritual practice. For the past several runs, I’ve begun to say a small prayer or blessing for each passing motorist. As I wave, I say “May you know peace” or “Know that you’re loved.” I wish health, happiness, peace, love, passion, success, and joy to the occupants of the cars that pass me by. For those drivers who either aren’t watching or don’t care to give me some space, I pray for their attentiveness, their alertness, and their foresight as I hop up onto the curb.
In offering these small blessings to strangers who pass me by, I find that I, too, am blessed. As I pray for these things for others, I am reminded of the joy, peace, love, passion and successes I find in my own life. I experience the blessings of good health, of the air that I breathe in, of the incredible machine my body is. I notice the gifts of the sky, the trees, the wind and the sun.
May you know peace today. May you know that you are loved. May you feel joy. And may you find, in some small way, the opportunity to wish that for others as you go about your day.
Love,
Peter
All’s Fair
Here in Minnesota, where I live, the State Fair is the main thing going on. It upstages even the dreaded back-to-school days which are also dominant in hearts and minds.
In other places where I have lived, State Fairs are about as central to life as, say, roller coasters, or ferret ownership, or balloon rides. That is to say, some people like it enough to spend time seeking it out, most people don’t, and life goes on swimmingly. That’s not the way it is in Minnesota.
I don’t know why it is, but it would never occur to me, or anyone I know, to miss our state fair in Minnesota. Why? We spend too much money, eat too many calories, stand in too many lines. For those of us who are urban, we see animals that we have no interest in seeing the rest of the year, ogle farm machinery we will never in our lifetimes use, and stare at strange things ranging from seed art to butterheads—Princess Kay of the Milky Way, carved live out of butter as she shivers in a refrigerator in her dress and tiara.
And we get so excited about it! I’ve already been twice, and plan to go back at least once more, with friends who like to see and do different parts of the fair. I begin looking forward to it in early August, and begin to plot out trips, buying early tickets to save a few bucks. I like to go once when the fair is just opening in the morning, primarily to see the barns and animals. I go once during the afternoon, to go to the Midway and ride some rides, play a little whack-a-mole, try to win a useless prize with skeeball tickets. And then I like to go once at night to enjoy some kind of concert. This year it was Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples—pure heaven!
Truthfully, I think that looking forward to the fair is about as much fun as going. As the nights get colder and the sky is dark later in the morning, as the back to school sales crank up into full swing, the fair gives us something to think about besides the end of summer. How can you dread the end of August when you get to eat a pickle on a stick? How can September be a bad thing when it comes in with seed art?
This year, when I went with a friend on opening day, the two of us were so excited we could hardly concentrate enough to pick a starting place. Eventually we strode over to the horticulture building. The vegetables on display were no better looking than the ones I see every week at the farmers’ market, but seeing them with judges’ ribbons next to them enhanced their importance.
This year, ‘the great get together’ has a sad shadow side. Elections loom. We have, in addition to the bitterly divisive Presidential election, two ballot initiatives introduced by the Republicans to crank up voter turnout in Minnesota: A constitutional amendment that limits marriage to opposite sex couples, and a voter suppression bill which disallows same day registration and demands government issued IDs—disproportionally disenfranchising the poor, people of color, transgender people, and other marginalized folks.
So at the fair, in addition to the universal experiences of food on a stick and gaping at farm animals, there was also an undercurrent of divisiveness. Plenty of people, like me, picked up bright orange fans that screamed “VOTE NO: Don’t Limit the Freedom to Marry” at the Minnesotans United for All Families booth. Meanwhile, I saw many people sporting “Protect My Vote” backpacks. I’m sure they felt as sad and helpless seeing my fan as I felt seeing their backpacks. Trying to figure out how to have a real conversation about it was an insurmountable challenge as we jostled one another in the crowded streets and competed against each other in Midway games.
Despite those differences, the fair was a good place to remember that we have more in common than what separates us. I pray that I will still feel like that the second week of November, when my stuffed animal prizes will have long since been turned into dog toys and cheese curds are but a distant memory.
Legitimacy
The furor over Rep. Todd Akin’s astonishingly irresponsible and oft-quoted remarks this week has once again thrown a complex moral, religious, legal and personal controversy in our country into stark relief, the question of abortion.
It seems to me that the burning question about abortion in the United States is not primarily about whether or not any given woman or teenage girl should or can have one, but about whether or not such actions should be lawful: the crux of the matter in this country is around the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade, which cleared the way for abortions to be performed legally in the United States. The language of “pro-life” and “pro-choice” is deliberately inflammatory. I’m not against language that inflames per se (perhaps this essay will demonstrate that), but I prefer to frame this not as an issue of life versus choice, but as an issue of legal access to abortion versus its legal abolition. It is an issue of maintaining the legal strictures in place as a result of Roe v. Wade (RvW), or intentionally altering the Constitution to remove those strictures. So may I suggest an experiment: instead of “pro-life,” I propose “anti-RvW,” and “pro-RvW” in place of “pro-choice.”
There are some positions that I disagree with and don’t understand. Same-sex marriage, for instance: intellectually, I suppose I can generally grasp the opposition to it, but deep in my heart, in the tenderest parts of my innards, I just don’t get it. Abortion is different. I disagree with the propositions and stances of the anti-RvW camp. But I get it. The intentional termination of a pregnancy through medical intervention is indeed a complex and difficult moral issue. Nevertheless, as a religious leader, a citizen-voter, and as a human being, I have to take a stand on what I think is right.
While I applaud the GOP for demanding that Rep. Akin drop his Senate bid, this occurred during the same week that Republicans approved party platform language that calls for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. I strongly disagree with this move, but I will openly and freely admit it contains a stroke of internally consistent logic. If one truly believes abortion is murder, then what difference does it make how conception took place? I always felt there was an inherent hypocrisy or cowardice in the political posture of abolishing all abortions “except in cases of rape or incest.” It seems as if those who strike this pose are acknowledging that there are circumstances in which a woman should have a right to choose — just exceedingly narrow ones. “Abortion is murder,” this seems to declare, “but if, say, you’re a thirteen-year-old girl and your father raped you — well, okay then, you can go ahead and get an abortion.” In other words, for a woman or girl to have the right to choose, she can only earn it by unimaginable suffering and humiliation. Why do political conservatives grouse endlessly about reducing the role of government in our lives while endorsing positions that are so aggressively intrusive into the lives of women and girls? If we are going to promote that kind of government meddling in our personal lives, perhaps it would be fairer for both males and females to share the burden. Perhaps what’s needed is a move for a Constitutional amendment to prohibit males from having sexual intercourse with females, unless 1) procreative intent on the part of both parties has been firmly established (and of course the government would need us to fill out government-approved forms and such to declare such intent) , or 2) the male is required to wear a condom or provide legally verifiable proof of his being 100% infertile. If such a law could be passed and enforced, that would diminish the number of abortions spectacularly. If the passing and enforcement of such laws would seem preposterously invasive, why is the imposition of laws that restrict women’s sexual activity considered acceptable?
I do wonder why there doesn’t seem to be far more vigorous preaching and teaching from anti-RvW religious leaders urging men and teenage boys to refrain from having sex, or that we males should at least use birth control fastidiously. Never have I seen a pro-life bumper sticker or talked with an anti-RvW person who has mentioned, in my hearing, the role of males in the whole abortion question. Where is the anti-RvW religious voice calling men and teenage boys to sexual responsibility? Is pregnancy just regarded as a thing that just happens, like cancer or hurricanes, and what follows is all that’s important? What we seem to get from the religious right is the promotion of “education” which urges abstinence. I am not aware that any evidence has ever been offered by anyone to show that such programs achieve their aims.
The religious voices that are anti-RvW come from diverse traditions. What many of these traditions have in common, it seems to me, is an absence of female leadership. There are no female Roman Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals or popes. One person I know and love very much is a Pentecostal Christian and very much anti-RvW; there are no female pastors in this person’s church. I am not saying that religious institutions that bar women from professional leadership positions are not entitled to opinions on the issue of abortion, or any other issue, whether it pertains to women or not. I am saying that the absence of women in leadership roles in those religious communities is not irrelevant — especially if that absence is the result of a deliberate and tenaciously guarded policy.
The anti-RvW movement appears to be motivated by a dream of a world in which abortion disappears. But there is no reason to believe that abortion would disappear if the anti-RvW movement achieved its objectives. Women and girls had abortions before RvW; they just had to take far greater risks to their health and safety. I need not reprise the back-alley, coat-hanger refrains of the pro-RvW movement, but those assertions are correct. Some political and social conservatives claim that if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns; I wonder why more conservatives don’t also argue that if abortions are outlawed, only outlaws will perform them — outlaws regulated by no professional medical organization, licensed by no government, accountable to no one for their training, their competence, the fees they charge, the sanitary conditions (or lack thereof) they provide, or the survival rates of the women and teens upon whom they perform abortions. These are circumstances in which women and teenage girls are maimed and killed. We know this is true because this is what happened in the United States before 1973. It is not clear how a return to such conditions would promote the sanctity of human life.
I saw a bumper sticker recently that said something like:
Africans didn’t choose slavery
Jews didn’t choose the Holocaust
Babies don’t choose abortion
I couldn’t help but think: But that’s the whole point. Babies don’t choose abortion; they don’t choose anything at all. The pregnant woman or teenage girl is the one who has to make all the choices — not just about abortion, but about what to eat and whether or not to quit smoking or what kind of prenatal medical care she is going to receive. Many women and teenage girls have very limited choices around many of those things, but the point is, the above bumper sticker leaves pregnant women and teens entirely out of the equation. And any argument about abortion which leaves pregnant women and girls out of the equation is not only irrelevant and morally suspect, it’s dangerous.
