Supporting Abortion Rights

To support abortion rights, one has to care ... to love ... for

More than the fetus.

But the mother, too, and the family, and then seek some understanding of the situation, the many pieces involved in such a decision, because life is complicated.

To seek the end of Roe v. Wade, one has to limit the scope of care and knowledge, reducing everything down to the fetus, and in the process damning the mother, calling her names, supporting the "rights" of a rapist father over against that of the mother ... and all sorts of other mean-spirited thoughts and laws.

It doesn't take long to see the harshness of heart driving the anti-abortion community ... they really don't care about the conditions of life, but only their ideas of life.

To want to criminalize abortion, one has to trim the energy of love down to just about nothing, and then ramp up the anti-abortion rhetoric, and dress it all up with religious language, to justify the shrunken love and still manage feel good (though the shouting and ferocity of their moods belie the claim of righteousness).

A loving heart acknowledges the wholeness of a person and their life ... all the elements, all the pieces, all the actors and all the moments.

And, fundamentally, essentially, a loving heart trusts that most people will make a thoughtful decision, and then, even when "thoughtful decisions" are not likely, driven they might be by panic and fear, and even irresponsibility, to still trust God Almighty, to be, faithfully, at work in all things, for good.

In the Romans passage, Paul adds, "for those who love God," which is to say, those who love God can certainly trust God in all matters of life and death, but that doesn't mean the negative for those who may not know God in any coherent sense. The work of God throughout creation is for all of God's creatures, great and small, including those who are lost in the sorrows and hurt of life, and likely, most especially, the lost and the confused.

To support abortion rights, there can never, ever, be a moment when one can label a rapist and the ensuing pregnancy as "gawd's will." This is an ultimate cruelty revealing the bankruptcy of thought and faith in those religious circles wherein law trumps mercy.

Never ... ever ... dress up such evil with good ... never.

Ah, you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter! ... ... ... Isaiah 5.20.