Special to United Methodist Insight | Oct. 30, 2024
To my sisters and brothers in Christ who keep insisting that abortion is always murder and that this is the only Christian view:
You have a right to your belief that life begins with conception and that abortion at any stage in development is murder. I will defend your constitutional and moral right to that belief. And I will defend your right to speak out in any way you choose to persuade the girls and women in your life to never have an abortion. You do not, however, have the right to enact laws to force your religious belief on others.
Yours is a religious belief which, as a person of deep faith in the creator, I do not share. Someday, perhaps over a cup of coffee in heaven, we will laugh in wonder at the foolishness of these earthly disagreements which now cause so much partisan division.
In the meantime, I will do all I can to protect the lives of my granddaughters, and all American girls, from the deadly consequences of the anti-abortion laws that are being passed in state legislatures all over the country.
Amber Nicole Thurman
Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, shown with her six-year-old son, died when denied reproductive health care that the State of Georgia outlawed. (Facebook Photo)
Kavitha Surana wrote in ProPublica, on September 16, about a 28-year-old mother in Georgia who died because of the chilling effect of the state’s abortion law. “The state’s maternal mortality review committee found that her death was preventable and said a delay in care had a ‘large impact.’”
Surana wrote: “In her final hours, Amber Nicole Thurman suffered from a grave infection that her suburban Atlanta hospital was well-equipped to treat. She’d taken abortion pills and encountered a rare complication; she had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body. She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.
“But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison. Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed, worried about what would happen to her 6-year-old son, as doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail. It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late.
“Doctors warned state legislators women would die if medical procedures sometimes needed to save lives became illegal. Richard J. Paulson, M.D., M.S. wrote, “It must be pointed out that the concept of “life begins at conception” is neither scientific nor a part of any (ancient) traditional religious teaching. The writers of the Bible (as well as other religious texts) knew nothing about eggs, sperm, or fertilization. It was only after medical science revealed the basic steps in embryonic development in the mid-20th century that some religious groups seized on the idea that human life must therefore “begin” at fertilization.”
Dr. Paulson, whose paper can be found on the “National Library of Medicine” website, also shared this personal story:
“One of my patients suffered through many years of fertility treatment and finally achieved a viable intrauterine pregnancy. We celebrated the reassuring visualization of the fetal heartbeat on ultrasound. Unfortunately, not long thereafter, the fetus was found to be anencephalic. We commiserated over the terrible luck. She terminated the pregnancy and moved on to further treatment. Now I imagine: What would have been the scenario if she lived in a state which prohibits abortion? She would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term, even though the child would not survive.”
For Christians who are concerned about both the life of the fetus and the mother please consider how Jesus likely viewed this as a faithful Jew.
Rabbi Mara Nathan wrote, "The Torah, the Mishnah, the Talmud and later rabbinic sources consider the woman's physical and emotional health before that of the fetus. Until the baby is born, Judaism considers the fetus to be part of the woman's body. She is never the villain when difficult choices need to be made."
The Jesus I know in scripture and in my personal relationship would always have us do what is loving.
My own United Methodist Church voted to approve a petition affirming a right to abortion and pledging “solidarity with those who seek reproductive health care” at our General Conference in May. The petition “upholds a person’s right to an abortion after informed consideration with their family, medical practitioners, pastor, and other pertinent counsel.” It also denounces abortion bans.
Still, later that week in a vote to revise our social principles, the conference was more cautious, urging people considering abortion “to engage in searching, prayerful inquiries into other alternatives.” “Our commitment to the sanctity of human life makes us reluctant to condone abortion. We unconditionally reject it as an acceptable means of birth control or a mechanism for gender selection and other forms of eugenics.” The principles also affirm the right to gynecological care; recognize the economic factors that limit access to care, and support in vitro fertilization.”
John Sumwalt
John Sumwalt is a retired Wisconsin Conference pastor and the author of “How to Preach the Miracles.”