An Episcopal Bishop's Teaching on Abortion, Part 10: Conclusion

The 148th Convention of the Diocese of Fond du Lac requested that “the Bishop Diocesan, our Chief Teacher as expressed in the consecration service of the Book of Common Prayer, to provide a series of teachings and theological reflections on the issue of abortion to the members of this diocese.”

In response to that request, I wrote a series of teachings over several months.[1] I studied extensively sources by theologians of the Christian Tradition and by contemporary authors, including both men and women. I have invited others, within the diocese and beyond, both men and women (but mostly women), holding different perspectives to read each teaching and give feedback before it was published. I have had conversations in person, by phone, and via email. I have heard from people whose views on abortion have evolved over time, and people who have expressed mixed feelings about abortion. I have also engaged in conversation with those who are convinced a fully ensouled human person is present from the moment of conception and with those who believe that is not the case until birth. I have heard from women who had life-threatening pregnancies in places where procuring an abortion was difficult. I have also heard from many who have simply expressed appreciation for the teaching series. 

I set out the recent historical, cultural, and political context of current understandings of the issue which suggest that the contemporary divisions on the issue of abortion do not represent what the Church has always taught or practiced.

The several resolutions passed by the General Convention over the years on the morality of abortion were set out. I explained that those resolutions are not binding on the conscience and behavior of Episcopalians. The Episcopal Church’s teaching on this issue is not static. Further reflection and teaching would be welcome. But these resolutions do represent the closest thing we have to an “official” teaching. Because they have been passed by different General Conventions over several decades, they have an ad hoc character. They do not set out one straightforward teaching document. Consequently, there is some tension among them, and one might wonder if there is a lack of consistency or coherence. Taken together, these resolutions do challenge both what is usually referred to as the “Pro-choice” and the “Pro-life” positions.

The Episcopal Church acknowledges that “in this country [the United States] it is the legal right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion” and therefore, “We believe that legislation concerning abortions will not address the root of the problem.” (Resolution 1994-A054). General Convention has also asserted on behalf of the Episcopal Church,

“its unequivocal opposition to any legislative, executive or judicial action on the part of local, state or national governments that abridges the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of pregnancy or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision.” (Resolution 1994-A054).

The most recent General Convention, in 2022, asserted that it,

“understands that the protection of religious liberty extends to all Episcopalians who may need or desire to access, to utilize, to aid others in the procurement of, or to offer abortion services.”

On the other hand, while there is no assertion that we are fully human persons at conception, in the name of the Episcopal Church, General Convention has affirmed that,

“All human life is sacred from its inception until death. The Church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its 149th Convention 2023 Page 5 members concerning this sacredness. Human life, therefore, should be initiated only advisedly and in full accord with this understanding of the power to conceive and give birth which is bestowed by God.” (Resolution 1994-A054)

Therefore, “We regard all abortion as having a tragic dimension” (Resolution 1994-A054). General Convention has also “strongly condemn(ed) the act of abortion when the sole purpose of such action is the selection of the sex of the child” and that “abortion after the diagnosis of non-serious or trivial abnormalities, or abortion in a case where purely cosmetic abnormalities are discovered, is also strongly condemned” (Resolution 1982-A065). It has also expressed “grave concern about the use in the third trimester of pregnancy of the procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (commonly called "partial birth abortion") except in extreme situations” (Resolution 1997-D065). 

General Convention has also counselled that,

“Whenever members of this Church are consulted with regard to a problem pregnancy, they are to explore, with grave seriousness, with the person or persons seeking advice and counsel, as alternatives to abortion, other positive courses of action, including, but not limited to, the following possibilities: the parents raising the child; another family member raising the child; making the child available for adoption.”  (Resolution 1994-A054)  

Episcopalians seek to ground our teaching in scripture and look to the tradition of the Church for guidance in interpreting scripture. So, the teaching series included looking at both the Old Testament and the New Testament to see what instruction they contained on the morality of abortion or the question as to when the life in the womb is a fully human, ensouled person. We saw that there is little or nothing in the Bible that directly addresses or answers those questions.

When we turned to the traditional teaching of the Church, we saw that from its beginning Christianity proclaimed a radically new valuing of all human beings of all sorts and conditions. This included a valuing of children that was more affirming of them as persons than had been common in the ancient world. With that was a clear rejection of infanticide, a common and accepted practice in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Christians treated abortion as similar to infanticide.

But we also saw that most Christian teachers through most of Christian history did not consider the life in the womb in the early parts of a pregnancy to be fully human. This was true in the teaching of most major theologians and Doctors of the Church. It was true in the on-the-ground practice of pastoral care of women who resorted to abortion. And the life of the mother took precedence if giving birth threatened her life. It was only a little over 150 years ago in 1869 that understanding was reversed in the Roman Catholic Church – mostly due to its teaching on the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Given all of this, I have suggested something consistent with the tradition and in line with the current teaching of the Church of England that “all life is God-given but that [fully ensouled human] life emerges only gradually as does our moral responsibility towards that life.” Though less clearly articulated, this seems to be the direction of the various resolutions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I made the case that this seems in keeping with Job 10:11-12 and Psalm 139:12-14. That understanding recognizes that the holy mystery of becoming fully human is a gradual process in the womb and that the pregnant woman is not merely a passive vessel of that process of becoming. The moral balance at first tilts toward the agency of the pregnant woman (usually along with the father) and gradually tilts to include the baby developing in her womb.

We looked at how this applies when looking at the biology of pregnancy and the development of an embryo – fetus – baby. Though this goes beyond what the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has said, I suggested that at around 20 weeks we can be fairly certain that the fetus has developed to the point that it makes sense to speak of it as having the capacity to be a fully ensouled human being. At that point, the rest of the community has more of a stake in its well-being such that it is reasonable for there to be more regulation of abortion beyond that point. In keeping with the teaching of the Church, the pregnant woman’s life still takes precedence if it becomes threatened. Though it was not my intention when I started the teaching, series this is similar to what the law was in Wisconsin before Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court.

I also made the case for moving beyond simply pitting the individual life in the womb against the individual life and choice of the pregnant woman. We are not simply individuals with competing rights. We are interdependent beings in communion with one another with mutual obligations. This is not just about the responsibility a woman (and the man with whom she has gotten pregnant or her partner) has toward the life in the womb. The wellbeing of mothers and children, born and unborn, is the responsibility of the community. There are things we as a community – whether in our churches, our states, or as a country – can do to address the reality of unwanted or difficult pregnancies, reduce the number of abortions, and reduce maternal mortality. This includes things like better sex education and the availability of birth control, insuring better prenatal and post-natal care, paid parental leave, subsidized daycare, etc.

It would seem possible to both advocate for safe, legal, and available abortion, at least in the first half of a pregnancy, and support efforts to reduce the frequency of abortion including advocating for policies that make it easier for women pursue other options. It would not be inconsistent to also advocate for restrictions on abortion in the second half of a pregnancy. In any event, shaming women is not the way of mercy.

Taking all this together, it appears that the Episcopal Church’s teaching is that abortion should be a legal and readily available option for women. But various resolutions passed by the General Convention also suggest that abortion is not necessarily morally neutral or that all abortions at whatever stage of pregnancy are morally equivalent. Some reasons for abortion are morally problematic, others less so. The stage of the fetus’ development is also morally significant. But problematic pregnancies are also a reality. Simply criminalizing abortion is not required by the Bible or the broad teaching of the Church’s tradition. Nor does it address the complexities of pregnancy and the reasons women resort to abortion. The Episcopal Church has sought to faithfully grapple with those complexities.

I commend Enriching Our Worship 5 Liturgies and Prayers Related to Childbearing, Childbirth, and Loss which contains liturgies, prayer for discernment, and confession authorized by General Convention regarding various aspects of pregnancy, including abortion.[2]

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[1] An Episcopal Bishop’s Teaching on Abortion, ‘An Odd Work of Grace’, Blogspot

(anoddworkofgrace.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-episcopal-churchs-statedposition).

[2] Enriching Our Worship 5 Liturgies and Prayers Related to Childbearing, Childbirth, and Loss

(chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.churchpublishing.org/siteassets/pdf/liturgies-and-prayers-related-to-childbearing/enrichingourworship5.pdf)

Previous:

Part 1: The Episcopal Church’s Stated Position on Childbirth and Abortion

Part 2: Context

Part 3: Old Testament

Part 4: New Testament

Part 5: Tradition

Part 6: Tradition, continued

Part 7: Back to the Bible

Part 8:  Wisdom and the Glorious Works of Nature

Part 9: Rights, Choice, Obligations, and Community

An Episcopal Bishop's Teaching on Abortion, Part 9: Rights, Choice, Obligations, and Community

Many of the questions surrounding the morality of abortion have to do with language about rights – the right to life, reproductive rights, the right to choose, the right to bodily autonomy, personal rights vs communal rights, etc.

Abortion is not the only issue about which we use the language of rights. There are also notions of the right to bear arms, the right to self-defense, the right to free speech, the right to private property, the right to marry whom we will, the right to work, the right to unionize, etc. More recently we have had debates about the right to wear or not wear a mask and the right to refuse to be vaccinated. The list goes on.

On the one hand, the idea of rights has undoubtably been liberating. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution was a welcome development in organizing political life and setting limits on government. The idea of individual rights has also been liberating for minorities, women, and others who have historically had the ability to exercise their gifts and pursue their dreams limited by laws or communal norms.

It is certainly the case that until very recently, women were accorded fewer rights than men and had their agency over their own lives constrained. Women were not “allowed” the right to vote until 1920 (though in many places it was much later for women of color). They were not assured of the right to open a bank account or have a credit card in their own name until 1974 and without a husband cosigning. Only in 1993 had the right to legal protection from marital rape in all fifty states. Women still do not always receive equal pay for equal work. And sexual harassment and assault, either publicly or domestically, is still all too common. The idea of personal rights is a powerful one and has often been the impetus for welcome change.

On the other hand, from a Christian perspective, no personal rights are straightforward or absolute. And some of the above might actually be suspect from a Christian perspective. If we look at the Bible, we can infer certain human rights, but the Scriptures are much less interested in our rights than it is with the will of God and our obligations to God and others.[1] In a society increasingly shaped by radical individualism, some have begun to point out the problems if the language of rights is all we have.

In the social ethic of individual rights, people claim their rights over and against other people’s in an argument that quickly leads into a trap. Are my rights more important than yours? Whose rights matter more: the person who wants to carry a gun or the person threatened by the proliferation of guns in our society? The person who says a hateful thing on social media or the person forced to listen to such speech without recourse? “When rights are taken to be the fundamental moral reality, we are encouraged to take an ultimately degrading perspective on society,” writes Esther Reed. “No real society can exist when its citizens’ only way of relating is in terms of noninterference. The language of ‘rights’ . . . encourages us to live as if we had no common interests or beliefs.[2]

From a Christian perspective we are not autonomous individuals with competing rights, but persons woven into a web of relationships. We do have common interests even with those with whom we might not have common beliefs. Our interests are bound up with one another and we are obligated to love and care for one another even when our immediate interests seem to be at odds. As Simone Weil wrote, “[There is a] "chain of eternal obligations that bind every human being to every other one."[3] And as Edith Stein wrote,

It is most peculiar how the very thing that causes us to be totally on our own―our freedom―at the same time chains us inseparably to all others and creates a true community of fate. We are responsible for the well-being of all others. and they for ours.[4]

This is all relevant to the conversation about abortion. At least in some of the more partisan rhetoric, things get reduced to the competing rights and interests of just two individuals – the pregnant person and the developing person in her womb. But then these are pitted against each other and there is a temptation to minimize the significance of one or the other of these individuals.

The partisan political rhetoric surrounding abortion does not capture the complexities on the ground. Many who identify as pro-life are not dismissive of the difficult choices faced by women and their loved ones when with a difficult pregnancy and seek to give them aid. Among those who identify as pro-life there are those who hold to a consistent ethic of life that seeks to defend all life. Among pro-choice advocates there is often a recognition of the significance of the life developing in the womb and the recognition that ending a pregnancy is no small matter. Women who have abortions do not do so casually and the reasons for doing so are complex and varied. Acknowledging the complexities does not settle the moral questions but does keep our hearts empathetic and merciful as we engage those questions.

If we are not simply autonomous individuals with competing rights we need to recognize that somehow we are all in this together. Thus, the developing life in the womb is not insignificant. But, especially in the early weeks and months of a pregnancy, that life, which even official Vatican documents acknowledge is only “probably” an ensouled person, does not necessarily outweigh the realities of the actual person in whose womb it is developing. Before that, we are talking about a potential human being. As such, it is still sacred and perhaps increasingly so. The burden of deciding to bear it is mainly that of the mother, ideally along with the father. Still, “. . . the ends of all members of a relationship must be carefully considered. A woman facing the decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy must include a sense of what she owes to those with whom she shares or will share her life with. [This includes the father], the unborn, existing young human beings, as well as other people including elderly dependent relatives.”[5]

The Episcopal Church’s teaching is that abortion should be a legal and readily available option for women. But various resolutions passed by the General Convention also suggest that even in the case of a developing embryo/fetus that is not yet a fully ensouled person, abortion is not necessarily morally neutral or that all abortions at whatever stage of pregnancy are morally equivalent. Some reasons for abortion are morally problematic, others less so. But that is different from whether or not it should be a legal and safe option.

As the fetus develops, and particularly after the 20^th week of pregnancy, the moral calculus shifts with the recognition that the fetus is now “formed” and has the capacity to be a fully ensouled human person. At this point, society as a whole has more of a stake in caring for the person in the womb as well as the woman bearing it and might enact legal restrictions on abortion as long as delivering the baby does not threaten the life or physical well-being of the mother. This 20 week distinction was actually the abortion statute in Wisconsin before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.[6] I recognize that this is at odds with the most recent resolution passed by the Episcopal Church’s General Convention which emphasizes autonomy and advocates for “no restrictions” on the timing of an abortion.[7] But I would argue that that is inconsistent with many other resolutions passed by General Convention.[8] And it is inconsistent with the Church’s historic teaching.

But the rest of the community’s stake in the life of the unborn is not limited to whether or when or what restrictions on abortion might be desirable. Because of our fundamental connectedness, the social and economic environment we create affects us all, not least women who get pregnant. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was otherwise opposed to abortion, pointed out that the rest of the community is implicated when a woman feels there are few viable alternatives to abortion.

A great many motives may lead to an action of this kind; indeed in cases where it is an act of despair, performed in circumstances of extreme human or economic destitution and misery, the guilt may often lie rather with the community than with the individual. Precisely in this connection money may conceal many a wanton deed, while the poor [person's] more reluctant lapse may far more easily be disclosed.[9]

Ours is a society content to tolerate an alarmingly high maternal mortality rate – far higher than any other industrialized nation.[10] There are no guarantees of prenatal or postnatal medical care. There is no guarantee of adequate maternity – let alone paternity – leave or affordable childcare. And there does not always seem to be the will to protect women from sexual harassment, assault, or rape including by partners and family members. Merely making abortion illegal and putting the burden on the woman is inadequate in such an environment. And then shaming women who resort to abortion regardless of the complex reasons that might lead them to choose abortion is unjust and unmerciful.

A critical flaw in the singular emphasis on autonomy and individual rights is that it reinforces a libertarian impulse by which everyone is promised noninterference, but everyone is also left to fend more or less for themselves. But Christians affirm that we are interdependent beings in communion with one another with mutual obligations. This is not just about the responsibility a woman (and the man with whom she has gotten pregnant) has toward the life in the womb. The wellbeing of mothers and children, born and unborn, are the responsibility of the community. There are things we as a community – whether in our churches, our states, or as a country – can do to address the reality of unwanted or difficult pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions. Including things like, better sex education and the availability of birth control, ensuring better prenatal and post-natal care, paid parental leave, subsidized daycare, etc. If we really believe we belong to one another and we truly care for women, couples, families and the life in the womb, we will create an environment of support and invest in that care.

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[1] John j Collins, What are Biblical Values?, (Yale University Press), pp. 40-44

[2] Jonathan C. Richardson, “The Language of Rights and It’s Limits”, The Christin Century, March 14, 2023

)https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/language-rights-and-its-limits)

[3] Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind

[4] Edith Stein, ‘World and Person’, quoted in An Edith Stein Daybook

[5] Susan Martinelli-Fernandez, ‘Abortion, Polyphonic narratives, and Kantianism’ from Interdisciplinary Views on Abortion, Martinelli-Fernandez, Baker-Sperry, McIlvaine-Newsad, ed. (McFarland & Company), p. 113-114

[6] Madeline Kasper, Jillian Slaight, Isaac J. Lee, A Brief History of Abortion Laws in Wisconsin (rev. ed.), p. 7

(chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lrb/lrb_reports/history_of_abortion_laws_6_4.pdf)

[7] Resolution 2022-D083: Addressing the erosion of reproductive rights and autonomy (https://2022.vbinder.net/resolutions/326?house=HD&lang=en)

[8] An Odd Work of Grace Blog, The Episcopal Church’s Stated Position on Childbirth and Abortion (https://anoddworkofgrace.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-episcopal-churchs-stated-position.html)

[9] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York; Macmillan, 1965) 175-6

[10] Jamila Taylor, ‘The Worsening U.S. Maternal Health Crisis in Three Graphs’, The Century Foundation (https://tcf.org/content/commentary/worsening-u-s-maternal-health-crisis-three-graphs/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1aOpBhCOARIsACXYv-e7Vf3C_uyO5KPt5GJyrZ5pdD6dEYg-8lVCC1A2fdookVsgS919c9YaAmW2EALw_wcB)

Next:

Part 10: Conclusion

Previous:

Part 1: The Episcopal Church’s Stated Position on Childbirth and Abortion

Part 2: Context

Part 3: Old Testament

Part 4: New Testament

Part 5: Tradition

Part 6: Tradition, continued

Part 7: Back to the Bible

Part 8:  Wisdom and the Glorious Works of Nature