The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision did not end the controversy over whether abortion could and should be restricted. Now, the fundamental right in Roe v. Wade has evaporated. The regulation of abortions was returned to the states. Those regulatory decisions are finding their way through state legislatures and state courts.
Of particular interest is whether religious freedom could void such restrictions on abortion. An individual might claim an exception based on their sincere belief and how it affects their religious practice; others might claim that the ban emerges from one religious framework which offends the Constitution’s antipathy to establishing a single religion.
Putting aside those legal debates, where am I on policies toward abortion?
I find myself with the majority of those polled. We agree that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, legal in the first three months, opposed to it in the last three months, and that it is morally acceptable. It is worth noting that there have been over 600,000 abortions for the past several decades with over 90% in the first trimester. And, the partisan divide on restrictions to abortion continues.
Being in the majority does not mean that I, nor others, are not bothered with those righteous stances that claim to be holier than thou or I know better than you. Without virtue signaling, consider the following issues: when does life begin; what ideas of fetal personhood add significance to human life?
When Does Life Begin?
We can pick different points of time to decide when human life begins: the moment of conception when the egg and sperm become a zygote; when uterus has an implanted embryo; when the fetus has a heartbeat (about six weeks later); when the baby is born. All of these project different meanings for pro-choice and pro-life advocacy groups.
Pro-life groups pick the earlier moments in the life cycle. That conforms with an objective biological perspective. Of course, the development of the fetus occurs over nine-months, or three trimesters. The pro-choice groups give priority to the mother and give far less weight to an unborn fetus.
The complexity of human development is both wondrous and seemingly divine, but fraught with medical and environmental stress. That is where modern technology permits moving the fetal to human concept earlier and earlier. The question is whether the rights imagined for these two humans, mother and unborn child, should adapt to this evolving technology. For some, the unborn fetus is untethered in the moral chain of being until birth. For others, conception is divine and the start point for human morality.
I recommend that you go to WebMD to see a month-by-month visualization of fetal development. Ask what moves you to thinking about a human being.
Considering Fetal Personhood
In the debate over abortion, and in other contexts seen as reproductive rights and reproductive justice, how might we understand the unborn child or unborn fetus.
When I attended a rock concert with my wife, she had me feel her abdomen and our unborn son dancing away to the music. Just our projection about his enjoyment of the music? Or a physiological response to noise in the environment? Both make sense in our different ways of understanding the world around us.
Here are two ways of looking at the unborn in the larger context of society. Religious views, of course, vary widely.
However, I would like to consider two that weigh the importance of the mother and the unborn in opposing ways. The first is a statement from my own religious community — one that is shared in part or in full by other religious communities as well, Christian, Muslim, and others.
Jewish experience tells us that our reproductive freedoms are integrally bound to our
religious liberty. At the core of the Jewish tradition is the affirmation of the sanctity of
life. Further, the tradition recognizes that life does not begin at conception and the
wellbeing (spiritual, emotional, and physical) of the parent takes precedence over an
unborn fetus.
That view stands in stark contrast to Rebekah’s struggle, described in Genesis 25, in her pregnancy with Jacob and Esau. In this narrative, divine purpose gives meaning to Rebekah’s struggle and the future of her children — and the future of Judaism and Christianity.
And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord.
And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
Genesis 25
Imagine if we took the current discussion of religious freedom and reimagined Rebekah thinking that her wellbeing allowed her to take precedence over these unborn fetuses by aborting them. What irony! The very modern freedom, looping back in time, would crumble the very religious structure anchored in divine prophecy. There would only be a barren secularism.
Technology may be the ultimate guide to such questions as well as the explanation for the majority view in polls. Fetal viability is the point at which abortions should be avoided; fetal viability should also forestall late term abortions as unnecessary. This is a minimalist solution to the partisan divide and perhaps the only satisfactory solution to contentious ideas in a pluralist democracy.
Joe Nalven is a former associate director of the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias at San Diego State University.
