Others are concerned that new anti-abortion legislation will not have adequate protections for mothers whose pregnancies are not viable and pose a threat to women’s lives, such as ectopic pregnancies—or that women who suffer miscarriages will be subject to criminal investigations, thereby turning a tragic life event into a traumatic legal encounter.
Depending on the state, those fears may be overblown. But not in every case. Thoughtful Christians must practice vigilance in the kinds of legislation they advocate for, lest in their effort to correct one injustice they open the floodgates of others.
The Moral Complexity of Related Matters of Justice
In response to the overturn of Roe and ensuing state trigger laws, some pro-choice advocates have argued that abortion bans do not reduce the number of abortions; they only reduce the number of safe and legal abortions. However, based on what we have seen in the months following Texas’ Heartbeat Law (regardless of how you feel about that particular piece of legislation), we can say that claim is verifiably untrue.
Abortion bans absolutely reduce the number of abortions. They just aren’t the only thing that does.
Nevertheless, the moral complexity of the situation is such that the elected officials most likely to enact legislation that will protect unborn life are also the elected officials that are most likely to oppose robust legislation that will redress the underlying issues that lead to increased abortion rates.
Those issues include a lack of affordable healthcare and paid family leave, housing insecurity, and food insecurity.
The reverse is also true. The elected officials who are most likely to advocate for unfettered access to abortion are also the most likely to create social programs that take a holistic approach to addressing poverty, access to healthcare, and income inequality—thereby actually decreasing abortion rates.
The trouble is that most Christians and pro-lifers have no issue viewing abortion as a systemic injustice that can be remedied with legislation but then refuse to believe that a constellation of other injustices—often rooted in systems of racial inequality enacted in decades and centuries past—are also systemic in nature and can likewise be remedied with legislation.
In other words, what pro-choice advocates see from their pro-life counterparts is a willingness to penalize and criminalize women in a desperate situation, alongside an equal measure of unwillingness to provide any kind of systemic solutions to their desperation. The thoughtful Christian must be able to recognize that such a posture is nothing short of draconian.
Some will argue that addressing these desperate concerns is not the job of the government but rather the job of the Church. And to be sure, the Church does much of its best work in these areas. For all the criticism Christians receive for being merely pro-birth rather than actually pro-life, they are the ones who are most likely to foster and adopt children, support local food banks, operate shelters for those experiencing homelessness, and come alongside young, expectant mothers through crisis pregnancy centers.
And yet these problems still persist on a societal scale.
We need not pit personal community involvement against robust legislation aimed at addressing societal woes. We should advocate for the latter without abandoning the former.
