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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Olson on abortion


Arminian theologian Roger Olson, that oracle of moral wisdom, has done a post on abortion:


Over the years I’ve had many conversations with “pro-life” activists. When they equate all abortions with murder and advocate banning all abortions I routinely ask them “What about an ectopic pregnancy?” I have never encountered a “pro-life” activist who even knew what I was talking about or acknowledged it as a legitimate question.

Since I assume most "activists" are laymen (or women), who are busy working a full-time job and/or raising kids, why would we expect them to have a sophisticated position on abortion? Should we not commend their instinctive love of babies and instinctive revulsion at abortion? Which is more praiseworthy: an activist in the trenches or a critic in an air-conditioned office taking potshots at the activist? 

So here are some questions I would like to pose to what I consider extremists on both sides of the abortion debate:
2) If you believe a fetus is a human person with the “right to life” in the sense you mean it, why don’t you hold a funeral after a miscarriage?Sure, some do, but that’s a recent response to this question on the part of some “pro-life” activists. But I have never heard of anyone holding a funeral for a miscarried embryo.

i) As usual, this is Olson shooting from the hip. He cites no statistical data.

ii) Assuming that funerals for miscarried babies are a "recent response," that might be due in part to the fact that in the age of ultrasound, parents have a chance to preview the baby. So they can bond with the unborn child.

In the past, only the mother could feel the baby in the womb–assuming gestation was that far along. Most of the emotional bonding took place between mother and child. It was a very private experience. 

iii) In the past, I don't know if miscarriage was treated separately from infant mortality in general. There may have been no special ceremony for miscarried babies, because that was already covered by funeral ceremonies for those who died in infancy. That's a rather specialized church historical question. It may also depend on how far along the pregnancy was. 

iv) Funerals are normally attended by friends and relatives of the decedent. Ideally, the pastor knew the decedent, and can weave some personal anecdotes into the eulogy or sermon. Sometimes friends and relatives are invited to share personal anecdotes. Obviously, the situation is very different for a miscarried baby. 

v) I think it would be good for the church to have ceremonies in case of miscarriage. 

vi) Since Olson is attacking "extremists" on both sides of the issue, he evidently thinks that viewing "a fetus as a human person with the 'right to life' in the sense that prolife activists mean it" is an extremist position. So what is his own position on the status of the "fetus"?  

5) If you believe that a human embryo/fetus is a full human life for religious reasons (which most “pro-life” activists do), worthy of the full protection of law from conception on (which most “pro-life” activists do), how do you deal with the fact that the Bible says little to nothing about abortion?Under Hebrew law as revealed in the Pentateuch, for example, a man who attacks a pregnant woman and causes her to abort is not guilty of murder. There were methods of abortion in “biblical times,” so how do you deal with the fact that nowhere in the Bible is abortion specifically condemned as murder?

i) Who has Roger Olson actually studied on the subject? Take two counterexamples:



ii) The Bible has no prohibition against suicide. Does that mean men, women, and teenagers who commit suicide are subhuman? 

Likewise, the Bible has no specific prohibition against child murder. Does that mean a 5-year-old is subhuman?

iii) How common was induced abortion in the ANE? One of the technical challenges of induced abortion is how to harm the baby without harming the mother. Modern medical technology has made abortion safer for the mother, yet even then it isn't risk-free. But in the absence of medical technology, I imagine that inducing an abortion would be very dangerous to the mother. Isn't that why the usual "method" of dealing with unwanted children was to wait until they were born, then expose them? 

It seems to me that many, perhaps most, of the most vocal “pro-life” activists fail to realize, fail to take into account, that many pregnant women seek abortions to save their own lives or health. (I have known women who underwent abortions extremely reluctantly only when advised by a doctor that if they attempted to carry the pregnancy to full term their health could forever be destroyed. There are some complications of pregnancy that make the woman so ill that getting through the nine months would very possibly be so deleterious to her physical well being as to shorten her own life or cause her to be disabled in some way.)

i) Olson offers no statistical data regarding the percentage of therapeutic abortions. Also, keep in mind that abortion proponents have a rubbery definition of the mother's "health"–which artificially inflates the figures.  

ii) If a mother undergoes an abortion to avoid dangerous medical complications, I'd expect that to be performed at a hospital rather than an abortion clinic. Once again, does Olson have any statistical data on that?

Everyone wants especially a Christian ethicist to have an absolute answer to the complex issue of abortion—to be either absolutely “pro-life” (anti-all-abortions) or absolutely “pro-choice” (for every woman’s right always and under any circumstances to obtain an abortion for any reason). In my opinion, good ethicists, including Christian ethicists, are loath to offer simplistic solutions to complex issues. There is no simplistic solution to this complex issue. There is, however, room for compromise between the sides; that middle ground is, unfortunately, too little explored and discussed. What I think that middle ground might include is for another post—when I’ve worked it out in my own mind more consistently and thoroughly.

It's not as if Olson has given us a carefully reasoned analysis of the issue. His post is slipshod. 

By "compromise" or "middle ground," he apparently means a position that avoids the "extremes" he just cited. 

3 comments:

  1. "Which is more praiseworthy: an activist in the trenches or a critic in an air-conditioned office taking potshots at the activist?"

    The more important question is this: Does both the activist and the critic have the oversight and permission of their local church elders to do what they are doing in the public square?

    If not, then they are violating the ecclesiology that Frank Turk and Ed Dingess have said is necessary.

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  2. Olson is even beyond parody now.

    I wonder how long SEA will continue to publish his stuff. My prediction: anti-Calvinist writing trumps all else.

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  3. Olson sounds stupider than those who he implies that are stupid that he's talking to.

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