via Patheos:
By Eric Scot English
Evangelicals have been deceived but do they know that? For many years I wondered why conservative evangelicals call themselves pro-life when many of them don’t seem to really care about the sanctity of life. I mean they might care for an unborn child, but they certainly don’t extend that same passion towards caring for the mother or the type of “life” the child will have once they are born.
The voting habits of conservative evangelicals are illuminating – and confusing. Conservative evangelicals continually demonstrate the incongruity of their argument for the sanctity of life as they frequently oppose legislation that is undoubtedly pro-life. In fact, in my article, The Only Way To Be Pro-Life Is To Be Pro-Choice I argued that the most life is preserved not through forcing a woman to carry a child to term, but by allowing that woman to provide a “life” for that child. My argument is that there is more to life than mere existence. And just because you allow a child to exist does not necessitate they will also have a life.
But going beyond the definition of what “life” means. There are other less intellectual ways that one can be pro-life. Pro-life means stuff like supporting legislation that will make it easier for people in low-income neighborhoods to afford food, clothing, and education for their children. It means providing meaningful access to health care. It means providing a path to citizenship that doesn’t entail children being held in cages and parents having to wait 10 years to become a citizen. It means understanding that you cannot discriminate against another person just because of their skin color or ethnicity or religion. I mean these are all pro-life issues, are they not?
Evangelicals Did Not Care About Abortion Until They Were Told To
I have begun writing a new book. In that book, I have a chapter where I explore modern evangelicalism’s history on the issue of abortion. Since so many evangelicals and fundamentalists have distorted history my goal was to separate fact from fiction. What I found was not only illuminating but also disturbing.
To put it bluntly, evangelicals did not care about the issue of abortion until they were told to. For example, in 1972, just months before Roe v. Wade Gallup conducted a poll that showed 68% of Republicans and only 59% of Democrats agreed with the following statement, “The decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician.” Years of public debate served as the context for this poll. The issue had been thoroughly vetted by the public and this was how they felt.
This is further demonstrated by the Protestant Affirmation on the Control of Human Reproduction by the Christian Medical Society that convened in 1968 to discuss the issue of abortion. In this, they state “Whether or not the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”
Believe it or not, even the Southern Baptist Convention put out a statement in 1971 condoning abortion under certain circumstances “…to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” This position was reaffirmed in 1974 and 1976. Today their statement on abortion reads differently “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.” Notice the word “all”.