Texas Governor Abbott is wrong to selectively quote Scripture to justify an un-Christian law

Maine Writer experience pre-Roe, ref. abortion.  

Texas Governor Abbott is wrong to sign an un-Christian abortion law!

Make no mistake about it, abortion is a very wrong minded response to a woman's reproductive health care.  In fact, women who have access to reproductive health care with effective birth control methods should be protected from a difficult decision about whether or not to have an abortion.  In my experience, before the years when Roe vs. Wade protected a woman's right to have an abortion, I worked as a student nurse in a metropolitan area where wealthy women had access to safe and legal abortions called "dilation and curettage", performed in sterile operating room suites.  At literally the same time, on the other side of the city, poor women often wound up in the city hospital's emergency room while bleeding following an unsafe archaic procedure performed by unqualified lay people. My experience working in this pre Roe vs. Wade environment is why I agree with this opinion essay, by Rev. Jennifer Butler is CEO of Faith in Public Life, published by HuffPost (The Huffington Post).

Don’t Be Fooled By Religious Arguments For Texas’ Abortion Law. In my opinion, it's Un-Christian!

“While anti-abortion lawmakers often cloak their positions in Christian faith, the #TexasTaliban S.B. 8 is theologically unsound.”

When I was a seminary student, training to become a pastor, I accompanied a loved one to a Planned Parenthood facility as she considered terminating her pregnancy. She chose not to get an abortion that day, but I was there for her either way. 

Carrying each other through difficult moments, while respecting each other’s moral autonomy, is at the heart of both friendship and faith.

Under Texas’ new S.B. 8 law, the options that the Planned Parenthood staffer compassionately laid out for my friend no longer exist. S.B. 8’s ban on abortion after six weeks functionally outlaws the vast majority of pregnancy terminations, even ! if the pregnancy results from rape or incest. 

Texas Republicans have wielded the bluntest of legal instruments on some of our most nuanced personal and ethical decisions.

Millions of Texas women and the people who support them, including health care providers and faith leaders, are living in fear and danger after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed Texas’ S.B. 8 to go into effect this week. S.B. 8 turns neighbor against neighbor by allowing any individual to sue anyone else whom they believe provided or assisted a patient with an abortion, and collect $10,000 for each successful claim. Under this law, my friend’s enraged partner, who tried to physically block us from leaving her home, could have bankrupted me.

When we reward anger and punish accompaniment, we ignore God’s condemnation of those who sow discord (Proverbs 6:19) and disregard the Gospel’s call to love our neighbor. 

While anti-abortion lawmakers often cloak their positions in Christian faith, S.B. 8 is theologically unsound.

The dangerous new reality created by S.B. 8 does not reflect the beliefs of everyday people who are conflicted about or even oppose abortion. I’ve held dialogues, publicly and privately, with Christians who hold a range of views about the morality and legality of abortion care. In a sometimes difficult search for ways to bridge divides, I’ve learned some important truths that illustrate why S.B. 8 fails to reflect the nuanced thinking that people across the spectrum bring to the issue.

We must approach abortion with nuance, rather than stark binaries. While Americans identify as “pro-choice” and “pro-life” in almost equal numbers, polls consistently show that fewer than 30% of Americans support overturning Roe v. Wade (a legal precedent that S.B. 8 flouts). Given the very personal impact of the issue and the wide range of theologies on it, it’s only natural that people hold complex beliefs and see shades of gray.

But human beings have much clearer feelings about hypocrisy. The contrast between S.B. 8 and Texas’ deadly COVID-19 policies shows a deep disconnect between “pro-life” rhetoric and “pro-life” policies. When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed S.B. 8, he said that “our Creator endowed us with a right to life.” (HELLO? Our Creator also endowed humans with "free will".)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott selectively uses Scripture to justify his un-Christian law!

But Abbott has unleashed unnecessary death by banning school districts statewide from protecting children’s lives with classroom mask mandates, and by forbidding businesses from requiring that patrons and employees be vaccinated to enter.(Nothing pro-life in this risk of death policy!)

The dissonance will only become sharper as hospital beds and mortuaries fill with COVID victims while court dockets proliferate with lawsuits against people sued for acts of friendship and compassion toward women seeking abortion care.