There are a swarm of accusations and denials about the quality of her motives, but finally her motives are not the issue. It was the act that got her in trouble, and that act was refusing to accept the advice of her physician about the way in which her child should be delivered.
I wonder how many of us were not at least vaguely troubled when we saw the mug shot of this beleaguered woman, exhausted, postpartum and still wearing her hospital gown.
And yet I’ll also plead guilty to being troubled when I read that nearly 900,000 abortions are performed in the United States every year. I try to be a Christian and for me the act of terminating a pregnancy is an act of devastating nihilism — an act that is a direct contradiction to faith, hope and love.
Yet so much of the current debate is dominated by ideologues. The “right to life” movement seems intent on investing the tenets of Christian faith with the force of constitutional prohibition and criminal law. Their hope is to compel others to conform to an imposed moral vision instead of each person’s own moral choice. This is something that I’m not prepared to do.
I will stand with my fellow Christians in whatever way I can and give voice to our common vision of a society that cherishes life. But for me the saddest chapters in the history of the church are those when it used the power of the state to enforce its belief on the unwilling and the unconvinced.
George Pence III
Whispering Pines
