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We could do thiswe could reach across the aisles, across the abortion rhetoric and say, ALL life has value as well as Some situations are tragic and need special consideration.

The abortion issue is multi-layered and complex.

Dear Thoughtful Pastor: For a long time, I have been bothered by the seemingly unshakable fidelity of Christian voters to the single issue of abortion. It seems to me that progressives need to find other ways to talk about abortion.

I know many persons who would vote for a more progressive agenda, but for this single issue: persons who love Jesus, and care about war, poverty, education, health care, and human rights, but who feel left out of the discussion.

Some of my friends have said, I can never vote for any candidate who supports abortion!

Specifically, many of these voters did not like Donald Trump or any of the other Republican candidates.

Yet, in the privacy of the voting booth, they voted for the GOP candidate because Republicans seem to be the only ones listening to their concerns.

Many may have voted against their best interests. However, rather than offering an alternative, progressives essentially disregarded these voters written them off, as though they count for nothing.

I have no answers. Just questions. But, questions I feel need to be addressed.

Personally, I think you are right: For many Christians, this became a one-issue election: vote for someone, no matter how morally compromised or otherwise unqualified, who promises to appoint a conservative Supreme Court justice. Do that and righteousness will prevail.

Voters expect that any new Supreme Court Justice appointed will rule favorably on any case that overturns the current legalization of abortion in all states.

For much of the religiously-affiliated population, every other issue, including jeopardizing health care, became far less important than protecting the unborn.

Progressives wrongly ignored this moral mandate.

Clearly, we have difficulties discussing abortion. People quickly turn to epithets (anti-womens rights or baby-killers) rather than seeing the extraordinary complexities of some pregnancies.

Unfortunately, an absolute no abortion rule de-personalizes females. Women become only a vessel, required to carry to term the product of some mans violent need to prove his manhood or some fathers perverse need to impregnate his daughter.

The impregnated womans mental and physical health issues carry no weight.

There is no love of human life in such draconian restrictions.

But a no questions asked abortion policy leads to a cheapening of human intimacy and respect for all human life. It reduces the sexual act, intended to both express love and produce life, to little more than raw biology.

A fetus becomes human upon the first breath. Its a magical moment, this miracle of separation. Because of superb neonatal medicine, the point at which that separation can successfully take place is now far earlier in pregnancies. The moral dilemma is real.

Unfortunately, abortion and infanticide have been part of human tragedy from our earliest days. Such decisions are nearly always driven by desperation.

Unfortunately, abortion and infanticide have been part of human tragedy from our earliest days. Such decisions are nearly always driven by desperation.

Finances, lack of support by the other party to the pregnancy, and our utterly inadequate educational/daycare infrastructure for parents of small children may drive the desperate decision to abort.

Statistics make one thing clear: If we want a radical reduction in the number of actual abortion procedures, we need to provide two things.

First, abundant and affordable access to reliable birth control.

Second, ready availability of safe, confidential and legal abortion providers. The best bet right now is Planned Parenthood. Defund this, and illegal abortions will go through the ceiling, endangering everyone.

The first prevents unwanted pregnancies. The second protects against debilitating fear. They work together.

First, demolish the shame.

Second, acknowledge that women are people deserving of full respect and ownership of their bodies.

Third, start sex education early and make it honest: abstinence only programs have a dismal track record of lowering the teen pregnancy rate.

Fourth, offer the resources for top-class child care for all.

Fifth, give emotional support to pregnant women and make the relinquishing of a child for adoption an honorable and praised position.

Do all these in concert and the need to terminate pregnancies except for the most horrifying of situations will sink like a massive stone heaved overboard in a stormy ocean.

We could do thiswe could reach across the aisles, across the divides and across the rhetoric and say, ALL life has value as well as Some situations are tragic and need special consideration.

Those two statements need to get married in a formal ceremony.

The all-or-nothing factions, Absolutely no abortion ever and Any abortion any time, make the most noise and have the least numerical support. The majority of people in the US understand abortion procedures need to be legal but exceedingly rare.

Abortion as a routine means of birth control or population control demeans us all. To the Progressives shame, they didnt get this. Even worse, maybe too many dont believe it.

If the US is going to insist it has a moral foundation, it needs to do a much better job of caring for its vulnerable. That vulnerable population very much includes women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy.

They, along with the unborn, are deserving of life.

[Note: A version of this column is slated to run in the March 31, 2017, edition of the Denton Record-Chronicle. The Thoughtful Pastor, AKA Christy Thomas, welcomes all questions for the column. Although the questioner will not be identified, I do need a name and verifiable contact information in case the newspaper editor has need of it. You may use this link to email questions.]

Original post:
Help! Why can't progressives get the obsession with abortion? - Patheos (blog)