Toward a Consistent Ethic of Life in Peace Tradition Perspective

A Critical-Constructive Response to the MC USA Statement on Abortion*

by Darrin W. Belousek

Posted on the web with permission of the Mennonite Quarterly Review, which published a revised version of this article in its October 2005 issue.

1. Introduction

This paper responds critically to several issues raised, implicitly and explicitly, in the Mennonite Church (MC) USA Statement on Abortion passed at the Atlanta 2003 church assembly and works constructively toward a ‘consistent ethic of life’ from a peace tradition perspective.[1] The overarching aim is to help Mennonites, as well as other peace church tradition and nonviolence-minded Christians, to think clearly and consistently about abortion in connection to other life and peace issues, especially capital punishment and war.  In this, my desire is to help equip the church for fulfilling the mission to which the MC USA Statement calls us (158-160): “We will promote consistency in favor of human life along the entire spectrum of human existence.  We stand in opposition to sacrifice of life in the womb, in the death chamber and through war in all its forms.”[2] While this call to a consistent ethic of life points the church in the right direction, and although there is much of value in the MC USA Statement, there are a number of instances of ambiguity and inconsistency that must be addressed.

This matter of a consistent ethic is significant, I think, for three reasons.  First, on the historical front, the early church writers promoted a consistent ethic.  Michael Gorman writes:[3]

the love which obliterated distinctions between adult and child, guilty and innocent, friend and enemy also demolished the distinction between born and unborn.  Christ’s life and teachings raised the fetus to the status of neighbor.  Abortion manifested violence and injustice to that neighbor and thus became an example of bloodshed…Those who refused to kill in war refused to kill in the womb, and vice versa…The unborn child is a human life, a neighbor.  Violence against the fetus, therefore, is violence against one’s neighbor…In this earliest period, Christians were unable to separate abortion from violence in general…The earliest Christian ethic, from Jesus to Constantine, can be described as a consistent pro-life ethic.  It was in favor of human life regardless of age, nationality or social standing.  It pleaded for the poor, the weak, women, children, and the unborn.  This pro-life ethic discarded hate in favor of love, war in favor of peace, oppression in favor of justice, bloodshed in favor of life.  The Christian’s response to abortion was one important aspect of this consistent pro-life ethic.  Rooted in Jewish love for life and hatred of bloodshed, it developed a specific Christian character as part of early Christian holistic discipleship.

Second, on the missional front, peace witness as a sign to the world of God’s kingdom is significantly compromised in its integrity and credibility without a concomitant consistent witness for life.  Third, on the ecumenical front, I have found in my own grassroots work with Catholics on both capital punishment and war that peace church theology would be far more convincing were it linked integrally to a consistent ethic of life.  Proclaiming a peace theology that papers over inconsistencies in witness for life is not an ecumenically viable peace witness.[4]

Within this vision, the specific aim of this paper needs to be circumscribed.  In the peace tradition, emphasis is placed upon moral discernment within the faith community.  Regarding this, it seems appropriate to recall here the wise counsel of Marlin Miller on two points.  First:[5]

Making operational an Anabaptist emphasis on the church as the discerning community will also mean correcting a current Mennonite tendency to reduce moral community to a process of conversation.  Particularly with reference to complex issues such as bioethical dilemmas, the temptation is to remain endlessly in process without adopting substantive community standards…If we take seriously an Anabaptist perspective on community and moral discernment, we need both the community process and Christian moral norms and standards.  We need to care for and clarify the language and concepts through which we perceive reality and make moral judgments, as well as to provide a context of compassion and personal support for people facing—or suffering from—difficult decisions.

Much attention has already been given to “community process.”[6] While the practical task of providing “a context of compassion and personal support for people facing—or suffering from—difficult decisions” is no less important, my intent is to take up only the indispensable task of articulating and clarifying “Christian moral norms and standards.”  Second: “The beginning of life is surely distinguishable from many other questions, but it is not an isolated issue for moral judgment.  We need to see it in the context of a broader commitment to the care of life as it is given and preserved by God.” [7] Thus, rather than deal with abortion comprehensively or systematically, I will emphasize bringing moral discernment on abortion into coherence with the peace tradition perspective on capital punishment and war.  Following Yoder’s description of “The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood,” this contribution to a peace tradition conversation on a consistent ethic of life and peace witness is primarily that of the didaskolos (i.e., philosopher)— further contributions of prophets, scribes, moderators, and other didaskoloi are necessary.[8]

2. Where to begin?

The viewpoint taken here is that a yet-to-be-born human life (“fetus”) is a human being/person in the theologically and ethically relevant senses: every human life—regardless of stage of development, state of in/dependence, or condition of health and ability—is to be regarded as created in and bearing the image of God and, as such, deserving of equal respect.[9] Thus, I do not begin with the philosophical and scientific debates concerning both the definition of when “life” begins or what is a “human being” as well as over the criteria for a human being to count as a “person,” both of which I take to be theologically and ethically beside the point.[10]

The first debate seizes upon the wrong question: When does life begin? or Who/what is a human being?  The MC USA Statement claims that “the fetus in its earliest stages…shares humanity with those who conceived it” (21-22), but it cannot quite bring itself to acknowledge the “fetus” as fully human: “We understand that the fetus is not just a piece of tissue…On the other hand, neither is the fetus treated as a human/person in the full sense of that term” (82-83, original emphasis).   Such a claim prompts several questions: If the fetus is not fully human, then is it partially non-human?  If so, what other-than-human would it be?  How could a life “share humanity” with its progenitors and be “less-than-human” at the same time?  And just when can a life claim to be “fully human”?  If nascent, dependent human life in its early stages of development is less-than-fully-human, then might aged, dependent human life in its late stages of decline slip back into the less-than-fully-human category?  Yet, the Statement goes on to simply stipulate that “human life begins at conception” and that “any attempt to define the beginning of humanness at a point along the spectrum of development is a mistake” (83-85).   But, if so, why then deny yet-to-be-born human life less-than-full humanity in the first place?[11]

Such awkward semantics and incoherent hedging follows from asking the wrong question.  Consider the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  The lawyer’s initial question concerns what is required to inherit eternal life.  The lawyer recites (correctly) the two chief covenant commandments—love God, love your neighbor—but then (“to justify himself”) asks, “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer here seeks to qualify his covenant obligation, to circumscribe the category of persons (“neighbor”) whom he is to love as he would be loved, in order to be able to declare himself as having fulfilled the law (i.e., righteous or justified).  The parable Jesus tells effectively changes the question: What does it mean to be or make oneself a neighbor—to “prove neighbor”—to others?[12] Richard Hays says it well:[13]

The point is not that the unborn child is by definition a “neighbor.”  Rather, the point is that we are called upon to become neighbors to those who are helpless, going beyond conventional conceptions of duty to provide life-sustaining aid to those whom we might not have regarded as worthy of our compassion.  Such a standard would apply both to the mother in a “crisis pregnancy” and to her unborn child.  When we ask, ‘Is the fetus a person?’ we are asking the same sort of limiting, self-justifying question that the lawyer asked Jesus: ‘Who is my neighbor?’  Jesus, by answering the lawyer’s question with this parable, rejects casuistic attempts to circumscribe our moral concern by defining the other as belonging to a category outside the scope of our obligation.  To define the unborn child as a nonperson is to narrow the scope of moral concern, whereas Jesus calls upon us to widen it by showing mercy and actively intervening on behalf of the helpless.

Thus, concerning abortion, the appropriate question is not, Does the fetus belong to the carefully defined category of full-fledged human beings/persons whose life I must respect as my own life?  Rather, we should ask, What does it mean to respect—i.e., to care for and protect—human life, however we find it?[14] That is, instead of asking whether the unborn are our “neighbors,” we should ask, Whatdoes “proving neighbor” to the unborn require of us?

The second debate situates moral judgment precariously upon a “slippery slope.”  Philosophers often define ‘personhood’ in terms of autonomy—i.e., the capacities to evaluate options and direct one’s life along a preferred path—which carries implications of higher cognitive functioning (“rationality”) as well as self-consciousness of having choices (“freedom”).[15] A distinction between the “human being” and the “human person,” however carefully drawn, can be used to justify the killing of those lacking the requisite capacities across a wide spectrum, including abortion, infanticide and euthanasia.  Ethicist Sissela Bok writes:[16]

And herein lies by far the most important reason for abandoning such efforts [to define ‘humanity’ to draw distinctions]: the monumental misuse of the concept of ‘humanity’ in so many practices of discrimination and atrocity throughout history…Even when entered upon with the best of intentions, and in the most guarded manner, the enterprise of basing the protection of human life upon such criteria [of ‘personhood’] is dangerous.  To question someone’s humanity or personhood is a first step to mistreatment and killing.

When coupled with utilitarianism, according to which “the end justifies the means,” the distinction between the human being and the person motivates eugenic killing for “social health” and ultimately yields the conclusion that no moral reason at all is necessary to justify the killing of human beings in certain classes of “non-persons” (e.g., those with severe, permanent developmental disabilities or suffering severe, irreversible cognitive impairment).[17] On this point, the MC USA Statement takes a stronger stand (93-95).  From a biblical-theological perspective, “personhood” is irrelevant.  Richard Hays writes: “Whether we accord ‘personhood’ to the unborn child or not, he or she is a manifestation of new life that has come from God.”[18]

Some will not be convinced by such a choice of starting point. Why begin here?  Doesn’t this just beg the question?  Isn’t it the case that whether or not the “fetus” is “human life” is “the question at the center of the abortion debate”?[19] This is true enough of the secular debate framed by Roe v Wade.  For the church, however, that is an inappropriate starting point.  As Richard Hays puts it, “It is inappropriate to approach the issue of abortion by asking, “When does human life begin?” or “Is the fetus a ‘person’?”  Such questions are unanswerable, both from a scientific point of view and from the biblical evidence.  There is no basis in Scripture for answering—or indeed even asking—such questions.”[20] To put it another way, it is the biblical, not the philosophical or biological, description of human life that is primary for Christian ethics.  The proper beginning point for Christian theological-ethical reflection on human life, I suggest, is the biblical beginning point—creation of the human being in the image of God.

Still, some will ask, does this not beg the question of whether or not the fetus (or embryo or zygote) bears the image of God?  Why should we suppose that human life at its earliest stages of development bears the image of God when it bears little if any likeness to us and we cannot be certain that it will actually develop normally to become one of us?  This misunderstands “image of God.” Bearing the image of God is not a function of morphological likeness to normal adult human beings any more than morphological likeness to God (whatever that would mean).  “Image of God” refers (inter alia) to “God’s sovereign claim,” the “Creator’s prerogative” over each human being: each exists not only for oneself or for others, but ultimately for God.[21] That we are created in the image of God implies that we are to view each other through the image of God, that we are to imagine the other as God sees her rather than as she is regarded from a merely human point of view (whether from a philosophical or scientific perspective).[22] That we each bear the image of God entails, not that we manifest a characteristic appearance, but rather that in our being we re-present God’s prerogative.  And, I contend, the unborn child re-presents to us God’s sovereign prerogative over life just as much as does a full-grown adult human being.

But, does fetal life re-present the prerogative of God?  Biology and politics are both founded upon identifying the other as belonging to a certain category according to standard criteria, whether genus/species or nationality.  The origin of ethics is that, when the other appears to my gaze, I “see” an epiphany of Christ and “hear” in my heart the revelation of God’s will, “Love thy neighbor.” Ethics is thus founded upon “seeing” the other as “speaking” an invocation (“Have mercy”) and supplication (“Help me”) antecedent to my asking the self-justifying, obligation-limiting question, “Who is my neighbor?”[23] Prior to asserting my “freedom” or “right” before the other, prior to determining the “nature” of the other—prior to social contract or scientific investigation, the other in her very beingalready addresses me with a word to which I am responsible before God: the “face”—the “proximate presence” or “naked vulnerability”—of the other is a summons to solidarity, a call to commitment, a disclosure of obligation that puts my freedom into question.[24] Before I can retreat from a concrete situation into a reflective stance from which to deliberate, this life has already made its “appearance” and “announced” itself to me with divine imperative: “Thou shalt not kill.”[25] To withdraw into self-justifying skepticism (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”) would be to evade commitment, to abandon responsibility.  Indeed, it is only by committing myself to the other as neighbor and taking responsibility for the other’s evident needs that I can recognize this one as a moral peer.

Recall the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  The beaten and bloodied body of the stranger lying crumpled beside the road does not first show itself to the passer-by as an ontological mystery (“What sort of creature might this be?”) or an epistemological problem (“Does the evidence support the hypothesis that this one needs care and protection?”), but rather in its vulnerable presence “proclaims” a divine imperative: “Have mercy.  Help me.”  To withdraw from the stranger to a critical distance and ask, “Why should I help you?  What claim have you on my mercy?  What makes your life deserving of respect?” is to evade commitment, to abandon responsibility.[26] In passing by on the other side of the road, the priest and the Levite, entrusted keepers of the law, show that they themselves do not know the law; and they do not know the law precisely because they refuse to “hear” the law being “proclaimed” in the “ears of their heart” by this very stranger lying helpless beside the road.  One knows the law by loving the neighbor in response to the neighbor’s plea; by not owning this neighbor and his needs, they disown the law and so break covenant with God.  The Samaritan traveler hears the stranger’s plea and answers the call with committed action that takes responsibility for his needs, thereby demonstrating that he (a Samaritan!) knows the law in his heart and enjoys friendship with God: “…when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him…” (Luke 10:33-34).  Jesus said to the lawyer: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).[27] So also, I would say, with mothers and their children.  The vulnerable presence of a mother gently sheltering her child in the safe enclosure of her nurturing womb, no less than the mother tenderly cradling her child in the loving embrace of her strong arms “speaks” a call to hospitality, a plea for compassion before we can pass judgment (“And who is the father?”).  And one could say just as well: the vulnerable presence a child sheltered in the enclosure of its mother’s womb, no less than the child cradled in the embrace of its mother’s arms, “speaks” a call to hospitality, a plea for compassion antecedent to any attempt at self-justification (“Is this one my neighbor?”) or withdrawal into skepticism (“But is it human?”).   It is only by being committed to women and their unborn children as neighbor and taking responsibilityfor them (i.e., claiming them as “our own”) that we recognize these “others” as “images of God” (i.e., as “God’s own”) and know in our hearts the divine imperative which their vulnerable presence among us speaks, “Love thy neighbor. Thou shalt not kill.”[28]

To begin with such questions as “When does life begin?” or “Is the fetus a person?” or “Does the fetus bear the image of God?” is to place epistemology and ontology before ethics.  The Parable of the Good Samaritan effects a reversal—the ethical (“proving neighbor”) is prior to the epistemological and ontological (“Who is my neighbor?”), relationship with the other is prior to knowledge claims and categorical distinctions.  In order to truly recognize the other for who and what she really is (viz. a bearer of God’s image), and in order to truly know what it means to be merciful as God is merciful, I must first commit myself to her as neighbor: I can know that the other presents to me a “face,” that the other is one who bears “the image of God,” only by binding my destiny to the other through Christ-like vulnerable solidarity (“I bind my heart this tide…”).[29] To be neighbor—prior to asserting rights, calculating obligation, or judging the other to be “another like us”—is to identifyoneself with the other in her vulnerability and thereby to see the other as epiphany, to bind oneself to Christ-suffering-in-the-other.

But, is that proof?  Our place within the moral community cannot be secured by argument on the basis of premises and evidence. In truth, no one could ever earn moral standing before the judgment of others by way of convincing proofs, other than to say, “I am a human being, created in God’s image.”  Membership in the moral community is neither a product of biological development nor the conclusion of a philosophical argument nor the outcome of a political process.  Rather, moral standing, the same as life itself, is originally a gift of God: to be given life is to be placed by God alongside others within the moral community.  Not one of us has any moral ground upon which to take our stand within the community and stake our claim as equal members other than this—that we exist by the divine gifting that is life.  All of our “rights” are premised upon grace; we may lay claim to only the life that God gives.  And the justification we cannot supply for ourselves, we cannot reasonably or rightly demand of others; to do otherwise is to presume we have merited what God has granted.  We live by gift, not by what we earn; and not one of us can earn equal membership in the moral community any more than can the unborn.

For those who remain skeptical, who require scientific evidence or Scriptural “proof-texts” or philosophical arguments that the embryonic or fetal life is in fact a human being before they would recognize nascent human life as having moral standing in its own right, I offer the following consideration.  If we are honestly uncertain about the status of the fetus, then because it is human life that is potentially at stake, does not prudence teach us that in our ignorance we ought to approach the fetus with extreme caution?  That is, because each human being/person is of incomparable value, if we areuncertain that the fetus is not a human life, then prudence counsels that it would be far better to cautiously protect the fetal life as if it were a human being/person than to permit its destruction out of ignorance.[30] Uncertainty, then, should motivate building a “fence of protection” around even “potential” human life.

3. Torah and abortion

While there are no clear biblical precedents one can cite on the question of abortion (unlike the questions of war and capital punishment), Exodus 21:22-25 is sometimes cited as precedent for valuing the life of the yet-to-be-born less than the life of the already-born, such that abortion might be justified in some cases (e.g., where the mother’s life is endangered).  Thus the MC USA Statement: “A biblical passage that indirectly speaks to the status of the fetus (Exodus 21:22-25) seems to place a higher value on the life of the mother than the fetus” (75-77).  This citation is off the mark; for the biblical passage referred to is irrelevant to the question of abortion.[31] Exodus 21:12-32 is the section of the Covenant Code dealing with crimes against human beings, including homicide, injury, kidnapping, and other potentially capital offenses.  The overall aim is not to articulate axiomatic statements about the value of life, but rather to lay out a workable moral-legal casuistry in order to distinguish cases for the sake of assessing penalties (vv. 12-14; cf. Numbers 35:9-34; Deuteronomy 17:8).  This casuistry makes two basic distinctions: human-caused v. animal-caused injury/death, and intentional v. unintentional human acts.  Rather than assessing the comparative value of victims, the purpose is to judge degrees of culpability of offenders—“the one responsible”—and assign a fitting penalty, whether according to the lex talionis or another standard “as the judges determine” (v. 22).  The specific passage cited (vv. 22-25) concerns a case of death to the unborn child and possible injury to the mother caused unintentionally by human agency; thus the question at stake is the appropriate amount of restitution, taking into account the extent of injury/death inflicted.  The precedent cited clearly concerns a case of indirectly and accidentally caused injury/death.  Any inference that abortion, which is clearly a case of directly intended taking of life, might be justified on the basis of such a case would be strictly non sequitur, for it would plainly ignore the crucially relevant distinction at work (viz., intent).  Thus, there can be no legitimate reasoning from one case to the other, as the MC USA Statement would suggest; for they are substantially distinct cases according to the logic of the relevant moral-legal casuistry.

Rabbinical tradition interprets this passage otherwise.  Because the lex talionis is not applied to the death of the unborn child, traditional rabbinical interpretation draws the inference that a fetus is not considered a fully living person; hence, abortion is not the taking of the life of a human being/person, so that abortion to save the life of the mother is justifiable.[32] The traditional rabbinical interpretation, from the retributive justice viewpoint, assumes implicitly that the lex talionis is itself a legal measure of the value of human life.  In retributive perspective, the victim is valued by punishing the offender, so that the value of the life of the victim is commensurate with the penalty imposed; in the case of murder, if the penalty is anything less than death, then the victim’s life is valued less than the offender’s life and, hence, the victim is not respected fully as a human being/person.  Thus, that the lex talionis applies to a certain crime entails that the victim is respected by the law as a full-fledged human being/person on an equal basis.  Conversely, therefore, that the lex talionis does not apply to the death of the unborn child entails that the law does not respect the unborn child as a full-fledged human being/person.

Recent Christian interpretation, however, especially within the peace church tradition, draws a different inference from the narrative and historical context of biblical law regarding the meaning of the lex talionis.  Rather than being a legal measure of the value of human life that justifies the taking of life, the lex talionis was intended instead as a legal limitation on killing carried out through the tribal practice of blood vengeance.[33] If we take this perspective on the meaning of the lex talionis, then the inference from the casuistry of Exodus 21 to the relative (and unequal) valuation of the mother and the fetus, and hence to the justification of abortion in special cases, is rendered non sequitur.  This is no idle hermeneutical debate, a distinction without difference.  The MC USA Statement evidently adopts the traditional rabbinic interpretation (cf. 77-80).  By doing so, it implicitly (if unintentionally) adopts a retributive justice perspective and thereby underwrites the death penalty.  Exodus 21:22-25 implies that the mother’s life has greater value than the unborn child’s life only if the lex talionis constitutes the legal measure of the value of human life; and if the lex talionis constitutes the legal measure of the value of human life, then the death penalty (“life for life”) is the only just punishment for murder.  So, the MC USA Statement on Abortion would seem to be in serious tension with the MC USA Statement on the Death Penalty, the latter of which rejects the traditional rabbinic interpretation of the lex talionis along with retributive justice and, of course, rejects the death penalty as incompatible with the biblical vision of shalom.[34]

4. Discernment in “hard cases”

In order to work toward bringing peace church thinking on abortion into coherence with peace tradition theology concerning capital punishment and war, instead of thinking about abortion in the abstract, we will consider specifically the two perennial “hard cases.”

4.1 Rape/incest

In the case of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, the first thing to acknowledge is that a woman created in God’s image has suffered violence, a forceful violation of freedom and body, a brutal assault on dignity, a wrong that begs to be righted.  The irreversible consequences of this violence extend beyond physical and emotional harm: she has not only been sexually violated, but is now responsible for making choices for a life she did not choose to conceive.  This summons a merciful, hospitable response from the church: we are called to solidarity with this woman in her suffering and decision, to take responsibility for the child conceived without consent to the extent of being willing to help raise, or even adopt, the child if necessary.  The church must not compound violence with judgment: we cannot say with integrity that there should be no unwanted children unless we demonstrate that there are no unwelcome pregnant women.  Nonetheless, such circumstances demand sound moral discernment by the church.[35]

Would abortion be compatible with God’s will for shalom? promote or restore shalom?  Shalom for whom?  For sure, we must say: not for the unborn child.  To argue that abortion would be compatible with God’s will for shalom would require, to begin with, excluding yet-to-be-born children, or at least those conceived through violence, from the peaceable purposes of God’s kingdom. Beyond this, the case of rape or incest raises for us the question of whether there can be any place for violence in the Christian vision of salvation: Can the violent death of an innocent victim restore shalom?  The peace church tradition eschews the notion that human violence is redemptive, that life can be saved and peace restored through human bloodshed.  This carries over into thinking about the atonement brought about through the cross.

It was not the body-breaking, blood-shedding violence that we committed against Jesus that made peace with God and granted us life in Christ.  The actual trial, torture and execution of Jesuswas a travesty of justice—a crime, a “judicial murder,” an egregious transgression of God’s law that itself begged for atonement.[36] But God did not require our blood to atone for Jesus—indeed, if animal blood could not atone for a human life, what amount of human blood could possibly atone for God’s life?!  We are saved through the cross precisely because here God decisively transcends the destructive logic of “a life for a life” that otherwise condemns all humanity for the death of Jesus.  Instead, Jesus reveals the saving justice of God and restores peace through cross and resurrection by: remaining faithful to God’s purpose and trusting wholly in God’s providence in the face of evil and death; giving his life sacrificially for the sake of the poor, weak, and outcast; forgiving those who wronged him; welcoming repentant sinners into the kingdom of God; restoring to fellowship those who deserted and denied him; and reconciling former enemies (cf. Luke 22-24, Romans 5, and Ephesians 2).  In all of these ways, God was at work in Jesus in order to reconcile the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).  It is thus not the violent bloodshed itself that is redemptive, but rather God’s peace-making, life-giving response to the crime of which God was innocent victim in the person of Jesus that atones or “makes right.”[37] And God’s reconciling response in Jesus to human violence shows us at once both “the way of life” and “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42).

From this perspective, abortion can in no way contribute to the restoration of shalom, to “making right” the wrong situation created by violence.  Whatever “peace” abortion might purchase for the rape or incest victim would come only at the bloody cost of sacrificing the life of an innocent victim; and the Gospel unveils such “peace” as empty deception.[38] Abortion might “save” a woman from bearing a child she did not choose; but it would only reflect the violence done to her and create another victim.  Abortion would imitate the crime, not Christ; it would be non-redemptive, counter-atoning, a false “salvation.”  This also, I think, is the strongest reason why the peace tradition should reject capital punishment: to shed blood for blood shed, although legally correct and retributively justified (according to the lex talionis), would not restore shalom because it only multiplies violence, creates more victims suffering loss, preempts forgiveness and reconciliation, and, hence, is counter-atoning, contrary to the life-giving, peace-restoring justice revealed through the cross.[39] Whether we deal with murder or rape/incest, therefore, God’s will for shalom and the revelation of God’s justice through the cross should motivate us, at the very least, to not create more victims; more than that, it should motivate us to compassionately seek, as far as possible, healing and restoration for both victim and offender.

This biblical perspective of shalom helps us critique the following argument by Meilaender in favor of condoning abortion in case of rape or incest:[40] “…in this instance, even though the fetus is, of course, formally innocent, its continued existence within the woman may constitute for her an embodiment of the original attack upon her person.  Formally innocent as the fetus itself is, it continues to represent in vivid form the attack the woman has suffered.”  This argument is suspect from a theological perspective.  It is quite possible (and understandable) that a woman who falls victim to rape or incest might see the resulting life, or even her own self, as embodying the violence committed against her; tragically, some women experiencing this trauma attempt harm upon the child and/or themselves. This only summons the church to greater mercy and compassion.  Nonetheless, should we, the church, adopt such a description as normative for orienting ourselves ethically to a situation of rape or incest?[41] Such a description would significantly qualify the biblical understanding that we are to view every human being/person as made in the image of God.  We do not (should not!) view the woman in the image of her attacker or through the lens of the crime against her; instead, she is to be viewed in the image of God her maker.  She is originally a child of God, irreducible to an object of violence, and thus to be cared for as precious rather than cast out as disgraced.  Likewise, we do not (should not!) view the attacker primarily in the image of his crime; instead, he also is to be viewed in the image of God.  He, too, is originally a child of God, irreducible to an act of violence, and thus to be seen in light of the redemption and reconciliation possible in Christ.  Why, then, should we suppose that the unborn child, though conceived in violence, is to be viewed in the image of the attack, and thereby effectively reduced to that act of violence?  The unborn child, despite the circumstances of conception, nonetheless presents most originally an embodiment of the face of God.  Consider again the death of Jesus.  We do not infer from the fact that the life of Jesus was crushed by violence that on the cross he thereby embodied the evil of the state’s demonic and blasphemous intent to usurp God’s sovereign authority over life.  Rather, we confess by resurrection faith that, despite the state’s evil intent inscribed upon his body, the dying Jesus embodied the victory of God over the forces of sin and death: the cross, vindicated by resurrection, is the ultimate revelation of God’s reign (Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-22).  We see by resurrection faith in the bloodied and broken body of Jesus a flesh-and-blood sign of God’s grace and peace, a generous offering of life by God despite violent human rejection.  It is through this image of God-in-Christ-on-the-cross that we should view all victims of violence, including women suffering from, and children conceived through, rape or incest.  We should thus regard the unborn child, whose life is conceived in violence and whose life is now vulnerable to being crushed by violence, as embodying no less the intent of God for human shalom, a divine offering of life in response to human violence; and our response to such a gift should be in kind, peace-making and life-respecting.  Whereas violence is the evil humans do, life is a gift of God; the child should thus represent for us, not violence, but grace and peace.

Although abortion, as violence, cannot bring the peace of God near, can God bring peace near to those women suffering the violence of rape/incest who choose abortion in response to their affliction?  Surely.  If God can bring restorative, reconciling peace near to us through Christ despite the violence of the cross, then through Christ God can bring restorative, healing peace near to these women.[42] How, then, is the church to respond to women who make this choice?  As God does—peaceably.  If the church is called to a life-giving, peace-making, healing and restorative response to both women suffering the violence of rape/incest and men guilty of such violence, then all the more is it called to a life-giving, peace-making, healing and restorative response to women suffering the violence of abortion in addition to the violence of rape/incest.

4.2 Life endangerment

A woman and her family experiencing a problematic pregnancy that, if continued until natural birth, would place the mother’s health at great risk or put her life in grave danger, is perhaps the most difficult situation the church faces regarding this issue.  In such a situation, the MC USA Statement counsels: “In those rare situations when a choice must be made between the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child, Christians should prayerfully seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit with a group of believers committed to discerning the will of God….We condone abortion only under the most exceptional circumstances.  When abortion appears to be the least bad choice among several undesirable options, we stress the need for discernment in the faith community” (89-91, 107-109).  The Statement is, of course, quite correct to “urge members of the faith community to engage in a discerning process rather than making decisions in isolation” (130-131).  None of us, men or women, are self-sufficient moral agents—“moral autonomy” is an “enlightenment” philosophical fiction.  However, following Marlin Miller, I would suggest that simply pointing to a “discernment process” is inadequate.  Here, I see two deficiencies.  First, because the Statement offers nothing substantial by way of guidance for moral discernment in such “rare cases” and “exceptional circumstances,” such counsel might be interpreted as tacitly accepting the choice of “the lesser evil,” which comes uncomfortably close to condoning consequentialism.  Recalling Marlin Miller’s wisdom, we need to go further and think this through in accord with “Christian moral norms and standards.”  Second, while the Statement points appropriately to “mutual accountability” within the faith community as a parameter for moral discernment (132-134), this raises the question of what kind of faith community is capable of engaging in such discernment faithfully. As the biblical perspective gives priority to the ethical over the epistemological and ontological, so too does biblical ethics give priority to the body over its members.  Hays emphasizes this communal character of Christian ethics: “The coherence of the New Testament’s ethical mandate will come into focus only when we understand that mandate in ecclesial terms, when we seek God’s will not by asking first, “What should I do,” but “What should wedo?””[43] This communal ethical question calls the character of the community itself into question: what we ought to do is predicated upon who we are to be.[44] What sort of mutual commitmentdoes authentic mutual accountability within the church presuppose?  What sort of solidarity does authentic God-like compassion require?[45] The Statement appropriately calls the church to offer emotional support to, and share financial responsibility with, families that have children born into situations of economic hardship or with developmental disabilities (138-141, 153-154): maintaining solidarity within the body of Christ, participating in each other’s sufferings, requires such mutual aid in difficult circumstances (2 Corinthians 8).  The Statement is strangely silent, however, regarding expectations of mutual commitment and communal solidarity in situations of life endangerment due to a problematic pregnancy—it mentions only “a group of believers committed to discerning the will of God” (88-91), but says nothing about a faith community that endures suffering with patience and hope in obedience to God’s will.  We ought to ask soberly whether a faith community that is not already mutually committed to enduring suffering corporately with patience and hope out of obedience to God’s will would be a place where God’s will can be discerned faithfully in “exceptional circumstances.”  The aim of Christian moral discernment is to guide a corporate life of faithful discipleship.  Faithful discernment presupposes discipleship commitment—discernment can guide discipleship only if discipleship informs discernment.

In situations of serious endangerment to both mother and unborn child, we encounter a moral dilemma, an apparent choice between two lives.[46] The moral temptation in resolving this dilemma is two-fold.  First, we might be tempted to try to “weigh” the value of the life of the unborn child against other goods: if the unborn child carries genetic potential for disease or deformity, or if the family already has “enough” children, or if the mother might be rendered incapable of bearing further children with continued pregnancy, then we might justify abortion as a means to avoiding certain evils or achieving certain goods.  Second, we might be tempted to reason that one life saved is better than two lives lost, so that abortion—which, even though it will destroy a life, at least promises to save a life and, hence, is the “lesser evil”—is justified.[47] Either way, we succumb to consequentialist calculation in which “the end justifies the means,” such that human life is “weighed in the balance” as if the mother and child each had a determinable value relative to other goods, as if their lives were invested with merely human interests/preferences and did not re-present the prerogative of God.[48] The moral danger in these temptations is that if consequentialist thinking justifies abortion, then it potentially justifies abortion (as well as infanticide, euthanasia, capital punishment, and civilian casualties in war) to serve the “greater good” or enhance “social utility.”   Moreover, were consequentialism a sound basis for moral discernment, it would follow that a Christian woman who elects not to have an abortion in life-endangering circumstances, and who thus cedes into God’s hand the possibility that both she and her child may die (“the greater evil”), actually does wrong because she fails to act to bring about “the lesser evil.”  That is, proportionalist judgment of “greater good/lesser evil” implies that the self-sacrificial choice in this life-endangering situation would be immoral.[49] Thus,consequentialist thinking effectively subverts the Christian freedom to choose self-sacrificially after the pattern of Christ, the freedom to resist out of faithfulness to God the temptation to do evil that good might come.[50] Finally, consequentialist thinking in such a situation—“minimize losses, save what you can”—is diametrical to salvation hope; for it assumes there are no possibilities “yet unseen,” no hope beyond our powers of control.[51] The consequentialist choice effectively attempts to secure one’s own salvation by seizing control of life through the power of the self.[52] To deliberatelychoose “the lesser evil” assumes that the outcome is beyond the reach of God’s redemptive purpose.

It does not follow, however, that we should adopt the formula “better two deaths (by natural causes) than one murder (by direct killing of the innocent).”  This is still a proportionalist judgment based upon a weighing of good and evil outcomes—omitting a life-saving act is judged a “lesser evil” than committing a life-taking act.  The position maintained here is that, especially when it comes to human life, such consequentialist thinking is antithetical to the basic thrust of the Christian norms of respect for the dignity of the human being/person created in the image of God and faithfulness to Christ in the way of the cross.  While there is a certain “teleology” in “seeking first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness,” and although faithfulness is known by the fruits of justice and mercy, God’s kingdom is not subject to human calculation and control.  We cannot properly judge better or worse in Christian conduct by measuring “kingdom consequences” in terms of human interests/preferences—indeed, by such measure Jesus’ contemporaries judged his faithfulness to be failure.  In the end, the coming of God’s kingdom is not a product of human striving toward worldly outcomes calculated to maximize “kingdom utility.”  In the Christian life, the ultimate measure of action is not humanly calculable and controllable consequences, but rather faithfulness to Christ in the way of cross and resurrection, by which God reveals faithfulness, justice and mercy beyond human calculation and control.[53]

Christian ethics in the peace church tradition ought instead to consider moral dilemmas in life-endangering situations from the perspective of the biblical narrative.  Love of neighbor, even to the point of self-sacrificially choosing to lay down one’s life for another, is not an obligation entailed by an abstract moral principle (“Never do evil that good may come”), but rather follows from an existential commitment to follow Jesus in the nonviolent way of the cross (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16).  The way of discipleship is ultimately a matter of voluntary fidelity, not to a universal moral law, but rather to the particular revelation of God’s will in Jesus, who shows us a path of service and self-sacrifice rather than a way of clinging to life and privilege at all cost (Philippians 2:3-11).  Those who are committed to following Jesus in whole-lived discipleship are to see such life-and-death questions within the scope of the divine providence that is evidently worked through the cross and resurrection of Jesus—viz., God’s promise of redemption, redemption of even suffering and death: those who remain faithful in “the way,” those who accept suffering or death as a witness to Jesus, those who do not seek to control their own fate but are willing to surrender life into the hands of God for the sake of the Gospel, God will save.  God is sovereign over life and history and steadfastly faithful even in death, so that neither the power of death nor our unfaithfulness will have the final word.  Given this perspective, the peace church tradition has consistently held that taking life, whether for the sake of self-preservation or communal defense, is incompatible with Christian discipleship.  To cling to our lives at the expense of the life of another, to claim the privilege of justifying ourselves over and against the neighbor (whether friend, stranger, outcast, or enemy), is to lose faith, to surrender fidelity to the crucified and risen Lord for the sake of self (cf. Mark 8:27-38).

This biblical-theological reflection, I suggest, motivates considering the case of life endangerment due to a problematic pregnancy as a specific instance of the general scenario—“What would you do?”—that is commonly posed to peace tradition Christians in order to test one’s personal commitment to and the ethical consistency of nonviolence.  The excellent analysis of that general question by Yoder will assist our theological-ethical reflection.[54]

The “What would you do?” scenario, as it is usually presented, presumes a situation with only two possible options/outcomes: kill or be killed.  Similarly, the case of the problematic pregnancy that endangers life for both mother and unborn child usually presumes only two options/outcomes for the mother: abort or die.  Assuming an exhaustive dichotomy, and given that we do have power of control over the life of the unborn child sufficient to determine the former outcome, the consequentialist/proportionalist calculation and choice of abortion as “the lesser evil” seems eminently reasonable. From the perspective of Christian faith in divine providence, however, this assumption is inadequate for moral discernment:[55]

The Christian understanding of divine Providence is not only that it might sometimes provide a “way of escape.”  It is also that Christians are called to testify to such a vision of God’s care and to trust in it.  This is necessary for any meaningful understanding of prayer.  To elect option 4-a (successful killing) denies the faith.  Then we assume that there are no unforeseen creative alternatives and no divine possibilities available. Suppose I justify a choice limited to one of two most undesirable outcomes which can be foreseen, and choose the one which I feel would be least undesirable to me and mine.  But that in effect says that God has no redemptive intention in this situation.  Or I assume that if God has such an interest, I am his only tool for bringing it about, which I can do only by imposing my own choice of what I consider to be the lesser evil.

With this in mind, our question for discernment is this: If trust in God’s providential care and redemptive purpose allows us the patience and hope to refrain from violent force against an aggressive attack by an enemy intending harm to ourselves or our loved ones, then does it not all the more allow us to refrain from violent force against an innocent and defenseless neighbor?  Does God’s grace provide no option than to take a life?  Is Christian hope bound by ‘either-or’?

The “What would you do?” scenario, moreover, usually depicts a situation in which the person(s) under attack are isolated from the solidarity of a faith community gathered in a shared hope and formed by shared convictions and commitments.  Similarly, the usual discussion of the case of a problematic, life-endangering pregnancy isolates the woman from significant relationships (even her maternal relationship with her unborn child) and considers her options primarily (often exclusively) in terms of “autonomy” and “individual rights.”[56] This, again, is inadequate for Christian moral discernment—no Christian who has been incorporated by baptism as a member of the body of Christ, whether woman or man, is an “autonomous moral agent.”[57] Moreover, as Kathy Rudy has observed: “Stated simply, in treating Christian women as isolated and abstract individuals, we rob them of their connections, relationships, and community, and we rob ourselves of the opportunity to care for and welcome both them and their children.”[58] In situations where the innocent and defenseless are threatened with harm, the gathered community of disciples, shaped by a Gospel tradition of nonviolence and seeking to be faithful to God and one another, can be an inspired source of creative and redemptive alternatives to violence.

Stories of Christian faithfulness in life-threatening circumstances can help widen our corporate imagination and enliven our corporate spirit to prepare ourselves for God to work creative and redemptive possibilities in our midst.[59] Two contemporary films tell compelling stories that are both instructive and inspiring.  In the film Witness, the Amish elder Eli Lapp, belonging to a community shaped by a tradition of nonresistance and seeking to hand down that tradition, instructs his grandson, who is fascinated by the police officer’s revolver: “Many times people have said to us, ‘You must fight, you must kill.  It is the only way to preserve the good.’  But, Samuel, there is never only one way—remember that.”  As this story plays out, the community gathered in response to danger effectively and nonviolently resolves the conflict in which the innocent and defenseless lives of a woman and her child are threatened.  The “other way” to “preserve the good” is revealed and realized by the Spirit through the solidarity of the discipleship community in the face of real suffering and loss.  In vulnerable solidarity, the gathered community shares the risk of discipleship by being willing to absorb suffering and loss into its corporate body rather than use violence to defend itself, and so witnesses to shared hope and mutual faithfulness.  Such hope and faithfulness are palpable in a poignant scene of the film Romero, in which Archbishop Oscar Romero, later martyred, participates in the suffering and persecution of his people, who have been brutally repressed by El Salvador’s ruling oligarchy.  The army has stolen the election, “disappeared” many, murdered and tortured priests, occupied a town, and taken over a church, which through the faithfulness of its people to the Gospel has become “a sign of contradiction” against the oppression and violence of the regime.  Romero visits the town to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the church and is initially rebuffed by the occupying soldiers.  Encouraged by the people’s presence, Romero leads them in a liturgical procession into the church past the pointed guns of the soldiers; gathered as one body united in Christ, this “crucified people” peaceably retakes the church in the face of threatened violence.

A Christian community gathered in shared faith and hope around a mother and child suffering a life-endangering pregnancy, if it is committed further to sharing responsibility for and absorbing the cost of discipleship faithfulness, can be the place where the Spirit reveals and realizes nonviolent alternatives to an apparent “abort or die” choice.  Such a community would be a witness for life by trusting in the good news of salvation proclaimed by the cross and resurrection of Jesus, a saving hope that transcends “cutting our losses” by choosing “the lesser evil.”[60] Indeed, I would dare add,unless a faith community is corporately committed to vulnerable solidarity in suffering—to being the crucified body of Christ, a true “eucharistic community” that is itself “broken and shared,” prepared to share bodily in each other’s sufferings as we are called to participate in Christ’s suffering—it is unfit as a body for faithful discernment in the face of life endangerment to its members.  If we cannot confirm in deed as well as affirm in word that “Here in this world, dying and living, we are each other’s bread and wine,”[61] then are we faithfully prepared for the task of discernment?  If we are not mutually committed to taking corporate responsibility for the potentially costly consequences of the Christ-imitating, self-sacrificing discipleship decisions to which our members might find themselves called, then are we capable of seeing such costly choices as existential possibilities in the first place?[62] The hymn “Heart with loving heart united” expresses just this point—viz., mutual accountability in moral discernment and communal solidarity in bearing the costs of faithful choices are the warp and woof of the same weaving.[63] The “hard case” of life endangerment thus evokes the question of whether contemporary peace tradition churches really do constitute discipleship communities characterized by a shared commitment, in mutual solidarity and in faithfulness to Christ, to suffering loss of life rather than resorting to violence in defense of community members.  The church is to be the kind of community in which compassionate, nonviolent, self-sacrificial, Christ-imitating choices are both imaginable and, with patience and hope, possible for the body of disciples.  An authentic peace tradition consistent witness on abortion, capital punishment, and war depends essentially upon our congregations being called to be discipleship communities; only thus can faithfulness to Christ in the nonviolent way of the cross and respect for the dignity of the human being/person created in the image of God be upheld consistently as Christian norms.  This, then, is the crucial question: What kind of faith community is capable of faithfully incarnating a consistent ethic of life and peace witness? Are our congregations committed to the corporate sacrificial solidarity necessary to living out a consistent ethic and witness?

Now, some may want to question here whether the case of life endangerment due to a problematic pregnancy does fit appropriately within the “What would you do?” scenario.  Does this woman incur risk to life, one might ask, as a consequence of faithfulness to Christ?  Instead, one might say, the danger to mother and child is simply the result of nature gone awry (like a natural disaster), which could happen to anyone for no apparent reason.  Thus, the objection continues, this case has nothing to do with accepting suffering for the sake of Christ (1 Peter 3:17); and so talk of Christ-imitating, self-sacrificial discipleship is inappropriate.[64]

I offer two replies to this objection.  First, while it is correct that the problematic pregnancy itself is not a consequence of any decision to follow Christ in “the way,” neither is the scenario in which one’s home is aggressively invaded and one’s family is violently threatened (which can happen to anyone for no apparent reason).  If, on these grounds, Christian discipleship has nothing to do with the case of life-endangerment under consideration, then, on those same grounds, it would seem also to have nothing to do with the “What would you do?” scenario.  So, agreeing to this point would imply that if the church condones abortion to save the mother’s life in the case of the problematic pregnancy, then, for the sake of consistency, the church ought to condone violent self-preservation in other cases as well.  And if the church condones violent self-preservation in some cases, then, because we are to love the neighbor as ourselves, it would seem that the church should further condone some cases of violent defense of others: if certain circumstances excuse self-preserving violence, then it seems to follow that neighbor-love provides even greater excuse for other-defensive violence under certain circumstances.  Thus, to grant this objection would entail rejecting Yoder’s argument against the option of successful killing as the appropriate choice in the “What would you do?” scenario.

Second, the disciples’ faithful following of Jesus has to do with facing not only those who persecute for the sake of faith, but also forces of “natural evil”—stormy seas, demonization, chronic illness, and death (Mark 4:35-5:43).  A peace church perspective appropriately guards against divorcing salvation from the way of peace.  Given the intimate connection between discipleship, suffering and salvation in “the way,” I suggest that a peace church perspective should also not disconnect theodicy from the way of peace.[65] To “overcome evil with good” and “live peaceably with all” in the face of enemies belong to the same theological fabric as “being saved in hope while waiting for the redemption of our bodies” amidst a groaning creation longing to be “set free from its bondage to decay” (cf. Romans 8:18ff and 12:9ff.).  Mennonites have historically borne communal witness to this single theological fabric—life-peace-hope-salvation—by responding to natural disasters and confronting violent conflicts alike out of the same call from Jesus to service and peacemaking: tending to both those left destitute by storm and those made vulnerable by war effectively witnesses to a single ethic of life and peace, a single hope of salvation.  Situations of life endangerment to mother and child present in a most palpable way the bondage of creation to decay and our bodies’ dire need for redemption.  So, likening such situations to natural disasters, peace church tradition should commend no less a compassionate, nonviolent communal response embracing the lives of both mother and child through which the church may witness to hope of salvation and peace in Christ for all creation.[66]

The question at stake here is whether the peace church tradition thinks about the issue of abortion on a par with how it thinks about faithful discipleship in other aspects.  The implication of the MC USA Statement, as I draw it, suggests a position not unlike the classic argument of Augustine justifying Christian participation in defensive warfare.[67] Moreover, condoning abortion “only under the most exceptional circumstances” is similar also to the official Catholic position on the death penalty, which prohibits the death penalty in general as incompatible with respect for the dignity of the human person, but leaves a loophole for “exceptions.”  Punishment, John Paul II writes in The Gospel of Life, “…ought not go to the extreme of executing the criminal except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society” (§56).  To exclude “exceptional cases” from the province of faithful discipleship regarding abortion, then, would seem to significantly qualify peace church witness on war and capital punishment, which the peace tradition has consistently proclaimed are incompatible with faithful discipleship: if there are exceptions to discipleship regarding abortion, then might there not be “exceptional circumstances” for war and capital punishment, situations of “necessity” in which violent defense of the community is justifiable?

The effect of such exclusion would be to open the peace church tradition to a pluralistic understanding of discipleship, whereby following Jesus in the way of the cross is only one among many ways of faithfulness; that is, “following Jesus” and “the way of the cross” are not coextensive: imitatio Christi is optional, not normative.  The MC USA Statement seems favorable to such pluralism: “Through this process of counsel and mutual accountability the church may promote a standard without insisting on uniformity for all” (132-134).  A pluralistic ethic that distinguishes discipleship from cross/imitation is also evident in Meilaender:[68]

She may willingly risk her life for the sake of her child’s, taking up in radical fashion the call to discipleship, the call to be Christ to this neighbor with whom she is so intimately bound.  We may admire such a decision, we may seek to imitate her as she imitates Christ, but we cannot claim that hers is the only way to follow Christ.  If she cannot take up that cross, we are entitled to give her life priority, recognizing that the child is, in truth, living off her.

The point of this line of inquiry is not to judge some Christians “unfaithful”—for all of us have failed to follow Jesus on “the way,” Jesus alone has proved faithful to the end.[69] Moreover, we are concerned here primarily with communal faithfulness and substantive guidelines for communal discernment.  If discernment within the discipleship community is to be faithful—i.e., if discernment is to shape us corporately after the pattern of the cross—then at least we must be sure to have asked the right question.  Instead of guiding discernment with the question of whether the risk to life follows as a consequence of a discipleship decision, the proper question to guide discernment is the converse: What does the faithfulness of Jesus revealed through cross and resurrection entail for a discipleship community faced with suffering and loss?  As the Gospel story shows, it is only once the danger/threat that confronts and kills Jesus is also already upon the disciples that their confident pledge of undying faithfulness to Jesus is truly tested (cf. Mark 13:26-50).[70] Thus, we should ask, given a grave and present danger to our members, what then follows for the discipleship community, what does communal faithfulness require?

In situations where mutual commitment to solidarity in suffering is absent, blame should not be placed upon women in life-endangering pregnancies who do choose abortion: a body whose members are unwilling to participate in each other’s sufferings is in no position to judge a woman abandoned to her “choice” by the moral failure of her community.  Compare the tragic situation of the heroine Amy in the classic Western film High Noon.  She and her husband, Sheriff Will Kane, having just been married, are abandoned by the townspeople in the face of the approaching threat of the Miller Gang.  Will’s commitment to defend the town from outlaws leaves Amy with the agonizing “choice” between remaining faithful to her husband and keeping true to her Quaker pacifist conviction. Because the town’s moral resolve has failed around them, and she lacks the support of a faith community committed to her pacifist conviction (the town Protestant church lacks strong leadership and factions under pressure; there is no local Friends meeting), one can hardly blame her in the end for “choosing” to pick up a gun and shoot one of the “bad guys” to defend her husband.  The absence of a supportive, mutually committed moral community leaves her existentially incapable of consistently practicing her pacifist conviction without sacrificing marital fidelity—she can see no “third way” between “fight or flight” precisely because the community in which peaceable, life-respecting alternatives might be discerned and realized has scattered in fear and self-interest.  Tragedy is engendered, not by a flaw in character, but by the failure of community.  Reflection on life-endangering circumstances thus brings the character of the peace tradition church under examination: Which pattern do our congregations fit—that of the Amish community in Witness and the Catholic community in Romero, or that of the Protestant church in High Noon?  Are we discipleship communities, co-members of the body of Christ, or pluralistic polities, microcosms of our social milieu?

The MC USA Statement states matter-of-factly: “Most people will choose the life of the mother if a choice must be made about the survival of either the mother or the fetus” (88-89).  Perhaps here the Statement reflects the fact that, as with the broader Protestant church comprising Meilaender’s audience, not all members of Mennonite congregations have actually made a voluntary commitment to faithful discipleship, such that following in the way of the cross (imitatio Christi) cannot be expected of all those the Statement intends to address.  Indeed, it is quite possible that, as with Amy and Will Kane, within many Mennonite families one spouse has made such a commitment but the other has not.  Perhaps, furthermore, the Statement’s silence on communal solidarity in situations of life endangerment tacitly concedes the sociological reality that at least some (perhaps many or most) contemporary Mennonite congregations are not (any longer) discipleship communities.[71] Given this, one might agree that the MC USA Statement demonstrates prudence even if one finds that in substance it falls short of normative teaching.

Now, as the Statement suggests, many women experiencing a life-endangering pregnancy will (understandably) choose the option over which they have the most individual control and thus elect abortion.  Can God’s grace provide solace for women who find no option than to take life in order to save life?  Yes.  Not only does God’s providence transcend ‘either-or’; God’s grace exceeds all our choices—good, evil, ambiguous, regrettable, tragic.[72] How, then, should the church respond to women who do make this choice?  As God does—graciously.  If the church is called to compassionate solidarity with women suffering a life-endangering pregnancy, all the more is the church called to compassionate solidarity with women mourning a child.

To sum up.  In the service of a consistent ethic of life and witness for peace, the peace tradition ought to be able at the very least to do three things clearly and consistently: (1) articulate respect for the dignity of the human being/person created in the image of God and faithfulness to Christ in the nonviolent way of the cross as Christian norms for moral discernment in the faith community; (2) critique utilitarianism as incompatible with the biblical understanding of human life, as well as critique consequentialism as incompatible with discipleship faithfulness, and hence as inadequate for moral discernment, in What would you do? situations; (3), as a co-requisite of (1) and (2), call the church to be not only a discerning process but also a discipleship community—a cruciform, compassionate or “co-suffering” body.

5. What does justice require?

The argument is made that laws restricting abortion would effectively discriminate against the poor—i.e., the rich would still be able to procure “safe” (though illegal) abortions, while the poor would either not be able to procure abortions or be left with access to only “unsafe” (and illegal) abortions.  It is, the argument goes, a matter of social justice—i.e., “equal rights” for the poor—that abortion be kept “safe and legal for all.”  Thus, the MC USA Statement: “It [i.e., legislation curtailing abortion] also disproportionately affects the poor, as those with means will find ways to obtain safe abortions” (119-120).  The point is no doubt correct—as with so many things, the rich could buy the access that would be unavailable to the poor.  This argument, however, calls for careful examination.

5.1 Fair distribution

The MC USA Statement frames this question implicitly in terms of the classical notion of distributive justice.  Justice in the sense of ‘fair distribution’ requires us to ensure that both the benefits and burdens of society are distributed fairly among all members, that some members do not bear burdens disproportionate to the benefits they receive or receive benefits disproportionate to burden they bear.  From this perspective, one would ask: How would legal prohibition of abortion unfairly redistribute either benefits from the poor to the rich or burdens from the rich to the poor?  To address this question, we need to inquire further regarding what are the relevant benefits and burdens at stake.  Presumably, judging by the wording of the Statement, one would take the reduced health risks associated with “safe” abortions to be the benefit and, by implication, the increased health risks associated with “unsafe” abortions to be the burden.

In what sense, however, can the lower health risks of “safe” abortions be considered a “benefit” unfairly afforded to the rich?  A benefit to whom?  Surely not to the unborn child whose life is being destroyed by the “safe” abortion!  Similarly, in what sense would the higher health risks of “unsafe” abortions be a “burden” unfairly put upon the poor?  Again, a burden to whom?  Is it not the unborn child that bears the greatest health risk in an abortion?  The argument in the MC USA Statement regarding distributive justice makes sense only if we exclude yet-to-be-born children from consideration as members of society whose consent and well-being must be taken into account in distributing benefits and burdens.  Such exclusion could be motivated by categorizing the unborn as either “non-persons” or “less-than-full human beings,” a point on which the MC USA Statement seems equivocal, as we discussed above.

The question of distributive justice needs to be addressed on a consistent basis.  From the perspective of consistency, one sees that justice would be done by: (a) distributing equally the benefit of legal protection to both pre-natal and post-natal life; and (b) sparing the yet-to-be-born children of both rich and poor from the deadly burden of abortion, whether “safe” or “unsafe,” that is unfairly imposed upon the most vulnerable members of society without their consent.

5.2 Preferential option

From a biblical perspective on social justice, the structural bias of economic, political and social systems against the poor and weak and in favor of the powerful and wealthy calls for the evaluation and transformation of those systems in accord with a “preferential option for the poor.”  Who are “the poor”?  Biblically speaking, “the poor” denotes categories of persons that are especially vulnerable to deprivation of basic goods or exploitation of basic rights—the oppressed, hungry, imprisoned, blind, laborers, debtors, sojourners, orphans and widows—for whom God “executes justice” (cf. Isaiah 61, Psalm 146).  The MC USA Statement, to its credit, expressly includes the yet-to-be-born with the biblical poor: “Throughout the Bible we are called to demonstrate special concern for the defenseless…the one who has no advocate.  Though the Bible does not explicitly say so, in our day concern for the “defenseless” should also extend to the fetus” (67-70).  God’s people were to share in God’s will of justice for the poor by making special legal provision to protect the rights and care for the needs of the weak, vulnerable and outcast (e.g., sabbath laws protecting servants, gleaning laws providing for the poor, laws prohibiting usury, sabbatical and jubilee year laws on debt forgiveness and land return, etc.).   The evident solidarity of God with the poor for the sake of justice should motivate us to take the perspective of the poor: if we want to know whether this or that social or economic policy is just, we should ask, How will the poor fare?  Thus, if a policy engenders conditions that make the poor more vulnerable to exploitation or weakens the rights of the poor or inhibits the access of the poor to basic goods/services or diminishes the participation of the poor in the economic and political life of society, it is unjust, contrary to the fullness of God’s saving justice.[73]

So, evaluating public policy on abortion from a biblical perspective, we ask: In what sense does maintaining legal access to “safe” abortions demonstrate a preferential option for the poor? Does this policy genuinely prefer the well-being, the shalom, of the poor?  How does “legal and safe” abortion provide adequate and affordable housing, promote access to basic health care, increaseliving-wage employment?  If abortion were restricted, what goods essential to human well-being would be denied to the poor?  How is it that the rights of the poor are secured only if the rights of the unborn, the “poorest of the poor,” are left insecure?  Clearly, abortion does not prefer the well-being of the unborn.  If the unborn are truly to be included equally among the “biblical poor,” then abortion is contrary to a consistent preferential option for the poor.  We would best exercise a preferential option for the poor by making an unequivocal option for both poor women and families andtheir unborn children and thereby defending equally the rights of all God’s children.  To include the yet-to-be-born with “the defenseless poor” whose rights are deserving of preferential protection, but then argue for an “equal right” to abort those same “defenseless poor” on the basis of distributive justice, effectively entails inconsistency: what the MC USA Statement grants with one hand, it takes away with the other.

Now, we must recognize that some (perhaps many) women who seek abortions do so because poverty, limited education, lack of access to quality affordable pre-natal care and child care, absence of emotional and financial support, or fear of harm from an abusive partner leave them vulnerable, isolated and without any real sense of “choice.”  “Legal and safe” abortion, however, provides neither solutions to such social problems nor protection for vulnerable women: the “option” of abortion is hardly liberating.[74] Instead, we should seek to transform both ecclesial and social structures in order to liberate women from conditions leaving them without life-respecting and self-fulfilling alternatives for both themselves and their children.  Biblical justice and piety commend us to strive to eliminate poverty and liberate the poor (Deuteronomy 15; Isaiah 58; Luke 4) rather than offering the poor the “option” of eliminating their children!

5.3 Capital punishment and war as analogies

To help us further grasp the fallacy in such thinking, that equal justice for the poor entails maintaining a legal right to abortion, consider the cases of capital punishment and war.

The actual practice of capital punishment is systematically biased especially against the poor; it is also biased against racial minorities, the undereducated, the mentally ill, and those whose murder victims happened to have been white.[75] The strongest bias of the capital punishment system in the US is against poor men of color.  It is thus primarily members of socially, politically, and economically marginalized groups that are most vulnerable to falling victim to state-sanctioned violence.  In a sense, it should not surprise us that an organized system of death should prey upon the poor, weak and outcast, those who are least able to defend their rights.  What, though, is the basic justice issue at stake here?  Would justice be satisfied if middle-class, well-educated, respectable white folks had “equal access” to the death chamber?  If men and women were executed on an equal basis?  The answer to the problem of discrimination in capital punishment is not more executions, but fewer—and, preferably, none at all.  If capital punishment is wrong, contrary to God’s will for human shalom (as the Mennonite Church proclaims), then we move toward justice by ensuring that all members of society, the poor as well as the rich, men as well as women, receive equal protection from death at the hands of the state.  Justice thus entails the dismantling of this system of death, not “reforming” it so that there is “equal opportunity” for folks of all races, classes, genders, etc. to face the executioner.

Consider war.  During the Vietnam War, it was well-known that US soldiers of color were doing a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying on the front lines.  Black civil rights leaders had successfully advocated for a desegregated army after World War II.  Now it would seem that their efforts had only prepared the way for young black men to have a more-than-equal opportunity to perish on the soil of a foreign land.  What is the just response to such discrimination?  Should the civil rights leaders have argued that more middle-class young white men should have been provided with the opportunity to shed blood and have their own blood shed on the battlefield?  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for one, argued strenuously against the war because it was immoral and unjust, a war that pitted poor people of color from America against the poor people of color from Southeast Asia.[76] Justice for the poor called for an end to the war, not an “equal opportunity” for the rich to kill and be killed on the front lines.

Returning to the question of abortion: How could it be that justice for the poor entails “equalizing opportunity” for the yet-to-be-born children of the poor to have their lives ended by abortion? Simply put, if the destruction of human life in the womb is wrong, contrary to God’s will for shalom, then Christian thinking on justice ought to recognize no such thing as an “equal right” to abortion any more than it recognizes an “equal right” to racial or gender discrimination.

6. Christian advocacy and the public square

In conclusion, we address the question of the legitimacy and limits of Christian advocacy in the public square.  The MC USA Statement musters a number of rather weak arguments to persuade peace tradition Christians to abandon the public square on the issue of abortion.  These arguments beg for critique.  Yet, exposing weak arguments does not leave the public square wide open to the advance of the Christian viewpoint.  Faithful engagement in the public square of liberal democracy, whether regarding abortion or any other contentious moral issue, requires attending to the terms on which Christians may advocate respectfully of the common good.

6.1 Arguments contra advocacy

The argument is often made, both within the church and in secular society, that advocating restriction or prohibition of abortion is uncivil because doing so would be to “legislate morality,” which, it is assumed, is illegitimate in a pluralistic democracy.  Such argument is without merit.  While isolated laws do not necessarily represent moral values, and many laws are pragmatic in content rather than moral, law as a body does represent (at least ideally) a public consensus and, to a significant extent, a common good in which everyone shares an interest.  Law, therefore, carries moral implication, if only for the fact that, as an embodiment of the values by which we are to order our common life, it addresses the question of the basic standards for how we are to live together in civil society and maintain a concord all can enjoy.  Criminal laws, in particular, are laden with moral value.  Whether a prohibition of murder or of fraud, criminal statutes wear public morality on their face; for they tell us clearly what we ought not do to one another, explicitly stating various inappropriate or intolerable uses of individual liberty.  If we accept the premise that it is illegitimate to “legislate morality,” then we undercut the very significance of a common law by which to order our life together in civil society.[77]

There is a peculiar Mennonite-Christian variation of this argument—viz., that we should not “legislate morality” because doing so is tantamount to coercing discipleship.  Thus, the MC USA Statement: “… legislation is using the government to force others to comply with our Christian standards…” (120-121).  If the church followed this path of thinking, then we should acknowledge that it would be inappropriate for Christians to ask government to outlaw murder, rape, and torture.  Nor could we advocate that the government act to either serve the needs of the poor or intervene in private business to prevent exploitation of the poor.  Serving the poor and renouncing violence and are key components of Christian discipleship, as the peace tradition understands it.  Thus, advocating that government prevent violence and protect the poor by law would be, on this way of thinking, “using the government to force others to comply with our Christian standards.”  Moreover, the MC USA Statement on Abortion is, at this point, in serious tension with the MC USA Resolution on the Death Penalty.  The latter calls the church, both leadership and congregations, to petition the government to abolish capital punishment.  Capital punishment is no less a patently moral issue than abortion.  Surely, then, advocating legislative abolition of capital punishment would be “to force [pro-death penalty folks] to comply with our Christian standards” just as much as would advocating legislative restriction of abortion would be “to force [pro-choice folks] to comply with our Christian standards.”  If we adopt the view of the abortion Statement, then for the sake of consistency, we must also say that the death penalty Resolution offers illegitimate counsel to the church regarding political advocacy.

Some, from a particularly Mennonite perspective, will make the further argument that “legislating morality” is inappropriate because doing so is contrary to Anabaptist tradition.  Thus, the MC USA Statement: “…legislation is using the government to force others to comply with our Christian standards, something our forebears clearly rejected” (120-122).  The Schleitheim confession clearly recognized the legitimacy of the function of government to promote good and punish evil (Article VI).[78] Thus to say that “our forebears” (by which I take the statement to refer to the 16^th century Anabaptists) were against government enforcement of morality by law is simply to falsify history.  As surely as the Anabaptists rejected legally coerced confessions and baptisms, they also surely accepted government coercion in maintaining standards of public morality as expressed in traditions of common law (this, of course, is just the ‘two kingdoms’ viewpoint espoused by Schleitheim).  One of those common moral standards is the protection of human life; and thus a legitimate function of government (on this view) is the prohibition and punishment of the intentional taking of innocent, defenseless human life (commonly called ‘murder’).  To imply, as the statement does, that the framers of Schleitheim would have opposed government restriction or prohibition of abortion because they opposed use of “the sword” (i.e., the police and judicial function of the state) by Christians to correct heresy and enforce church discipline is not, I think, a compelling appeal to historical precedent.

Some will make the argument that we as Christians should not seek to have abortion legally restricted, but should only seek to “make abortion rare” through social policies and church-supported programs, on the premise that restricting abortion will not stop abortions.  Thus, the MC USA Statement: “While many could support legislation which seeks to curtail some types of abortion, we recognize that banning all abortions will not stop abortions from happening” (116-117).  The point is surely correct—law by itself will not prevent all abortions.  Such is the case, however, with all laws. Laws prohibiting rape do not prevent all rapes; laws prohibiting murder do not prevent all murders.  To accept the premise of this argument would imply that we should legally tolerate certain classes of rapes or murders on the grounds that some rapes and murders are going to be committed whether or not we legislate against such acts.  Such an argument is simply illogical.  For the argument that we should refrain from legislating as a concession to the reality that, because our world is sinful, crime will be committed despite all the best laws undercuts the very rationale for legal order as a means to protecting the common good. In the interest of the common good, we do not, nor should we, accept an ideal of merely making such violent acts as rape and murder “rare.”  Why should it be different with abortion?

6.2 Christian witness and the common good

Our thinking about the relationship between Christian witness and the common good—i.e., “the good we have in common” or the shared interest of all persons in natural human society—would be well served by consulting John Howard Yoder’s The Christian Witness to the State.[79] Yoder counseled Christians to witness to the state on the basis of ‘middle axioms’—i.e., practical principles that receive support from both reason and scripture such that they “mediate” between biblical values and the common good, “translating” the particularities of Christian revelation into universal terms to which all could (but, in a pluralistic context, might not) assent on the basis of shared interest.  Such middle axioms are indispensable for Christian witness to the state from a peace tradition perspective precisely because the Christian discipleship ethic is not to be imposed by “the sword” but rather is to be taken up voluntarily.

I suggest that the principle prohibiting the directly intended taking of innocent human life is one such ‘middle axiom’ that can be put forth by Christians as a basis for ordering common life.  It expresses Christian values and experience “in terms that are intelligible in the marketplace, yet faithful to and explicitly anchored in the distinctive claims of the Christian story.”[80] We can both affirm this principle on the basis of our faith and in turn reasonably expect government to follow it on the grounds that it falls within government’s legitimate authority to protect the common good.  We can, and should, on the basis of both faith and reason, expect government to act in defense of innocent human life, especially the lives of those who are the weakest and most vulnerable among us.  The principle prohibiting the directly intended taking of innocent human life is not a peculiarly Christian, much less Mennonite-Anabaptist, principle.  Such a principle underlies the common law prohibition of murder. Moreover, this principle, which is the basis of the traditional just war prohibition of direct attacks upon or the deliberate targeting of civilian populations, has become a fundamental principle of international law, having been canonized in modern legal documents, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), which recognizes and seeks to guarantee noncombatant immunity during war.[81] The protection of innocent lives is also the basis of standard Western legal procedure granting presumption of innocence and guarantee of due process to the accused; and such protections have been incorporated into international human rights documents (cf. articles 6 and 14 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).  Such precaution to protect the lives of the innocent is the motivation behind the operative principle of Western legal systems that it is better that the guilty be acquitted than the innocent be convicted (and, hence, be put in jeopardy of losing life or liberty).  One need not, therefore, share Christian convictions, much less adhere to the peace tradition, in order to advocate the legal protection of innocent human life.  One can then argue straightforwardly on the basis of the liberal constitutional principles of nondiscrimination, due process, and equal protection under the law that the legal protection of innocent human life should be extended to pre-born human lives.  To ask the government to act in defense of life in the womb is to ask simply that the principle protecting innocent human life be upheld on an equal, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary basis—i.e., without regard for condition of in/dependence, health, or ability.[82] Without appealing to moral principles wholly foreign to the public conscience, Christians, including peace tradition Christians, can thus bear witness to the state on behalf of noncombatants caught in war zones and innocent persons languishing on death row; and if Christians can bear witness on behalf of innocents destroyed on battlefields and death chambers, then on the same grounds they can surely bear witness to the state on behalf of innocents destroyed in abortion clinics.

When Christians advocate defense of life in the womb, therefore, they need not ask government to enforce specifically Christian standards on the general public; rather, they may simply ask government to live up to its own best principles (viz., protection of innocent life, nondiscrimination, due process, and equal protection) in the interest of the common good.  The only way in which one can consistently omit abortion from the province of legitimate government authority would be to exclude the welfare of unborn children from the sphere of the common good, to discount the unborn as having a share in the good to be protected by law.  That is precisely how utilitarianism excludes the unborn, as well as infants and those with severe developmental disability or cognitive impairment, from moral consideration—by (dis-)regarding them as “non-persons” without “preferences” or “interests” that we are obligated to respect.  To permit abortion by excluding the welfare of the unborn from the common good on the basis that they are “non-persons” before the law, therefore, opens the door to infanticide and euthanasia for “the greater good,” which utilitarian thinkers readily argue should be permitted by law.[83]

Of course, not everyone in general society (or even the church!) will agree with the argument outlined above; but not everyone need agree with all of the premises of such an argument for it to be publicly intelligible and debatable.  Christians will (should!) appraise the value of human life differently than do others in general society that do not share a distinctively Christian view of reality.  It in no way follows, however, that when Christians bring their faith-formed convictions to democratic debate in the public square that such beliefs are thereby coercively “imposed” upon others without their consent—others are free to bring their own convictions (faith-formed and otherwise) to the debate and can reject principles put forth from the Christian viewpoint.[84] Besides this, some viewpoints quite hostile to Christianity share common ground with the Christian perspective.  There is significant philosophical support for a ‘sanctity of life’ ethic based in secular humanism that would stand in opposition to abortion and other violations of human life.[85] Even atheistic utilitarians—who deny both that the directly intended taking of innocent human life is morally wrong and that the unborn have any moral status, and hence argue that abortion does not require any moral justification whatsoever—recognize nonetheless that the fetus is human life and that abortion is killing.  It’s not that Peter Singer thinks that the theological appraisal of human life is nonsense—he simply believes it to be false.[86] Even on political liberalism’s own terms, such disagreement over public principles is epistemological, not theological; democratic debate need not presume initial agreement over all substantive matters.  Indeed, debate concerning “the good we hold in common” is at the heart of deliberative democracy: competing world-views and visions of the good are precisely what generate public debate in a pluralistic society.  What is crucial is not whether some views are religiously-motivated and others are not, but rather whether procedures of reaching public consensus are fair to all interests and perspectives and whether the substance of debate does not require a prior uniform religious commitment.[87]

Christians may choose with integrity not to engage democratic debate on abortion, capital punishment, and war.  There are good arguments to be made for Christian withdrawal from legal (i.e., legislative and judicial) debate over contentious public moral issues.  Thus, one may well argue that Christians would witness best in the public square by “being the church”—i.e., being a “contrast community” embodying a “counter reality” or “new paradigm” within the civil community, and bearing prophetic witness to gospel truth before the “powers that be”—rather than seeking to exercise power by gaining partisan influence and seizing political levers via legislative lobbying or electoral politics.[88] Such prophetic witness could include prayer vigils and respectful demonstrations, peaceful marches, published petitions, civil dialogue, and other forms of nonviolent direct action.  Nonetheless, arguments to the effect that it is illegitimate for Christians to participate fairly in the democratic construction the common good are unsound.

---