So the US and my Episcopal Church, even my bishop, seems to be in outrage or shock because the Supreme Court has predictably overturned Roe versus Wade. My dear bishop whom I deeply admire issues a written statement to the whole diocese in which he pens “Even Mary had a choice.”
I’m struggling with this thinking. First, yes, I stand with the so-called ‘pro-life’ side of the whole debate, but not exclusively so. I want abortion to be legal, safe, and much much rarer than Bill Clinton had in mind.
That said, I don’t understand the Mary allusion. Mary had the choice to say ‘no’ to the angel concerning his announcement that she would be made pregnant by God The Holy Spirit with the longest for Messiah. She didn’t say ‘no’ but chose to say ‘yes’ (thank God). So yes she had a choice but one that shares almost no parallels with a pregnant 21st century women who finds herself pregnant and seeking an abortion.
May we take the very rare cases of pregnancy by rape or incest out of the conversation because a) those cases are very rare, and b) almost everyone agrees that’s a different moral question? Good. Thanks.
But…Mary hadn’t had sex. Consentual sex. If a woman has become pregnant it is because she has had consentual sex. That, surely, is her first choice. No? Are we really saying that men and women need abortion rights because well, everyone has the right to have sex, and the right to take inadequate contraceptive protection, and the right to be witless enough to not take a morning-after pill? Sure there are plenty of poor women with poor access to contraception and the morning-after pill. Yet even then are not adults responsible for their choices?
I’m not one who thinks life begins at conception. In my view life begins when a fertilized egg successfully embeds in a receptive wombs and successfully develops. So I’m morally fine with contraception, the morning after pill and IUDs. I’m definitely neither conservative nor Catholic.
Mary’s choice was to set aside her worshipful obedience to holy chastity to accept becoming pregnant.
Hyperthetical question: Would Mary be in favor of abortion on demand? I just can’t imagine any real grounds to answer that question ‘yes’.
Finally, may we also all remember that the Supreme Court has not, and doesn’t have the power to, outlaw abortion. What they have done is effectively say it is not the federal US governments purview. Rather the States can individually rule. That s places the matter one layer closer to the voters. How is that morally bad? If Texans and New Hamshirites feel differently, should each state’s citizens be allowed to shape the laws that apply to them? I don’t feel filled with approprium, and I think the Supreme Court has done it’s work well.
Yes I can argue both sides of the abortion polemic and I choose not to because there is little chance of charitable and kindly dialog. Yes I know this affects real people’s real lives. Yes, I do know that very well.
But invoking Mary, a virgin, to express a desire to protect 21st century western women to have the right to get pregnant and then regret it? This seems inappropriate. I still love and admire my bishop.
Finally, can we even talk about the massive power-over move of the archangel/God over Mary? Really now, just exactly how much choice did Mary really have? I mean, really? Theologically, if Mary had said ‘no’ I am confident that God would have honored her answer. But that’s not my point. Mary was a poor, powerless girl loving in a time with no functioning contraceptives who would surely have said ‘no’ to any sexual advance from her betrothed because of her chaste lifestyle of Jewish obedience to God. She’s the last person to use as a poster for abortion rights.