Defining Terms and Values
hu·man·ism noun
an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance
to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress
the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs,
and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.
The Humanist values what it can see, think and feel. They
value the cognitive capacity of human beings to rationally consider all sides
of an issue without the aid of religion or what I call “magical thinking.”
mon·o·the·ism noun
the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.
The monotheist, and for most Americans this translates
Christian, values only what is taught in Holy Scriptures as “the law” or “the
word of God.” It sees the world in terms of black-and-white, us-and-them,
right-and-wrong, saved-unsaved, heaven-or-hell, righteous-sinner… There is no
gray area where life is actually lived. It is filled with “magical thinking.”
The fact that you have to conjure up some image of what this deity looks like—in
most opinions, male—acts like or thinks like is where imagination comes in,
thus “magical thinking.”
Let’s apply these terms and values to the debate on abortion
and individual rights.
Liberal-minded Christian with Humanistic Leanings
As a liberal-minded
Christian, with Humanist leanings,
I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro choice” stance is human
dignity, liberty and Constitutionally-protected rights. It is not about the life
and death struggle, the tug of war between mom and baby. It’s about the
inalienable rights of the woman who has already survived the gestation period
and several years on planet Earth. How do the rights of an embryonic life form,
with nothing more recognizable than a heartbeat, trump the rights of a living,
breathing human being? Have you seen what the fetus looks like when there’s a
detectable heartbeat? It resembles a blood-red jelly bean.
Conservative-minded Christian View
As a conservative-leaning monotheist, which I once was, I
can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro life” stance is the
belief that life is God-ordained and begins at the moment of conception. It’s
not even a question about women’s rights or even the health and well-being of
the mother. It’s merely the fact that a life has been conceived in a woman’s
womb, that sacred space where they believe God miraculously breathes life into
the cells of this fertilized egg, a zygote.
I’ve batted for both teams, so to speak. I don’t speak from
a limited understanding of the issue, of what’s at stake. I see both sides of
the coin. But it does, indeed, boil down to a matter of individual rights, and whether
you default immediately to the fetus/baby’s side or to the woman/mother’s, you
have to choose who’s rights are more at stake here.
The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken, nearly 50 years ago. But
it wasn’t so many years before that, women were fighting for equal rights, and
black women for equal rights was only a decade older than Roe v. Wade!
So let
us look at equal rights, shall we?
EQUALITY
The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these
Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” which, at face value, seems to be like
a wholly monotheistic ideal. But is it really?
At the time this declaration was penned in 1776, chattel
slavery was a widely-accepted practice in the American colonies. Brought to the
colonies by the Dutch in the early 1600’s, one could argue that the very republic
was built on the backs of non-white slaves. That fact alone stands in complete
contradiction to the opening assertion of the Declaration. Were not the slaves endowed
by their Creator?
Slavery was an institution supported by the Church and
justified by Scripture. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is this concept of equality
for all found, certainly not equality for slaves or women. Off the top of my
head, the Book of Hebrews is the only place I can recall where equality is
preached at all! And there, it is equating the Christian to the Jew as “God’s
chosen,” “his children,” “joint heirs” in the promise of Abraham. I would argue
that even that Scripture is only saying the Christian male and Jewish male
adherents are equal in God’s eyes.
Even the Creation Story itself doesn’t promote the myth of equality.
God created Adam from the dust of the Earth. Eve was created out of Adam. From
Genesis forward, I don’t see a single shred of evidence where women share an
equal footing with men. That patriarchal system, established in “the beginning,”
was by God’s design. It influenced the very men who wrote the sacred texts, the
bishops who canonized The Bible and the 56 men who signed the Declaration of
Independence.
Even the founding fathers of our nation didn’t all share the
same views on monotheism v. humanism. This concept of equality that they
immortalized in the Declaration was a myth. It wasn’t supported by Scripture,
even though it has very religious overtones, and it wasn’t even practiced in the
colonies by the men who wrote it. They believed women inferior, slaves inferior
(lower than livestock) and any non-white inferior to them. So what was this
equality they spoke of? An ideal? An unrealized goal?
I would say, yes.
Women, slaves and non-whites had to struggle for equality
and most didn’t achieve it until the last half of the 20th Century.
It wasn’t achieved in 1776 with the Declaration, nor in 1863 with the
Emancipation Proclamation, nor even in 1920 with the success of the suffrage
movement and adoption of the 19th Amendment. The dream of equality,
heretofore just a myth, is just now being realized in the 21st
Century, and not just for women but for “all Men,” gay, straight or otherwise.
Is this a God-given right or a human right? I’d argue the latter.
Left to well-meaning monotheists, this right would never
have been endowed upon anyone but the white men who codified the rules, enforced
them, preached them and interpreted them. We’ve only seen cracks form in the patriarchal
system of control handed down to us from Abraham, and later Moses from Mt. Sinai.
Humanists would argue that we haven’t gone far enough. Their
view is that monotheism and patriarchy have done enough damage, run their
course. Let the idea of inherent human dignity be the sole driving force behind
equal treatment under the law—no God required.
That’s at the heart of the abortion debate—human rights.
I don’t feel that the woman’s right to chose what to do with
her pregnancy is anybody else’s business. Like “all Men,” she has bodily
autonomy and unless that fetus is grown in a test tube, it certainly depends on
the “host,” as some have labeled pregnant women. They are not merely hosts.
They are living, breathing life-support systems. They can determine for
themselves if a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted. They can make this medical decision
for their own bodies and fetuses, just as any human being has a right to bodily
autonomy.
Granting women this right, which took from 1776 – 1973 (grasp
that span of time for a moment), is a logical step towards this ideal which our
forefathers set out in the Declaration. That is nearly 200 years to realize
this dream of equality for a woman to be given equal treatment under the law. Are
we now to repeal what took 197 years to establish?
Patriarchy, bred of monotheistic ideals, would certainly
answer that question with a resounding YES! The establishment would have us believe
that the Supreme Court made a mistake. The most outspoken of those on the far
right would make a case for a theocracy—a system of shariah-like law practiced
in other monotheistic states.
The humanist in me must reject such magical thinking. God
did not descend with his scepter in hand and “bippity, boppity, boop!” life was
created miraculously in a woman’s womb. It took a man and a woman, and not
necessarily in an act of loving, consent. Still, biologically-speaking, two
humans of opposite sex had to join forces to conceive. Life, for a humanist, is
not a God-ordained miracle. It is biology. Period.
In that sense, the human beings involved in “pro-creation”
are ultimately involved in bringing this life to fruition or choosing to end
the gestation period. Even in that case, the male co-conspirator doesn’t have
more say over the gestating than the women who bears the sole responsibility.
Her body equals her choice.
Their religious-sounding, monotheistic rhetoric aside, the 56
men who declared this myth of equality, even while holding women and slaves in
submission, couldn’t foresee a time when abortion would strike at the heart of
this myth. But now that the myth, the ideal, has been realized it can’t be
stuffed back into it’s 1776 packaging. We won’t return to an 18th,
or even a 20th, Century mentality, no matter how hard the right pushes
us in that direction.
They carried signs equating a month-long lockdown with 400 years of institutionalized slavery. They waved anti-American flags and symbols, like at a KKK or Hitler rally. They openly carried semi-automatic weapons, some into statehouses (I'm looking at you Lansing, MI).
Matter," or GOD FORBID, he KNEEL during your beloved Anthem! That's when you get enraged. Saying nothing of your faux patriotism, holding up the confederate flag or one with a swastika, but you don't really believe that "ALL lives matter" you just want to silence and marginalize the black ones. It's what you've ALWAYS done!
