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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Love the sinner, hate the sin
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
No, not that sin. There are other sins where we seem to hate the sinner as much as we hate the sin.
I am certain that we need to be as loving and kind and compassionate to women who have had abortions as we need to be to women who have chosen to have their babies in difficult circumstances. I am also certain that abortion is evil. It is the destruction of a human person (or of a being that will soon be a human person) who is made in the image of God. It is the desecration of an icon (or of an icon-in-progress).
I think that, nearly always, when a woman gets an abortion it's because she's in a position where she doesn't see any good choices, and abortion looks like the least bad decision. But even if it's least bad, it's still a painful decision. But if we are kind and compassionate to women who have had abortions, does that make it a less painful decision? Should it be less painful? Will making it less painful make it more common?
I know that, when I hear our priests say that abortion is evil, it bothers me, even though I agree with them. I know that abortions are extremely common. I am certain that there are women in our parish, in any and every parish, who have had abortions. I can't help wondering if one of the women listening to the letter from the bishop on "right-to-life Sunday" had an ectopic pregnancy and are alive only because they had an abortion. Do they wonder if their life matters to the Church? What about the young woman who is mentally ill and was married to a young man who may have been abusive and who certainly had a drug problem? She was divorcing him when she got pregnant. If she'd kept the baby, she'd have been tethered to her husband for the rest of her life. And she knew, with her illness, she'd struggle to support the baby, and with the medications that she was on, the baby could be disabled. And how would she manage? Should she be shamed for what she did? Is it shaming her if she's the only one there who knows what she did? What about the women who got abortions as teenagers to keep their parents and friends from knowing that they were pregnant, or to avoid ending their education?
And how many women who had an abortion to end an ectopic pregnancies deny that they ever had an abortion. "It was a miscarriage" -- I know at least one woman who says that and who feels supremely uncomfortable with the suggestion that she had an abortion. Because she feels like she had no choice, she doesn't want her choice to be identified as an abortion.
So how do we love women who have had abortions, or who are considering having abortions?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Very moving post, Josephine - thank you.
One answer I would suggest to your question - just one small part of the full answer, and perhaps not the most important, just one that occurred to me - is, "We can love them by letting them know that it is okay to feel remorse for what they have done if that is what they actually feel, and by not insisting that regret for their choice is inappropriate or needs to be expunged."
Sometimes what I hear from pro-choice advocates is that we need to liberate women from feelings of guilt for their choice to abort - but when they arise from the person's own reflection on their situation, such feelings can be authentic, valid and not to be taken from them. All bearing in mind that morose is not equivalent to remorse and that, in a Christian context, we must also reassure them of God's forgiveness of whichever of their actions they are truly sorry for.
[For those visiting from Mars, I'm a doctrinally faithful Roman Catholic, just so you know where I'm coming from...]
[ 04. May 2014, 22:34: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Very moving post, Josephine - thank you.
One answer I would suggest to your question - just one small part of the full answer, and perhaps not the most important, just one that occurred to me - is, "We can love them by letting them know that it is okay to feel remorse for what they have done if that is what they actually feel, and by not insisting that regret for their choice is inappropriate or needs to be expunged."
I agree with this. Absolutely. I think it's incredibly uncharitable to tell a woman who feels broken-hearted because she had an abortion that she shouldn't feel that way. Her feelings are hers, and she's entitled to them.
But what about the woman who feels, not sorrow or remorse, but relief? Would you also say, "We can love them by letting them know that it is okay to feel relief"?
I think that part of loving them is letting them know it's okay to feel whatever they feel. To weep with those who weep, of course. But maybe we also need to sit with those who are relieved, and listen to them until we feel relieved as well.
As Christians, we might not stop there. But maybe that's one place to begin.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
I have never had an abortion but I know many women who have which makes sense considering something like 1 in 3 women will choose abortion in their lifetime. When I think about them, each situation is so different it's hard to lump them together. I know one woman who wanted the child but after her husband lost his job, she became the primary bread winner (for a family of four) and things were so tough she couldn't possibly afford to lose her job, get proper medical care or care for another child. She really grieved the loss. I know another woman who suffered an act of violence and chose abortion and had zero regrets and was very, very relieved. I think that's the basis of pro-choice. Each woman and situation is as unique as her response. There are women who have late term abortions because of threat to health or fetal abnormalities and they grieve the loss as a miscarriage, and there are many women who have first trimester, pharmecutical abortions, who have no regrets. For women who do have regrets or grieve I would hope the church treats the situation like any other complex pastoral care issue where there is loss and regret like divorce, etc. It's a messy world and I think most people try to do their best with the hand they're dealt, which sometimes involves very hard choices.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
And how many women who had an abortion to end an ectopic pregnancies deny that they ever had an abortion. "It was a miscarriage" -- I know at least one woman who says that and who feels supremely uncomfortable with the suggestion that she had an abortion. Because she feels like she had no choice, she doesn't want her choice to be identified as an abortion.
This, I think, is a tangent. There is zero chance of life for a baby in an ectopic pregnancy bar the Ripley's Believe it or Not strips--most of these attach in the Fallopian tube, and the only question is whether the baby will kill its mother when it dies, or whether it will die alone. Two deaths, or one?
Removing such a pregnancy is abortion only in the purest medical sense of the word. The woman is quite accurate, she had no choice. To continue would be tantamount to suicide. And there are major ethical problems with that.
And I'll declare my own interest here--I had a heterotopic pregnancy, meaning one child in the right place, one in the wrong. Yes, they operated, and saved two out of three of us. The third was already dead (no heartbeat), but his placenta was continuing to grow and near rupturing the tube. But even if there had been a heartbeat, I would have had no choice. To let the situation continue would have been three deaths, and one of them on my conscience as at least culpable manslaughter. I could have chosen to throw away my own life (though as I mentioned, there are ethical problems with that). I could not choose to throw away my living son's life with my own.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
And how many women who had an abortion to end an ectopic pregnancies deny that they ever had an abortion. "It was a miscarriage" -- I know at least one woman who says that and who feels supremely uncomfortable with the suggestion that she had an abortion. Because she feels like she had no choice, she doesn't want her choice to be identified as an abortion.
This, I think, is a tangent. There is zero chance of life for a baby in an ectopic pregnancy bar the Ripley's Believe it or Not strips--most of these attach in the Fallopian tube, and the only question is whether the baby will kill its mother when it dies, or whether it will die alone. Two deaths, or one?
Removing such a pregnancy is abortion only in the purest medical sense of the word. The woman is quite accurate, she had no choice. To continue would be tantamount to suicide. And there are major ethical problems with that.
I agree that terminating such a pregnancy is absolutely essential. Without a doubt. And I don't think that the woman should have have to wait for the baby to die before the pregnancy is terminated. (And I am sorry for your loss, and I pray that God keeps your baby in his eternal memory.)
But, if you'll forgive me for saying so, I think that refusing to call the termination of an ectopic pregnancy (if the baby is still alive) an abortion is absolute nonsense. It's not an abortion "only in the purest medical sense of the word." It's an abortion. Period.
But maybe the way we love women who have had an abortion because of an ectopic pregnancy is to allow them to use whatever euphemism makes it easier for them to deal with their loss.
I'm just afraid that, for the rest of us, refusing to call it what it is allows us to pretend that the abortions we approve of are not really abortions, and only the abortions we disapprove of are abortions.
And so only "bad people" will have abortions. And that will make it harder to love the women who have abortions.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I suppose we're going to have to disagree. "Abortion" in the nonmedical, usual sense suggests an element of choice on somebody's part (and this may not be the woman, there are plenty of overbearing parents, boyfriends, and governments). There is no choice at all, except in the purely formal sense, for a person in a no-survival ectopic situation. You can't even choose to carry to natural death of the child (whether that be early miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death). The only choice left to you is whether you'll throw your own life away for no reason. And that, as I mentioned before, is a choice regarding suicide rather than abortion in the normal sense of the word.
[ 05. May 2014, 02:23: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I suppose we're going to have to disagree. "Abortion" in the nonmedical, usual sense suggests an element of choice on somebody's part ...
I think perhaps this linguistic difference is a marker of a particular subculture.
I'm sure you know about "marked" and "unmarked" words. For some words, when you use them "plain," they mean one thing, and when you use them with an adjective, they mean something else. So, the unmarked word "guitar" means a musical instrument with six strings that you plug into an amplifier. If you mean the version that doesn't have a plug or electricity to pay, you have to say, "acoustic guitar." When I was a kid, the unmarked word meant the acoustic guitar, to talk about the one you plug in, you said "electric guitar."
So, with abortion, in the usage I'm familiar with, the unmarked word means a surgical or medicinal termination of a pregnancy. "Abortion" as an unmarked word doesn't say anything at all about why the pregnancy was terminated, just how. A pregnancy that ends before the baby is viable, but without intervention, is a "spontaneous abortion" (aka miscarriage). And a surgical or medicinal termination of a pregnancy that involve an element of choice on somebody's part is a "voluntary abortion."
It sounds as though, in some cultural groups, the voluntary abortion has become the unmarked word. That's an abortion. I assume that "spontaneous abortion" hasn't changed its meaning, although I'd guess it's rarely used. And apparently, if the abortion is performed for reasons of medical necessity, it's no longer an abortion at all.
Huge, huge changes in the meanings of words.
That doesn't mean we disagree. It just means that, when we're talking with each other about the termination of pregnancies, we need to be careful that we're not talking past each other, since we don't use the words the same way.
I do find myself wondering, though, at what level of medical necessity does an abortion cease to be an abortion? For example, my friend who developed a form of cancer while she was pregnant that was "fed" by the pregnancy hormones. The only hope she had of survival was to terminate the pregnancy. There was no way she'd survive long enough for the baby to reach viability. She thought about taking the risk, but she had other children. Playing Russian roulette when you have children who depend on you -- she didn't consider that a moral choice. So, did she have an abortion? If not, what was the procedure?
And what do you call it when an ectopic pregnancy is terminated when the baby is still alive at the time of the termination?
This is sort of a tangent to the OP. But I'm really interested now in how the meanings of these words have shifted. It helps a lot, in a conversation, to know if folks are using the key words in the discussion to mean different things.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I think that abortion has become an unmarked word in the popular conscience, although medically it isn't. I regularly throw the term "spontaneous abortion" into discussions about abortions to remind people that a voluntary termination of pregnancy. whether surgical or medical, is a subset of pregnancies that do not continue to term, and that abortion is the word that refers to an early ending of pregnancy, by whatever means. But I grew up in farming country and knew of several abortifacients that occur naturally for cows - infections such as brucellosis, high temperatures, dog worrying and hay/silage under certain conditions can contain toxins. So that whole conversation was part of my childhood.
Technically, isn't the right form of words "medical termination of pregnancy" and wouldn't that also cover ectopic pregnancies and all the complicated other reasons for ending a pregnancy that are usually accepted, together with the early (first trimester) terminations that constitute 90+% of UK medical abortions?
(removal of stray "d" - and is not the same as an)
[ 05. May 2014, 09:10: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
Whatever your views on abortion, and I am 'FOR' abortion, one very practical thing the Church can do is ensure that chaplains visit women who've had abortions in a non-judgemental manner.
When I worked in a hospital chaplaincy, I became acutely aware that women in hospital for abortions are the least visited of any patient. Rarely does the boyfriend or husband come anywhere near.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
If you are dealing with a case of double effect, where one is intended and one is emphatically not, the normal thing to do would be to call the procedure as you normally would for the intended effect. Thus in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the term would be "salpingectomy," not "abortion." In the extreme case you sight of a nonsurvivable cancer being fed by pregnancy hormones, the term would be "hormone reduction." The death of the child is not the point of the procedure; the reduction of the hormones is.
You bring up the medical use of the term "abortion"--that is precisely why I specified leaving the purely medical use out. According to that use, which is not readily understood by the general public. According to the medical usage, what I had was a spontaneous incomplete abortion, located in the Fallopian tube. The fact that we cannot use medical lingo on the streets without confusing most hearers is precisely why I believe that the most common use of the word "abortion" today is to indicate an action which has an element of choice. If I were to say publicly "I have had a spontaneous incomplete abortion", I would also have to translate it: "spontaneous" means "happened by itself," "incomplete" means that the embryo and placenta did not pass from my body as they would in a normal miscarriage, but remained in place. If I did not make these explanations, we would have chaos in the discussion as different people made different assumptions about what happened that day.
Moving to a different issue--
I really don't think it would be at all helpful for me to say "I have had an abortion" (referring the medical usage, which equals miscarriage) out of mistaken solidarity with women who have had elective abortions. Nor do I think it would be helpful for other women in choice-less situations (such as ectopic pregnancy or unsurvivable hormone storms) to use the language of abortion publicly (non-medically).
Much as we may wish to comfort or support people who are having a lot of shit tossed at them, for me to start claiming a parallel experience when it's really not is ... well, it reminds me of those who claim to understand racism from the inside because they were once mistaken for a Mexican due to a deep tan, or who claim to understand persecution because their brother-in-law makes rude remarks about Christmas services every year at the family get-together. It's kind of encroaching on their particular pain, isn't it? And not justly.
The purpose might be to strengthen and support, but if I were on the receiving end, I think I'd be biting my tongue not to say rude things to anybody who appropriated the public language of abortion to situations in which the ethical struggle is pretty much absent. I would want to say, "How can you understand this pain? You had no real choice, and no ethical struggle to deal with."
[ 05. May 2014, 12:51: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Okay, now as a language nerd, I am really, really intrigued by the changes in the use of the word "abortion." I would love to see someone do a study to figure out what it means where and in which subgroups. Seriously.
The changes in language explain some statements I've heard that seemed utterly nonsensical to me. Like "There's no such thing as a medically necessary abortion." If you re-define abortion to exclude medical necessity, that's true. So this has been a helpful discussion already.
But I'm still interested in thoughts on how we can best love women who have had abortions, or at the very least how we can avoid sinning against them in thought, word, and deed.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Lamb Chopped, I read your response as implicitly saying that all women regret terminating a pregnancy, when I'm not sure that is necessarily so. As Josephine said earlier, some women may just feel relief.
I realise that this discussion starts from the Christian viewpoint that abortion is a sin, but I'm not sure that non-Christians would necessarily agree. And we've gone around this block enough times to know that there are different positions on this, even within the Christian traditions.
Additionally, there's a lot of tosh about abortion published on Christian websites, and it takes a lot of digging to look beyond that and find some less inaccurate information. Things like post-abortion stress syndrome is stated as a given on pro-life websites when as the Wikipedia article on abortion and mental health states medical research shows induced abortions do not cause mental health difficulties. (I started looking recently to write a teaching unit on sex and relationships. Last time I taught this a colleague decided to teach it with a Christian viewpoint, included stuff like post abortion syndrome and other information that I thought was dubious at the time and did challenge to a degree, but it's not easy co-teaching and disagreeing - professionalism means supporting the colleague otherwise behaviour deteriorates.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I realise that this discussion starts from the Christian viewpoint that abortion is a sin, but I'm not sure that non-Christians would necessarily agree.
Speaking from my POV, abortion is the result of someone's poor choice. (Excluding accidents of nature such as failed implantation, of course. And victims of rape and incest are not to be blamed, for it is not their choice which is the problem.)
This is not to imply any condemnation, it is simply reality.
So, loving a person who makes choices one does not regard as the best for them? Of course. Condemnation does them no good, nor the condemner. So love, yes. Support for them, yes.
This does not, and should not, imply one approves of the choices made to arrive at this outcome. Yes, it is a bitch to convey.
Just to be clear, I would prefer that abortions be exceedingly rare. I do not support banning them.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Lamb Chopped, I read your response as implicitly saying that all women regret terminating a pregnancy, when I'm not sure that is necessarily so. As Josephine said earlier, some women may just feel relief.
I was thinking of the women I know, not trying to make a broad statement.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
But I'm still interested in thoughts on how we can best love women who have had abortions, or at the very least how we can avoid sinning against them in thought, word, and deed.
The same way Jesus would love them.
Spend time with them, listen to them, invite them round for a meal, let them know they are special and loved whatever is happening in their lives.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I realise that this discussion starts from the Christian viewpoint that abortion is a sin, but I'm not sure that non-Christians would necessarily agree. And we've gone around this block enough times to know that there are different positions on this, even within the Christian traditions.
I think this is the crux of the matter. We are more comfortable with prison ministries, ministering to convicted criminals, for example. In that case, everybody goes in with the same basic assumptions about the sinful acts committed by the criminal - theft, murder, or whatever, are wrong, everyone agrees, and goes on from there.
And yes, even in these cases, there are conflicting feelings. I think particularly of a friend of a friend, who is currently imprisoned for life for murdering someone who threatened his teenage daughter with rape. He knew full well at the time that the murder was both sinful and criminal, but felt he had no option. My friend visits his friend in prison on a regular basis and prays with him, sends him devotionals and the like. This is a genuine ministry, and it works because they both agree that the murder was sinful, whatever the extenuating circumstances.
With someone who has had an abortion, however, you might come from the point of view that she has committed a pretty serious sin, whereas she might not agree, and this colours any discussion you have.
It doesn't help that abortion is such a legal hot topic in the US. A church which takes the line that abortion is a grave evil must manage to minister to people who have been affected by abortions, without giving the impression that abortion might be OK. I suppose this is somewhat related to the line that churches with a traditional understanding of human sexuality must take with their gay members. (Sorry, Josephine, for mentioning "that" sin, but I think it's a similar problem.)
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I think its pretty sweeping to say quote:
... the Christian viewpoint that abortion is a sin...
since there are plenty of good Christians who do not consider abortion a 'sin'.
I don't recall JC speaking on the subject (and abortion was not unknown in the Graeco-Roman world), and abortion is not referred to in the OT either. Infanticide was also widely practised at the time of Christ, as witnessed by the 1997 discovery of over 100 baby skeletons in Ashkelon which were dated to the first century.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
since there are plenty of good Christians who do not consider abortion a 'sin'.
Josephine's OP made it clear that she did consider abortion as a grave sin, and wanted advice/discussion of how to love and minister to women who have had / are having abortions in that light. Curiosity killed continued, in the paragraph you quoted from, to point out that there were a variety of viewpoints on abortion within Christendom.
So whilst I agree with you that not all Christians think abortion is sinful, I don't think "just stop thinking that it's a sin" is exactly the help that Josephine was looking for.
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I think its pretty sweeping to say quote:
... the Christian viewpoint that abortion is a sin...
since there are plenty of good Christians who do not consider abortion a 'sin'.
That's true. I'm speaking as an Orthodox Christian, of course, and our understanding of sin is a little bit different. Our metaphor would be medical, not juridical. In our framework, sin can be voluntary or involuntary, committed in knowledge or in ignorance. And killing another person is, in our way of seeing things, a very grave sin, no matter the reason, even if the killing was entirely accidental or in self-defense.
And that way of understanding sin should affect the way we deal with abortion. It's a grave sin, but what the woman needs is not condemnation, but healing.
And, of course, we need to try to structure our response to abortion in a way that makes it less likely. If it's a result of a spiritual sickness, then we need to take the equivalent of public health measures to end it. Not doing anything to prevent a preventable illness is, well, not particularly loving. I don't think prohibition is either effective or loving. The cholera epidemics were ended, not by blaming or condemning people who were sick, but by removing the handle from a pump.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
But I'm still interested in thoughts on how we can best love women who have had abortions, or at the very least how we can avoid sinning against them in thought, word, and deed.
The same way Jesus would love them.
Spend time with them, listen to them, invite them round for a meal, let them know they are special and loved whatever is happening in their lives.
And all of this makes sense if you know they have had an abortion.
But ... well, I was conversing recently with a small group of women ranging in age from about 40 to about 60. It turns out that more of us in the group had had abortions than not. A couple of the women had never told anyone about their abortions until that conversation.
Because abortion is seen as so awful and so shameful, people don't talk about it. They don't admit to it. So ... how do you love them? Do you let them carry feelings of shame for the next 40 or 50 years, and fear that someone might find out their secret? Or ... what do you do?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
I had a similar experience many years ago with a group of women I was in a book group with. We had all had a couple glasses of wine and when the discussion turned to abortion it was like the flood gates opened. One younger woman admitted she had had an abortion as a teen (broken condom) and then suddenly more than half the group had an abortion story. It was eye opening. I think abortion is very common and has always been. One older lady had had an abortion before it was legal (her parents arranged it) and it was a heart wrenching story. Some felt sadness or remorse, but others (we were all mothers in the group) believed that choice created a future for her and her present children. If you look at the statistics it is quite common and so chances are when you are in a group of women that many will have taken that path.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
ISTM, the best response is "oh, I'm so sorry you went through that". That's what I've said to friends who've confided about long-ago abortions.
From what my friends told me, the issue was generally that the biological father wouldn't be available or was unfit, and the woman wasn't able to go through the pregnancy (and beyond) alone.
Do NOT try to make a woman/girl feel bad or guilty. Whatever your views on abortion (I'm MOTR), hitting someone over the head with the Bible (metaphorically, I hope). will make things worse. If the woman/girl already feels bad, you might push her into doing something rash--running away, or killing herself. If she doesn't feel bad, it could be that she will later; or in her mind and heart, it might not be any "worse" than having a mole removed--a bunch of unneeded cells.
I've heard of an interesting Shinto (?) tradition in Japan, designed to help with post-abortion guilt. There's a temple that has sculptures of babies. The woman (and any present family she has) adopts one of the sculptures, names it, bathes it, etc. I'm not sure how long that's supposed to go on. I think I see the point of it--but if I ever had an abortion, the ritual would probably make me feel worse instead of better.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Because abortion is seen as so awful and so shameful, people don't talk about it. They don't admit to it. So ... how do you love them? Do you let them carry feelings of shame for the next 40 or 50 years, and fear that someone might find out their secret? Or ... what do you do?
Ah, I see. Round here there is not such shame about the subject - abortion is talked about much more openly and seen as a choice, not a sin.
If I were in a group who were making it a shameful issue I would put the other side. 'Imagine how you would feel if you had had to have an abortion'.
I used to have to do this, years ago, in the staffroom regarding racism. Many of the staff were openly and ignorantly racist - so I gently put the other side without accusing them at all. It was easy for me as I was brought up in the most racist country on Earth imo (South Africa in the 60s).
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Erroneous Monk
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# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
But I'm still interested in thoughts on how we can best love women who have had abortions, or at the very least how we can avoid sinning against them in thought, word, and deed.
The same way Jesus would love them.
Spend time with them, listen to them, invite them round for a meal, let them know they are special and loved whatever is happening in their lives.
But that is presuming that they feel grief, regret, sorrow, even if these emotions are secondary to relief.
What if they don't? What if the very idea that you want to let them know they are loved is seen as an offensively anti-choice position, because it starts with the presumption that having an abortion makes a woman need to know that she is loved?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
What if the very idea that you want to let them know they are loved is seen as an offensively anti-choice position, because it starts with the presumption that having an abortion makes a woman need to know that she is loved?
I think everyone wants to know that they are loved. I think it would be offensive to say, "I need to let you know I love you because you're so obviously broken and damaged by your experience." If it starts that way, it certainly would be presumptuous and rude.
But that's not what I'm talking about.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
So how do we love women who have had abortions, or who are considering having abortions?
I think it's going to vary a lot from case to case. A woman who regards abortion as a grave sin and feels sorrow, guilt and shame because she had one is in a different situation from someone who doesn't see abortion as a sin at all and who is glad the option was available to her. In the first case, I think Chesterbelloc's remarks are a good start, though in addition to what he's said about God's forgiveness I think I'd add something about trying to understand what led the woman to make the choice that she did. Josephine, you talk about the burden of secrecy; I think people carry that in part because they think they've done something very wrong but also because they think no one will understand.
For someone who sees abortion as a grave sin, figuring out how to approach a woman who mostly or entirely feels relief at having been able to have an abortion is going to be a lot more difficult because of the lack of a shared moral framework. So I'd ask this: how do you in a loving manner to others who have in your view but not in their own done something wrong? Do you try to get them to see their sin? Do you let them just go on their way and pray for them? Is any of that transferable to this situation?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
There's a danger of being patronizing, isn't there? If you see abortion as a great sin, then that is your issue, and does not belong to the woman who has had one. Well, it might do, if she also sees it as sinful.
I have quite a few friends who have had an abortion, and there's no problem with it. It's not a problem for them, nor me. Hurrah.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
If you see abortion as a great sin, then that is your issue, and does not belong to the woman who has had one.
Someone who regards abortion as a grave sin is not going to regard abortion as their issue and not someone else's. To them it would be like saying, "If you see lying as a great sin, then that is your issue, and does not belong to the person who told a lie." You and I can say that the woman who has had an abortion who doesn't think she's committed a sin is fine -- but someone who thinks she in fact has committed a sin, and quite a serious one, is in a different moral position.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I think this is one of my problems with the Christian stuff on abortion. There's an implicit assumption in that output that abortion is a sin, so of course women feel guilty and have mental health problems following an abortion, it's obvious - to Christians with that mindset. But research shows that abortions really don't cause mental health problems in otherwise healthy women, and I doubt that most people do feel they have committed a mortal sin. There may be regret that they had to make that choice, or sorrow for the person they were then, but there is unlikely to be soul-corroding guilt. And silence on the subject is just as likely to be from avoidance of condemnation by those who would condemn than a feeling of a deep secret that has to be hidden.
And the assumption of this thread starts with the belief that abortion is a sin.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
If you see abortion as a great sin, then that is your issue, and does not belong to the woman who has had one.
Someone who regards abortion as a grave sin is not going to regard abortion as their issue and not someone else's. To them it would be like saying, "If you see lying as a great sin, then that is your issue, and does not belong to the person who told a lie." You and I can say that the woman who has had an abortion who doesn't think she's committed a sin is fine -- but someone who thinks she in fact has committed a sin, and quite a serious one, is in a different moral position.
OK, fine. But I trust you respect people's boundaries; this to me suggests that I don't impose on other people.
I just realized though that there is probably a Europe/US difference here. I don't see women experiencing great shame about abortion in the UK, but possibly in the US this does go on.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Yes - if the person who has had the abortion feels it was a sin then then way we would talk to them would be different. I would have to come from the angle that I, personally, don't think it's a sin at all. But I would be sensitive to their feelings, of course.
Those who think abortion is a sin are hardly likely to be confided in by those who have had one and don't imo. The early, tentative, conversation along the lines of 'what do you think of abortion generally?' would soon put them off telling the other at all, I think.
Those who think abortion is a sin who are confided in by someone who has had an abortion and also think it's a sin - they would be talking to someone who they think has done a terrible wrong e.g. a murderer. This could not be an easy conversation for either. But I am sure God's forgiveness would be key to it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Yes, if you got a sense that someone else saw abortion as sinful, you would tend to clam up, and not talk about it, unless, as you say, you felt the same.
I suppose this tends to have a self-fulfilling direction - people who are against abortion, would tend not to be confided in by people who are not.
But this works with other things as well, I suppose. I'm not going to talk about my past sins to someone who is ultra-condemning, well, unless I am a masochist!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But this works with other things as well, I suppose. I'm not going to talk about my past sins to someone who is ultra-condemning, well, unless I am a masochist!
Yes, but there are some things which everyone agrees are wrong. With these even the least condemning type of person will be uncomfortable talking to the wrongdoer imo. (Murder, rape, violence) My friends work in a prison helping Dads do story videos for their kids. They don't find it easy and find they have to not think about the fact that the men have committed crime and treat them as they are now - keen to keep in touch with their families.
Abortion is not one of these - fewer and fewer people see abortion as sin (thank God).
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think it depends on the person. A friend of mine works as a therapist with murderers and paedophiles, and he feels OK being with them. But then I doubt if he would do it, if he felt permanently horrified or freaked out. At the same time, you can't forget what they've done, and in some ways, that will be the core of the therapy, to see if there is remorse and so on.
I suppose the area of 'sexual sin' has been secularized, at least in Europe, so most things are not considered to be crimes, e.g. adultery, abortion, divorce.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose this tends to have a self-fulfilling direction - people who are against abortion, would tend not to be confided in by people who are not.
Several of you have said that, but that hasn't been my experience. I might be an exception to that general rule, of course. Pro-life absolutists consider me a beyond-the-pale pro-abortionist because I don't favor laws restricting or criminalizing abortion. But I don't always fit in well with pro-choice absolutists either.
But, back to my OP. Let's create a specific scenario. Say that a woman visits a church on the third Sunday in January. Let's further say that it's a church where abortion is by and large considered the moral equivalent of murder. And let's say that the sermon that day is on how evil abortion is. That actually happens in a lot of churches in the US on that particular Sunday.
So, whether you think abortion is good, bad, or indifferent, if you've had an abortion, it seems that the sermon would make you deeply uncomfortable, wouldn't it? Even if you disagreed, it seems like you'd feel judged and found wanting. That's never pleasant.
And it's impossible to imagine that there wouldn't be women there who had had abortions. Maybe more women than not.
But it's possible that the person giving the sermon doesn't realize that. I think a lot of people don't realize how common abortion is. So maybe he doesn't realize how the people listening to him are feeling.
If you're just another person there listening to the homily, you wouldn't necessarily know who in the congregation had had abortions, and you wouldn't necessarily know how they felt about it. But it seems like, if you have a reasonable amount of knowledge, and a normal amount of empathy ....
How would you feel about it? What could you or should you do?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Not sure it answers your question at all - I've sat thru sermons that made me uncomfortable because they accused me of wrongdoing - or of being a fundamentally wrong person or certainly not a God-fearing Christian - for (pick one) voting Democrat, not volunteering for the mission field, not being a wife and mother (the only valid role for a female), not giving a tithe plus more to the institutional church, not being in church every Sunday morning, not volunteering for the nursery (we need you, you are supposed to sacrifice) etc.
Usually I sit through it, rarely I get up and walk out in the middle of it, sometimes I fear they might be right (many of us have some free-floating guilt that lands on anything convenient), usually I don't go back unless I have reason to believe it was a rare thing or there is something else very important to me that makes going back worth the annoyance.
Churches are full of accusations and assumptions, usually well meant; nothing at all unusual about being a victim of a sermon illustration.
As to the person who did something you think sin - maybe the ideal is to identify with the pain that led to the "sin" event? The pain was and might still be real, the outworking you object to might not happen again if the pain can be reduced.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Why do you think a woman in this congregation would be so badly affected to hear a sermon against abortion? Do you think it would be a surprise to the woman? Because anti-abortion sentiments are expressed pretty regularly in the media in the UK, and I guess the USA too, with church groups picketing abortion clinics and making public statements whenever changes in the law are proposed.
What are the options in that situation? Make the preacher aware? Couldn't that be counterproductive in some situations where the preacher is unaware of the incidence but sure of the sinfulness?
Support any woman in the congregation who seems distressed? Well, surely you'd do that anyway? And you're not going to be able to say that the preacher got it wrong* so all you can do is support the sinner ... which takes us back around the previous arguments.
It's another of those aspects where the church and society are looking at things differently, but it's not one I can see the church approving of any time soon, although it's a more complicated than all children should be sacred and is dodging around on the borders of the contraception issues. We live on an overcrowded planet that we are abusing. If all children conceived were born we would have even more population to feed and care for - as a wider society concern, abortion as population control could be seen as a stewardship issue.
* I was actually told this when I folded up in tears over a sermon which was nothing to do with abortion. It was a hell fire sermon on the cornerstone reading. I can't remember what was said, but I do remember being told that the preacher was using older understandings of the text and that most theologians didn't think about it that way now.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I've walked out of churches, when an anti-abortion sermon or homily was being preached, although, as I said earlier, I've found them to be very rare in Catholic churches. I feel OK about walking out, and I would still go back there. I don't hold grudges really.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
But, back to my OP. Let's create a specific scenario. Say that a woman visits a church on the third Sunday in January. Let's further say that it's a church where abortion is by and large considered the moral equivalent of murder. And let's say that the sermon that day is on how evil abortion is. That actually happens in a lot of churches in the US on that particular Sunday.
That's not a scenario I can easily imagine being in. In 25 years of Roman Catholicism, I've never heard a sermon about the evil of abortion. I have heard sermons about the sanctity of life and the dignity of every person, but most often, these have tended to refer obliquely to protecting life at its most vulnerable, at the beginning and the end, rather than explicitly saying "We must fight abortion and euthanasia."
It would not be unusual, at the end of the intercessions, for the congregation to be invited to petition Mary "for our loved ones who have died and gone to rest in the hope of rising again, and for the children in the womb waiting to be born". But again, the emphasis is on loving protection where possible, not condemning where we have failed to protect.
I believe that abortion takes the life of a baby, but I don't think I would be prepared to sit through a sermon that focussed on the "evil" done by someone whose circumstances we know nothing about, rather than on the power of Jesus to reconcile all of us to the Father, whatever our sins.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
But it's possible that the person giving the sermon doesn't realize that. I think a lot of people don't realize how common abortion is. So maybe he doesn't realize how the people listening to him are feeling.
Then it would be well worth having a word with him/her after the service. They really do need to be relieved of their ignorance.
Once again regarding ignorant racism I did this once with a preacher - and I wasn't the only one to tackle them on it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Highfive
Shipmate
# 12937
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Posted
It took me forever to discover that the reason why Australia's 'liberal' abortion laws of legal up to 20 weeks and requiring medical authorization afterwards is because that's how much the fetus needs to develop before complications can be discovered through ultra-sound. Little things like Hypoplastic left heart syndrome or missing part of their head.
I heard about the evil of abortion from a Baptist ex-co-worker over facebook. I can't help thinking he fell into this position not from seeking medical evidence, but from discussion with his wife and his church.
I'm very grateful for this thread (male here).
Posts: 111 | From: Brisbane | Registered: Aug 2007
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