Stop Playing a Sectarian Game!
UC Berkeley law professor John T. Noonan, Jr., a Catholic, describes the
discrimination pro-lifers faced from fellow Christians as well as from
mainstream secular American society in his 1979 book, A Private Choice:
Abortion in America in the Seventies.
In her essay "Life and Peace," Juli Loesch wrote that when she spoke out
against abortion at an antinuclear gathering, she:
"...tried to present a meticulous *secular* case against abortion. I
marshalled all the scientific evidence... I followed it up with the most
basic principle found in every human ethical system... do not do to others
what you would not like done to you.
"This was rewarded by a brief silence, which was broken by a single
question:
‘Are you a Catholic?... Well, then. You’re imposing your religious
beliefs...’
"And, therefore, I suppose, I lose."
Pro-lifers must not play a sectarian game with animal activists. Saying,
"*Your* religion says it's wrong to kill animals, mine doesn't..." is
pointless when someone from a differing denomination could just as easily
say, "Your religion says it's wrong to kill the unborn, mine doesn't." There
are pro-choice Protestant denominations, like the United Church of Christ.
As an animal advocate and a secularist, I've never understood the attempts
of pro-life Christians to unsuccessfully deflect the issues of animal rights
and vegetarianism by depicting them solely as someone else's "religious
beliefs" which they think don't apply to them.
A lot of people look at abortion that way, too, you know!
Claiming, "Your religion says it's wrong to kill animals -- mine doesn't..."
is pointless when someone from another denomination could just as easily
say, "Your religion says it's wrong to kill the unborn -- mine doesn't..."
On the other hand, perhaps pro-life Christians *do* see the abortion issue
as sectarian.
My friend Ruth once told me when she was doing sidewalk counseling outside
an abortion clinic with a couple of other Christians, these Christians were
saying to her:
"We only want to prevent *Christian* women from having abortions..."
"I guess that leaves me to minister to the pagan!" said Ruth lightheartedly.
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