Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, calls for a "sober debate" on abortion in a column posted this week on the Post website. He then goes on and sets up a false equivalence between some extremists on the left who he claims want abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, and the mainstream Republican position that is calling for imposing restrictions on travel and mail-order medications akin to the fugitive slave laws to punish women.
But I agree that we need a sober debate on many of our policies. And I agree that we need to view these policies through the lens of our Judeo-Christian heritage, specifically as that heritage is rooted in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
- We can talk about "quickening" as the demarcation where pregnancy seems to matter when it comes to legal distinctions.
- We can talk about the vision of a just and righteous society, where doom is proclaimed on those who enact laws that punish the poor, the fatherless, and the widow (Isaiah 10). Where justice is almost always accompanied by the phrase "for the poor" in scripture.
- We can talk about the Kingdom of God described as a time when we turn our weapons into useful implements for agriculture, and instead of standing our ground we talk about putting away our swords (Matthew 26).
- We can talk about the division of the nations between sheep and goats in Matthew 25.
- We can talk about the Imago Dei imprinted in every human being, and how we ignore Christ when we ignore the least of these.
- We can talk about Matthew 6 and the insistence on public prayer and other public displays of piety among so many today.
- We can talk about the command to "suffer the little children" and how the right wing seems to completely misread that.
- We can discuss the command to treat the foreigner among us as a citizen.
So let's have the debate. Let's discuss all this openly, in the spirit of fellowship and mutual respect.
