Abortion and Hearts: Don't Get Too Excited

Absolutely fail.

Last post I wrote about our stance when talking about abortion. Rallies like March for Life absolutely fail to address the problems that lead to abortion, and, what's more, they prevent honest conversations by creating an "us/them" atmosphere.

We can find a solution to abortion by dropping the pride and recognizing that no one has a solution yet. 

Now that's a hard pill.

Religion is not built for finding new answers. It's no surprise that religious groups and pro-life rallies come together, because for many religion is an answer to life's unanswerable questions. For many, that is the point of faith: to keep those questions of "Why" and "How" out of mind with easy, memorized answers. Thus they embrace biblical literalism, papal infallibility, and the cult of clergy as the places for answers.

That is simply not true, and those crutches get in the way of actually finding answers to difficult questions. Scientists have faced this for hundreds of years, and now we're familiar with the "God of the Gaps" dilemma. When religious authorities make God answer any questions, people who actually find real answers (by humbly, persistently approaching the problem) are made out like they reject God. So instead of an atmosphere that encourages people to answer big questions, we are left with a bunch of wrong answers and no will to answer anything.

That's what the March for Life does for abortion.

I have Faith and Hope that answers exist. Maybe an honest conversation about contraceptives is a start, or fighting rapists around the world. 

But whatever solution we do find, it won't be found in the pages of a Vatican encyclical claiming eternal absolute moral authority. That is pride, and it is not helping.