Sarah, be reasonable. No one would sacrifice the life of the mother and to say otherwise is disingenuous. It precisely because pro-lifers value life that this distinction is readily and easily drawn. Pro-choicers, the ideologues in particular and not necessarily the fellow travelers who are morally confused, would have trouble drawing this distinction because it does not really exist if the unborn child has no value. (Not implying you think this way.) As a result, when they focus on this difficult moral dilemma alone, it is only to divert and deflect attention from how rare it really is.

Secondly, two clarifications…

Potential is a function of being, not the other way around. A unborn child’s potentiality is not what makes it human. Rather, it has human potential because it first a human being.

Viability is not a medical or scientific cocncept, merely a legal one (and flawed one at that because the line of viability keeps moving closer to conception as technology improves). No organism is viable outside of its natural environment. The womb is the natural environment of the unborn child and if left unmolested will grow to occupy a new environment after gestation is complete.

Also, I wish we lived in a world where rape murder war and crime were never present, but in such a fallen world, the only fate I could think as worse than rape–which to me is worse than death–is to be forced to carry the rapist’s progeny. In such an instance, I view abortion as a way to salvage the woman’s psychology. It takes a strong saint to keep such a pregnancy, but it is not a burden most women can handle. We would want to forget the rape–but for nine months of having his action grow inside you–would make anyone feel dirty. The woman didn’t chose to have sex, so I don’t believe she should be forced to deal with the consequences of rape. That would be taking her choice away twice. I’m a fan of personal accountability. If it must be a sin, let it fall on the head of the rapist, his double crime.

I thought of the fetus as a potential person, and that only under special circumstances, the life of an already person should be given more priority. Needless to say, I wanted to reconcile this with the Christian faith, but I basically saw condemnation and throwing women under the bus as an inferior life to the fetus, as even if the fetus is killing her, who cares about us, right? So I looked into Judaism–Jesus was Jewish–and found it to be a much more rational explanation. It talks about the sanctity of potential life–not claiming the fetus is a full person yet–and offered exceptions in the case of detriment to the mother, with her life at stake, or rape victims. It’s a case by case basis, as it should be.

Quite frankly, if we make this a jurisdictional thing, we miss the boat. I don’t care what jurisdiction people are in. I do care, however, that millions upon millions of the unborn are being ripped from our mother’s womb and we’re putting moral emphasis on other issues that are important, yes, but nothing compared to infanticide.

Why else is it important? Because it makes it ever so more obvious that there are many within the Orthodox Church who do not teach this stance on abortion/infanticide. What is even more unfortunate is that it is the some of our more “visible” faithful and leaders in our Church who have forgotten this teaching; who support politicians that are blatantly pro-death, OR are politicians who are pro-death themselves! I for one will not vote for them even if they wear the Orthodox banner.

Leadership is required on this issue. And these folks need to be addressed, perhaps not called out or embarrassed – but I think we could ask them to forego one speech on global warming or on why Obama is the best and talk about abortion?