To Pro-Life Christians: Please Support Refugees

Pope Francis, right, washes the feet of prisoners in 2015. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO, POOL

As Vice President Mike Pence addressed crowds of supporters at the March for Life, protests raged across the country decrying President Trump’s ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.  This executive order includes an indefinite ban on refugees from war-torn Syria. The Vice-President did not mention immigration in his comments to Pro-Life activists, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be on our minds.  It is the height of hypocrisy to march for protection of the unborn and ignore the plight of children around the world.  Mr. Pence, it seems, is unaware that immigration is a life issue

The Pro-Life movement has fallen into a dangerous trap of one-issue politics.  The fixation with overturning Roe V Wade has chained us to the Republican Party, distracting us from vital work and weakening our stance. In fact, the Republicans often oppose measures that are vital to our cause: a stronger safety net for single mothers, fixing our broken foster-care system, and putting an end to the death penalty.  Lessening our focus on these goals has given weight to our opponent’s argument that we don’t really care about life at all. They perceive Pro-Life Christians as only focused on controlling women and forcing them into motherhood.  We, they argue, are hypocrites who only care about the life of a child while it is still in the womb. This stance would be insulting if it wasn’t so close to the truth.  We have lost touch with our calling as Christians and fallen into the simplistic story of the culture war.  And now President Trump has slammed the door on immigration. This is our chance to prove ourselves.  

Not to be outdone, conservatives are quick to point the finger of hypocrisy at the left-wing outrage surrounding the immigration ban. Obama took similar measures in 2011. (The seven countries on Trumps list are drawn from the Obama-era’s Visa Waiver program.)[1]  It’s natural to want to point fingers and say “Where were your protests then?” My question to pro-life activists is this: who cares? We have no time to waste removing splinters from other people’s eye’s- our beam is enormous.  We owe no loyalty to the Republican Party. We are Christians.  Our loyalty lies only in what is true. The question is not why are they outraged all the sudden but rather why weren’t we outraged before?  Pointing out the flaws in others is a distraction.  We only have time for the flaws in ourselves.

We’ve known for years about the refugee crisis in Syria, but we chose to do nothing.  We’ve known that translators who risked their lives to help our military were being denied entry into the United States.  We in the Pro-Life movement should have been the first to take up this cause. Instead, we are making excuses and blaming others. Worse, we are allowing our fears to control our actions. 

The story of Jewish refugees being turned away at the border during the Second World War has been passed around so much in connection with the current crisis, that it has started to feel like empty rhetoric.  But it is not.  The fears about allowing these refugees into the country are almost identical to the fears being expressed today: we haven’t vetted these people, we don’t know who they are, the enemy could be hiding among them, their values seem different than ours.  Roman Catholics often forget that we were at once suspected of wanting to set up a Papal Kingdom in the United States, echoing the current fear that Muslims will try to institute Sharia Law.  None of these fears ever came to fruition in our country, but we allowed them to guide our choices.  Every passenger on that ship of Jewish refugees died in concentration camps. 

I want to be clear:  I am not suggesting that all the rhetoric around this issue is accurate- popular media is rife with misinformation, which is certainly fueling the protests. I am also not suggesting that the Pro-Life movement ought to side with the Democratic Party.  On the contrary, I’m begging that we become entirely non-partisan. From the outside, it is much easier to perceive how both parties are right some of the time.  It is reasonable that a Pro-Life person might feel immigration policy needs to be reexamined, and a temporary hiatus may be necessary to do this. But if this is the case (and I’m not convinced it is) these changes must be made as quickly as possible.  An indefinite ban is not acceptable.  And, once the process is completed in a swift manner, we must dramatically increase our acceptance of refugees.  The numbers under President Obama were not remotely high enough. Every day that our borders are closed is a gift to ISIS and a victory for death.

Finally, I strongly urge Christians to take the charges of religious discrimination seriously.  Virtually every religious group has experienced persecution at some point in their history.  It is tragically rare for members of one religion to stand up for members of another.  This is to our shame.  Once again, conservatives will argue that the phrase “Muslim Ban” is hugely inaccurate, used to spur partisan rage.  The undeniable truth is that banning Muslims was one of President Trump’s (admittedly contradictory) campaign promises.[2]  If he intends to keep this promise then this executive order is the first step, as was disturbingly described by Rudy Giuliani [3].  While the immigration ban may not directly forbid entry based on race or religion, when taken within the context of President Trump’s previous statements, it sends a very specific message. As Senator John McCain, observes, “This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country.”[4]  Now, the President will wait and see how the Christian majority will react to this message.  We must not allow ourselves to be comforted by legality.  There is always a division between what is technically legal and what is morally acceptable, and we can only fall down on one side. We must protect the sacred right to worship, and vociferously oppose anything that comes close to challenging that right. 

The United States has so far failed to protect the innocent victims of our greatest enemies.  Some of these people are fellow Christians and ethnic minorities, many more are Muslims- all are targeted for extinction by extremists.  This is unquestionably a life issue.  When meditating on the moral path, we must remember Christ’s words in what is significantly known as the Judgement of Nations:

“Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” (Mt. 25 v34-36)


Will Pro-Life Christians demand protection for refugees, or will we once again fail in our mission?

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[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-order-muslims/514844/

[2] https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/trump-asked-for-a-muslim-ban-giuliani-says-and-ordered-a-commission-to-do-it-legally/?utm_term=.2fbb7b78df6e

[4] http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=587F2A2D-8A47-48F7-9045-CF30F0A77889

A Catholic Feminist Grapples with Abortion Or: Why Isn’t Everyone Sad?

A few months ago I asked my tech-savy fiancé to create a Facebook filter that would eliminate all mentions of “abortion” from my Facebook newsfeed.  Just to clear a few things up, I am not squeamish about women’s issues, despite what this demeaning article would have you think: The One Thing Anti-Abortion Protesters Can't Handle Hearing.

 I know I have a vagina, and I take it with me wherever I go. 

I’m very comfortable with conversations about sex and sexuality and anatomy.  I know several Pro-Life doctors and nurses and I'm pretty sure they're comfortable with it too. Penis. Vagina. Condoms.  Okay, we cleared that up.  I also don’t believe that woman should simply “keep their legs shut.” (I will discuss my personal choices regarding sexual morality in another post.) So I didn’t block the abortion talk because I was afraid.  I did it because, as a practicing Catholic working in the New York arts scene, my Facebook feed was starting to seriously get me down.  By that I mean I was going through an existential crisis. Every day, I forced myself to read every article about the issue that some acquaintance of mine happened to post.  I did this because I wanted to be “informed.”  But, because of my unusual place smack in the middle of the Culture War, half of my friends are passionately Pro-Life and half are passionately Pro-Choice.  And they hate each other.  And they view each other as either stupid or evil or both.  And they bash each other on social media.  And they are all, without exception, desperately trying to avoid pain.   Finally, I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe.  When my fiancé asked what was wrong I said: “I’m sad about abortion.  I don’t understand why everyone else isn’t sad.”  So we cleansed my Facebook feed while I cleansed my mind.

With the recent Supreme Court decision, the posts are back.  They’re back because the word “abortion” has been replaced with the word victory. The Supreme Court has dealt a critical blow to state abortion regulations. The Pro-Choice groups are ecstatic.  The Pro-Life groups are aflame with righteous fury.  I still don’t understand why they’re not sad.  I’m not talking about the sadness that some religious people feel when they talk about the sheer numbers of unborn deaths.  I believe they are really sad about this, but what I’m talking about here is the sadness one feels when one realizes that one is human, and as part of being human, there is no option but to be in pain. 

The abortion debate essentially boils down to two incompatible conceptions of reality.

1)      Unborn children are human beings.  They are not partial, or almost, or potential human beings.  They are complete people worthy of respect and dignity.

2)      Women are human beings.  We are not vessels of childbirth.  Safe, legal abortion is the only thing that truly protects us from sexual slavery, the almost universal historical standard. Before legalized abortion, women were literally dying.

Actually, these statements are not incompatible at all.  If my undergraduate logic course is correct, the only way to prove a premise false is to find within it a direct contradiction.  Look closely, and it is obvious that there is no such contradiction.  So they could both be true.  I am not saying they are.  But they could be. And if they are both true, we as a society have to deal with that.

Most Pro-Choice activists solve this problem by simply denying the first concept.  I’ve never heard a convincing argument in their favor.  Many believe that a child becomes “alive” when it takes its first breath.  This implies that breathing is the essential quality of life, which is pretty poor science. The best arguments assert that we can’t know whether or not an unborn fetus is a person.  I say, when unsure if something is a person, one ought to err on the side of human being.  So as to avoid potentially killing a human being.  More often, though, these activists simply deny a fetus’ humanity because it is inconvenient.  It is horribly, painfully, and monumentally inconvenient for a fetus to be a person.  I agree.  But that doesn’t make it untrue.

In the Pro-Life camp, it is rare to meet someone who thinks women are just vessels for babies. (This despite the opposition’s characterization.) More likely, they will assert that unplanned pregnancy is hard, and rape is terrible, but murder is worst of all.  So we have to make murder illegal.  This stance is philosophically sound but leaves the bearer trapped in an armor of callousness.  What I’ve found to be the case, and was the case with me, is that the devotee will use the massiveness of the importance of saving lives as an excuse to patently ignore the feminine issues at hand.  We will deal with those issues, they say, once abortion is taken care of.  And that will be…. When exactly?  Never, it looks like.  Sorry women, for all practical purposes you don’t matter. 

(Sidenote: I admit that the Pro-Life movement is extremely disparate.  There are plenty of crazies, like the woman my friend stood by at March for Life carrying a sign that read “Women Wearing Pants Cause Abortion.”  I can’t speak for these people.  But there are plenty of Pro-Choice crazies too.  I met a girl last week who jokingly told me that she believes in “legal abortion up to three years.” I did not find that funny.  At all.)

So how does a Catholic feminist rectify this situation?  Pope Francis recently stated that Cafeteria Catholics, that is, Catholics that pick and choose which teachings they happen to like, aren’t real Catholics at all.  Pope Francis is right.  Christ didn’t say “Try really hard and I’ll cut you some slack.”  Christ said “Be perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) I fail at this command every day. And I wish with all my heart that I could return to my high school days when I was Pro-Life without qualms.  (Because killing is wrong no matter what, so no other arguments matter.)  But, short of surrendering my God-given conscious, I can’t allow myself to return to a world where, as bell hooks describes “men want sex and women fear it.”

So here’s what I do, and it may not work for anyone.  Probably, it doesn’t work for anyone but me, as I’ve come to learn about most of my opinions.  I consider myself Pro-Life without exception.  That means I believe that all children have a right to life regardless of projected disability, standard of living, or the circumstances of their conception, even violent conception. (Read: rape.)  Meanwhile, I oppose any and all legal restrictions on abortion.  Okay… I’m losing you.  Hear me out.  We cannot, from a truly life-affirming perspective, force women to have children.  I can’t imagine a scenario where such a practice would result in anything other than violence.  So what I do, to the best of my ability, is strive to create a society in which it is not only possible, but attractive for a woman to choose life.  This means a radical restructuring of our entire view of sexuality, pregnancy, and childrearing.  This means, if you’re really Pro-Life, create the support system which does not exist for women now.  This means get over your sexual rigidity and need to shame a woman for being a sexual being.  This means Pro-Life people should adopt.  They should adopt children who don’t look like them.  They should pay for the healthcare of pregnant women, even if they aren’t adopting their child.  Yes, I’m that serious.  Pro-Life people should be kind and empathetic.  And then, maybe, maybe we won’t need to be having this debate.  Maybe abortion will only be happening in the most extreme of circumstances.  (But it will still be tragic.  And Christ did say be perfect.) That’s really all I got. 

The specific legal ramifications of Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt are actually not that compelling to me.  It’s a bit bizarre that they threw out the part about abortion clinics having to meet fire codes.  That seems legal, but I’m no judge.  I understand that these requirements mostly existed as an excuse to shut down abortion clinics, and that’s a bad look.  (Why are we trying to be shady about this?)  What is alarming to me is unabated celebration of the Pro-Choice movement.  Victory. There’s no victory in a scenario where we must choose between harming woman and harming the unborn. 

This is the fundamental problem with American politics: we see most issues as a matter of winning.  We’re happy because we beat those bad Republicans, so who cares about achieving moral Goodness?  We stop caring about the ethical consequences of our “victories.”  The #shoutyourabortion movement, a key factor in my decision to newsfeed cleanse, holds as its basic principle that there is literally no downside to abortion.  Women should shout their abortion, because they refuse to be shamed. Their slogan is “This is not a debate.” (Um, yes it is.) It’s true that we should all share our stories without shame, but when did recognition of sadness become a bad thing?  Once again, the denial, the callousness, was hard to bear.

 How revolutionary for our society if the feminist were to say, “I believe in abortion, and I know this might result in loss of life. This pains me.”  How earth shattering for the Christian to say “I oppose abortion in all cases, and I know this could harm women. This pains me.”  If we were to truly grapple with ourselves, I imagine I wouldn’t be the only one waking up unable to breathe.  And that would be a good thing.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that everyone take my admittedly convoluted stance on abortion. Clearly, it doesn’t help me sleep at night.  Rather, I am challenging each of us to avoid the comfortable pattern of denial that allows us to cope with our decisions.  I’m challenging us to own our consequences.  In other words, take your ethics seriously. 

For those of us who support legal abortion, we should still allow ourselves to mourn.  We mourn that this is necessary for society to function. This is a sign of just how bad things are on this Earth.  And I do believe this is an evil planet, reactionary as it may sound.  We ought to learn to mourn without shaming ourselves and others.  We ought to learn to live with a little bit of shame, because that’s part of being human. Imperfect.  And not okay with it.  

And let’s consider, for a moment, the possibility that our enemy is not evil or stupid.

Let’s consider, for a moment, that we are.