Here is another excerpt from The Jericho Plan: Breaking Down the Walls Which Prevent Post-Abortion Healing, by Elliot Institute Director Dr. David Reardon. To get a free digital copy of this book (no e-reader is needed) to share with your pastor or other church leaders, simply join the Church Awareness Project.
Focusing on Women
The traditional framing of the abortion debate is based on the view that the rights of the unborn child are in conflict with the rights of the pregnant woman. But in fact, the rights of the mother and the rights of her unborn child are not in conflict–and in upholding the rights of both, we can create a society that is both pro-woman and pro-life.
In at least a few cases, the traditional adversarial position has led some pro-lifers to focus almost exclusively on the rights of the unborn child. A few even believe any effort to focus public attention on the physical and emotional consequences of abortion on women undercuts the moral high ground of opposing abortion simply because all human life is sacred.
Unfortunately, there are more than a few anti-abortionists who have very little sympathy for women who suffer problems after abortion. There are also many–including those in positions of authority or influence–who overlook abuses, such as unwanted or even forced abortions and negligent, coercive or unsafe medical and professional practices, which exploit and endanger vulnerable women and families. Some of the more extreme activists and advocates have even expressed disdain for women injured by abortion with comments such as, “They deserve what they get.”
Less punitive pro-lifers may believe that somehow, with just a better education program, or a more articulate argument, we will be able to awaken America to the moral superiority of our position. To advance this moral argument, evidence of fetal development is relevant but evidence of exploitation or physical and psychological harm to women is not.
As this chapter will show, the pro-woman approach is not only consistent with the pro-life moral imperative, it is in fact a fuller and more complete expression of it.
The Natural Order of Things
We begin with a very simple observation. In God’s ordering of creation, it is only the mother who can nurture her unborn child. All that the rest of us can do, then, is to nurture the mother. To help a child, we must help the child’s mother.
There is nothing startling about this observation. Pregnancy resource centers have known this truth, and have been living it out, for decades. But we must explore this insight more deeply to understand all that it can teach us.
God has created a connection between a mother and her children that is so deeply personal and intimate that the welfare of each is dependent on the other. As every mother knows from personal experience, this interdependence is for both good and ill. When a mother’s children are joyful, their joy lifts her heart. When they are troubled by sorrow, their sorrows weigh on her as well. But in sum, one cannot help an unborn child without helping the mother; one cannot hurt an unborn child without hurting the mother.
This is why, from a natural law perspective, we know that abortion is inherently harmful to women. One does not need to be a “biased” pro-life Christian to see this truth. Consider the testimony of Dr. Julius Fogel, a psychiatrist and obstetrician who has been a long-time advocate of abortion and has personally performed over 20,000 abortions. According to Dr. Fogel:
Every woman—whatever her age, background or sexuality—has a trauma at destroying a pregnancy. A level of humanness is touched. This is a part of her own life. When she destroys a pregnancy, she is destroying herself. There is no way it can be innocuous. One is dealing with the life force. It is totally beside the point whether or not you think a life is there. You cannot deny that something is being created and that this creation is physically happening…. Often the trauma may sink into the unconscious and never surface in the woman’s lifetime. But it is not as harmless and casual an event as many in the pro-abortion crowd insist. A psychological price is paid. It may be alienation; it may be a pushing away from human warmth, perhaps a hardening of the maternal instinct. Something happens on the deeper levels of a woman’s consciousness when she destroys a pregnancy. I know that as a psychiatrist.1
If there is a single principle, then, which lies at the heart of the pro-woman/pro-life agenda, it would have to be this: The best interests of the child and the mother are always joined.
This is true even if the mother does not initially realize it, or if those around her are denying this bond and pushing her toward an unwanted abortion. Thus, the only way that we can help either the mother or her child is to help both. Conversely, if we hurt either, we hurt both.
This is not an optional truth. It reflects God’s ordering of creation. This principle is so important that I must repeat it again: Only the mother can nurture her unborn child. All that the rest of us can do is to support and protect the authentic rights of the mother–rights that are exploited and abused by abortion–both for herself and so that she will be empowered to protect her child.
Read more in The Jericho Plan. For a free digital copy of this book (in pdf format, no e-reader is needed) join this outreach. If you can, please donate to support this and other research, education and outreach. For donations of $20 or more, you’ll receive two hard-cover copies of The Jericho Plan. (Learn more about the book here.)
