Editorial

We believe in the sacredness of all life—from conception to natural death. But we need to find language other than “pro-life” and “pro-choice” to articulate our beliefs.

First, not all who identify themselves as pro-life are completely pro-life. They may be opposed to abortions but support the death penalty for convicted murderers or support wars that kill both the enemy and innocent people.

Second, not all who identify themselves as pro-choice are willing to extend the choice to live to an unborn baby. But we believe in this “choice.” Mennonite Church USA’s 2003 statement on abortion says, “The fetus in its earliest stages (and even if imperfect by human standards) shares humanity with those who conceived it.”

On May 17, President Obama came to northern Indiana to give a commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame and receive an honorary degree. For weeks before the event and on that Sunday, those of us who live in the area were subjected to local newscasts showing strident demonstrators. They objected to the president’s visit because of his views on abortion. Dozens of demonstrators were arrested for trespassing on the Notre Dame campus.

Some were pushing baby carriages with dolls inside—the dolls covered with fake blood. Trucks with graphic pictures of severed fetus body parts were parked in strategic locations. For days a small plane flew over the area pulling a banner with equally graphic images.
But “protests against abortion have greater integrity when they are combined with concern for all human life,” says the Mennonite Church USA statement.

Sister Helen Prejean, author of the book Dead Man Walking and activist against the death penalty, addressed the Associated Church Press convention in Indianapolis on May 7. During the question-and-answer period one person wanted to know what this diminutive but fiery Catholic nun thought of the controversy at Notre Dame.

“Using terms such as ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ is facile labeling,” she said during her response. Prejean said that if we believe in the sanctity of life, then it must also apply to the lives of people on death row—no matter how horrific their crimes and no matter how unrepentant the sinner.

A Gallup Poll released on May 15 reported that 51 percent of U.S citizens now call themselves pro-life instead of pro-choice on the issue of abortion. This is the first time in the 15 years that Gallup has been asking the question that a majority of Americans reveal themselves to be pro-life.

But it is a false dichotomy and one Mennonites must continue to resist. It is not our conviction that the killing of life in the womb is wrong while the taking of life in an electric chair or on the battlefield is right. Life is either sacred or it is not.

A good friend of mine who also listened to Sister Helen at the Associated Church Press convention found herself converted.

“I always thought if someone took my child’s life, then that person deserved the same thing,” she said. “But Sister Helen made me think about it from a different point of view: What if it was my child who killed someone. Would I still believe my guilty child should die?”

Viewing life from the point of view of a killer’s mother is one way to touch its sanctity. Would the mother who lost her son on the battlefield want the soldier who killed him to also die if the mother of the enemy soldier was her friend?

The term “pro-life” is facile (shallow), but it also means to be “for life.” For anyone to be pro-life but also support the death penalty or war is as illogical as being “sorta pregnant.”

Mennonite Church USA can help change the national debate about abortion by insisting that all of life is sacred from conception to natural death. Those who claim to be pro-life can be so only if they are as concerned about the lives of convicted criminals or soldiers as they are concerned about the lives of unborn babies. The conviction that all life is sacred needs to come “full-term” and be born as a whole and healthy truth.