Americana Extra

A note on the abortion politics of the New York Times

This headline in yesterday’s paper caught my eye. The piece was of course about the instantly notorious ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, which decided that frozen embryos are legally people entitled to human rights. The ruling creates all kinds of legal, moral, and practical complications, and there are any number of good reasons to oppose it. That includes the state magistrate’s heavy-handed use of theology in making his case, which, as the Times noted, “invoked the Book of Genesis and the prophet Jeremiah and quoted at length from the writings of 16th- and 17th-century theologians.”

What really arrests me, though, is the way the story was framed: a judge who “invoked God.” It’s clear from the phraseology that this is meant to be literally remarkable. And, one can plausibly infer, faintly— if not outrageously—ridiculous: God has no place in a courtroom (nor, one imagines, on our currency or at presidential inaugurations). Nor, apparently, should the Bible or the writings of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century theologians have any place in an attempt to understand and administer justice. Social science experts? Sure. Secular philosophers like John Rawls, author of the vastly influential A Theory of Justice? Absolutely. But once you bring God into the discussion, as Heather Cox Richardson and Charles Blow argued yesterday, we’re on the edge of disaster. “If you don’t think this country is sliding toward theocracy, you’re not paying attention,” Blow wrote.

As we are frequently reminded these days, the cardinal rule of reproductive rights—meaning the right to terminate, not to develop—lies in the principle of a woman’s control over her own body. To which I ask: from where did that right derive? Karl Marx? (Largely a bourgeois affectation.) Thomas Jefferson? (Ha!) Hinduism? (Not in the Western world, notwithstanding the appeal of vegetarianism or the gender-bending of Ardhanareeshvara.) No. The answer, by an admittedly circuitous route, is Christianity, whose radical foundation is the inviolable equality of souls in the eyes of God. From that the modern moral imaginary follows. The U.S. abolitionist movement, to cite just one example, began in evangelical churches. No Christ, no (Reverend) King, no Civil Rights Act. Which I think we can all agree is sacred, so to speak.

I am sometimes stunned by those who think that faith can ever wholly be taken out of the equation. After all, questioning or denying the existence of God is a matter of belief, too. I’d call the editors who headlined that story dishonest if they aren’t naïve.