Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Cosmos The In Lost

Home
Catholic
The Anti-Abortion Supermajority: Beyond the Abortion Wars

The Anti-Abortion Supermajority: Beyond the Abortion Wars

Last updated on: April 7, 2016 at 1:11 pm by Artur Rosman

The Anti-Abortion Supermajority: Beyond the Abortion Wars 2016-04-07T13:11:58-07:00 Artur Rosman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Those who oppose the vast majority of abortions are legion (Joseph Heintz, The interior of the Sala Maggior Consiglio, The Doge’s Palace, Venice, 1863; Source: Wikimedia Commons, PD-Old-100).

Charles C. Camosy is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University. He has published numerous articles in publications such as the American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and Commonweal Magazine. He is the author of four books. Too Expensive to Treat? was a 2011 award-winner with the Catholic Media Association. His Peter Singer and Christian Ethics was named a 2012 Best Book with ABC Religion and Ethics. His third book, For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action, challenges Christians to live with justice and nonviolence toward non-humans.

What follows is an interview about the topic of his latest book, Beyond the Abortion Wars.

============

The recent comments by Cecile Richards make it seem like being pro-abortion is a mainstream position. Beyond the Abortion Wars argues that nothing could be further from the truth.

Artur Rosman: Why is abortion such a contentious issue? Has it always been so? It seems the Greeks and Romans were much more lackadaisical about it.

Charles C. Camosy: No, it most certainly hasn’t always been this way. As you point out, abortion (and infanticide) were pretty much par for the course in ancient Greece and Rome. I sometimes show my students a copy of an ancient papyrus letter from a migrant-worker in Alexandria to his pregnant wife. It is a very loving letter: full of encouragements and concerns about her welfare. At the end of the letter, he quite matter-of-factly says that if she has the baby, and its a girl, she is to throw it out. As if he’s reminding her to take out the trash or something.

Christianity coming on the scene in the West helped change these attitudes, of course. From its very beginnings, the Christian churches thought they were called to resist abortion and infanticide (which they considered to be quite similar), perhaps because of a more general concern for the vulnerable and marginalized, but also because of Jesus’ clear command: “Let the little children come to me.” Of course, this view was a subject of ridicule and scorn for pagan Greece and Rome. . . much like it is today for a good chunk of our post-Christian Western culture.

Another development that has pushed it back into the public sphere of contentiousness has been dramatic increases in science and technology in relation to the prenatal child. We not only know a lot more about the child biologically, but that reality is now shown in photos on mobile glowing rectangular screens in nearly every corner of the world. A colleague recently showed me a prenatal photo of his granddaughter on his phone and said, “Charlie, she’s got a name, a prepared room, godparents, even clothes picked out. The only thing she doesn’t have is the right to be born.” When almost everyone can see the face of someone so marginalized, this is a game-changer. Perhaps it is the reason that Millennials are far more skeptical of abortion than the previous two generations were at their age. They grew up with the profound reality of prenatal children as part of their lives in a way that other generations did not.

AR: There are frequent objections to using faith in debates about abortion, which are supposedly supposed to be purely rational. But cannot one say that both sides of the abortion debate are working from notions of human dignity (or the woman and/or the child) that “secular” reason inherited from the Christian theological tradition?

Family

Interview

Abortion

beyong the abortion wars

Previous Post

July 23, 2015

On a Middle Class Pilgrimage

Next Post

July 28, 2015 John Milbank: The Eastward Movement of Western Theology

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #WhyRemainCatholic Abortion Advent Anti-Catholicism Arts Atheism Beauty Benedict XVI Bible Book Review Catholic Cinema Comedy Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey Czesław Miłosz Dariusz Karłowicz Devil Easter Eastern Orthodoxy Economics Environment Family Famous Atheists Who Weren't Atheists Guest Post Hans Urs von Balthasar HHS Mandate History Imagination Interview Islam Jean-Luc Marion John Paul II Judaism Just War Lent Literature Little Sisters of the Poor Liturgy Martyrdom Music News Paganism Patristics Phenomenology Philosophy Pierre Hadot Poetry Poland Pop Culture Pope Francis Poverty Prayer Protestantism Rabelais Race Remi Brague Rene Girard Russia Sam Rocha Science & Religion SCOTUS Secularization Sexual Abuse Sexuality Silence Solidarity Stratford Caldecott Synod14 Terrorism Top 10 Uncategorized Walker Percy War Weakened Edition World War II World Youth Day WYD Krakow

Select a Month July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the Bible's teaching on contentment?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Be content with what you have Always want more Never rest Complain