Don’t Lose Heart

Last updated on: May 10, 2022 at 8:24 am by Anne Kennedy

Don’t Lose Heart 2022-05-10T08:24:42-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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I haven’t really pulled myself out of my post Synod stupor. I stupidly drug my computer along to the extravaganza, thinking that I would blog or write or something, but that was a fevered dream. Turns out I’m not Rod Dreher, I can’t write all the time. And then, if you remember, it was Mother’s Day, which meant running out and buying tulips for all the mothers at church–or really, any female person who has a mother or is a mother, over the age of 20 (ish–I had to cut it off somewhere when I began running out of tulips). In June, all the male people who are fathers or have fathers will be given beef jerky (I think–the cigar option is being wafted around). So anyway, in the spirit of it still being mother’s day week, and my not having had time yet to photograph the lovely presents my children gave me (because I had to sit back and watch Matt finally run water to the glorious pond), I thought it would be fun to mash up this video:

With this terrible thing. It’s some sort of statement from a cleric in TEC. Let’s just get some of the quotes, shall we. Here’s a bad one:

In 1976, three years after Roe became law, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church reaffirmed its 1967 support for “abortion law reform” with a resolution about abortion that committed our church to “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions in this matter and to act upon them.” Our church has regularly updated and refined its understanding of abortion and reproductive health care in the years since then; most recently, in 2018, General Convention Resolution D032 committed us to “call for women’s reproductive health and reproductive health procedures to be treated as all other medical procedures, and not singled out or omitted by or because of gender.” Today we understand that transgender and nonbinary people who do not identify as women can also become pregnant, and so we call for reproductive health care for all people.

And another bad one:

Now, these extremists are on the verge of making good on a half-century of threats. Last night, we learned through a leaked draft of a majority opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, drafted by Justice Samuel Alito, that the Supreme Court intends to overturn Roe v. Wade this spring. When that happens, people living in the 26 states poised to outlaw abortion will be forced to travel to other states or other countries to find legal, safe abortion care. Those without the ability to travel will too often be returned to the unthinkable, nightmarish days of illegal, unsafe abortions that destroyed the lives of far too many women in the generations before mine. Given the sweeping nature of the legal argument in the opinion, some legal scholars say that it could even be a precursor to outlawing abortion nationally.

And the worst one:

As Episcopalians, we have a particular obligation to stand against Christians who seek to destroy our multicultural democracy and recast the United States as an idol to the cruel and distorted Christianity they advocate. In 2018, our General Convention declared that “equitable access to women’s health care, including women’s reproductive health care, is an integral part of a woman’s struggle to assert her dignity and worth as a human being.” Now—before this outrageous opinion becomes law—we must make our Christian witness to the dignity of every human being by insisting that we support the right to safe and legal reproductive health care because our faith in a compassionate God requires us to do so.

I love the winsomeness of the tone, incidentally, especially words like “cruel,” “nightmarish,” and “unthinkable.” Truly, for me, those terms conjure up in my mind the act of tearing apart a baby in the dark warmth of the mother’s womb and dragging it out into the sunlight to throw it away, which is what abortion mills do. And if you think that that is “healthcare” and good for the mother either, you have committed yourself to something that does not in any way resemble Christianity. I also love the assumption that really, the only thing you can do, if you get pregnant, is run off looking for a “safe” abortion. Having the baby is not mentioned in this “church” document.

Sorry about the scare quotes. And the continual posting about this issue, now into its second week. It is getting old. But truly, I am so heartened, so encouraged, so hopeful that all the people who have tried to peddle the lie of “safe, legal, and rare” are saying all that they believe. The murderous barbarism of insisting that the only way a woman can be healthy and happy and safe and good is to kill an unborn (or just born) innocent child is appalling. Appalling, but also decadent. It is degenerate, morally bankrupt, wicked, and sickening. And so God must be having so much mercy that we should see all this now, that we should have the chance to stand before the fury of hell and speak the truth. His love must be pouring out on this country, that we should be counted worthy to rescue some desperately lost and confused women and their precious children from death–both the one we will face now, and the one that lasts forever.

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