Rev. Dan Schatz
Unitarian Congregation of West Chester
February 27, 2022
All they wanted was a blessing. They were a young couple, and they were at the maternity unit of a local hospital. Something had gone wrong. They learned that their baby, if the child was born alive at all, would have major issues. The child might not survive very long, and if they did, would suffer a great deal. It wasn’t easy for the couple, because they didn’t speak much English, and because they had always considered abortion a sin. But they also didn’t think they had the resources to care for this child, and they weren’t sure that bringing a child into the world whose life would involve so much suffering was a much of a caring act.
So they talked it over for a long time, and when they decided to let the child go, to let their baby die a dignified death, they both cried. And they asked one of the nurses if someone might come and bless their lost child. Their nurse called me, and I first reached out to a minister in their faith, and without giving any details as to who it was, asked if he might be willing to come and say a blessing for the life that had been lost. I didn’t really expect him to say yes, but still I was taken aback at the force of his response. “Say a blessing for those people? Bless what they did? I don’t want anything to do with people like that.” And he hung up.
In a way, I’m glad he did hang up, because I don’t think it would have done much good for me to argue with him, or try to gently remind him that the blessing wasn’t for the couple, and it wasn’t for the act of abortion; it was for the baby. It certainly wouldn’t have done me much good to point out that if he believed human life begins at conception, this was a human life that was lost, and in his faith, that warrants at least a blessing.
So I went instead. It was awkward. I’m not a Christian, there was a language barrier, and even in English I wasn’t all that comfortable praying in their terms. I’d never been involved in anything like this before, and had no good words for it, but these people were suffering, and all they wanted was a blessing. I thought I could probably do that.
Haltingly, and with help translating, I said a few words. I don’t remember what they were; I just know they felt completely inadequate in that moment, in that room, that dim room, as they held on and let go at the same time, as they mourned the child they had hoped to carry to term and raise, as they mourned the most difficult decision they had ever had to make, as they mourned their sense of themselves in the faith, and at the same time, as they were sure they had made the right choice for them and for the baby.
Sometimes I think that we stop the conversation too soon when we talk about life and choice. Sometimes I feel like we forget that being pro-life or pro choice shouldn’t stop at the moment a baby is born or an abortion happens. Because if you’re in that place, making that choice, or depending on where you live, wishing you were allowed to make that choice, you need more than a moment. You need more than the two dimensions of life versus choice. You need care, support, love.
For many people, it’s an isolating place to be. I would not be surprised if that couple never told another soul that they had an abortion. Most people don’t talk about it openly, sometimes because they’re afraid of what others will say, sometimes it’s just really personal, and often because these were painful moments that nobody wants to relive.
But everybody needs love and support. If a woman decides to carry a baby to term, then she needs support for that decision, and support raising that child. That means childcare, healthcare, food, good education, spiritual support, emotional support. For a person or a society to tell a woman that she should bear a child she’s not sure she’s prepared for, and then offer her either token support or none at all is frankly cruel. At the same time, if we were to tell a woman that she has a choice to bear a child or not, that it’s entirely up to her, but offer no real support for managing impacts of that choice after it has been made, we would be abandoning her when she needs our care.
People sometimes talk about a culture of life or of choice, but I think whatever else we have, we also need a culture of love. We need attention and compassion that doesn’t stop with politics but cares for people. Whatever our positions, they should be rooted in love and compassion. We need a culture which is not punitive, but welcoming, not absolutist, but open, not arrogant, but giving. We need a culture of love which doesn’t cast people down, but lifts people up.
It’s frustrating and ironic that many – by no means all, but many – who loudly trumpet the word “life” are people of faith who apparently define life only in biological terms. The value of life, in that kind of ethic, is in the existence of a cell. As Unitarian Universalists, respect for the guidance of science is at our core, but we know better than to stop there. We also recognize the importance of human dignity and self-determination. We realize that when a life is brought into the world, our responsibility doesn’t end, but has only begun. We realize that decisions made out of love deserve respect even when we disagree with them. We embrace love and life by listening to those who are suffering and heeding calls to justice and compassion.
Sadly, it seems like there’s too little compassion in the public debate over reproductive rights. It’s far too easy for people on either side of the issue to forget how difficult these questions and dilemmas can be. I believe we owe it to ourselves and to one another to ask the questions and struggle with the dilemmas.
I’ve sometimes been asked if it’s possible to be pro-life – or anti-choice, depending on the terminology – and be a Unitarian Universalist. My answer is always an emphatic yes – and if the answer is ever “no,” then we’re not living up to our ideals. There are persuasive arguments that it is wrong to end a potential innocent human life, just as there are persuasive arguments that it is wrong to force a woman to undergo tremendous changes to her body, terrible pain, and potentially to risk her own life and livelihood for a child she does not wish to bear. It’s a legitimate point that there was a lot racism in the early days of the birth control and abortion movement, just as it is a legitimate point that the lack of access to safe, legal, and affordable abortion care disproportionately hurts low income women and especially women of color.
Can love teach us to listen to each other? Can love teach us teach us to speak – no less forcefully – with humility and compassion. Can love teach us to disagree strongly with a position while still respecting where it comes from.
Abortion is such a difficult issue precisely because so often it involves conflicting values – the sanctity of life, the sanctity of one’s own body, the quality of life, personal freedom, equal justice.
Unfortunately people don’t always consider the nuances. Much of the movement against abortion has become less about saving unborn babies than it is about exercising control over women and sexuality. There are anti-choice positions I respect, even though I disagree, but I shudder at the hypocrisy of people who campaign to outlaw abortions, while simultaneously supporting policies that make them more likely. Without access to birth control, and without honest sexuality education, the rates of unwanted pregnancies rise. The result is too many women who are tortured spiritually because they were placed in a position where they felt they had no choice but to seek an abortion, even when they didn’t want to.
For some people, the way through this may be very clear, but not for everybody, and very often not in the moment. Sometimes there isn’t an ideal solution to a bad situation. Eileen Moeller captured the pain and tenderness of her experience when she wrote:
Had you been born
I would have stayed a child
squinting through my mother’s
steamy windows, barely visible
over the sill….
and here I am now
still carrying you
a question mark curled asleep
in the keening dark of my mouth
a seed unspoken…..
It is possible to make a hard decision with love. I almost want to say it is only possible to make a hard decision with love – love for self, love for what might have been, for what can be, love, grieving, and surety or hope that it was, after all, the right decision. That kind of love never deserves condemnation.
What it deserves is care and compassion, and as a Unitarian Universalist, that’s what a culture of love calls me to. If this is my friend, my family member, someone who has come to me, how we I support her in her pain and her grief? If someone is suffering, what will I give them, body and spirit? If this is someone in my community, in my state, in my country, who I will never know, how I will work to make sure the resources and compassion she needs is available to her?
That’s what a culture of love asks us. That’s what helps guide us through difficult decisions whether they’re at the end of life or at the beginning. That’s what teaches us to honor people more than we honor politics, to acknowledge the difficult feelings of grief and guilt when they are present, to ask how we can best honor the spirit of life always. That’s what calls us to support people not only through these kinds of times but also through all the times that follow.
A culture of love guides not only what we choose about birth or death, but also how we live, how we build our society. It’s a culture of justice – justice for women, justice for people who live in poverty, justice for people whose identities or realities are shamed or denied, justice for people who have been the victims of sexual assault, abuse, or abusive ideologies. Our spirit of love and compassion calls us to bind up the brokenness of this world and begin the work of healing.
Laws like the one in Texas, that penalize women and doctors for having abortions at times most women don’t even know their pregnant, or that allow the public to sue anyone who supports those women and that choice – right down to the taxi or Uber driver who takes them to the clinic – are the opposite of loving. Laws like that are not about life; they are about totalitarian control. It’s as heartbreaking as it is necessary that once again today underground networks are being created simply to help women find the medical care they need. I don’t want us to have to do that, but it’s what love demands, and it’s something we can do.
None of us will solve all the problems or have all the answers, but we can answer the call of love, compassion and justice. We can pay attention to suffering human beings. We can be with the hungry, the oppressed, the ailing and the grieving – in the moment, when that moment comes, and in solidarity always. We can reach out with our generous spirits. We can open hearts along with minds, and hands along with hearts. We can honor the worth and dignity of every person.
I don’t think I will ever forget praying with that young couple in that hospital room, so many years ago. I will never forget what I learned that day, which I knew intellectually, but never so viscerally – how hard and complicated decisions around abortion can be, how real grief is, even when you’re sure you did the right thing, how when all of the speeches and sermons are done, what people really need is love.
And the thing is, we have love to give. We all have love to give. When we remember that, and when we give ourselves to it, when we build our society around it, then we begin to created the loving community on Earth.
We rise in dedication, hope, and love.
Together, we move forward
to a new day.