James 24:7

I have the hardest time answering the simplest questions.  Someone can ask me what appears to be a very straight-forward question and I stutter and stumble to answer them.  For example, not long ago someone asked me:  “Are you pro-life?”

On the surface, it seems like a fairly easy question to answer.  As a matter of fact, it seems so simple that the questioner could easily follow it with a set of possible answers: “Decidedly Yes”, “Yes”, “Tending toward Yes”, “Undecided”, “Tending toward No”, “No” or “Decidedly No.”  

In other words, the question is so simple it could be an item on a survey, an item that could be scored and averaged. 

Whenever I am asked a question like that I think back to the days when I taught Psychology in college.  After having taught for several years, I came to question the whole enterprise and ended up, as a colleague of mine put it, teaching myself right out of a job. (No, I wasn’t fired; I just got to where I would spend the second half of class telling students why they should be very leery of what I taught them in the first half of the class.  Since professors “profess”, I decided to find another line of work.)

I am not interested in making the world safe for the social sciences.  I will not allow my life to be pressed into some neat set of categories to the end that my categories can be counted up with your categories such that we all are reduced to an average or a tendency or a “standard” deviation.

The person who asked me if I was “pro-life” was not conducting a survey.  She was simply acting like one.  Had I given her a straight forward (scalable) answer (that is, had I let her set the agenda for the conversation) she could have decided quickly and superficially whether I was just like her or not like her or moderately like her.  She could then make judgments about my political affiliations, my zip code and my dreams for the future.  Maybe she could even have tried to sell me something based upon my psychographics and demographic.

I refuse…unless…

Now if someone will take the time (fat chance!) to explore the question then I might be more amenable.  However, I find most people aren’t interested in that.  If you seize the agenda and turn the question into a non-scalable conversation then the questioner’s eyes tend to glaze over.  I suspect that is because the questioner is more interested in pegging me than in knowing me.

Am I pro-life?  Hmmmm….Well that depends…. What does it mean to be “pro-life”?

Not everyone who claims to be pro-life is in fact “for life.”  Some who say they are pro-life are actually simply “against abortion.”  The lunatic fringe of that group will kill abortion doctors in the name of being pro-life.  Clearly they are not “pro-life”..  They are simply rabidly anti-abortion.   However, if you asked them they would say they are “pro life.”

Some in the anti-abortion movement are opposed to abortion but that’s about the extent of it.  They know what they are against but have no idea what they are for. 

Some in the anti-abortion movement think they have done the world a service by being against abortion but they do not lift a finger to help babies who have been born or single mothers who feel overwhelmed by the children they have.

So, if I say I am “pro-life” am I aligning myself with people who are violent, vapid, or apathetic? 

And what do we mean by “life”?  Is life simply biology?  If I say I am “pro-life” do I mean that I am simply for people being born?  Does being pro-life mean that we say to newborns, “Hey we got you here, kid.  Now you are on your own!”  Is that what it means to be pro-life?  Is there nothing more to “life” than breathing and eating and pooping?

If I say I am pro-life am I aligning myself with people who could give a rip for children 2 seconds out of the womb?  Or three years?  Or sixteen years?  Or 85 years?What if “life” is not only made up of biological functions but also consists in something on the order of the “fullness of life”?  Am I pro-life if I only privilege the body?  What about the mind?  The emotions?  The spirit?  The quality of family life and relationship?  And community?

If I say I am pro-life does it mean that I am principally about biology?

And how far do I extend this?  Is all human life equally sacred?  Is the life of a pedophile sacred? (I hate pedophiles for the record.)  Is the life of a murderer sacred?  Is the life of my enemy inviolate?  Where do I draw the line in this matter of whose life is sacred and whose life is not?

Is being pro-life simply a matter of defending the innocent?  In that case, what would constitute innocence?  For sure, the most radical ideas of original sin included, few of us would say the unborn are not innocent.  Certainly children are innocent.  

I am not innocent.  By the standards of Jesus I am at least a murderer.  Is my life somehow less valuable because I am not innocent?  Is yours? 

And really…am I the best judge of whether I am “pro-life”?   Maybe you would be better off to ask my friends if I am “pro-life”.  They would certainly have the better vantage because they could judge by my actions whether I am pro-life.   See, I may say I am pro-life but I may only be saying that because there is some reason I want to please you or avoid you.

But then what would my friends look for in making that judgment?  How would they judge beyond my claims that I am pro-life?   Would they judge that based upon my reported voting record, my membership in various pro-life organizations, on the basis of my bumper stickers?  

Would they judge that I am pro-life based upon my way of assisting children (or not?) or single mothers (or not?).   Would they judge it on the basis of my across-the-board actions relative to the enhancement of life? 

Is it conceivable that I could be pro-life if I gave my every waking hour to the enhancement of life in a holistic fashion while supporting so-called “abortion rights”?  Would that be pro-life? 

See what I mean?  Life is not so simple as to be made safe for survey questions- even if the person asking them is not conducting a survey.

While I have been writing about being “pro-life” my point is not really about being pro-life. 

My point is that we would all be better off if we did not let other people set our agenda for us with their narrow definitions.  Or, even better, our lives would be better off if we fully embraced our convictions and became truly “FOR life”!