Summary and Comment
Part 2. Comment
If one wants to evaluate a position, one must be able to summarize understandably that position. In this article, the second of a series, I want to evaluate critically the position that Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters took in her talk to The Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
It is not enough for those who profess to be pro-life or anti-abortion to gainsay Peters in her position. We must be able to look at the position that she espoused to see the flaws in her argument.
The Rev. Rebecca Todd Peters is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, a teacher, and an abortion activist.
The subject of abortion and discussing it as a matter of public policy and morality makes people uncomfortable, Peters indicated. With this, we can agree. However, since the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision earlier this year it has returned to public discussion. The Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the ability to decide on the legality of abortion to the individual states. In terms of our Constitutional jurisprudence, this is as it should be. Roe v. Wade was a grave Constitutional error on par with the Dred Scott decision of the nineteenth century and needed to be corrected.
Dr. Peters asserted that conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics have shaped the debate over abortion with a set of false premises that she calls “The Abortion Imaginary.” The Abortion Imaginary is an attempt to build a narrative by those groups to sway public opinion against the abortion procedure. Peters suggests that the premises behind The Abortion Imaginary are false. But, in suggesting that the premises behind The Abortion Imaginary are false, she gave no justification to support her contention in two of three premises.
But, in positing The Abortion Imaginary, Dr. Peters made three critical errors.
First, The Abortion Imaginary suffers from bad theology.
The last of the three premises of The Abortion Imaginary was, according to Peters, was “abortion is a sin.” She gave no justification to the contrary. The term “abortion” cannot be found in the pages of the Bible, Dr. Peters said. But this ignores a vast array of Biblical passages that, when taken together, show that God places great value in the unborn. Peters ignored these passages, such as Genesis 2:7 and Luke 1:15. She indicated that, in a pro-abortion counter-narrative, “prenates (sic.) are not yet human beings.” If we consider the passage from Luke 1:15 in which the unborn John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth’s womb, this leads us to consider the unborn human. Also, when thinking of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, considering the unborn “not yet human beings” would contradict the Biblical assertion that Jesus was, in the words of the early church creed, “truly human.”
Second, Peters makes errors in the area of hermeneutics.
The passage that Peters quoted in her talk, Psalm 139:13-16, is part of a justification for concluding that God places value in the unborn child. This is a direct and pertinent interpretation of the passage. Her only retort to that interpretation is that homosexual activists use that passage to justify their aberrant behavior. One misinterpretation and misappropriation on the part of homosexual activists does not take away the correct interpretation on the part of pro-life advocates.
The pro-life position against the abortion procedure does not require a new hermeneutic or a new method of Biblical interpretation. It requires a consistent reading of the Biblical materials, which would point to a view that God places value on the unborn. “The anti-choice hermeneutic is that from conception a zygote is biologically, morally, ontologically, and in every other way indistinguishable from a baby,” Peters says. Taking the opposite position that “Prenates are not yet human beings,” without justification, is contrary to science. It is an odd position to take and a difficult stretch of the interpretive imagination.
Finally, Peters’ most disturbing problem centered on morality.
The most disturbing portion of the thirty-minute talk was when Dr. Peters described her own choice of abortion. Was God a comforting presence with her as she aborted two pregnancies? That is how Peters described her experience. It is impossible to concede that God smiled at her choice. Pro-life advocates can also suggest that we cannot fathom a God who would imagine otherwise.
The pro-life, or anti-abortion, position is built on a better view of Biblical theology, that God values the unborn. It is built on a better hermeneutic because it views the Biblical passages in their context. Finally, the pro-life view takes a more moral position in saying that unborn life must be protected and those who are considering the choice of abortion should be viewed with compassion.
Rebecca Todd Peters’ abortion activism and attempt at theological, Biblical, and moral justification for the procedure ultimately fails in three major points and, frankly, must be considered evil.
Mark Riser - Apologist 