I want to try and do for David Robertson (The Wee Flea), what I wish he had done for me and that is to engage with the substance of his article responding to me. You see, I think there are some substantial misunderstandings in his article and it is worth clarifying them. It would be worth checking what he claims I said with what I actually said and then we can discuss the merits of the case on each issue.
Evil and hyperbole
Robertson says:
“Using evil is hyperbolic. Although abortion is evil – we shouldn’t say that. Somehow this is considered to be more compassionate. This is the argument that I hear so often used – but the trouble is it ends up accusing Christ of being unChristlike. Jesus had no problem in calling people evil… (Matthew 7:11). When Dave agrees that abortion is evil but then argues that we shouldn’t say that, he is not only being contradictory and lacking courage, but he is also being unChristlike.”
Is that what I said though? Have another look at my article. This is what I actually said. This is what I said:
“Why do I find them unhelpful. Well, firstly I think there’s an engagement in hyperbolic language. Mildred’s article is headed “This Law change is evil, pure and simple” whilst David Robertson describes it as “absolute evil”.”
First of all, when I talk about hyperbolic language I’m referring to entire phrases “absolute evil” and “evil pure and simple” not just the word “evil”. This is more “tabloid” language than Biblical assessment and is being applied not to abortion itself but to one legal change. It is strange to hear the suggestion that I’m saying “Although abortion is evil – we shouldn’t say that” because at no point have I said that we shouldn’t describe it as such, in fact, I explicitly do in my article. I think it is helpful to see two things here. First how we can take a word, modify it with a qualifier and use it in a particular way which turns it into hyperbole. Second, that we can make out that people are saying things that they haven’t even come close to saying.
Perhaps there is an argument for using hyperbole in this context, to get people’s attention, to get them to wake up from complacent slumber but it does not take away from the fact that it is hyperbole and hyperbole has its advantages and disadvantages. I set out in my article what they were in this context.
2. Decriminalising
Next, David says:
“It is not changing the status of abortion as a criminal act – But it is. That’s what decriminalisation means. When the State says we will not treat burglary as a crime, they are de facto decriminalising. When they say we will not treat abortion as a crime, they are de facto decriminalising. When someone writes an article complaining of ‘inaccuracy’ they should at the very least get their facts right!”
This is one of those areas where it is helpful to understand how the Law in England functions and what the specific legislation is. Later in his article David talks about “the bill” but it is important to be clear that there isn’t a bill going through parliament on abortion. There is a Crime and Policing Bill going through and an amendment has been made to it which will remove reference to the mother in previous legislation which criminalises abortion. The amendment voted on was as follows:
“Removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion For the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.”
Abortion remains a criminal offence under those acts which remain on the statute book. The difference is that the mother will no longer be held culpable and so liable to prosecution. This means that late term abortions and those within 24 weeks but outside the exceptions of the 1967 Act remain criminal offences.
I think there are two problems with this. First because there is potential ambiguity here. The mother is no longer considered culpable but what about the pharmacist who prescribed the drugs. Secondly, because whilst there is a case for compassion in a number of circumstances there will be cases that doesn’t mean that culpability is truly absent. So, to reiterate, under UK law, even if this amendment becomes law, abortion remains a crime. That is just legally, factually the case.
3. Nazis and Hitler
It is always interesting to see at what point someone is going to play the “Hitler and Nazis” card.
Abortion is already legal so why would decriminalising it be evil? That’s like arguing `that killing Jews was already legal in Nazi Germany – so what difference did it make if they use gas chambers instead of machine guns?! Most people recognise that this week a Rubicon was crossed in the UK – at both ends of life. And yes, decriminalising abortion and permitting the killing of the sick and dying – is evil.
Well no, what I actually say in my article is nothing like quibbling over machine guns and gas chambers. That’s because again, I’m not saying what he suggests. The closer analogy is with the debate over prostitution. We can recognise that prostitution is an evil. At the same time, we can have a debate over whether the prostitutes themselves should be prosecuted or whether the focus should be on the pimps and the men who abuse women, are unfaithful to their wives and excuse themselves by paying.
My point is very simple, that in terms of our rhetoric we need to remember that abortion is evil and that it is already in place. Whilst sadly, far too many people involved in the debate do not realise that abortion is evil, it is. So, in terms of getting to the heart of the argument, we are not, or at least should not be giving the impression that this thing is more evil (absolute/pure) in a way that the original evil is not. Another equivalent is the way that too many people engaged with the debate over assisted dying. Too many arguments were along the lines that the bill lacked crucial protections for vulnerable people. This gave the impression that we would be okay with assisted dying as long as the right protections are in place.
Who is listening and how are they affected?
The next bit is slightly amusing. David says:
“Concern about how this will be heard…Concern for who? Those who have abortions? The politicians? The media? The nice people at the dinner parties we are trying to impress? And why should we be concerned about whether others think what we say isn’t nice? Were the prophets concerned about how the kings of Isreal heard them? Was Jesus concerned when he said – ‘”Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”(Matthew 23:27) Didn’t he know that was hardly the way to win friends and influence people?!
This makes me chuckle a little. So, allow me to let Robertson into a little secret that most of my regular readers will already be in on. I don’t get invited to “dinner parties” with “nice people ….to impress.” Partly, that’s just not me and partly that’s not my context and never really has been. We didn’t do “dinner parties” growing up in south Bradford and nor do we tend to do them in North Birmingham either.
Secondly, I need to let David into a couple more secrets. I’m not an Old Testament prophet nor Jesus and I’m not speaking to the same audience as they were/ That should give me some caution before I mirror the exact type of language they used. In any case, when you look through the Bible, it is worth noting that those speaking do care about who they are speaking and how they speak to them and their purpose. There is a difference between rebuking the hard hearted and powerful and persuading those whose minds and hearts we want to change. So, it is helpful to think about those audiences, and I think we’ve got to remember that whilst our instant hot response might be aimed at the first group, those of us who write are being ready by the other. This is important because frankly I don’t much expect David Robertson to pay any attention to what I say but I do think that some of the people I know and share his articles on their Facebook pages might.
So, as I write, I’m mindful that what I write might get shared with that mum who had an abortion late term under pressure and has suffered with guilt ever since or the one who had a still birth and was subject to a full police investigation lasting many months. And I don’t want them to mishear me, if I can help it. Further, in this particular case, the amendment has gone in but the law has not yet come onto the statute books so there is time to persuade people that this amendment is wrong. And the thing is, David writes from Australia as someone from Scotland about things happening in England but I’m writing as someone in England, not carping from the sidelines but actively involved ion public ethical issues here. I write hoping that we might be able to get this amendment blocked and if not reversed.
Evil and viability
David quotes me
“We want to insist that abortion is not evil because of increased viability”
He responds
“Why? To use Dave’s own criteria – how does that sound? It seems as though he is saying that losing a one-day old embryo is the same as losing a child one day from birth. Whilst I argue that both are wrong – there is also a difference…and viability is a key argument in the case against abortion. One that Dave seems prepared to overthrow.
But then, doesn’t that help rather than hinder my point. You see, if David says to me “how does that sound?” and warns about a risk, then I don’t need to go off the deep end and accuse him fo friendly fire or compromise here do I? I can simply take on board the potential for something I’ve said to be heard in a way that I would not intend. That means I can clarify it. So, whilst I’m not convinced that it necessarily would be heard thar way, I’m happy to clarify that yes, our human emotional experience might be different stages. Though, we are I believe learning that not enough attention has been given to allowing families to grieve the loss of a child through miscarriage.
I’m a bit confused though as Robertson seems to be suggesting that we should be relying no the “viability of life” argument when we argue against abortion. Now, I certainly think that there is some rhetorical force in pointing out that some laws and some proposals mean that children who could survive outside of the womb are at risk of being killed inside the womb. That shows the logical deficiency in much pro-abortion reasoning. However, that’s not the same as understanding that our argument against abortion is that it is wrong at any stage just as euthanasia with our without safeguards is wrong.
He then adds:
“and why the snarky language about cuteness – has anyone made that argument?”
I’m not sure that “snarky” means what he thinks it means. You see, my point here is a genuine one. Alongside the viability argument there has been a heavy reliance in some campaigns on sticking up posters of a foetus in the womb alongside a foetus that has been aborted. I don’t think that this kind of emotional rhetoric is helpful to our long term case.
The impact of calling people pure/absolute evil.
David then lists a series of points here which are really to do with the same thing. One of the concerns I raised was that the kinds of headlines I mentioned might be heard as referring to specific people rather than the legislation. Now, this is not the same as suggesting that David or James Mildred, or everyone who shared their articles are in the business of singling out some people and portraying them as monsters. However, we have a society and a media that happily does that from Robert Thomas and Jon Venables to Myra Hindley. We need to remember that this is the culture that we are speaking in to. Remember again that my concern is not just with the words “sin” and “evil” but with the full tabloid-esqe phrases we can find ourselves using.
It’s important to recognise this. Even an educated public figure like David Robertson can hear my gentle critique of the wording of one of his articles and feel the need to defend himself as someone capable of holding someone’s hand and showing compassion. Surely then he can see the need for care in the language we use especially when thinking about those in far more vulnerable contexts than us.
David
“Calling people evil turns some people into monsters and separates their sin out from others. No, it doesn’t. This is again applying somewhat limited sociological theory rather than the teaching of Christ. “
I don’t know much about sociological theory. Perhaps David is a bit more in the know on such things. But the point that should not start to distinguish out some people and separate out their sin so as to turn them into monsters is not a sociological concern but rather is exactly in line with Christ’s teaching and that of the apostles. Perhaps a read of Luke 13 or Romans 3 would not go amiss.
David is dismissive about my concern for the well-being and safety of MPs. He says:
“We can’t say they are evil because MPs have received violent threats. Dave makes the direct and illogical equation between saying someone is evil, and encouraging people to kill them. That is a false equation and hyperbolic nonsense. It is a form of emotive bullying seeking to silence those who dare to speak out. It means that no one could say anything any politician did was evil. Our politicians are facilitating and enabling evil – they are the powers of this world. But no Christian should ever endorse, hint at, or advocate violence against politicians – because our battle is not against flesh and blood and we do not fight with the weapons of this world.”
There again is a hyperbolic and fallacious argument that takes an encouragement to think carefully about the language we use to extremes. I am also frustrated that David minimises the issue here. It is not just that “MPs have received violent threats”, though don’tr underestimate the impact of such intimidation. It is that in recent years we have seen MPs killed. Let that sink in. And there is a real concern about the culture in which they are seeking to work. What we say, especially online does feed into a wider culture.
Compassion and motivation
I was always taught that healthy debate worked on the basis that we took a charitable view of people’s motives. This means we take them at their word when they describe their motives. It doesn’t mean we have to naively ignore evidence to the contrary. Nor does it mean that we are ignorant to the complexity of motivations, a person can act out of a mixture of good and bad motives. Context again is crucial here. In my original article, you will notice that I’m responding to something that James Mildred said in his article. He talked about the motivations of MPs boiling down to the idol of autonomy. This, as I have frequently observed is a big factor but there are other issues at stake too. My point was that by recognising compassion as a motive, we can start to address the way in which misplaced compassion can actually cause harm and to show how there are alternatives that offer true compassion.
Anger and shouting
Finally,
“There is a danger that we might resort to shouting our anger and disgust and so fail to seek to make the compassionate argument for a different way.”
But who was shouting? I do tend to get angry and feel disgust at racism, domestic violence, rape, child abuse, exploitation of the poor. Don’t you? I also feel sick that we now live in a society where mothers (and fathers) are permitted to kill their babies.”
What Dave does here is again a form of manipulation. Saying something is evil (in public) is to be angry and not to show compassion.”
Well, no what I’ve said wasn’t manipulative because again I’ve not said the things he claims. Note that what I did say was in quotation marks. I hope David would allow that my own answer to his rhetorical question “don’t you” is a firm yes. Those things do leave me saddened, angry, disgusted.
Now the bit where David accuses me of “manipulation” is based on something I’ve not said and requires a distortion of what I have said. You need to take the full quote above in its entirety including the bit after “and so” in full but you’ve also got to not add things into the quote that I’ve not said. I’ve not said that to say something is evil is to be angry and not show compassion. I’ve described something as “evil” in the very article David is responding to.
The point I’m very clearly making is that when grievous things such as the votes last week happen, our natural and reasonable response includes anger. The danger we need to be alert to is that we can end up expressing the anger and be so caught up in it that we fail to say some crucial things that we need to be saying.
I am not suggesting that people lack or have not shown compassion here. I’m simply stating that the risk we face when we respond in understandable anger is that we might not say, or might not be heard to say the things that we need to say which, whether or not they are perceived as compassionate are compassionate.
David concludes by saying
“There are dangers in Christian responses to the evil of abortion. Judgementalism, harshness and unrighteous anger are certainly some. But so are blandness, compromise, cowardness and lack of clarity. It is the latter, rather than the former, which has more facilitated the change in our culture.”
Now as it happens I agree with him both that” blandness, compromise, cowardness and lack of clarity” is a danger as well as judgementalism and unrighteous anger. I also agree that blandness is probably the bigger cultural danger I’ve written and spoken about both in my time. That in one article I focused on the former danger neither means that I don’t see the latter or that I’m guilty of it.
I doubt that David is likely to read or be persuaded by my article here. However, I’m hopefully that this will help others sharpen their thinking and their talking. My primary concern is for those on the frontline in the UK context because that’s the audience I’m mainly writing for.
Faithroots 