Can We Think About Abortion?

Abortion is one of the wedge issues in the culture wars. The quality of the moral thinking in the public conversation is lackluster. What In God’s Name draws on recent scholarship to bring some fresh air to a stale room.

Our show pushes back against the unexamined, often unconscious ways that we frame public questions using political or economic modes of thinking. We aim to be part of a growing association of people who are critical of the narrowness of political and economic categories, and who want to revive a vision of human flourishing that is grounded in the wisdoms of theological and moral philosophical tradition. We see these habits and ways of thinking as being pre-political, and foundational to a healthy and civil shared life in families, communities, economies, and polities.

In short, we want to create a community that is grounded in curiosity, going deep, and shining light.

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Our email: whatingods@ribeye-media.com.

Learn more. Our website: www.whatingods.com.

Here are timecodes to help you navigate through today’s show:

02:30     Shayna proposes a new What In God’s Name tagline: “getting beyond the binary.” What are some examples of the ways that binary thinking limits our understanding of things?

03:15     Today’s show highlights many parts of the moral complexity of abortion, but what parts did we miss?

03:45     Can you be pro-life and pro-choice?

07:24     Does moral thinking begin with compassion?

08:29     What does the concept of delayed animation add to a consideration of the moral status of a fetus? Or is the question not “when does the fetus have a soul,” but “when does life begin?” 

12:47     Using the political system and state power (laws) to coerce people to behave in ways that we think are moral is a sign of the weakness of the moral position. Agree or disagree?

15:52     What is the moral status of the pregnant woman?

19:08     Might an emphasis on relationality be a fruitful way to re-contextualize the abortion debate, so that it gets out of the realm of hyper-individualism exemplified by competing claims of rights (“the right of the unborn to life” verses “the right of the woman to choose.”)