Sex and Abortions

A little over a week ago my friend sent me this article about evangelical sexuality. It is actually a very balanced analysis, and I don't know if I can recommend it highly enough. Read it. There are no excuses not to.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot?currentPage=all

(cut and paste since hyperlinks on this site suck)

I certainly have nothing as profound to say as this article, but I figured I might as well offer my opinions, whatever they may be worth.

Up until a few years ago I could have been a poster-child for the abstinence movement. In high school, shortly after converting, I was given a promise-key, which represented "the key to my heart." My youth minister suggested we keep it on our keyring to remind us to remain pure until marriage. I kept it on their all the way through college, always thinking I would be rewarded by God for my intense striving for sexual purity. I don't intend to reveal any more of my story, only I wanted to express up front that I am intimately acquainted with all the evangelical arguments for abstinence. Even more so, I was fully successful most of my life at staying faithful to such "noble" commitments.

Yet now, years later, I think all the rhetoric that goes into evangelical notions of sexuality is farcical. Allow me to state how my opinions over the last few years have changed:

1. Sex is biological. I say this in opposition to the metaphysical tones that Christianity so often imposes on it. I say this as one who formerly believed that any sexual act outside of marriage had the potential to leave dark marks (sin) on one's soul. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sex is programmed into our DNA . . . literally. It is something that we are biologically determined to seek. As such I cannot see how it is an evil force that is warring against our souls, as is pathetically purported by all-too-many ministers.

2. Sex is political. I'm pretty convinced that the excessive public concern for issues like abortion and gay marriage center around political privilege and social control. Each are threats to the values of the patriarchal household, and as such are politically provocative. This is the source of all the intense debate, not any of the supposedly "spiritual" reasons. As for abstinence, I think that focusing the attention of so many on the metaphysical dangers of sex is merely a way of maintaining the social order. Sexuality, being biological, is something that the majority of people must deal with every day. If people are consumed with anxieties over their sexuality (be it healthy or otherwise) then they generally have little time to cause any problems elsewhere. In other words, by declaring sex to be "every man's battle" all people turn inward and become blind to the more important issues continually crossing what used to be their field of vision. It's a splendid way to make people ignorant and socially impotent.

3. Celibacy: it's not healthy. Whether priests or twenty-something singles groupers, the ideal of celibacy is rarely met. Certainly there are a few like Paul who are "called" to it, but they would represent a minuscule minority. As the article above mentions for teenagers, I would assume that 'success' rates for adult celibacy are dismal. Again, humans are sexual by design, and the idea that they should strive for asexuality until desperation or luck lands them in a state/church sanctioned union, is downright stupid.

I am not calling for libertinism. I think all the apprehensiveness over sex is rooted in precarious and difficult social concerns; the most obvious being child-rearing. I am also fully aware of the deep effects which sex can have on the human psyche and social interaction. That being said, I think that the solutions offered by evangelicalism are hypocritical, impractical, and at their core, fundamentally flawed.


As a related topic, let me further address the issue of abortion. I am unashamedly Pro-Choice for reasons stated above, and probably many others. Another friend of mine, who is Pro-Life, wrote a wonderfully informative blog about abortion.

http://suburbanjesus.blogspot.com/2008/10/abortion.html

Read that one too. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. I have no problem with the idea that life begins at conception. My problem is the preposterous inconsistency with which Pro-Life people apply such arguments. I rarely hear stories of fertility clinics being bombed even though the number of embryos which they discard is certainly high. Rick Warren somehow doesn't refer to this as a "holocaust", though if life begins at the union of sperm and egg, it certainly qualifies.

2. Pro-Life should be anti-war, but that is rarely the case. It should also imply anti-death penalty, anti-gun rights, pro-health care (of the free variety), and anti-poverty stances. Again, generally not the case.

3. Pro-Life should imply some sort of quality of life standard, but generally Pro-Life advocates are apathetic in this regard. They are pro-life, whether it's a good life or not.

4. I personally do not think the issue should be "When does life begin?", but instead "When does personhood begin?" My personal stance is that when a fetus develops neurologically enough to be distinctly human that abortion should be strongly discouraged. I am certainly against 'late decision' abortions. Yet, even in these situations, I believe that continued gestation cannot be absolutely mandated.

Part of the polemic of Pro-Life people is the mythical liberals who love abortions. As someone who personally knows several women who have had abortions, allow me to state for the record: NO ONE WANTS AN ABORTION! The legend of the abortion-hungry, liberal sex-addict represents the cavernous depth of conservative stupidity. No one wants an abortion. They are painful on a physical, emotional, social, and spiritual scale. They are sad. Horribly, horribly sad. Yet, not quite as sad as the thought of raising an unintended child in poverty which was created by the same conservatives who demanded that the child they now care nothing about be born.

I am firmly convinced that a Pro-life stance should unquestionably include:
1. A preference for adoption which is practiced rather than preached.
2. A concession to pay higher taxes in order to ensure the wellfare of the unintended child that must be born.
3. A deep concern to clean up the foster-care system (again, practiced)
4. A lifestyle that actively seeks to aid single-mothers, especially financially and socially.

Those who do not display such practices are casting severe doubts on the validity of their Pro-Life views. And, insofar as they seek to challenge the Pro-Choice movement, they are acting hypocritically and unethically towards women who are choosing because they see no other choice. If there is another choice, we should ask what is blocking their view of it?