Because an ultrasound (not an abortion) is “cruel and unusual punishment”

Let me start by saying that I agree with you. I realize this is an extremely heated topic, so I wanted to clear that up first.

It did make me think of something from my childhood and wonder if there was something more to this case (I hope so, because an ultrasound itself is not a punishment!) i attended a fundamentalist Christian middle and high school. I feel I should explain that this was not the cult kind you experienced, just the regular “no drinking, no women having jobs, no drums, and scare the sex out of you” kind. I actually have some very positive memories there… but one extremely horrifying memory:

In 8th grade girls bible class we were forced to watch an ultrasound of an abortion being committed. The baby tried to swim away in vain from the tool that would eventually crush it’s skull. Explaining what abortion is and why we don’t think you should have one is great. Helping teenagers understand why God’s perfect plan involves saving sex for marriage is awesome. Traumatizing 13 year olds into “purity”? Not so much.

Just makes me wonder if this ruling could have involved something a little more.

This is so, so sad. Being a lover of children, it’s so hard for me to imagine. It seems to me that ignorantly would be the *only* way that a person could go through with it.

I agree with you, if we applied these same ideas to other areas of life and culture…it’d be mayhem. But if we can just stick our fingers in our ears far enough or close our eyes tight enough, then a baby in the womb is not a baby. So, so sad.

I saw a bumper sticker that said: “Notice all the people that support abortion are already born?”

Enough said.
PS. I’m new to your blog.
~Jeanne~

The first place I saw this mentioned, the person said, “So they can FORCE a woman to put something [the ultrasound wand] in her body?” Well, she’s THERE for an abortion, so in theory she’s already on board with the idea.

This whole “only look at the truth you want to see” is highly disturbing. I know people who have had (and lived to regret) abortions, whose minds may have been changed by having a chance to see their fetus.

I don’t think you can equate “a woman wants an abortion” to “she’s ok with any and all object shoved up her vagina.”

Just to make it clear, I’m not pro abortion. I am also of the belief that a pregnant woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant will take steps not to be, legal or illegal. I also believe that a woman’s life is equal to that of a fetus.

I wish that instead of all this fighting over abortion, we would instead put our time and energy and effort into providing resources that would help women keep their children. Yes, the pro life response of providing diapers and cribs and baby food is great, but what about after that first year when the kid isn’t a cute little bumper sticker baby anymore?

I understand your point about the ultrasound wand, but I think any object inserted into someone against their will is invasive.

Well done, Elizabeth – I agree wholeheartedly. (And thank you for putting the word “fetus” in quotation marks – that word ought to be obselete, in my opinion. Good job.) “Cruel and unusual punishment”? You’ve got to be kidding me. Yes, I’d have to agree that “peering into the womb” is far less traumatic and horrific than “being sucked out of it”. Yikes. I’m riled up – must quit now. Thank you for some fantastic insight.

Thankyou for this post Elizabesth. I think a lot of people are too timid to voice their opinions on this subjet because of its controversial nature.
Many women, Young women, who have abortions are very naive and misinformed and understandably very nervous. Picture this situation: and extremely nervous teen comes to the clinic afraid and as she awaits the procedure asks her bf, parents, doctor (whoever is with her and probably for the abortion) if their will be any pain for the baby….Do you not think they would respond in the negative and perhaps even say it is not a baby to ease her mind? Why cannot the women have access to ALL available information. How can it truly be a “choice” if the information she is given is only one sided?
The women’s life may be equal to the of the unborn but said unborn does not have a “choice” or say in the matter. Should there not be someone to defend those who cannot defend themselves?

The reason why people don’t want to look is because they know what they’re doing is wrong — they are just too overwhelmed and scared (at least in some cases), or without knowledge of what a realistic alternative might look like. Perhaps even NOT wanting to go thru with the abortion, but having no support (from parents, from b/f, from hubby) to do otherwise.

I will tell you from personal experience, that’s why I didn’t look.

In my pre-salvation life, I faced many ugly things, because sin took me to some low places. Once I even had a gun pointed at my face, from someone who I knew would have no problem with shooting me. I’m not sure that situation even scared me as much as being “single & pregnant” did.

Go ahead & call me whatever you’d like to, for having made that disclosure. I am sure I’ve called myself worse, many many times, for having done what I did. Even after Jesus saves you, the guilt & the regret never leave you.

THAT is why they don’t want to look at the screen.

Scott: I always love and appreciate your input. As I’m writing posts, sometimes I think: I really hope Scott chimes in to help flesh out and improve my thoughts! Your thoughts help me frame mine, so THANK YOU. And You are always welcome to write novel-length comments!

Thanks. I don’t know if I’m eloquent, but I do tend to babble on.

I’ve been mulling a common phrase you used, probably because of a recent thread of comments on the blog of Fr. Stephen Freeman (an Orthodox priest). One of the things that drew me deeper into Christianity and which keeps me in it is its deep insight into the shared, common nature of mankind.

As Jesus said, we are one with each other (and with Him) in the same way that He and the Father are one. When we turn from our communion with each other, we make ourselves modern Cains. We rhetorically ask if we are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keeper, assuming the answer is no. God’s implicit response is that we are and in Jesus, he joins his nature to ours to restore us to what we were created to be and so much more.

With all that in mind, I believe it’s true that it’s not actually ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ but rather simply ‘there go I’. Our participation with and in each other is deeper, I think, than we generally want to acknowledge. And our responsibility runs as deep. Each of us must learn to ‘see and understand himself to be responsible for the sins of all’.

The affirmation of true communion (with God and others) without the loss of our unique personhood is one of the most wondrous aspects of our faith and something I had not found elsewhere. But it cuts both ways. We tend not to like that part of it.

As the phrase kept tumbling around my head, I began to see that it’s really not a journey of many steps from ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ to ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men.’

Obviously, that’s not what was going through your mind at all. But I realized we place distance or space between ourselves and others almost as a matter of course — even when we want to empathize. When we deny our shared participation in the life of other human beings, when we make them ‘other’ rather than ‘brother’, we push against communion with them and thus against communion with God.

We don’t tend to pray, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ because we don’t truly believe we are the worst of sinners. Yet, if we believe anything else about ourselves, in whose shoes do we stand?

When I think about it, I believe that’s close to the core of what disturbs me in much of what I see in the ‘pro-life’ movement. It turns people into the ‘other’ and when we do that, we begin to see those who are ‘other’ as less than fully human. We see that all the time in the world around us. It’s something that is as natural to us as breathing. (And it’s how groups of people can do the things to other groups that they so commonly do.) But once we strip another in our minds of any of our shared humanity, however slightly, they begin to become objects to use and manipulate and control rather than people to love.

And that, I think, is what bothers me about this particular technique. It’s intended to manipulate the mental and emotional state of a vulnerable human being in an attempt to control their actions. I have issues with it when individuals use this tactic in ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ but as I think about it I believe it’s worse the way the Oklahoma law was structured. Laws are necessary to order society and control the damage we will do to those whom we have made ‘other’ from ourselves. And I don’t disagree that we need to keep working to change the laws surrounding abortion (though that is an enormously more complex matter than many seem to want to credit). But this turns the law itself into a double-sided tool of manipulation. On the one hand we will tell you that abortion is legal. On the other we will use the law to attempt to manipulate and even shame you in an effort to keep you from doing that which the law says is legal.

While we are working on the matter of what the law does or does not allow, it seems to me that many Christians want to use techniques like this, manipulating and controlling the other, because they do not want to love. I can understand that. I often don’t want to love and I often don’t love as a result. (I like Dallas Willard’s definition of love here — to actively will the good of that which is loved. I don’t actually ‘love’ chocolate cake in this sense. I want to eat it.) Love is risky. We get hurt when we love. Love is scary. We give up control over the other when we love them. Love usually requires our resources, our time, and intrudes on the ordered routines of our lives. Love is messy and good outcomes are never guaranteed. Love can cost us everything.

Love ultimately cost Jesus of Nazareth his life.

So I understand why we don’t want to love. I understand because I have all the same fears, the same reluctance, and the same unwillingness to love. But I’m Christian because I’ve glimpsed that love and I believe that, despite all the warnings of my senses and my experiences in life, that love is the true foundation of reality. I’m Christian because I want to learn to love even as the idea terrifies me.

Hmmm. I rambled again. Oh well.

Nothing about this is about ‘information’, Jennifer. That’s a disingenuous claim. I’ve never met anyone who is pregnant and does not realize that what is growing in them is a baby. This is an effort to confront a woman with a visual image for its greater emotional and visceral impact. It provides no actual information that the woman does not already have available. The hope or goal is that the greater visceral power of a visual image will be an exercise of power over the woman and force her to choose not to have an abortion.

If you believe that the goal justifies those means, that’s one thing. But don’t lie to yourself or to others that you are ‘merely’ providing information. If you for some reason believe a woman doesn’t actually understand what is growing inside her, there are myriad less invasive and manipulative ways to provide that information. (I think it’s nuts to assume that a woman doesn’t know, but if you’re honestly concerned about that, this isn’t the way to provide that information.) This is about manipulation and exerting power over another, not providing information as a service.

Abortion has always horrified me, even when I wasn’t a Christian. And as I’ve said above, I think the way things have progressed in the US over the past four decades when it comes to abortion has harmed women not helped them. But as Christians, I think the way we do things, not just the end result, matters. Even if it were effective at achieving the desired goal, I would question this approach.

However, I don’t even see that this tactic is effective. It operates from a false assumption. Most women in the US seek abortions because they don’t feel like they have any other options. Either indirectly or directly, the people with the most influence over them have given them the message that this is their only choice or is the right thing to do. You aren’t going to overrule that influence in a brief encounter, however graphic, visceral, or manipulative you try to be. The only thing you will actually accomplish in almost every case will be to inflict more pain and shame on the woman.

I’m not surprised that every woman closed her eyes and refused to look at the screen. And that, more than anything else, clearly shows they already have all the ‘information.’ Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if the intent of the Oklahoma law is even less about manipulating women and more about attempting to punish and shame them. It’s beginning to look more like that to my eyes.

I’ve also grown extremely tired of the way Christians (and non-Christian conservatives) in the US throw the word ‘feminists’ around. I haven’t met very many people who don’t think women should be able to vote, own property, pursue any career of their choice, have the same rights as men under the law, or any of a host of other things. Almost everyone in the US today is a feminist of some sort or another. When something has become that universal (which I think is a good thing), it’s silly to try to use the word as a pejorative.

Deborah, I never said anything about most women seeking abortions being ‘frightened teenagers.’ I don’t particularly have an opinion on your personal anecdotal impression, but it doesn’t match the data I’ve seen from formal and informal studies. The reason I stated is by far the main reason women have abortions. Here’s a link to one article by Frederica Mathewes-Green where she discusses her own interviews with women who have had abortions. It’s just one example, but that’s pretty much what I’ve found in everything I’ve researched on the topic.

http://www.frederica.com/writings/seeking-abortions-middle-ground.html

(I’ve read or listened to almost everything by her on the topic because, though she’s not particular active on the topic these days, she’s the only pro-life activist I’ve found who consistently says things that ring true, are helpful, and which resonate with everything I’ve found in Christianity. I recommend anything by her to anyone.)

Yes, there will always be some women who have little or no qualms about abortion. There have been for thousands of years. While it might be interesting to try to understand the differences in environmental and cultural formation, I’m not sure it has any bearing on this sort of discussion as I can’t think of anything that we might do that would alter their choices. Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned tomorrow (which won’t happen and I’m not sure that any of us actually want the Supreme Court to find that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy of any sort for any of us), relatively little would change in our country. Abortion would remain fairly readily accessible for most women who seek it except for the poorest if they happen to live in a state that chooses to mostly prohibit it (and I wouldn’t anticipate many of those).

Thank you for acknowledging my point. It’s not about information. By now, I would be surprised if anyone in our country has not seen the images taken inside the womb using tiny fiber optic cameras, LED lights, and other technology of the embryo and fetus at various stages of development.

I would question the approach even if it were effective (which it’s actually not in all but the tiniest fraction of instances) because it is intrinsically an effort to manipulate another under the guise of ‘providing information.’ As I said in my first comment, I’m against such techniques whether they are used to try to manipulate women into having abortions or into not having abortions.

Whatever these sorts of tactics might be, they are not love. God does not treat us that way, even when we are making the worst possible choices. And if God, who is love, does not seek to abrogate or control our will in such ways, then I don’t see how we can truly justify doing such things to others. I never said it was heinous. I said it wasn’t love.

We are increasingly trapped by a mindset that if something achieves (or we believe it might achieve) a goal which we believe is good, then whatever that something might be, it is also good. And that does not describe any reality I can perceive.

Most of what I’ve written are things that I’ve thought about in regard to the sort of Christian crisis pregnancy center that focuses on deception and manipulation to draw women in and try to prevent them through those means from having abortions. (I don’t really know how many are like that and how many do the true crisis pregnancy work of partnering with the woman, providing the tangible and emotional support she needs, and caring for her through the pregnancy and beyond. I familiar with both sorts and believe the latter is what we should be doing as Christians.)

As I’ve considered that tactic formalized into law, though, I’ve begun to see that as a little different. I think there’s a deeper problem when our legal framework is structured in such a way that on the one hand we will tell a woman something is legal and on the other we will essentially force her to undergo a procedure designed to attempt to shock her into not doing that thing which, under the law, we’ve told her is legal. As you’ve agreed, it’s not really about providing any information the woman doesn’t already have in her possession. Moreover, it’s not even effective at achieving that goal.

When I consider that structure and the fact that the evidence is that it doesn’t really do anything to reduce abortion anyway (pretty much all the women undergoing the procedure refused to look at the screen anyway), it begins to look to me more and more like a punitive measure. And as I ponder that aspect, I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of the state codifying punitive actions into law for engaging in legal activities. That doesn’t seem like a helpful direction for our government to take.

Scott: While you bring up salient points, I think your compassion is misplaced because you are neglecting the REAL victim of abortion: the unborn baby.

And let’s not forget that the abortion itself is far more “shocking” and “punitive” to the mother AND child than an ultrasound. In fact, it doesn’t even compare.

Yes, there will always be women who seek abortions. But there will also be those who are conflicted, worried and not sure about what to do. Maybe, just maybe, seeing their baby on the screen will plant the seed of motivation that perhaps there IS another option.

As Pamela has already commented, the reason why women don’t look at the screen is because it makes the reality of what they are about to do very concrete, very tangible. You say that’s controlling and manipulative. Is that how the unborn baby would view it, too, especially if that ultrasound saved his/her life?

I was just going to bow out of the conversation since at this juncture I’ve said almost everything that can be said. But I decided I needed to take a step back and make a more general comment.

Folks, I should be your most natural ally. It’s not abstract to me. I’ve made the choices and lived the life of a young teen parent. Life in general and children specifically have always been precious to me, even when my belief systems were anything but Christian and I despised Christianity. Christian faith has only strengthened and deepened that conviction. Moreover, I perceive that the manner in which our culture has shifted around abortion is not only a problem for the aborted infants, but has actually created a culture which is almost toxic toward women.

If your tactics, attitudes, and approaches repel *me* (and they do), how in the world do you ever expect to actually make a real difference in our broader culture? I have to ask: What’s your true goal?

If your true goal is to change the culture — which is the only way you will ever change the law in this country — then you have to use the only methods by which the Church has ever changed any culture. You have to love sacrificially. Just as Christians used to find exposed infants and raised them as their own or stayed in plague-ridden cities to care for everyone and anyone who needed it, we have to love. Other tactics not only won’t work ultimately, they aren’t Christian.

When I see Christians in large numbers coming alongside women who believe they have no other options than abortion, loving them tangibly and sacrificially, and committing to them for the rest of their lives, then I’ll believe the culture will change. Yes, I know that disrupts your life and is costly and could end badly. We took in my older son’s best friend his Freshman year of high school when his mother died unexpectedly. It wasn’t always easy, but he has become another member of our family (he’s 25 now) and will be another son until the day we die.

Yes, I know a few Christians do this now. But it’s so few that it’s considered strange and exceptional even by other Christians when they do. And I’ll add that this isn’t a conditional commitment. You don’t love someone only as long as they do what you want them to do. If they woman does have the abortion anyway, you keep loving and providing for her in whatever way she needs to the best of your ability.

I don’t live in the handy little bubble with which so many Christians seem to surround themselves. I hear and see how those outside the bubble perceive American Christianity and I agree with them more than not. And I empathize with the millions who have been hurt and damaged by the strident voices in American Christianity. As a sixteen year old father, I was told from the pulpit to remove the sleeping infant girl in my arms from a Christian worship service where I thought I might be welcome because her presence was “disturbing” the good people of the congregation. It took more than a decade for my attitudes and convictions about Christians and Christianity to begin to soften.

Do you truly want to make a difference? Then stop treating the woman and unborn infant as though they were somehow at odds and as though you could somehow love one and not the other. Love them both unconditionally, sacrificially, without end, and no matter what they choose. You know, kinda like the way God loves us. Until a significant number of Christians are willing to do that, the protests, signs, bumper stickers, and ‘prayer vigils’ are worse than meaningless. They simply display our lack of love for all to see.

Absolutely we are to love people unconditionally and sacrificially. I don’t think anyone is arguing that. There are many, many Christians who do just that. Unfortunately, there are a few “Christians” who give ALL Christians a bad name. (Namely the protestors and others you have mentioned). I have nothing but love for women who have terminated in the past – I see them all the time at my work. Just last night, I looked after a lady who had had her first live baby (she had had two terminations in the past). Of course I treated her as I would treat anybody – with love and compassion. I sat with her for a long time, gently teaching her how to care for her newborn. I can honestly say that not once did I feel any sort of judgment towards her for what had happened in the past. I LOVED being with her.

I think we are forgetting that this issue is about the destruction of human life and perhaps preventing it from occurring. I would be elated if abortions were outlawed. I see your point that there is a bigger legal picture here. However, I think that if these so-called “scare tactics” prevented the annihilation of even one human life and spared the emotional and frequent permanent physical scarring of even one woman, then they were not done in vain. I really don’t think that enforcing this is showing a lack of love. There is a baby’s life at stake here. If this same sort of infanticide was occurring outside the womb, I’m sure we would use a few harsher tactics than are outlined in this article.

Sorry, I worked a night shift and need to get to bed, so I’m sort of all over the place here. I guess I just feel awfully sad that babies’ lives are being overlooked just to make sure women don’t feel like they are being condemned.

I am sorry you experienced that atrocity at church when you were sixteen. Again, it only takes a handful of “Christians” to give all Christians a bad name. But, I don’t see how that scenario is akin to the issue at hand.

So, yes, we are to love all people – but let’s not forget those little people in the womb.

I should add–I do think many people are unaware of the concrete *reality* that what is growing in a woman’s womb is a baby.

Euphamistic terms like “products of conception” or “contents of the uterus” are used in pro-choice descriptions of abortion. When I had a molar pregnancy, that description for the D&C would have been accurate. There was no body, not heartbeat, no baby. But for a healthy pregnancy being ended by abortion, what is in the womb is not just “stuff”. Not just tissue. Not just cells. “Fetus” is used instead of baby because nobody (except maybe Peter Singer) thinks it’s OK to end the life of a *baby*. So abortion can’t be ending the lives of *babies*. They’re fetuses. That’s different, you know. That’s ethically acceptable. Start calling them babies and we have a big problem.

Margaret, I understand that back in the 70s and maybe even into the early 80s there were a number of people who honestly thought of a fetus, especially in the first trimester as a lump of cells or something similar. But those days are long gone. While there may be a scattered few here and there who, for whatever reason, haven’t seen the pictures of the baby growing in the womb and at least some of the science behind it. I don’t know of anyone personally or through my reading who doesn’t know or in any way disputes that it’s a baby in the woman’s womb. Everyone knows at least that much of the science.

Yes, people do sometimes use euphemisms. But I’ve been in the military. They use them for much the same reason the military does — in order to create an emotional distance. It’s not because they don’t know or comprehend the reality behind the euphemism.

Far too much of the energy in the pro-life movement is wasted trying to convince people of something almost nobody today disputes — that it’s a baby.

Deborah, I’ve been on the inside and on the outside and I don’t agree that it’s just a “few Christians.” Even if it were, those “few” have shaped the perception of Christians by the people of our nation. And it’s that perception we have to deal with and overcome. It doesn’t really matter if the perception is “fair” or not — though I think we have done plenty to earn it.

I don’t really consider what I experienced an “atrocity”. Or if it was, that sort of “atrocity” is so common in American Christianity that millions have experienced something along similar lines. I was just sharing a bit of it to illustrate one of the reasons I empathize with those who have had negative experiences with Christians.

The little people in the womb really can’t be separated from the mother. If you love them, love their mother. If you don’t act sacrificially in real love toward their mothers, you don’t love the little people in the womb. As far as I can perceive, the voices we hear on both sides speak as those the mother and her child are at odds with each other — as if it’s a battle with only one victor or some sort of zero sum game with the infant and mother on opposite sides.

That’s one of the few things both sides seem to agree on and it’s just … wrong. Not only should they be nurtured and cared for together, biologically they have to be.

And the primary reason “infanticide” outside the womb would historically face any harsher penalty is through the influence of Christianity over the centuries. We are rapidly losing the influence that created such radical shifts in the way human beings perceive the value of life. Unloving and manipulative tactics like this simply accelerate that loss.

Scott, I don’t recall reading any responses indicating that we should NOT love the mother. Most definitely we are called to love the mother, too. I appreciate your beneficent examples of how you have helped people in the past. I just don’t see how those examples are relevant to the issue. I’m sure many of the posters here are deeply involved in helping out people — troubled-women-seeking-abortions included. Just because I happen to feel passionate about saving unborn babies’ lives, does not mean that I have no love towards the mother. I truly resent this assumption. I haven’t had time to read your other posts yet. I might have something more to say.

Hi Alice, I hadn’t actually considered that my comment could be read that way. I don’t feel that it’s anything that I’ve done or accomplished or is of any particular merit on my part. I was trying to describe the place where my particular journey has left me. I seem almost to be betwixt and between.

On the one hand, I have a foot in a world of people who were largely raised in an evangelical Christian context, who naturally think and react along similar lines, have friends and relatives who largely operate within that same sphere, and have common, shared lifetime experiences and milestones. Fortunately, I’ve developed some friends who are pretty good at explaining the “in” jokes and comments and references to me, since I almost never get them the first time I hear them. I still get tripped up by that sometimes after 17 years, so I consider it a fact of life. Those who have been raised and shaped in that context think and speak almost automatically in certain ways and receive feedback and reinforcement only from those who think and speak the same way.

But the base of my cultural and social formation has been almost completely different. My family is all over the map when it comes to spirituality (and a significant number have shifted one way or another over the course of my life) and many of my friends still come from circles completely different from any Christian group. And, like yesterday morning in the sermon, it’s with those ears that I often hear and interpret the things Christians say.

It’s frustrating to me because I now know that many Christians are truly good people (often better than me), but their culture has become so disconnected from our broader culture that they say and do things that sound awful. The pastor I mentioned yesterday is a really good man. I never would have stayed for any length of time if I believed he wasn’t. And if he truly understood how his illustration would be heard and understood by those outside that culture, I think he would be appalled. (My efforts to bridge that gap, as illustrated here, are rarely successful. So I’ve learned that most of the time any attempt I make will do more harm than good. I’m just not good enough at translation.)

I have a review up today on “The Hole in Our Gospel” today. I had many more thoughts than I was able to capture, but the book illustrates well some of the ways we are simply failing as Christians. And I’m as bad as any of the rest of us. Jesus warned many times that it’s hard to mix following him and wealth. And we have greater wealth than any Christians (or anyone else) have ever had. Even the good that most of us do in the US is good at arm’s length. Richard Stearns’ commentary on that gaping hole were probably in the back of my mind on some of the things I wrote.

I also not only hear how Christians are perceived and read the studies confirming what I’ve heard, I’m enough in the Christian world as well to agree that those perceptions are in large part warranted. But it doesn’t really matter if they were or not. Christians in the US are not known for their love. That’s not a generalization. It’s a cold, hard fact. We’re known for many things, but love is very low on the list.

That’s the frustration I was trying to capture in a couple of sentences when I wrote: “I don’t live in the handy little bubble with which so many Christians seem to surround themselves. I hear and see how those outside the bubble perceive American Christianity and I agree with them more than not.” I probably should have said, “with which so many Christians are surrounded” since I don’t believe it’s anything most consciously do. Beyond that, I’m not sure what other words I could have used without going into the full-blown expanded explanation above.

I usually stay out of discussions like this one because I always reach the point where I almost, but don’t quite understand the particular response my comments evoke. And it usually feels like I’m not quite able to make understood what I’m trying to express. There’s always this gap that I can’t figure out how to bridge.

It’s especially frustrating in the context of this particular topic because I really do want us to make a real difference in the way our culture has shifted regarding abortion. I see what it does when the people around a pregnant woman use that as the “out” that makes it all her problem and she’s crazy or irresponsible if she doesn’t take it. I see the harm when it’s a dangerous weapon for those in controlling relationships.

Moreover, I see us slipping away from a cultural base that values life. I’ve studied the ancient world. I’ve explored and practiced many forms of spirituality over the course of my childhood and pre-Christian adult life. Human cultures do not automatically or intrinsically value the lives of infants, of children, of women, of the poor, or of the ‘other’. At least, not the way that cultures shaped by Christianity have learned to value life. This isn’t just about abortion.

But I also see clearly that efforts based on control and manipulation and punitive measures are never going to change the culture in our country or shift the direction we are moving. Love — the sort of self-emptying Christian love that wrought these kinds of changes in ancient cultures in the first place — just might. I suppose when I say that an approach or a measure like the Oklahoma law is unloving, I also mean it is ineffective and counterproductive. And even though it is a state law, it’s linked to Christian activists. And everyone knows it.

Anyway, I’m sorry that I pushed your buttons. (And I rambled again.) Hopefully the above better explains what I was attempting to express, if poorly, in that comment. If I find that I’m trying to express something similar in the future, I’ll try to find and use better words.

As I was mowing, I began to realize that my reaction to this really fell into two distinct and different objections and that those were intermingled in my comments. I thought it might clarify a few things if I separated.

For a lot of reasons relating to my formation, I am sensitive to things that are distorted or untruthful, intentionally or otherwise. As such, I had a strong reaction against defenders of measures asserting that the measure is intended to provide “information” to the woman and that those who might object to it are against providing all the information to the woman (and perhaps by implication are deceiving her).

That assertion is not true and is rather a rather classic example of disinformation and propaganda at work. Again, I’m certainly not able to tell if people repeating it recognize what they are saying or have been pulled in by the web of disinformation. Propaganda works because most of the people who repeat it actually believe it. But somebody somewhere along the chain knew exactly what they were doing and deliberately chose this approach.

But as I have explored in several comments and at least a few people have generally conceded, most women (and men for that matter) have seen the images of the growth of a baby in utero, have read at least some of the science (at least in popular form) relating to pregnancy, and thus already know all the information that could possibly be conveyed through the image of a sonogram. And as much additional information as they desire generally lies at their fingertips.

The purpose of the law that was the topic of this post was to force women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound in the hope that, since we are visual creatures by and large, the image would provide a visceral shock to the woman that breaks through her mental and emotional defenses and makes her leave without getting an abortion.

That’s the purpose and goal of the law. It’s purpose is not to provide neutral “information”.

As Christians, we are to “speak the truth in love.” Using disinformation and propaganda violates the first part of that principle because it is fundamentally a lie. When you speak it, you are not speaking the truth. If you honestly believe the above tactic is warranted, that’s one thing. Speak the truth about what you wish to do and then be prepared to defend it. If you hesitate about being honest about your true purposes and goals, you might want to pause and ask a simple question. Why?

Moreover, I can’t grasp why supporters of this approach even want to claim that it’s just providing “information” to the woman? Is there anyone who honestly believes that everyone can’t read the law and discern its purpose and goal? What’s the point in being anything but straightforward and honest? What positive result does this disinformation accomplish?

Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t get it.

The second thread of my comments is that this law uses official power in an attempt to control people’s will through shock tactics. (There’s not even any evidence that these tactics are effective. In fact, the evidence tends to point the other way.) Whatever such tactics might be called, they cannot be called love. And so the general, public perception of Christians as hateful, controlling people willing to traumatize women who may already have experienced trauma in order to bend them to their will is strengthened. It doesn’t really matter if that’s a true perception or not. It doesn’t matter if that’s the intent. That’s the result I see flowing from this.

If the West is losing that part of its cultural formation that flowed from Christianity — and I believe it is — the fault is mostly ours.

I should add. My mother left pro-life activism for several decades because she felt propagandizing and stretching the truth was a little too tempting for the people she worked with.

It certainly happens. Any time anyone is passionate about something, there is the possibility that they will be searching for points to belabor and facts to stretch. Good intentions can get a person into hot water, if they’re not careful.

This is not one such issue. It is neither cruel nor untruthful.

As a woman who can’t have any more children of her own and is trying to adopt, I find it very sad and sickening.Maybe with these women seeing the baby in them they will think about at least putting it up for adoption instead of getting rid of it. I think alot of times it is just lack of information and resources to help these women.They feel like they don’t have anywhere to turn or are at their wits end.We definately have to start putting more resources into place to help these women.