Religion Allows No Gray Areas of Uncertainty (as in Abortion)

Nearly everything on Earth (and probably every place else in the universe) has areas of uncertainty between opposites. For example, there are plants, and there are animals, but there are some protists that could be considered neither one nor the other.

But religion is in the business of creating absolute distinctions. You are either going to Heaven, or to Hell; something is either sinful, or it is not; there are the sheep, and the goats.

One recent example of the difference between science and fundamentalist religion involves abortion. I have written very little about abortion, since I know little about it, and my opinions have little validity. I will let other people get angry on one side or the other. I am more interested in the light band of grayness between the two sides. Here are two relevant stories.

A Texas couple looked forward to having a child and were overjoyed with preparation for its arrival. Then, mid-pregnancy, an unthinkable tragedy occurred. The woman’s water broke, and all the amniotic fluid was lost. The fetus was thus doomed to death. But Texas has a heartbeat law. Abortion is murder if a heartbeat is detectable. In this case, the fetus still has a heartbeat, and under Texas law a doctor cannot abort the fetus. The woman has to carry the fetus, which has no hope of survival (unless God performs a miracle), perhaps risking her own health, until the heartbeat stops, something that could take a long time. What kind of law would insist that a woman carry a fetus until it inevitably dies? Only a law that attempts an absolute definition of pregnancy and allows of no exceptions, that’s what.

In Ohio, a nine-year-old girl was raped, and became pregnant. But Ohio law forbids abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. She had an abortion in Indiana. What kind of law would force a now ten-year-old girl to carry through a pregnancy from a rape? This assumes that her body would even be capable of handling this. Only a law that attempts an absolute definition of pregnancy and allows of no exceptions, that’s what.

I am not saying whether or not a state should or should not have an anti-abortion law. But it is clear to me that individual exceptions must be allowed. But individual exceptions are something that fundamentalist religions will not allow.

The only thing I am absolutely sure about is that we can trust the women. A mother’s love is a force of nature. Mothers are not looking for a chance to kill their fetuses unless an old white man points a gun and tells them not to. Abortion is an act of desperation, as the above examples and thousands of other news items illustrate.

Among other things, life is about gray areas of uncertainty. An absolute light/dark distinction is a characteristic of death. Science fiction writer Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis made this distinction in his Perelandra novels. In these novels, the forces of evil wanted to make everything black and white, as on the Moon; but on Earth, there is a lot of penumbra. Many religious fundamentalists today would side with Lewis’s forces of evil. But Lewis was a Christian and used to be, at least when I was younger, a very popular Christian writer. Times, apparently, have changed, or at least Christianity has.

Trust the Mother

One of the most divisive political issues is abortion rights. I am a scientist, and I can tell you that there is no single point in embryonic or fetal development in which the unborn child “becomes human.” It depends on the indicator that you use: heartbeat, brain activity, etc. all begin at different times. There are even three events that occur during “the moment of conception.” As a result, I have no scientific opinion about “when life begins.” Nor will I speculate about morality or politics. But I do have some scientific insights that you might find useful.

Love evolved. Love is, from the evolutionary point of view, the instinct for helping and protecting other animals in your species. Natural selection has favored animals that protect their offspring. In this way, they maximize their reproductive success. If you want to know more, search for information about inclusive fitness. The most famous examples are from insects such as bees, ants, and termites, and among mammals such as ourselves.

The strongest love in the natural world is the love between a mother and her offspring. It is a force of nature. If you get between a mother bear and her cubs, it might be the last thing you do. This is because the cubs are the mother bear’s entire genetic future. Human mothers are no less motivated to protect their young, including those not yet born, than any other species of mammal.

In the animal world, a mother’s love is, on the average, stronger than a father’s love. The reason for this is because the mother always knows which offspring are hers, but the father cannot be certain. Every ounce of effort that a mother puts into nurturing and defending her young is well spent, but for the father, there is the lingering subconscious question about whether the offspring are his. (“Mommy’s baby, Daddy’s maybe.”) Genetic tests, in humans and birds, show that some of the offspring in the nest or the home, which the father supposes to be his, are not. The offspring may not be the father’s entire genetic future. Most of us fathers love our children, but on the average, mothers love their children more.

And a mother loves her offspring, including those not yet born, more than politicians do.

Given that a mother’s love is the strongest love in the natural world, I believe we should trust the instincts of an individual mother. The idea that pregnant women are eager to kill their unborn children unless white men pass laws and tell them not to is ridiculous. Maybe we should trust the mother to make the right decision regarding her unborn offspring.