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25 Reasons We Don’t Live in a World with a God (Part 10)

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Do we live in a world with a god? It doesn’t look like it (read part 1 of this series here).

Let’s continue our survey with the next clue that we live in a godless world.

19. Because the “best” Christian arguments are deist arguments

A Christian appeal for the existence of God typically brings up arguments such as the ones below.

  • The Moral argument: How can there be objective moral truth without God?
  • The Cosmological argument: The universe had a beginning, which requires a cause, and that cause was God.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument: The constants in the universe are fine-tuned for life; that must’ve been done by God.

There are lots more arguments like these—the Ontological Argument, the Design Argument, the Transcendental Argument, and even the Argument from Mathematics. These are all deist arguments, which means that the god behind them might have been nothing more than a clockmaker who created and wound up the universe and then walked away. And if the creator god actually does interact with our world, nothing in these arguments points to the Christian god any more than to Marduk, Allah, Brahma, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If we lived in God World, the go-to arguments would unambiguously identify this god, not be one-size-fits-all arguments that point to no god in particular—not Yahweh any more than the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

And just so no one is confused, the arguments in the list above fail.

  • The Moral argument needs to first establish that objective truth exists. More here, here, and here.
  • The Cosmological argument as Craig defines it fails in many ways. More here and here.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument also fails. A universe made by God wouldn’t need fine tuning since God can make life anywhere (he’s God, remember). And the multiverse. More here, here, and here.

20. Because the Bible story keeps rebooting

God has a perfect plan, and he’s stickin’ to it. He created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but those pesky kids messed things up. The resulting society became irredeemable, so God drowned them all. All, that is, except the brave little troupe that was Noah’s family. (I’m imagining Gilligan’s Island except with a cruise ship full of manure.)

Society had been set right, God put his bow in the heavens (that is, the rainbow) and promised never to fly off the handle again, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Or not. The story next lurches forward with Abraham, and God makes a perpetual covenant with Abraham—five times, in fact. And once again we think we’re done.

Nope. Abraham begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat the twelve patriarchs of the (soon to be) twelve tribes of Israel. Then slavery in Egypt, then Moses frees his people, then the Exodus through the desert, and then entry into the Promised land. God ties a bow on the story with the perpetual Mosaic Covenant that is still in force today. The End.

Wrong again. No, it turns out that it was Jesus who was the key to the whole thing. Who saw that coming? What a twist! The entire New Testament (plus a couple dozen church councils) are required to figure out what this new religion actually is and to rationalize some sort of harmony with the Old Testament, which is (oddly) still in force.

But don’t think that that’s the last reboot. Islam was a reboot. Mormonism was a reboot. And there you go—that incompatible mess is God’s perfect plan(s). (More detail on these reboots here.)

If a perfect god actually existed, he would get his story straight from the beginning, and it wouldn’t look like what it is—a collection of loosely connected ancient mythology and legend.

Continued in part 11.

(How big an impact did Jesus have on civilization?)
If you’re just going to go with “well, his ideas lived on,”
I’ll put Jesus behind Archimedes, Socrates,
Euclid, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Pasteur, Einstein,
Fleming, and Bohr in that regard.
All of their ideas are current today
and of great value in modern society,
whereas Jesus espoused monarchy, slavery,
and second-class status for women.
— Richard S. Russell

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Image via Alejandro Forero Cuervo, CC license

 

Yes, Biblical Slavery Was the Same as American Slavery (2 of 2)

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In part 1, we looked at the popular Christian notion that biblical slavery was a benign form of servitude, quite unlike American slavery. In fact, it turns out that they were almost identical.

Now, let’s look at a companion article from the Cold Case Christianity blog, “Why Would God Have Permitted Any Form of Servitude or Slavery?” Christian Jim Wallace tries to salvage God’s reputation despite his support of slavery.

What’s the big deal?

Let me again start with a positive observation. There’s a popular but flabby apologetic that Wallace didn’t appeal to. This argument says that the difficulties in our lives here on earth will count for nothing in the grand scheme of things. In other words, finite difficulties on earth ÷ an infinite afterlife in heaven = nothing to complain about. Paul said, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

So you lived in barbaric conditions as a slave—big deal. A trillion years from now as you’re helping yourself to hors d’oeuvres at heaven’s all-you-can-eat buffet, that life will be an insignificant memory.

As our own appetizer, let’s dismantle this argument. Compare it with an analogous situation: you and I are arguing, and I get so frustrated that I punch you in the face. After a moment to collect myself, I realize that I’ve made a big mistake, so I offer you a million dollars in compensation. You accept and promise not to press criminal charges.

Yes, you’ve received overly generous compensation, but of course the injury was still morally wrong. Compensation acknowledges the injury; it doesn’t erase its existence.

The same is true for the fate God gives you. Trying to dilute the Problem of Evil (why would an all-good God permit the evil that we see all around us?) with the infinite time of heaven doesn’t get God out of his moral jam. He’s still responsible for the problem.

Spiritual sandpaper

Wallace begins his defense of God by arguing that hardship can improve us, using the analogy of sandpaper shaping wood. This doesn’t explain why some of us get growth-encouraging hardships while others get devastating hardships such as abusive relationships or devastating disease or injury. Hardship can improve, but it can also tear down.

And, of course, this simply presupposes God and selects the facts to support that conclusion rather than following the facts where they lead.

Slavery, according to Wallace, is spiritual sandpaper.

We mustn’t confuse God’s use of an institution to accomplish something good, with God’s approval of an institution as something inherently good. Even though slavery is not part of God’s heavenly plan . . . He does use human evil here on earth to accomplish his goals for all of us.

So God used slavery without approving of it? Let’s test that with another institution. The book of Proverbs admonishes merchants to use fair weights and measures—four separate times, in fact. For example, “The Lord detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him” (Prov. 20:23). Does this mean that God used the wicked institution of commerce without approving it? There’s no evidence to imagine this. A smart guy like God who spoke the very universe into existence, who drowned the world for its wickedness, and who demanded the death penalty for breaking his commandments wouldn’t feel shy about making his feelings known about human institutions. His regulation of commerce makes clear that he approves of it when correctly done, and his many rules about slavery—nicely documented in Wallace’s previous post—make clear that he approves of that, too.

The slavery question is no better dealt with in the New Testament.

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves. (1 Timothy 6:1–2)

I’m sure Wallace disapproves of slavery, and so do I, but there’s no justification for reading our own morality into the Bible. Let it speak for itself.

Societal vs. individual focus

Wallace tries another gambit. He argues that God’s focus is at the individual level, not the societal level. Sure, slavery was bad, but so what? Society’s problems aren’t on God’s radar.

God can (and has) used what is clearly evil at a societal level to accomplish something beneficial at an individual level.

But what’s “clearly evil”? We moderns agree that slavery is evil, but you’re reading your own morality into the Bible imagine that condemnation there.

Overturning slavery in the time of Jesus?

Wallace quotes Paul’s letter to Philemon, asking him to treat his returning slave with kindness. Wallace concludes,

The Bible does reflect God’s desire to seek the end of slavery, but it does so one heart at a time.

Huh? Of course it doesn’t! If God desired the end of slavery, he could just end slavery. Failing that, he could make clear in the Old Testament that he disapproves and that we should stop it. Failing that, his earthly representation as Jesus could make clear that he disapproves. Failing that, one of the epistle writers could make clear that he disapproves so the Bible could say at least something against slavery.

Fail. Don’t say that God doesn’t like slavery when there is no evidence for this. Don’t imagine your own morality coming from God, playing God like a sock puppet.

Wallace anticipates this:

The Roman Empire had 60 million slaves living amongst its citizenry. To call for an end of slavery in this culture and context would have resulted in mass murder and civil war.

God is magic, remember? If God wanted a different world—one with a healthy Roman economy not dependent on slavery, say—he could make it. To imagine God constrained by mankind’s social institutions is to imagine a puny God.

The shackles that hold God back

Wallace also asks us to “remember the cultural context of the ancient world.” But can God be constrained by the social conditions of the moment? God didn’t feel bound by the status quo when he introduced the Ten Commandments, with the death penalty backing most of them. Whether it was convenient or not for stick collection on the Sabbath to suddenly become a capital crime (Numbers 15:32–6) didn’t bother God.

It would be . . . unfair to judge God based on what we think God should do about slavery.

What do we do then? What do we make of this conflict between the obvious wrongness of slavery and the obvious support of slavery in the Bible? Should we just presuppose God and then figure that he has his own good reasons for acting in a way that, in any other situation, you’d call “immoral”? Or should we drop any special pleading and evaluate the Bible as we would any other claimed moral source? I’m certain Wallace wouldn’t take this approach to avoid critique of any other holy book.

The problem for Wallace is that if you evaluate the Bible, you’ll find no baby. It’s just bath water.

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder
than closed by belief.
— Gerry Spence

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/27/14.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

 

Guest Post: How Children Are Indoctrinated into Religion

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Dr. Karen Garst, author of Women Beyond Belief (2016) is the editor of a new book, Women v. Religion. This is an excerpt that gives one woman’s perspective from inside Christianity.

 

People always ask why there are not more women in the “atheist movement.” One of the main reasons is because more of them are sitting in the pews each Sunday morning. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that women are more likely than men to say religion is “very important” in their lives (60% vs. 47%). They are also more likely than men to say they pray every day (64% vs. 47%). When I grew up in a Lutheran church, the women also did most of the unpaid work—they cooked for potluck dinners, cleaned up the kitchen afterwards, folded the bulletins on Saturday morning with their children, taught Sunday School and directed the children’s choir. Whew!

But where women have the most impact is in bringing their children to church. My husband’s mother is a devout Catholic. Her husband never attended church. But she was faithful in bringing her children every week to Sunday school. (My husband usually slipped out the back door.) Because of this, indoctrination into religion comes at a very early age when children’s minds are the most malleable. Alexis Record, a frequent blogger and essayist in my new book Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom, examines in detail one of the most severe indoctrination methods entitled Accelerated Christian Education. Unfortunately, she got to know the ins and outs of ACE directly as she received 12 years of “education” through this method. Needless to say, colleges didn’t consider it the equivalent of a high school diploma.

One of the ways in which this “education” is effective is the child is surrounded by people who reinforce everything that is taught. As Alexis explains, “The bubble I grew up within was tightly controlled, and most of the influences on my thinking were limited to those that reinforce the conservative Christian worldview.” When a child is young, they tend to believe what their parents tell them and don’t question them or the other adults in their lives. If your whole life is caught up in Sunday services, choir practice, Sunday school and then your entire education is more of the same, it is not surprising that this is your world view. While those raised outside of religion find this a bit hard to understand, Alexis explains it well.

I have often wondered how I could have ever truly embraced a faith that would make any sane person recoil. The answer lies in the fact that I wasn’t simply taught these lessons, I inherited them. They were my upbringing—repeated tirelessly by those who raised me. To reject them would have been to conjure the temerity to reject my family, my community and my own identity. That is a lot to ask of anyone, but grossly unfair to ask of a child. The well-known verse in Proverbs 22:6 is fairly perceptive of the process to follow. “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.”

Studies have shown the impact of religious activities on the brain. They actually make people feel more and, as Alexis explains, become “aware of themselves less.” The authors of one study—Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman, and Judith A. Hall—cite a significant negative association of intelligence and religiosity. Their definition of intelligence is as follows: “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (p. 13). As is evident in Alexis’ description of ACE, the only important aspect is to believe and repeat what is said.

The ACE method also reinforces all of the misogynistic aspects of Christianity. A woman is expected to follow her father’s, then her husband’s wishes. She is to be subservient. Her job is to manage the household (wash dishes and iron!) while her husband is the wage earner in the family. It also teaches that the “wages of sin are death” invoking the punishment of hell as the result of falling off the true path. If a psychologist were to give an honest opinion on this teaching method, he or she could only conclude that it is child abuse.

When Alexis grew up, she was expected to train her children in the same way, thus the cycle repeats itself. When she was expecting her first child, the pastor told her he was excited that she would “raise him up in service of the Lord.” But Alexis came to doubt the precepts of the religion she was raised in and has become a pretty fervent atheist. She, as many others have done, also paid the price of leaving her church behind—they left her behind as well.

I was uninvited to holiday gatherings, was unfriended on social media, lost baby sitters, experienced strained interactions with once-close family members, and had to change my will since those who had previously been selected to inherit my children in the event of my death had disappeared entirely from our lives without a word.

Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom contains thirteen essays that deal with the severe impact of religion on the lives of women including African-American, Hispanics, transgender, ex-Muslim, and ex-Jewish women, as well as others. It is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and will be available in bookstores in May.

Yes, Biblical Slavery Was the Same as American Slavery

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I’d like to respond to two posts about biblical slavery from Jim Wallace of the Cold Case Christianity blog. I’ve argued several times before against Wallace (here, here, and here).

Let me begin with a positive comment on his “Four Differences Between New Testament Servitude and New World Slavery.” Many Christian apologies for biblical slavery avoid the most unpleasant passages in the Bible, such as the part about slavery for life in Leviticus 25:44–6, but Wallace’s list of relevant Bible verses is fairly complete.

That’s a good start, but he argues toward an odd conclusion:

The New Testament Servitude of the Ancient Near East had little in common with the New World Slavery of our American ancestors.

Wallace tries unsuccessfully to distinguish slavery as it was practiced in the Old Testament from that practiced in the Thirteen Colonies and then the United States (I’ll call this “America”). Let’s take a look at his four claims.

“1. A Difference In the Motive Behind Slavery.”

Wallace tells us that slavery in America was for the economic gain of the masters, while in ancient Israel, “the primary motive for slavery was often the economic relief of the servant.”

First, let’s disentangle the different kinds of slavery. In America there were two kinds. An indentured servant was typically a European who came to America to work for another European. Masters paid for their servants’ passage, and they provided food, clothes, and training. In return, the servants were typically obliged to work for four to five years. Roughly half of the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies came as indentured servants.

The other kind, of course, was chattel slavery where the slave and any children were owned for their lives and were property that could be bought or sold. Here, Americans enslaved non-Europeans, typically from West Africa.

The Bible documents the very same practices: Hebrews owning Hebrew slaves for roughly six years (indentured servitude) and Hebrews owning non-Hebrews for life (chattel slavery).

Let’s return to Wallace’s characterization of Hebrew slavery. He’s right that slavery as an institution in America benefitted the masters. Obviously, the same was true in Old Testament Israel—why else would it have lasted? It wasn’t an obligation that Hebrew masters took on reluctantly, only as a service to the community. Wallace gives Old Testament (OT) slavery a pro-servant spin, but the verse he cites (Lev. 25:35–7) is not about slaves.

Wallace is also right that OT slavery addressed financial issues. Ditto American indentured servitude. He’s not off to a good start in making a distinction between American indentured servitude and OT slavery of fellow Hebrews.

“2. A Difference As to How People Entered Into Slavery.”

Wallace finds several different types of indentured servants in the OT and imagines that these illustrate important differences when compared with American indentured servants.

  • “Voluntary Temporary Indentured Hebrew Servants.” These were just like American indentured servants.
  • “Voluntary Permanent Hebrew Servants.” Suppose one indentured servant married another. What do you do if the man has completed his term, but his wife and children must remain with the master? If you’re thinking that the Bible recommends the master compassionately permit the wife and children to leave as well, you’re giving the Bible too much credit. No, the Bible says that the man could opt to remain, but only as a permanent slave. I know of no parallel with the American concept of indentured servitude (which is not a plus for the biblical position).
  • “Involuntary Hebrew and Gentile Criminals in Restitution.” Thieves must make restitution for their crimes. If they can’t, they will be sold as slaves. Perhaps there were cases like this in America.
  • “Permanent Pagan Servants.” These are slaves for life taken from surrounding tribes and from the non-Hebrews living in Israel. Wallace tries to dilute this by arguing that Israelites still couldn’t kidnap and sell people into slavery (Exodus 21:16), but the NET Bible says that this refers only to the kidnapping of fellow Israelites and selling them into slavery (like Joseph, sold by his brothers).

The trick here is to make sure that you understand what kind of slavery a particular Bible passage is referring to. In these categories, American and OT slavery are matched step for step.

“3. A Difference In How People Were Treated Once They Were Slaves.”

Wallace says, “Slaves were treated humanely and their treatment was regulated by Biblical law.”

  • The Bible dictates that slaves could rest on the Sabbath and celebrate religious holidays, and slaves could adopt their masters’ religion. Conditions in America were similar, and Christianity was an important tool in keeping slaves in line.
  • The Bible holds masters accountable for fair treatment of slaves. For example, beating is allowed but only up to a point. Conditions in American were similar. For example, the 1739 South Carolina code limited the number of hours that slaves could be made to work and fined anyone who killed a slave £700. The 1833 Alabama law code dictated, “Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offence had been committed on a free white person.”

“4. A Difference In How People Freed Themselves From Slavery.”

Wallace argues that there were more ways for OT slaves to free themselves than in America.

  • Someone could pay the debt of an indentured servant, or they could do it themselves.
  • The indentured servant could complete his term of service.
  • A slave could be freed if injured from a beating (it’s unclear which kind of slave this refers to).

How is this different from conditions in America? In addition, slaves in America sometimes bought their freedom, which the Bible doesn’t address.

Let me again give Jim Wallace credit for giving a fairly thorough list of Bible verses on the subject at hand. But Jim, tell me the truth. Are you a Poe? You let the Bible speak for itself, and it does: it documents a 2500-year-old version of American slavery. The two are almost identical, point by point.

That’s why it’s hard to understand Wallace’s conclusion:

While it is clear that the ancient Israelites did possess slaves, it is also clear the reason for their possession, the manner in which they were treated, and the manner in which they could be released was very different from the institution of slavery in more recent times in Europe and America. . . .  It is unfair to say that the God of the Bible supports the institution of slavery as we understand it in more modern times. That version of slavery had little in common with the version of servitude in Biblical times.

No, the God of the Bible supported a form of slavery basically indistinguishable from that practiced in America.

The United States didn’t get its founding principles from the Bible—principles such as democracy, secular government, separation of powers, and a limited executive; freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly; protection from self-incrimination and double jeopardy; speedy and public trial, trial by jury, and the right to confront witnesses; and no cruel and unusual punishment.

But one trait that it got almost identical to the biblical version was slavery.

To be concluded in part 2.

This government of God was tried in the U.S.
when slavery was regarded as a divine institution.
The pulpit of that day
defended the buying and selling of women and babies.
The mouths of the slave-traders
were filled with passages of Scripture,
defending and upholding traffic in human flesh.
— Robert Green Ingersoll

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/25/14.)

Image via Cesar Rojas Iribarren, CC license

 

God Needs a 12-Step Program to Obey His 10 Commandments

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God has no problem breaking Commandment #9 against lying (see my previous post). He also likes the occasional human sacrifice, which puts him in conflict with Commandment #6 prohibiting murder. Can’t this guy follow his own rules?

God presumably isn’t obliged to follow the first four—no other gods, no graven images, no blasphemy, keep the Sabbath—but can’t he be expected to understand basic morality?

Commandment #6: no murder

In addition to the human sacrifice,

  • God orders the death of the tribe of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:2–3).
  • Ditto the guy who picked up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:35).
  • He kills the guy who touched the Ark of the Covenant so it wouldn’t fall (1 Chronicles 13:10).
  • Ditto the guy who refused to impregnate his sister-in-law (Genesis 38:8)
  • and the men, women, and children in Sodom and Gomorrah.
  • And then there’s the whole Flood thing where presumably millions were drowned.

Maybe God doesn’t have to follow his rules

Here’s how world-famous apologist William Lane Craig tap dances around this issue:

I have no right to take an innocent life. For me to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition. He can give and take life as He chooses. . . . God is under no obligation whatsoever to extend my life for another second. If He wanted to strike me dead right now, that’s His prerogative.

The parallel often given is that of a sand sculpture. If I built it, I can squash it. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but I think things are different when the thing being squashed is living. We have no respect for the sadist who pulls the wings off a fly, and we have laws against animal cruelty. But Craig thinks that God’s rules don’t apply to God? How many moralities are there? And if God needn’t follow the rules, how can they be objective (which Craig argues)?

Craig’s own holy book disagrees with him. What does Man made “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27) mean if morality applies to Man but not God? Matthew also makes clear that the standards are the same: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

We see the same single standard of morality when Abraham challenges God about his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Gen. 18:25)

(I’ve written more about God and morality here and here)

A few other commandments

God doesn’t personally commit adultery (Commandment #7), though the Bible’s concerns about adultery are often not reciprocal but just about the man’s rights. In many cases, if a man’s rights aren’t violated, it’s not adultery. Adultery can be wrong in our own day, but we define it differently.

Commandment #8 prohibits stealing, but God helped the Israelites take Canaan from the tribes that were already there (Deuteronomy 7:1–2).

Commandment #10 prohibits coveting, but God comes pretty close: “I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me” (Exodus 20:5).

Let’s apply the Ray Comfort test (Comfort is a street evangelist who likes to ask people if they’ve ever broken a commandment, even once). Okay, God, by the admission in your own holy book, you’re a lying, stealing, covetous murderer. What sort of punishment do you think you deserve? Keep in mind that most of the penalties for breaking any of the Ten Commandments are death.

When the President does it,
that means that it is not illegal.
— Richard Nixon (David Frost interview, 5/19/77)

 

When God does it,
that means that it is not immoral.
— paraphrase of William Lane Craig
(Reasonable Faith, 8/6/07)

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/18/14.)

Photo credit: Bob Seidensticker

 

“I Do Abortions Because I Am a Christian”

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Dr. Willie Parker is an abortion provider and a Christian.

He’s received a lot of press, including a long piece in Esquire magazine in 2014, for being one of only two doctors who provides care at the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. That’s a clinic that the governor wants shut down to achieve his goal of Mississippi as “an abortion-free zone.”

Four other states are also down to one clinic.

Praise for Christians

I have plenty to disagree with Christians about, but I seek out opportunities to celebrate Christians with whom I agree. Rev. Barry Lynn was head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Senator Rob Portman is a Republican who reversed himself on the same-sex marriage issue after his son came out as gay. And Dr. Parker is a Christian who feels that he is doing the Lord’s work by helping women get essential healthcare.

Parker’s path to his profession

Dr. Parker makes the trip to Mississippi from his home in Chicago twice a month. He’s Harvard educated and gave up a career as a college professor and obstetrician to become an abortion provider. The realization that this would be his civil rights struggle is what he calls his “come to Jesus” moment, and he became an abortion provider on the day that Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his church.

Mississippi used to have 13 abortion clinics, they’ve gotten rid of all but one, and anti-abortionists want to shut down that one, too. Since they can’t make abortion illegal, they want to make it impractical by imposing nuisance requirements. These include demands that clinic doctors must have hospital admitting privileges in case of complications (unnecessary since any such situation would go in through the emergency room), scary information that must be provided by the doctor (which is one sided and often scientifically incorrect), unnecessary regulations that only drive up costs, unnecessary second ultrasounds (some with the technician required to identify the fetal parts to the woman), and so on.

Mississippi social metrics aren’t so good

Hey, kids! Here are some fun stats about Mississippi. Besides having a fun name, it has the second-highest teen birth rate in the United States—nearly four times the rate of the lowest state, Massachusetts. It has the highest rate of unintended pregnancy, at 63%. While it only has one abortion clinic, it has 38 crisis pregnancy centers (these are pretend abortion clinics with anti-choice agendas). And it has the highest rates of poverty, gonorrhea, obesity, and infant mortality in the country.

But all is forgiven since it’s also the most religious state. Jesus must be pleased.

The other side of the issue

Anti-abortion activists argue that Mississippi residents seeking abortions can always go out of state, and about two-thirds are already forced to. Not only is going out of state not an option for poor women, but this was the argument segregationists made about black students who wanted to attend the state’s whites-only colleges.

Another odd argument is that the status quo is a plot against black babies since many of the women seeking abortions are black. In fact, we’re seeing black women trying to take control of and responsibility for the size of their families. Most women seeking an abortion already have children to consider. And it is inconsistent to hear concern for the disadvantage coming out of the mouths of the same people who want to cut funding for social programs and education.

The National Right to Life News was unimpressed with the favorable Esquire piece. Consider some of their complaints.

  • Dr. Parker performs too many abortions per day during his visits to Mississippi. That’s easily solved—open more clinics and pay for more doctors.
  • Dr. Parker is reported to have done late-term abortions. Then remove pointless red tape to make abortions happen earlier.
  • Dr. Parker is quoted as underestimating the fraction of abortions after the first trimester. So earlier is better? Great—sounds like you accept the spectrum argument, that the inherent worth of the fetus increases during gestation. Again, the solution is encouraging early pregnancy tests and quickly providing complete information so that any abortion happens as soon as possible.
  • The teeny chopped-up fetus looks gross. The result of any medical operation can be yucky. Imagine holding down your lunch while watching a surgeon poking around inside a chest or abdomen. And if the issue is fetal pain, “the neurological wiring [to feel pain] is not in place until . . . after the time when nearly all abortions occur” (source).

Harm reduction

Anti-abortion activists, do you really want to reduce abortions? ’Cause if you are, you sure aren’t going about it the right way.

Zero abortions won’t happen whether abortion is legal or not. Making abortion illegal doesn’t eliminate it; it simply drives it underground (more here). What you need to do is attack the problem at the source: the half of all pregnancies in the U.S. that are unwanted. Reduce the demand for abortions and you reduce abortions. (More here.)

Not only will this turn pro-choice enemies into allies, but now you’re open to explore why other developed countries have so much lower teen pregnancy rates.

(I have more recommendations for the pro-life movement here.)

See also: “20 Arguments Against Abortion, Rebutted”

There are people in the world so hungry
that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
— Mahatma Gandhi

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/13/14.)

Photo credit: Lady Parts Justice League