What N.T. Wright Gets Wrong about Abortion
For those who may not be aware, N.T. (Tom) Wright is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial theologians of our time. If you are unfamiliar with the debate surrounding Wright and his hot take on Paul, his teaching has been addressed previously on our blog here and here. But Wright recently made the news, not for his position on Paul, but for his position on abortion. A few days ago, on the Ask NT Wright Anything podcast, Wright came out with a position on abortion that sought to strike a middle ground, saying essentially that abortion is generally a bad thing but sometimes it is necessary.
What NT Wright Actually Said
Wright’s interview can be found here. It might be a good idea to hear Wright in his own words, but I’m going to try to present what he said in as fair a light as possible. If you were to get a bird’s-eye view of this interview, the idea that comes up again and again is the word “sensitive.” These are difficult questions, we are reminded, and we have to be careful and sensitive in how we answer them.
Wright begins with a helpful summary of why this issue is so contentious, particularly within an American context (which is a little odd since he is a British theologian answering a question from a German Christian). Within the context of the sexual revolution, abortion was a necessary part of so-called “free love.” If hookup culture led to a bunch of babies, it wouldn’t be very sustainable in the long run. And so abortion has been tied up with an out-of-control, immoral culture, especially for those in America (rightly, I might add).
Wright then gives a personal example of someone he knew who was exposed to rubella while pregnant, and their Christian doctor said that if fetal deformities were detected, they would recommend an abortion. Wright states that he felt an immediate revulsion to that, but goes on to argue, “but, at the time, it was absolutely clear for the mental health, never mind anything else, of the mother and the potential father as well, that this was the way to go.”
Fortunately, no abnormalities were detected, and the child was born healthy, but this allows Wright to say that there are some difficult cases where the pregnancy should be terminated “as soon as possible.” What kind of instances? Rape, incest, and health of the mother are the ones he mentions, and here, by the example he himself used, we can expand health of the mother to mean “mental health,” and particularly the distress that would come with giving birth to a disabled child.
I appreciate that in the course of this interview, Wright makes the point that the earliest Christians rejected infanticide and abortion! In fact, likely the earliest Christian document we have outside of Scripture is The Didache, which served as an ancient discipleship manual and explicitly forbade abortion. Wright goes so far as to compare late-term abortions to the pagan practice of infanticide, and for this reason he states that he is against late-term abortions. According to him, engaging in a late-term abortion “is not only wrong, it’s repulsive.” This is good, because it means that there is a line somewhere for Wright, at least in theory. Where is that line? When is viability? He’s not sure, but according to him that’s where you would want an expert to weigh in.
Finally, Wright takes a few swipes at men, particularly celibate men (think Catholic priests and bishops), who are men telling women what to do in these difficult situations. “The whole debate about the woman’s rights it’s very difficult. It’s very hard for a man to talk about this. And indeed one of the problems has been, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, when women, particularly say a girl who’s been raped or who’s had incest committed on her, um, then discovering that unmarried men from the Catholic hierarchy are telling her what she can and can’t do… As people now say the optics of that are pretty bad. That’s part of the same system of male bullying which we have to avoid like the plague.”
His overall summary? “In principle, this is not something which we should welcome. It is not something which we should collude with. At the same time there may be certain exceptions, of which severe deformity might be one, of which certainly incest and rape would be others, and in those cases I would say the sooner the better, um, because at a certain point, and I am not medically qualified to say at what point, I would draw a line then this is a viable human being that should then be cherished.” For Americans, this sounds exactly like the position of 1990’s Democrats and their “safe, legal, and rare” mantra. You might notice that hasn’t gone well for them.
He concludes by saying, “I do think that that sense of respect for God’s creation in all its rich variety is the, the primary starting point, even if we then have to say with sorrow and a certain sense of, um, this is the least worst option in this situation. That there may be some cases of exceptions. That, that’s about as far as I can get at the moment and as I say I’m very much aware of just how sensitive this topic is politically, sociologically, as well as ethically.”
What NT Wright Got Wrong
The fundamental question in the abortion debate is “When does a clump of cells count as a person?” For the radical left, the answer is “Once the baby is all the way out of the womb,” with some arguing maybe even a few hours after. For the pro-life movement, the answer is “from the moment of conception.” Other arbitrary answers have been given, such as fetal heartbeat, six weeks, first trimester, or some other attempt to draw a line that is more about an acceptable compromise than anything rooted in objective logic.
Wright’s line would appear to be viability. Once a child can live outside the womb, then it should be treated as a person. According to him, the sooner an uncomfortable yet necessary abortion can be done, the better. But when is viability? Wright says he doesn’t know, but it’s a very important line. Honestly, at that point Wright should have signed out of the chat. If you aren’t able to give a clear, definitive answer as to when an abortion is the acceptable least worst option and when it is infanticide, you aren’t qualified to speak to the issue. We often hear this from some of the less crazy pro-choicers. This was the line some Democrats used to hold before they went all-in on abortion. “There is a point where, perhaps, there shouldn’t be an abortion. We don’t know where that line is, though, so we’ll trust the experts.” This means people may be engaging in infanticide, according to the rubric Wright has set up, but he’s not able to say so and will just have to sit quietly and do nothing about it.
What about the so-called “exceptions” which, according to Wright, would include fetal abnormalities, rape, incest, or the mental health of the mother? It’s unclear why exceptions would even be needed. If a child isn’t really a child until viability, why not get an abortion if having a child is financially disadvantageous at the time? What if you wanted a girl but got a boy? If a clump of cells becomes a child at viability, then simply kill the cells before they become a person. And if you are going to hold the mental health of the mother as an exception, then you basically are allowing abortion for any reason. All a doctor has to say is that the stress of having a child that is not the gender you wanted or that the financial strain would not be good for the mental health of the mother, and abortion is now acceptable.
What about the claim that celibate men, or any men for that matter, really shouldn’t be telling women who have been raped that they can’t get an abortion? Well, if life does begin at conception, then men, married or otherwise, have a right and a duty to defend the weakest members of society from murder. If a law was made tomorrow that allowed children born with a deformity to be killed within the first two years of their life if the parents decided it was too much work, I don’t think you would hear anyone making the claim you can’t object if you don’t have a child with deformities. Murdering the innocent is wrong, and you don’t have to be able to empathize with those doing the killing to know that. The righteous and loving thing is to defend the life of the unborn. This is true for the child as well as the reluctant mom, because it turns out that killing a child is really bad for your mental health.
Why NT Wright Got It Wrong
So how did a New Testament scholar, who has spent years studying the thinking of Paul, come out spouting platitudes of progressive Christianity? How can someone who has made a career studying the worldview of Paul so that he can really understand how Paul thinks and what he meant have adopted and mirrored the thinking of people who think the opposite of Paul? It’s amazing how in this interview, we skip from “the ancient Christians and Jews completely rejected this kind of behavior” to “well, sometimes it’s a necessary evil.”
Noticeably absent from Wright’s response is any reference to Scripture. What does the Bible have to say on this issue? Even if not a direct chapter and verse saying, “Abortion is evil” or “abortion is acceptable in limited cases,” there are no biblical principles being put forward in the video. The history of the early church is briefly considered, but this is evidence which cuts against Wright. Scripture itself is clear, that life is a gift from God, children are a treasure, and God is intimately involved in forming children in the womb (Psalm 139:14-15)! Wright is here trying to give wisdom for the tricky, messy situations of life for which there is no chapter and verse. But he does so without any mention of Scripture. His guiding principle? We need to be sensitive.
Which means we need to consider this theme of sensitivity. Should we be sensitive? At times, yes. Was Paul sensitive? Was Jesus sensitive? At times, yes. But at times they both threw punches. Jesus literally overthrew tables (Matthew 21:12-14), warned the cities He had preached in that it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than it would be for them (Matthew 11:23-24), and called His own disciple Satan (Matthew 16:23). Paul went so far as to say he wished his opponents would castrate themselves (Galatians 5:20). There is a time to be careful and sensitive, but there is a time to be courageous and to boldly say what needs to be said.
Should we be sensitive to those with difficult pregnancies? Absolutely. Should we be sensitive to those who have had an abortion and are struggling with guilt and grief? We definitely should be. Should we allow that sensitivity to lead us to permit murder because someone is in a tough spot? No. Absolutely not. Wright appears to be looking for a middle ground on this issue. “I’m not firmly in either camp,” he essentially says. In a highly polarized era, it is tempting to want to find a middle ground between warring factions, and often that is a worthy pursuit. But there is no middle ground here. Abortion is murder. It is the intentional, malicious taking of an innocent life. “Sensitivity” that leads us to say that this is acceptable isn’t sensitivity, it’s cowardice.
Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. You can check out Bible studies he has written as hearanddo.org.
Photo by Micahael Kooiman
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