"Right" to Life for the Born and the Unborn

This is one issue on which Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who has taken a very Orthodox and nuanced stance on questions of human life and human sexuality, and I are on the same page.  We cannot become agitated about the right to life of the unborn, until we get clear on the right to life of the born – universal health care, the end of capital punishment, removing cancer-inducing chemicals in our food and in the air we breathe, preventing our children (and discouraging our friends) from eating themselves to death at McDonald’s and other fast food venues, dealing with drug and alcohol addiction, etc., etc., etc., etc. Let’s make life for the born at least as much a priority and with at least the same fervor, if not more, as life for the unborn. Stated another way, if we insist on bringing every fetus into the world, let us work hard to make the world safe for them and the rest of us – grant them a right to live as well as right to life. Or maybe, “If we grant those who have been born the right to live, then maybe we can figure out a way to perfect the right to life for the unborn.” 


I should add that speaking of these profound issues in terms of "rights" is a peculiarly Western and American way of thinking about values and obligations.  There seems to be a Western compulsion to view even complex philosophical and theological questions in legalistic terms. By thinking this way we of the West tend to obscure nuances, subtleties, and mysteries, on the one hand, and force our thinking into narrow, rigid, and sometimes formalistic channels, on the other. By seeking to draw up "rules and regulations" about what is True and False, what is Good and Evil, we can lose track of the Big Picture, of the Truth of God, of the Mysteries of Life.


The Patriarch says it well and in a truly Orthodox way. In his 2008 book, “Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today”  (p. 150), he writes:

I also encounter many and diverse issues related to the sanctity of life from birth through death. Those issues range from sensitive matters of sexuality to highly controversial questions like the death penalty. In all such social and moral issues, it is not one or another position that the Orthodox Church seeks to promote in a defensive spirit. Indeed, we would normally refrain from expounding a single rigidly defined dogma on social and moral challenges. Rather, it is the sacredness of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, that the Church at all times seeks to underline.

Those who would demand that our hierarchs and Patriarchs spew forth moral diktats and involve themselves in political controversies are, quite unintentionally I believe, pushing our Churches to become Eastern versions of the Church of Rome. If we as Orthodox Americans feel deeply about such issues as state-sanctioned abortions, or for that matter, safe workplaces, healthy diets, capital punishment, and clean air, to cite a few examples of issues laden with moral and theological implications, then we should exercise all the tools of citizenship in this great country to influence the debate and shape the outcome. We ought not drag the Church into these conflicts and thereby undermine both its moral and its doctrinal authority while re-defining its role in ways alien to Orthodoxy.