The draconian law passed by the Texas legislature and governor and tacitly approved by the very unsupreme court not only forbids abortion for seven million women in the state of Texas but also unleashes a tsunami of vigilantes who can get rich quick by suing anyone and everyone who dare to interact with women seeking an abortion.
The state promises them $10,000 apiece if they can headhunt women and their aides seeking an abortion—and the promise extends to any citizen in the entire United States.
Yet the current Supreme Court remained silent on the matter and apparently thinks that’s just hunky dory. What this will do to clogging up judicial courts throughout Texas when the head-hunters go on the prowl is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be pretty. And how many lives and families it destroys financially doesn’t seem to matter either.
In light of this abomination of legislation, from the same state legislature that just passed the most draconian anti-voting bill since the Jim Crow days, I want to share portions of my article that I wrote for a Catholic magazine last year named Conscience which is dedicated to examining contemporary issues. My article was called “Moving Beyond the Abortion Fixation: Some Theological Context.”
My position on abortion is the same it was some twenty years ago when I was lecturing in a Methodist church on creation spirituality and one woman asked, during the q and a, “what is Creation Spirituality’s position on abortion?” My answer was something like this:
In principle I am against abortion because I think we should be conservative about life in all its forms; but I am not against people who have abortions–it is my experience that the decision is never easy for women to make and that circumstances are often dire in committing oneself to a twenty year commitment to provide for another child. Moreover, I am even more against allowing men (especially politicians) telling women what to do with their bodies.
With that answer I received a sustained standing ovation.
To be continued
See Matthew Fox, “Moving Beyond the Abortion Fixation: Some Theological Context,” in Conscience: The Newsjournal of Catholic Opinion, vol. xli—no. 2, 2020, pp. 24-28; or www/consciencemag.org.
Also see Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Banner Image: Protest by the Northern Texas Light Brigade, 2013. Photo by Steve Rainwater on Flickr.
To read the written transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Queries for Contemplation
What is your response to this latest news from the Texas legislator and governor and the enabling by the “supreme” court? How do you feel about the right of male politicians to control the bodies of women? And the invitation to give $10,000 to anyone anywhere who wants to hunt down women or their allies in Texas who seek an abortion even in the case of incest and rape?
Recommended Reading
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18 thoughts on “Here Come the Abortion Fanatics”
I am enraged, not only about what has happened in Texas, but also at what is happening in Afganistan to women. And in all honesty, and many aren’t going to like me saying this, but if you are going to post these kinds of very dark and ugly truths about the condition and state of some aspects of humanity, then please simultaneously include within the same DM, how I can deal with everything that I am feeling and thinking as well right now.
When you become fully aware that it is possible to make it illegal for women to have an abortion but it remains unquestionably legal for men to create weapons of mass destruction which can slaughter millions of people and ultimately the planet you know in your gut that gender relations have been and currently remain totally out of balance. Thankfully I know both men and women who are radical pacifists trying to ‘out’ the dark money [mainly male] chokehold the military industrial complex has on our global commons.
Gwen, you are right: “gender relations have been and currently remain totally out of balance”!!! Something must be done to change this imbalance…
Well said, Gwen.
It is unbelievably hypocritical for someone to be pro-war (and many Literalist Christians are) while claiming to be pro-life and fanatically against abortion. It is outrageous that so many so-called followers of Jesus claim to be shocked that a raped, poor, black or brown or child-woman would find it necessary to end a pregnancy–that they would call that a murder–while having no compunction about the obvious killing of a child already alive, a child already walking around on two feet, in a far-off country such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
Michele, You are absolutely right in my estimate… hypocritical !!!
Jeanette, I would suggest that when one is first faced with real disturbing news, it helps to sit down and breathe deeply. Take in the news with your in-breathing, but breathe out “peace” or some other word that is meaningful to you in your exhale. For some it is “Christ” or “Jesus” or “Buddha” or “Peace” or another word. Do this practice several times. Then, when some calmness returns, ask questions: “What can I do?” “How can I serve and make a difference?” “How can I organize and find allies and share solidarity with others?” This in turn may prompt one to find what groups are responding in ways that seem useful and worthwhile. Turn outrage into action.
Also, taking a drum and beating it hard for 15 minutes per day letting whatever sounds want to come from your third chakra (your gut where we keep anger) is another worthwhile practice for it allows the grief (which begins with anger) a healthy outlet. Listen to the meditations that follow.
I also very much recommend you follow the methodology I practice in my book on evil, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, and that is to begin with the Via Positiva. I spend three chapters doing that, creating litanies of the “blessings” of the universe; the earth; and our bodies before I go into evil as such. One does not go into a cave without a lantern. We must surround ourselves with light (the Via Positiva) before entering and facing the darkness.
Thank you, Matthew.
Thank you Mathew for your helpful suggestions of what I could choose to do to help me release the intensity of the emotional rage, and mental anguish that arose within me during today’s DM. It was so overwhelming for me, and I really didn’t know what to do with this energy, and due to this intensity I couldn’t hear the inner voice of Spirit. The drumming in particular spoke to me, and I will definitely try this. I know it might sound a bit strange, but it felt to me like I was experiencing something much deeper than my own personal rage and anguish, but rather it seemed like I was experiencing the collective of all women’s rage and anguish down through ages, and the intensity of this…. frightened me.
Jeanette, “Thou art not far from the Queendom…”
Matthew, Thank You again for speaking/writing again with God’s Spirit of Love-Light-Life-Peace-Justice even again on difficult contemporary subject matters. The ignorance, violence, and evils of patriarchal egocentric values continue in all our societal institutions, including religions such as our church. Recently, because of my awareness of the many past and present sins of the institutional Christian churches, I don’t really consider myself a Catholic any longer.
I’m more comfortable being a Christian contemplative, honoring our spiritually healthy tradition of Christian mystics/saints (and all from other past and present Spiritual Wisdom traditions) who are open to our Universal/Loving Source (Mother-Father Creator) in All human beings, matter, creatures, Creation in the Cosmos — Loving Creative Oneness/Divine Will….
Damian, Matthew is truly a mystic-prophet for our time, who speaks out against the “ignorance, violence, and evils of patriarchal egocentric values continue in all our societal institutions, including religions such as our church. Once one sees the truth of what Matthew says, he prepares the way for you to feel more comfortable being a Christian contemplative, honoring OUR spiritually healthy tradition of Christian mystics/saints.
Without a doubt, the Texas abortion legislation is a distortion of our so-called human intelligence, let alone compassion. The photo of the legislators smiling and using their hands to create hearts shook me up, surprisingly. It made me wonder: Where does individual and collective holier-than-thou self-righteousness come from? How does love get so distorted?
Adele, you are right, “Where does individual and collective holier-than-thou self-righteousness come from? How does love get so distorted?” That is a good question but a very difficult question to deal with, but just as there is in the Bible a mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16), so also sin or evil is also a mystery…
The so-called Supreme Court did not touch the vigilante aspect of that evil and sinful abortion law because it represents yet one more step in moving toward an authoritarian state and equates in my opinion to the Nazi and Communist practice of setting neighbor against neighbor to report any “offence” against the state. There was a netflix special that revealed how the Texas law was passed against the legislature’s own rules and procedures. The ends justify the means, every time. I think that the hysteria around abortion and alternative sexual/gender people stems from a deeply perverted and dangerous sexual darkness. Matthew has pointed this out with the Vatican “leaders” who themselves practice homosexuality and yet authorize funds and every effort politically and otherwise to repress others who do. Notice that there seems to be an obsession with specific sexual practices that is a clear warning sign of projection. I, like Matthew, am old enough to remember the “good old days” when abortion was a crime. As he points out, those with money and/or connections have always had no trouble. My aunt, who was engaged to a dental student, with my mother’s help as a nurse with her connections, was able to obtain a safe abortion in the early 1930’s. Doctors in the past got around the laws by called the procedure a medically needed D&C. But the draconian law in Texas and others coming up–here in Florida, there will be special session of the legislature–never mind that children are dying of easily preventable COVID and the state is shamefully ignoring all proven public health protocols–to follow Texas slavishly. I am beyond offended and outraged. It is one more example of the growing fascism in this nation, in my view.
Sue, ” I am beyond offended and outraged. It is one more example of the growing fascism in this nation, in my view…”
Richard, thank you for your response to my post. Matthew truly is a mystic/prophet for our modern difficult times and nourishes all contemplatives on our spiritual journeys with and towards Loving Creative Oneness/Divine Will with our sisters and brothers and all Creation — Co-creators in the Mystical Body of The Universal Christ….
Texas is becoming Taliban USA unfortunately!
So is the Supreme Court!