Compassion and Respect

Breaking through to Dialogue on Abortion, Family Planning, and Human Reproduction in a Secular, Pluralistic World

John J. Mawhinney

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781725278028
  9781725278035
• eBook ISBN:
  9781725278042
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book is primarily for a general audience of persons of good will, regardless of faith or non-faith, as well as for professionals who counsel others on the issues discussed. Written in a simple, straightforward language, it is meant to help people dialogue on acrimoniously divisive issues that divide and undermine our nation--such as abortion, family planning, contraception, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and LGBTQ issues--through respectful dialogue in public forums (small or large) by searching for mediating middle ground compromises, just as trade and peace negotiators do. No one in the dialogue may be satisfied with the concessions they have to make but they can at least live with them until better solutions are found. Those engaging in such dialogue must be open to understanding where others are coming from, and be respectful of the good-faith consciences of others, and avoiding passing laws that would the consciences of others.

Chapter 1

Overview and Perspectives

This chapter gives an overview of the book and its author. It has five sections, A through E:

A. Intended Audience

B. The Book’s Perspective, Thrust, and Objective

C. Author’s Resume: Academic Specialty and Experience

D. Author’s Methodology: What Is Societal Justice Analysis?

E. Chapter Outlines

A. Intended Audience

This book is written for all persons of good will, regardless of their faith or non-faith. By persons of good will we mean persons who feel driven and are committed, at least in some degree, to living responsible lives both for their own good and for that of others. Such persons desire to contribute to a more just, more peaceful, less conflictive and divided world, especially as it affects the marginalized and looked-down-upon and the emotionally or economically distressed.

How one thinks or speaks of what drives them to do so is not important. Some speak of it as personal God; others as simply some mysterious force. But whatever it is, they experience this force as awesome and as existentially and inescapably real as a sunset and bodily pain. They also find it an essential help for dealing with life’s challenges. (We develop this point further in chapter 2, section A, when we explain our ethical model.)

This book does not assume that the reader has ever studied ethics, religion, or other specific academic discipline. Although based on much scholarship, the author writes, not in the language of scholars, but in a simple, straightforward language; hopefully accessible to any reader with some interest in abortion, family planning, contraception, LGBTQ, and human reproduction as public policy issues.

The book is also written in a way that allows readers to choose the chapters they wish to read and in what order. For example, some readers may not be interested in chapters 3 and 4 that approach the topic from a Hebrew/Christian scriptural angle.

The author sees himself, not so much as a scholar, but as an intellectual communicator. He likes to take quite complex, abstract ideas of scholars and “translate” them (without compromising their nuances) into a “language” that enables readers of all backgrounds to grasp and apply them to real-life, existential situations. As far as possible he avoids technical terms. When this is unavoidable, he immediately explains the term in a simpler language and usually with a concrete, real-life example.

The book may also be of interest to professionals who have occasion to counsel people on abortion and family planning and need to articulate their counsel in a simple, straightforward language, accessible even to those with a limited education. These professionals would include marriage counselors, physicians (especially gynecologists and obstetricians), psychologists, religious ministers of various faiths, and, perhaps, even politicians who may find parts of the book helpful for articulating their positions on politically and ethically sensitive issues, especially that of abortion.

Finally, the book is relevant for college liberal arts courses in public social policy, sociology, political science, and ethics (philosophical or religious).

B. Book’s Perspective, Thrust, and Objective

Compassion, respect, understanding, readiness to forgive, responsibility, and accountability are virtues urgently needed in our global but acrimoniously divided world, including the United States. We now travel rapidly around the globe and electronically communicate with one another instantaneously, but this communication “with” is often not “for” one another but “against” one another. Increasingly vicious terrorist and hate groups of many stripes are pitting nations against one another as well as dividing their own citizenry from one another.

The book’s primary objective and thrust is to foster respectful public dialogue on divisive public policy issues, especially abortion. Or, to put it in another way, our interest is to help people break through their differences enough to dialogue with one another. To this end, it seeks to provide ideas and a language that may be useful to those who wish to discuss divisive social issues in a public forum with others, whether they be small groups or a political audience.

Thus, our purpose is not to tell others what is morally right or wrong, but to get people to think more clearly and deeply about the issues we discuss and to respectfully learn from and collaborate with one another to make for a more peaceful, just world.

To carry on such dialogue, we need to recognize that we have no choice but to live in a secular, pluralistic world. (We explain how we understand the words “secular” and “pluralistic” in the next chapter.) This means that today, perhaps more than ever before, even those of us who live in the same community often have very different values and religious or religious-like convictions and so see life and its meaning in ways that often sharply conflict with those of others whom we must constantly rub shoulders with.

If this dialogue is to make headway, it is essential that people be ready to listen respectfully and nonjudgmentally to one another and try to understand where others are coming from. This does not require that we give up our own values and convictions, but it does mean a willingness to avoid advocating public policies that try to force others, especially by enacting laws, to act against their good-faith consciences. Instead, we need to search for pragmatic, workable public policy compromises and accommodations that all can live with even though no one will be fully satisfied.

From the US perspective, uncompromising acrimony tears apart the social fabric on which our nation was built. Our Founding Fathers prided themselves on respecting the freedom of expression and strongly held personal and religious convictions and practices of others.

The rather rapid ratification of the US Constitution by all thirteen colonies was possible only because our Founding Fathers were able to find ways to accommodate deep political, religious, and even ethical differences among themselves by finding “mediating middle ground” compromises and accommodations.

Politically, they created a Congress with two legislative bodies: a Senate, where every state has an equal representation regardless of population size and, to accommodate states with large numbers of citizens, a House of Representatives, where each state has a representation based on the number of citizens it has. To elect the nation’s president and vice president, they created an Electoral College, where each state has a number of representatives equal to the number of representatives and senators it has in Congress. After the thirteen colonies approved the Constitution the passed amendments that guaranteed freedom of religion and speech.

For this reason, among others, the author of this book does not think it too much to ask of one another to look for mediating middle-ground compromises over the acrimonious issue of abortion and the other issues discussed.

Since our objective is to foster respectful and understanding dialogue, we do not formally take ethical positions on the issues discussed. Some say all dialogue on such issues, especially on abortion and LGBTQ, is impossible because the various sides are too acrimoniously locked into their positions. However, we do not accept this pessimistic view.

C. Author’s Resume, Academic Specialty, and Experience

The author is a professional ethicist. He earned his PhD from the Religion department of Temple University (a Pennsylvania’s State university), specializing in societal structural justice analysis (to be explained a couple of pages below). Later, to better understand the business mentality and advise others, he obtained a MBA in the executive business program of Loyola University, Baltimore.

“Religiously” the author sees himself as a secularly religious, pluralist, ecumenical Christian and socially committed humanist. He believes that one’s faith is not manifested by the doctrines one claims to believe in or by the rituals one practices, but by how one lives out one’s life.1 The author explains what he means by “secular” and “religious” at the beginning of chapter 2.

After receiving his doctorate, he was appointed acting associate dean of the Evening School and of societal justice programs at Loyola University (Baltimore).

After leaving Loyola (Baltimore) in 1979, he had the opportunity to refine his understanding and method of societal structural justice analysis during an eleven-year period (1979–90) when he was asked to develop a special program under the sociology department of the Loyola University in New Orleans. The objective of the program was to awaken his own as well as his ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Overview and Perspectives
• Chapter 2: Author’s Ethical Model and the Time/Space Character of Human Existence
• Chapter 3: Three Ancient Hebrew Stories of Origins19
• Chapter 4: Jesus, a Person for and with Others
• Chapter 5: Compassion and Respect
• Chapter 6: Compassion and Respect
• Chapter 7: Family Planning, Personhood, and Human Reproduction (IVF)
• Chapter 8: Public Policy Discourse
• Bibliography