Too many bishops have failed to challenge prevailing Western thinking on gender, sexuality and the unborn

Aug 10, 2022 by Jill

by Martin Davie, Christian Today:

I recently came across a video clip from the American public affairs channel C-Span that showed an appearance by the University of California law professor Khiara Bridges before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington DC.

Professor Bridges was asked by Senator John Cornyn, ‘Do you think that a baby that is not yet born has value?’ Her reply was ‘I believe that a person with the capacity for pregnancy has value. They have intelligence, they have agency, they have dignity.’

Professor Bridges’ reply struck me as significant because it highlights three key ideas that have become increasingly dominant in Western culture.

The first is this idea that we need to move away from a distinction between men and women. Until recently it was regarded as a given that only women can get pregnant. However, now this idea is seen as oppressive to trans men and those who define themselves as non-binary and so we have circumlocutions such as ‘person with the capacity for pregnancy’ which linguistically erase the distinctiveness of women.

The second is the suggestion that unborn children have no value. When asked if they do, Professor Bridges instead referred to the intelligence, agency and dignity of persons ‘with the capacity for pregnancy.’ The implication of her answer is that it is such persons and not unborn children that have value.

This view is the one that seems to be very widely held by the ‘pro-choice’ side of the abortion debate. Unlike persons ‘with the capacity for pregnancy’, unborn children are regarded as non-persons. They are seen as a thing, an ‘it’, that can be rightly disposed of at will by those who possess intelligence, agency and dignity.

The third is that the key value for human beings is the exercise of autonomy. As Carl Trueman and others have noted, it has become increasingly accepted in Western culture that what gives an individual value is their capacity to determine their own mode of existence and to act accordingly.

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