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One of my favorite sayings if from the Book of James. Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds. What it means to me is that there is a religion that we profess and there is a religion that we practice. Too often the two are not the same.

The contradiction between the strong belief and getting an abortion (in some cases it is the father who is strong anti-abortion but getting an abortion for his daughter. Also 4 out of 5 abortions are performed on unmarried women, which seems to place a large responsibility on the absent male partner contributing to the decision) is hardly surprising. Most of us exhibit small and greater contradictions between what we believe and our actions. Still the study by Joyce Arthur “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion” makes for illuminating read. Here are a couple of…

www.northernsun.com

There was a time when we called a spade a spade. There were people who had (and still do) strong feelings that abortions are wrong and they were called ‘Anti-Abortion’. And there were people who felt that it is a woman’s choice, at least in the first trimester, and they were called ‘Pro-Choice’. Enter someone from marketing saying that ‘anti’ is not good, we need to become ‘pro’ something. We need to re-label to become ‘Pro-Life’, which has the added benefit of implying those who oppose us are anti life.

And so Pro Life and Anti Abortion are most often used as synonyms. But I wonder, judging by the actions of people, if they aren’t closer to being antonyms. Consider the following question: Does a child that is born become less precious than the unborn fetus? One would think that to be Pro-Life means that a child that is born is…

Boston Legal, courtesy of ABC.

Given my crushing pessimism about how the topic of abortion is handled in public discourse, one of the last places I have ever considered looking for ambiguity and complexity turned out to be a surprising source of both: a network TV drama. Boston Legal to be exact. I recently watched an episode that ran two weeks ago (on Nov. 10); it focused on issues surrounding abortion, including parental notification laws and loopholes, how we talk about abortion in public and think about it in private, and even what a turnoff the subject matter was likely to be to viewers. I was impressed.

If you’re not a fan of this very quirky show, I’m not necessarily suggesting you rush to the ABC website and watch it. But if you happened to miss it, and you like your TV dramedy with a certain Hollywood-style social conscience and a dash of…

I hate the term “pro-abortion”. I recently came across it in a quote Tim used (not his own words) in his recent post and then in one of the comments. And I just want to put this out there: nobody is pro-abortion. Regardless of when you believe that life begins, nobody is advocating or encouraging abortions. I respect that differences in beliefs divide us into those that are pro-life (a term I also don’t like) and those that are pro-choice.

For me, this is an issue about choices and freedom. As a woman and mother, I can not imagine the trauma and pain a woman must experience with abortion. Both physical and mental. Judaism tells me that life begins at birth; after two pregnancies I felt life sooner.

So I’m not sure about when life begins but I can tell you this: I wholeheartedly support a woman’s right to choose. Hence the term “pro-choice”.…