My friend “Cyril” and I are no longer speaking. After more than a decade of friendship, we stopped talking recently. We didn’t get too busy for each other; we didn’t have a misunderstanding. We stopped talking because of abortion and sexual ethics.
Cyril and I met at a time when I was first coming back to Christ at the very end of the 1990s. Infatuated with progressive evangelicalism, I found a natural ally in Cyril, who was slightly to my right but still deeply committed to social justice. For years, we met for breakfast to talk theology and politics — and to talk intimately about our personal lives. He was the first person I told when I started dating Eira. Cyril and I drove half-way across the country together many years ago — to his wedding. We ran together, lifted weights together. For the better part of a decade, Cyril was my best male friend.
In 2004, when I left the Mennonite Church, I also abandoned the “seamless garment” position on the life issues I had taken since my conversion. A staunch pro-choice advocate from the cradle, a fourth-generation Planned Parenthood supporter (my great-grandparents gave money to that fine organization back when it was still the Birth Control League), I briefly turned in my religious enthusiasm towards an anti-abortion position. It was always nuanced; I never favored making abortion illegal, but did regard the termination of pregnancy as deeply tragic and problematic. I soon came back to the more emphatically pro-choice position, and that caused tension with Cyril.
We agreed to disagree about abortion, about gay marriage (he favored civil unions only), and about pre-marital sex. We were so fond of each other, and found each other’s company so refreshing, that we made our friendship work despite those differences. As I moved back to the left and he skewed more and more to the right, we each remained the other’s loyal interlocutor, debating enthusiastically over vegetarian burritos and guacamole each week at our favorite hole-in-the-wall.
But then came my post on Dr. Tiller’s assassination last year: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and dieâ€: of a doctor, an usher, and the answerer of a call. Writing in explicitly Christian language, I compared the martyred doctor to the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Cyril and I had read Bonhoeffer together and discussed his influence. For a staunch pro-lifer like my friend, the post (every word of which I continue to stand behind) created deep cognitive dissonance. Cyril loved me, but couldn’t comprehend how I could speak of a man whom he saw as a murderer as a martyr. Though Cyril repudiated violence against those who perform abortions, he had grave doubts about the state of Dr. Tiller’s soul. I made it clear that I thought the doctor had been doing God’s work. And the gulf between us, Cyril realized, had now grown too vast for even a history of deep friendship to span.
We didn’t speak for several months. I had moved to West L.A. and was busy with my expanding family; Cyril and his wife had also just had a child. My calls weren’t returned, but I figured he was just incredibly busy. Finally, I sent him an email, and got a kind, serious, thoughtful reply. Cyril explained that he loved and respected me and was grateful for our years of mutual friendship. But, he said, ideas have consequences, a view he knew I shared. None of us agree with one another on everything, but there are certain core issues that are so central that the absence of a common view can strain even the best of friendships.
Cyril suggested, and I agreed, that to smooth over our differences over abortion for the sake of friendship would do violence to the seriousness with which we held our positions and to our long history of mutual respect. We would still be cordial when we happened to speak; we are both men for whom civility is an important value. But we are also people for whom there are higher values still. And because of those higher values, our friendship has ended.
(Parenthetically, we both agreed that this was where friendship and family relationships differed. Neither of us would ever abrogate a relationship with a relative over even this issue.)
I miss Cyril. But I honor both what we had and why it ended. Politics is not sports; it does have consequences. Our beliefs should never be so passionately held as to render us incapable of decency and empathy. But our core beliefs shouldn’t be worn so lightly that they can be tossed aside for the sake of amiability. I’ve lost friendships in the past because of my reckless behavior (sleeping with other people’s spouses, for example). If there is a good and honorable reason to lose a friendship, it’s the way Cyril and I lost ours. I love him and his family very much, and they remain in my heart. But my commitment to justice (as I prayerfully understand justice) trumps even friendship.
there are certain core issues that are so central that the absence of a common view can strain even the best of friendships
Strain, yes. Render impossible to maintain? I truly wonder about that.
I love him and his family very much, and they remain in my heart. But my commitment to justice (as I prayerfully understand justice) trumps even friendship.
I find myself dissenting from this view, Hugo–though of course, you’re not putting it out there as an argument for a particular stance; rather, just as a way of expressing how you find yourself navigating the overlapping worlds of principles and relationships. So I guess I could say that, while what you say here is surely honorable, it is not something I could say, or at least on the basis of my experience thus far in life, I couldn’t say it. I am not sure I’d be willing to make myself into a modern-day E.M. Forster (“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country”), but I probably come close. I have good friends that are strongly pro-abortion rights (I am opposed to such); I have good friends that are strongly opposed to national health care reform (I fully support it). Both of those are positions which involve a belief about morality and justice…and yet, despite all the heartache, I find the fact of friendship as transcending them both. Even closer to the heart of such beliefs, I have close friends who consider the church I belong to a cruel and false one, and me a dupe or a tool for belonging to it. And yet still, sometimes to both of our amazement, we remain friends.
I wonder if my sense of friendship is terribly superficial. Either that, or perhaps my beliefs about morality and justice are terribly wishy-washy. Perhaps both are true. Or perhaps, for me at least, the experience of a relationship, a inchoate and enveloping feeling of being in community with another human being, is of a completely different category altogether from any “belief” that I can render in propositional form. My own commitment to morality, justice, or my own religious faith, is just that: a commitment–something stated, something with a beginning and end, something can be edited and revised. But a friendship? That’s part of me, the thing that makes the commitment, the thing that does the revising. How could that not be something entirely different from a “mere” understanding?
A great, thoughtful, challenging post, Hugo; my thanks for sharing it. It gives me something to wonder about, this lunch hour.
Now imagine that rather than losing a good friend you lost your relationship with your mother, your extended family and all the friends you had before you turned thirty.
I wonder how many people take anti-abortions stances and other conservative positions because the alternative involves so much personal loss. There is actually a theory in sociology of religion called “bounded choice†which says that people sometimes seem to have a choice around religion or ideology, but their choices are so constrained by the penalties which they know they will suffer that they are effectively without choice.
I am happy for you that you could make the choice and suffer the loss without it being devastating. Many are not so lucky.
Thank you, Russell. It’s a judgment call in many respects.
And FWC, of course this is loaded with privilege. I don’t mean to suggest that my “break-up” with Cyril is comparable to someone being shunned or de-fellowshipped or excommunicated by an entire community. I write as an essentially secular middle-class person whose deep spiritual views were chosen rather than imposed. I know that my good fortune has not been everyone’s, and I grieve that.
And yes, bounded choice. Remember discussing it years ago. Part of feminism is empowering young women to build alternative structures of support to “expand those boundaries”.
I did not mean that as criticism. Reading your piece brought up my own grief. It has been just over a year since I really came “out of the closet” with my liberalism. I am still trying to come to terms with what a public shift in ideology has cost me.
What I meant to do was point to the overall cost associated with a change in ideology, not just for people in communities which practice formal shunning. I cannot imagine making such a shift if I were still living in a small southern town.
Thank you for this, Hugo. I appreciated your analysis, and I agree that there is a difference between family and friends when it comes to this.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this experience, but if the gulf in values between a friend and myself was so great that it became overwhelming whenever we met, I would consider ending it. Values are important to most people, and it’s hard to be friends with someone whose values run contrary to what you promote and espouse.
I couldn’t be friends with someone whom I either regarded as evil or regarded as actively espousing evil…I have been friends with people whose opinions on abortion were very different from mine, but I think we managed it due to an ability to mutually empathize with each other’s positions. I can also totally see ending a friendship based on that issue if I or the other person became completely unable to empathize with the other’s point of view.
I wouldn’t be able to have any kind of a relationship with an anti-choice person. For me, such a position would mean that this individual doesn’t see me as a human being, doesn’t recognize my basic humanity. I don’t understand how to be in the presence of somebody who doesn’t see me as fully human. I wouldn’t care if it were a relative, a parent, or my best friend. That would be an unequivocal end of the relationship. Thankfully, none of the people I know believe women are cows, so friendships haven’t suffered.
^^^ Exactly how does an “anti-choice” view intrinsically see women as less than human? It simply states that, since they believe life begins at conception, that the child’s life overrides the mother’s right to choose. Nothing unreasonable about that. I’m personally pro-choice, solely because I don’t think life begins at conception. However, I used to be pro-life, and I can certainly see how one could hold that position.
Let me clarify: I have friends and family and colleagues who are pro-life. I don’t choose friends only from the limited number of those who share my world view. And I would likely have continued to be friends with Cyril; it was he who found my views too difficult to bear. If you read my Dr. Tiller post, it wasn’t just a standard defense of choice — it was a ringing endorsement of the heroism of a doctor who performed late-term abortions. I stand by that endorsement, but not everyone is gonna agree. Cyril found it deeply, profoundly shocking. He and I were very close friends, and that was too great a challenge for him. I honor and understand that.
Sigh.
And it’s not easier to read the second time around. Completely get where “Cyril” is coming from; I found that post enraging, tragic and at a deep level very sad, and I can turn you off.
You’ve become much more committed to a pro-choice position, and much more willing to be un-nuanced and passionate on the subject. I mourn that, even from a cyber-distance.
What a loss. Im sure you are a wonderful friend to have and Im sorry that you have lost a friend. The way you are so public with your beliefs gives me courage to stick to mine despite popular opinion of those around me.
â€I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my countryâ€), but I probably come close.
It’s a lovely quote and a lovely idea (opinions will differ on this, but I find it lovely.) The trouble, of course, is that most of us have more than one friend to betray, and loyalty to one can very easily mean betraying another. Pro-choice ethics aren’t a ’cause’ divorced from the more real and intimate demands of friendship for those of us who have female friends.
The trouble, of course, is that most of us have more than one friend to betray, and loyalty to one can very easily mean betraying another.
A wise and correct observation, sophonisba; it’s not as though all our friendships, and all our loyalties (to country, to family, to religion, to causes and beliefs), can be so aligned that “betrayal” is a contained, one-time thing! There are friends of mine, faithful members of my church, who are frankly perplexed, even offended, that I remain friends with people who are convinced that members of our church are wicked fools. And yet–and here is where things get really complicated–I still count some of those people among my friends as well! Perhaps we’re all wishy-washy sometimes, in the view of one friend, or one cause, or another, while at the same time remaining firmly loyal to said friends or causes from the perspective of someone else.
Pro-choice ethics aren’t a ’cause’ divorced from the more real and intimate demands of friendship for those of us who have female friends.
Well, that isn’t at all my experience. I have good female friends that are strongly in favor of defending and expanding abortion rights, a position I disagree with, and I have not noticed it interfering with our friendship. Sure, your beliefs regarding abortion are necessarily going to cut deeper towards the heart of one’s feelings about morality, rights, independence, dignity, embodiment, etc., than do your beliefs about speeding tickets. Still, your beliefs are just that: beliefs, propositions, statements that one agrees with or disagrees with. Whereas the “real and intimate demands of friendship” are, at least in my experience, far more multifaceted than “mere” agreement.
Thanks for sharing this with us. Though it is tough but you have done a courageous thing choosing to do what is just and continue in that strive for the sake of humanity is the best. You have given someone like me an inspiration that there are people out there that will not bypass their belief for social justice for anything in the world!!!
Man, that was hard to read. I’m a po’ (that’s so poor I can’t afford the R)38 year old with an autistic son living in a neighbourhood where rape is fairly likely. I don’t tolerate anti-choice people in my life.
Thinking back to a blog discussion I participated in when the state of Oaklahoma tried to make abortions even more painful for women, I have to point out yet again just how many military men and gun enthusiasts share this hatred for women who euthanize a fetus once or twice in their lifetimes. How dare they. Fucking hypocrites. It’s not about protecting life at all. It’s about controlling other people’s bodies. Period.
Congratulations on being so fair to your friend, Hugo. I would have cussed his ass at the very least. You’re a much gentler person than I am.
Hugo-
It sounds like this guy basically “dumped” you. I don’t understand his thinking. I disagree about lots of things with friends. I approach things from the perspective that God is almighty and infinite in power and wisdom. I also believe that I, like all humans, am finite and limited in my power and wisdom. Is Tiller’s name in the “Lamb’s Book of Life?” I don’t know, but it’s not my place to decide. Paradise or damnation is for the Lord to determine.
When I get into the judging game I sound like some pundit commenting on what I think God is going to do or “should” do. I just have to take care of my relationship with God and let others work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. There’s no need to worry about what others think about someone’s eternal future. God will sort it out in due time. For the record, unlike Joy Behar, I’m not sure if Sharron Angle is actually going to hell.
Xena-
I think that a 38 year old woman with an autistic son “living in neighborhood where rape is fairly likely” should have the right to carry a concealed firearm. Heck, in some states she can’t even carry pepper spray beyond a certain strength. Draconian gun laws are anti-woman.
I have a good friend who is similar to yours–at least in the beliefs you describe. So far we’ve been able to maintain our friendship despite radically different beliefs when it comes to abortion rights (I’m pro-choice). We hold different beliefs about other issues as well. We stay off those subjects and have thus far agreed to disagree. I often find his language and how he expresses himself difficult to be around and also hear because it can come across as hate-filled, or at the very least very angry. The vehemence in his voice and language often makes me feel like someone is running roughshod all over me.
I often wonder if I would be friends with him if there were other people who filled the void in some of the other more meaningful ways that are expressed in the relationship. The fact is how we relate in the other ways has been more important to me. I find most relationships have limits of some kind or another and perhaps I’ve learned to become more comfortable with ambiguity too. If it was anyone else I would probably walk away. I wouldn’t be mean…I would simply withdraw. I’ve learned that some relationships do not merit my time or energy.
I know he values the relationship and respects me–that alone is worth something and I cherish the relationship for what it is. He’s often told me that I’m a better person than him. He also told me that he knew that I was helping him to become a better person. He says I’ve filled his existence with beauty.
I know with other people values and beliefs would intefere with the relationships, but then they are shallow to begin with and maybe walking away is what is meant to be. But how could I betray a friendship which resonates with so much emotional depth–one which encourages authenticity in ways that other relationships limit honest and true expressions of the self? I, too have values and hold strong beliefs. I don’t want to make that choice and I shouldn’t have too.
That’s interesting, davev. I would normally debate that, because I’m Canadian. Most of us use fists, baseball bats and pool cues to defend ourselves up here. Legislators have made it a royal pain-in- the-you-know-what to get a gun for our entire history, so death by gunshots ISN’T very likely. But rape is(somewhat likely, compared to other neighbourhoods)where I am.
I think it would be easier to abort a goof rapist’s spawn than it would be to serve the lengthy prison sentence for killing or maiming him. Not that I would have much remorse for killing a rapist. It’s just that the courts need serious proof of rape pretty much everywhere. I’d rather chew his frikking nose off with my own teeth than shoot him. At least that way, the courts have proof that I acted in self defense. Up here, it’s still considered murder to shoot a man in cold blood, while it’s NOT considered murder to abort a foetus. I don’t consider it murder to expel a blastocyst, anymore than I consider it murder to skin my knee. Things only get tricky for my ethical reasoning (where my own body is concerned)a few weeks after an accident with a lover. The blastocyst becomes a person when it grows pain receptors.
I believe your comment was meant to be supportive, though. Thank you.
Xena-
The gun is the great physical equalizer. Why should you or any woman have to live in fear? Heck, many people have fended off robbers/rapists/other bad people simply by pointing a gun at someone and not even firing it. I would think that the criminal code of Canada would allow for self defense if one’s life is in danger. Somebody who is planning on raping you is not only intending to cause great bodily harm by the rape, he/she might definitely kill you.
I’d rather have a woman not raped at all than “forced to abort a goof rapist’s spawn.” Besides the emotional trauma aspect, a firearm might prevent a women from getting HIV from a rapist. The whole “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” idea.
I just reread the post about Dr. Tiller’s death, and it moved me as much as it did the day it was written. As a member of Medical Students for Choice and as a future abortion provider, I deeply appreciate the sentiment.
From what I have read and heard about Dr. Tiller’s patients, I sadly wonder how anyone could not see his work as honorable work. Do these people really think a twelve year old incest victim should carry a baby to term? Or someone with a fetus with a severe defect that is not compatible with life? Later term abortions are not performed lightly. These are often tragic situations that are made much more difficult by rigid, judgmental people. Especially men who will never, ever be in that situation.
I would also encourage anyone who is musing about the humanity of an embryo to do a little more research about the physiology of pain. Pain is not uniquely human, first of all. And, it requires thalamocortical connections that do not exist until 29 to 30 weeks gestation. According to the Guttmacher Institute, less than 1.5% of terminations occur after 21 weeks. These are rare and usually tragic situations.
One of the best ways to prevent later abortions is to make earlier abortions more affordable and accessible, and the same for effective contraception. But, 2/3 of women who receive second trimester abortions say they were using contraception when they got pregnant. There will still be a small number of health related later term terminations, but these cannot be prevented until those health problems are preventable, which is not possible with our current medical knowledge.
I have to briefly address this rape derail, also. What sort of neighborhood is one in which a rape is likely? A college campus? I am deeply uncomfortable with the line of discussion that seems to put the onus on women to fend off rapists with firearms. We should work just as hard to keep rapists from raping instead of discussing what the victims need to do to prevent it.
MomFTH,
Sorry, but consider me one of those “rigid, judgmental” people who refuse to join in the praise for a hands-on killer. There are plenty of ways of helping people, and of showing them love and support, that do not require killing the innocent.
“Do these people really think a twelve year old incest victim should carry a baby to term?”
Should I kill a baby to alleviate someone’s suffering? No. Should I praise the saintliness of someone who would do that? Not even close. Would I punish the man that caused this pain, and do whatever I could to support this girl? Yes – but I stop short of killing for her.
I may be judgmental, but I’m not judgmental enough to enact the death penalty.
MomTFH-
I agree that society has to work hard to make it clear to people that rape is not acceptable. Maybe there will be a day when no one wants to rape anyone and there will be no threat of rape. Actually, as a Christian I do believe that they day will eventually come.
In the meantime, the police can’t protect everyone. I see women as competent, intelligent, and capable of choosing to protect themselves. Allowing concealed weapons protects even those who choose not to carry. Let’s say that Suzy Smith has a gun in her purse/jacket/etc while MomTFH and Xena don’t. If concealed carry is legal, criminals don’t know who has a gun. The criminal is forced to consider that MomTFH and Xena MIGHT have guns. Concealed weapons make pursuing the rape of a stranger a higher risk activity, and deterring rape is a good thing in my opinion.
Sweating Thru Fog, would you suppport the development of exo-gestation so that the embryo could be made into a baby without harming or even inconveniencing the woman/girl who is not ready to be a mother? Would you encourage, that is, the devisal of a way for men to go thru the pregnancy, or machines to do it? Only with that in place would I ever consider refusing to let someone abort. It’s a future possibility that does not often enough come up in these discussions, and it ought to satisfy those who aren’t comfortable with deliberately adding to the countless natural miscarriages that happen all the time.
Anything else is just punishing women for nature’s blunders.
Angiportus,
I really don’t want to get into the whole abortion debate here, and I’m doubtful Hugo wants us to go there. I won’t practice killing myself, and I refuse to praise, celebrate or support those who do. I share Cyril’s opinion that praise and celebration of killer is a grave matter for a follower of Christ.
STF, I hope you realize that the vast majority of the population disagrees with your definition of killing, as does the law of the land.
Also, the Bible has numerous verses in which women and children, not embryos and fetuses, are killed. There are also verses in which women are induced to miscarry.
I find it hard to believe one would use the literal words of the Bible as condemning abortion, unless you pick and choose which verses you want to support your point of view, and exclude ones that don’t. Feel free to do so, but please don’t tell others they are not followers of Christ if they don’t pick and choose the same verses you do and ignore the same ones you do.
MomTFH,
It is killing by simple fact, not public opinion or the law of the land. I doubt the majority of people in the US believe that a fetus continues to live after an abortion. No, it is killed. Even the Ninth Ciruit Court of Appeals would have to yield to the dictionary definition on that point.
I think the term you were thinking of was murder – you clearly have your arguments all mixed up.
I don’t get your point about the words of the Bible. I’m not sure why you suppose I am a Biblical literalist, and I’m not sure why, if I were one, I would find your awkward argument persuasive.
I certainly don’t need your permission to think and feel as I do. I’m proud to be one of “these people” who, with no sense of irony on your part, you castigate for being “judgmental.” I’ll stick to my wild, extremist belief that as a Christian I should not kill, and I should not certainly not celebrate, praise and support those who do.
STF,
Not the place. You know my views, and you know that I believe with deep conviction that Dr Tiller was doing the Lord’s work, and I know that you find that position reprehensible. Now, no need to pick fights with those who agree with me here. You’ve said your peace on this issue, and it’s time to move on. (You might even take a cue from Cyril, who was among other things a regular commenter here under his real name back when we were friends.)
Hugo,
I think I get your final point. As you well know, this is far from our only point of fundamental disagreement, so it does make sense for me to go. I have profited from my time here. I am grateful for that, and I wish you and yours the best.
I agree with MomTFH, especially when she writes:
“Do these people really think a twelve year old incest victim should carry a baby to term? Or someone with a fetus with a severe defect that is not compatible with life?”
And when she writes:
“These are often tragic situations that are made much more difficult by rigid, judgmental people. Especially men who will never, ever be in that situation.”
Beautifully said. I think it very sad, but predictable how these conversations always seem to digress into the area that they do. I have to wonder about the humanity of other people and I believe in my heart that their beliefs are far more important to them than the suffering and emotional pain of other human beings. The fact that they don’t get that or understand that is truly beyond my comprehension, and yet they muse about humanity?
“These are rare and usually tragic situations.”
Yes, I believe they are. It’s hard for me to fathom how anyone would believe that someone making a choice for late-term abortion would do so lightly. It seems such an unfair judgement and evaluation of a complex and tragic situation.
I knew a woman–the wife of a pastor of a very fundamental church who had an abortion. I know the reason, which I don’t feel necessary to disclose here. They chose not to share it with the members of their church and I understand why–the horrible judgement. I think they were conflicted enough, given their beliefs to have to cope with the anger, judgement and hostility from other people. I guess she felt emotionally safe with me–that she knew that I wouldn’t judge her so harshly. For me judging someone like that would be an act of cruelty, lacking in compassion and humanity. I would have a hard time behaving that way or showing such rigidity of thought and behavior–there’s more than enough people who indulge in that type of behavior towards others and I see no reason for it, other than it serves some sort of agenda on their part.
I try hard not to cut people out of my life for having idea that I disagree with, or even for acting on those ideas. I explain this to myself by saying that I don’t hold myself out as infallible; I have no more right to judge others than they have to judge me.
That said, I do have deal breakers in friendship, chief among them what I perceive as moral and emotional dishonesty. I have cut self-described environmental advocates for refusing to engage with evidence that their preferred policies entailed the dumping of pollution on working class people, mostly people of colour. At the same time, and this really did it for me, these people engaged in a cultural leftism. I got the impression some of them believed singing lefty songs absolved them of the obligation to engage seriously with the painful and difficult moral obligations: not only speaking out in opposition to oppression, but looking at where the money comes from and where the pollution goes to.
I don’t see a strong analogy between that and the situation with your former friend Cyril.