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In 1981, novelist Walker Percy wrote a column he titled “A View of Abortion with Something to Offend Everybody.” As a Christian, he took on the seared consciences of pro-life people disregarding the poor women who don’t get abortions but can’t feed their babies. As a medical doctor, he took on the seared consciences of pro-choice people who see the unborn child as just a blob of detachable organic matter.
His final word was for the ones he assumed would be the winners of the political moment. To supporters of abortion, he wrote, “According to the opinion polls, it looks as if you may get your way. But you’re not going to have it both ways. You’re going to be told what you’re doing.”
What Percy identified here is much bigger than just one issue. It is rather the temptation, present in all places, to make invisible whatever actions trouble one’s own conscience, to make disposable whatever people one’s own tribe deems unworthy. He knew the fellow pro-lifers he was criticizing would not argue that children of poor women deserved their suffering. They would just say, What poor women in my community? And he knew the abortion rights supporters he was criticizing would speak loudly about choice without ever describing what actually happens in such a choice—and to whom.
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