In our 2024 national election, abortion issues will be paramount in the minds of most if not all voters. Consider the reality that if society wants to place all responsibility for the unborn child on the woman, then let her decide if she wants to carry her pregnancy to term not political, legislative or religious authority. It’s interesting to observe that in the last two thousand or so years the status and power of women has shown only surface progress. For background take the scripture story of the woman taken in adultery: Jewish law at that time required both the woman and the man be stoned (Deut. xxii). Today, as back in the time of Jesus, where was the man?

Sure, there is visible progress for women in medical, politics, industry, the arts (women conductors of orchestras) and other fields including the military (generals and combat positions on land, sea and air), but at the heart of it all women remain the subservient element in the male-female relationship primarily because they are the ones who nature has designated to become pregnant. Today, the extreme right will settle for nothing less than a total ban on abortion, and probably contraception, with IVF prohibitions as well. Strange, isn’t it, over two thousand years ago scripture relates it was only the woman taken in adultery who was brought before Jesus. Where was the man? Oh, and what was the response of Jesus? And today, not much of abortion proportional responsibility has changed, but there is hope in the 2024 national election.

Charlie Stepanek

Concord