In a culture that devalues life, Christians offer a winsome witness to human dignity. Here are edited and tightened excerpts of a conversation between Clarissa Moll and Jonathan Liedl, senior editor at National Catholic Register, on CT’s The Bulletin podcast.
Clarissa Moll: 63 percent of Americans today say abortion should be legal in most cases. There was a time in conversations about the right to life when we could say, We all believe in human dignity. It seems we have lost something fundamental in our culture that, presuppositionally, we used to bring to those conversations.
Jonathan Liedl: You’re right. The common ground is fading away. Things are absolutist right now, with sorting quickly and definitively into partisan categories.
How others perceive the pro-life movement should change. Much of the antagonistic rhetoric has been that the pro-life movement just prohibits something or is only pro-birth. Because of this, relationships are important. In an increasingly polarized world, it’s harder for friendships between those with different views to exist. But witnessing with your life that you care about all life—serving, loving and sacrificing for the poor, for the homeless, for the stranger in our country in need—that makes a difference. Scripture says they will know we are Christian by our love. If people aren’t seeing that love inform all the ways we interact and support the vulnerable, the witness can ring hollow.
The pro-life effort involves many different people—different Christians, people of other faiths, even people of non-faiths. Work between Catholics and evangelical Christians has been significant. Honestly, oftentimes in the pro-life movement our greatest allies are feminists or atheists or even secular people who aren’t coming from the so-called Christian right. Often these people are able to speak with proponents of abortion or supporters of abortion rights and say, I come from this similar starting point that you did. Here’s why I have come to believe this as well.
Debate is fantastic. But if people don’t see their story represented in something, it’s easy to dismiss it. Since the Dobbs decision, the pro-life cause has lost every state initiative. There’s an immense amount of work to do. Women play an obvious leading role in the pro-life movement, but we also have diverse allies: people from the medical community, people with a scientific background.
For us, it’s part of our faith, our conviction that every human life is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore has inviolable and infinite dignity. But this is also natural law. You don’t necessarily have to be a believer to be convinced of the truths of these things. Some of those voices continue to be important to work with and to lift up when we’re trying to persuade others.
The goal is not just to prohibit abortion but to make it so no woman feels she has to choose between the life of her child and her own economic security or personal safety. When people are not engaged with Scripture, there are other ways to be persuasive and continue to advance gospel values. Thankfully, that’s what we’re supposed to do: Live the gospel. Perhaps we need an invitation to return to that and embrace it.
Moll: When Catholics talk about pro-life issues, they often refer to a concept called “the seamless garment.” Could this idea be a starting place for a pro-life conversation with a culture asking questions about human dignity and worth beyond abortion, such as in the recent aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death?
Liedl: The original seamless garment was what Christ wore leading up to Calvary and his crucifixion. The soldiers did not tear it in two, to fulfill the prophecy. Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago in the ’80s and ’90s, applied this image from Scripture to how we protect life and society. The seamless garment is a consistent ethic of life. For example, let’s say that you’re ardently pro-life, but when it comes to how you think about immigration policy, you’re not thinking about the dignity of the people involved. You can flip it around, of course, the other way. You can have great compassion for an immigrant, and you realize that they have inviolable dignity and certain rights and responsibilities that flow from that, but you’re not concerned about the unborn.
Some people think “seamless garment” has muddied the water, but that’s not how moral theologian and bioethicist Charlie Camosy and others like him understand that. For example, justice for unborn children and care for their mothers and families—they go together. The goal is to say no to something, which is the unjust taking of unborn life, but also to say yes to supporting women and children, whether through public policy or a parish launching some kind of diaper drive or supporting women materially.
The seamless garment shows connections. People are looking for deeper truths about the source of their worth and value. Many see neither major political party right now presenting a compelling and consistent vision of that. The seamless garment, a consistent ethic of life, can show you’re not willing to compromise this deeper truth of human dignity and the value of human life simply to pursue one other thing.
That faithfulness creates a compelling witness. To be pro-life isn’t just about passing laws or prohibiting abortion. It’s a worldview to be reflected not just in our public policies but in how we live in community. If we do that, others might be attracted to us.
Moll: The Christian pro-life movement in the US has, for many years, looked for large gains in legislation and in the halls of power. Now, where we don’t have Scripture as a common language in our culture, we may have to go back, like the women in the early years of the pro-life movement, and be grateful and thrilled to achieve small gains on behalf of the vulnerable. Maybe it’s around a conversation about the death of Charlie Kirk or about a school shooting, trying to introduce some of these broader pro-life beliefs.
Liedl: Exactly. That’s ultimately what Christ calls us to, to be faithful even in the little things. Because those who do well with the little things, bigger things might be asked of them.
