I shared last month about my atheist discussion group's recent foray into the notion of objective morality.  This month, we continued conversing on the topic.  As the only believer in the group, I was well aware that the pat answer for a believer is to say that he bases his sense of morality on the Old and New Testament writings.  While I do not dispute the truthfulness of this response, I indicated to the group that it is considerably more complicated than that.  Why else would believers have such divergent opinions on what these writings say about various social and cultural issues?  Everyone brings her cultural and political biases to the task of biblical interpretation, and everyone cannot help but be influenced by her life circumstances in coming to an understanding of what these writings may be saying at a given moment.  Though these writings may well represent a standard of objective morality, we come to them as subjective beings.
     Living in the American Midwest, I am very familiar with the furor about the law regarding reproductive rights that the governor of Illinois signed yesterday.  Some believers want to say that the Bible condemns abortion as murder; others, while not contesting this conclusion, suggest that the issue is grayer than this.  I agree.  If we are to say that abortion is wrong and that women should not be allowed to have one, we must also say that we should support wider availability of contraceptives, family planning, and pre and post natal care.  And that Christians, of all people, should be volunteering to take in women who find themselves pregnant with nowhere to go.
     But I do not see most abortion opponents raising their hands to do any of these things.
     A portion of Psalm 139, used often by opponents of abortion, says that God "knit" each person together in his or her mother's womb.  What then do we say to women who give birth to deformed or extremely ill babies?  Stillborns?  And so on.
     If we are to insist on objective morality and attach God's name to our position on abortion, we should also realize that we are tiny and deeply flawed and subjective creatures trying to grasp, often in vain, the thoughts of a very, very big God.