来源：《基督科学箴言报》
原文刊登日期：2022年7月1日
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision reversing a federal right to abortion has quickly established a a blue and red patchwork quilt across the 50 states. Interest groups are turning their attention to statehouses backing measures to protect the procedure, ban it outright, or greatly limit it. Yet there are signs that the ruling may be impelling a shift in how people cast the abortion question – not as a theological, legal, or scientific issue but a call to deepen a recognition of the dignity of both women and the children they choose to bear.
美国最高法院推翻联邦堕胎权的决定迅速让50个州形成了一个蓝红相间的拼布床单。各种利益集团正将注意力转向州议会支持的措施，或者保护堕胎手术、或者彻底禁止或大大限制堕胎手术。但有迹象表明，这项裁决可能会促使人们改变对堕胎问题的看法——这不是一个神学、法律或科学问题，而是一个深化对妇女和她们选择生育的孩子的尊严的承认的呼吁。
“Building up a community in a culture that values lives means that we need to make abortion unnecessary,” Cherilyn Holloway, founder of Pro Black Pro Life, told ABC News.
“在重视生命的文化中建设社会，意味着我们需要让堕胎变得不必要，”亲黑人亲生命组织的创始人谢丽琳·霍洛韦告诉美国广播公司新闻。
That approach requires compassion toward the vast majority of women who seek an abortion because of their economic or social situation and their ability to raise a child. The majority of women who have abortions are unmarried, and many with low-paying work. Nearly half have family incomes below the federal poverty level.
这种方法需要对绝大多数因为经济或社会状况以及抚养孩子的能力而寻求堕胎的妇女抱有同情心。多数堕胎的妇女都是未婚的，许多人从事低收入工作。近一半的家庭收入低于联邦贫困线。
New public and private initiatives are emerging to support women facing unwanted pregnancies. The measures may not resolve the national debate. Yet at the local level they hint at a possible consensus on ways to lift up the daily lives of women and ease the often-difficult decision of birthing a child. Four bills in Alabama, for instance, would increase tax credits for adoption and mandate that adopting mothers receive the same paid maternity leave allowed to mothers who give birth. Meanwhile, with the future still uncertain on abortion laws, some businesses have offered to relocate or provide abortion-related travel expenses for their employees who live in states where the procedure is banned.
新的公共和私人倡议正在出现，以支持面临意外怀孕的妇女。这些措施可能无法解决全国性的争论。然而，在地方层面，这些措施暗示可能会就如何改善妇女的日常生活和让生育这个往往困难的决定变得容易些达成共识。例如，阿拉巴马州的四项议案将增加收养的税收抵免，并要求收养母亲获得与生孩子母亲相同的带薪产假。与此同时，由于堕胎法的未来仍不确定，一些企业已提出搬迁，或为居住在禁止堕胎的州的员工提供与堕胎相关的差旅费用。
American society is far from a consensus on when human life begins and deserves moral status. In the meantime, that does not prevent a shared recognition of the nonmaterial qualities of life that exist in everyone and can evoke compassion toward women seeking or contemplating abortion.
关于人的生命何时开始，何时应该获得道德地位，美国社会还远没有达成共识。与此同时，这并不妨碍人们对存在于每个人身上的非物质生活品质的共同认识，并能唤起人们对寻求或考虑堕胎的妇女的同情。
“We who are a pro-life church have to listen very carefully to the pains of others,” priest Henry Gracz told followers. “Too much of the movement about life or choice has been people at each other’s throats.”
“我们是一个反堕胎的教会，但必须非常仔细地倾听其他人的痛苦，”牧师亨利·格拉茨告诉信徒们。“太多关于支持或反对堕胎的运动是人们互相掐架。”
The Supreme Court has overturned its previous rulings on abortion. But one – a 1992 decision known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey – came with this advice: “The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society.” Those imperatives have not changed. They still need acknowledgment and support.
最高法院推翻了此前关于堕胎的裁决。但其中一项——1992年的“计划生育诉凯西”的判决——提出了这样的建议：“女性的命运必须在很大程度上取决于她自己对其精神使命和社会地位的看法。”这些使命没有改变。它们仍然需要认可和支持。
The reversal of abortion as a federal constitutional right is now stirring society toward an understanding of what is a right, the kind that expresses individual dignity and is inherent in each person at any stage of human life. Once recognized and supported, it can be fulfilled. A dialogue over that realization may now be underway across the United States.
堕胎作为一项联邦宪法权利被推翻，现在正激起社会对什么是权利的理解，权利表达了个人尊严，是每个人在人生任何阶段所固有的。权利一旦得到认可和支持，它就能实现。关于这一认识的对话现在可能正在美国各地展开。