And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion — there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God's good gift of sexuality without compromising one's education, life's work, or ability to put to use God's gifts and call is simply blessing.
These are the two things I want you, please, to remember — abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
It is, of course, those last two paragraphs that really stand out. Many abortion-rights supporters now concede, like Obama, that abortion itself is an emotionally fraught act — something that most women would probably prefer not to have to do. (In 2005, for example, Hillary Clinton marked the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade by stating that abortion "in many ways represents a sad, even tragic, choice.")
In the aforementioned passages, however, Ragsdale takes precisely the opposite tack. Even when a pregnant woman enjoys the best possible circumstances, she's suggesting, the act of aborting a fetus isn't an occasion for ambivalence or guilt. It is, instead, an unfettered good — something to be cherished and celebrated.
That's a provocative line of argument — and it, too, invites some thorny questions. If more abortion-rights supporters reasoned like Ragsdale, for example, would the pro-choice cause be weaker or stronger? And would abortion's most aggressive opponents be less emboldened — or even more likely to lash out?
Wreaking havoc
Episcopal Divinity School — which sits on Brattle Street, a stone's throw from both Cambridge Common and Harvard Square — is the product of the 1974 merger of two venerable Episcopal bulwarks: Cambridge's Episcopal Theological School (ETS) and the Philadelphia Divinity School (PDS). As an institution, EDS's DNA is decidedly liberal: the hundred or so students (both laity and clergy) who currently study there count among their predecessors John Burgess, the Episcopal Church's first African-American bishop, and Paul van Buren, a controversial theologian linked with the "Death of God" movement in the 1960s.
I recently visited Ragsdale in her spacious, largely empty office on EDS's neo-medieval campus. She'll officially start on July 1, after leaving her post as president and executive director of Political Research Associates, the Somerville-based think tank that tracks right-wing extremism. (She'll also step down as vicar of St. David's Church in Pepperell.)
For an alleged satanic surrogate, Ragsdale is rather disarming in the flesh. Her manner is simultaneously affable and matter-of-fact, with none of the extreme unctuousness that often afflicts men and women of the cloth. Her most idiosyncratic physical trait, meanwhile, is a somewhat sleepy-looking face that, oddly, evokes the young Bill Buckley.
In Ragsdale's telling, she was entirely unsurprised by the furor that followed her appointment as EDS dean. "I've been one of the leaders in the Episcopal Church, and in the ecumenical interfaith community, on the theological underpinnings of abortion rights," she explains, "so I've been doing this stuff forever." (Among other things, she chaired the board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice for eight years, and currently sits on the board of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, a/k/a NARAL Pro-Choice America.)
