On the Sunday before Christmas, many Christians will hear an excerpt from the “Visitation” of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56). The story climbs the heights of pro-life philosophy, so I quote a portion here:

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

The Humanity of the Unborn Child

The foundation of the pro-life movement is the affirmation of the humanity of the unborn child, who is infinitely more than the “clump of cells” that abortion advocates have notoriously claimed for decades. The Visitation poignantly illustrates the humanity of two boys, who will be named John and Jesus. By leaping for joy, John begins to express his own character and calling as the forerunner of Jesus. And because Jesus in his mother’s womb is recognizable as “Lord,” his identity is also affirmed.

Our recognition of the humanity of the unborn imposes on us the duty to extend them protection parallel to what we’d seek for any class of humans. By “parallel” I do not mean to suggest an equivalence, but rather a legal framework that would take into consideration the weakness and vulnerability of their mothers.

The Child as a Gift to Others

On a higher level, we can note how the mothers and their sons in Luke’s account enrich each other. The ubiquitous slogan, “my body, my choice,” presumes persons can be regarded as autonomous entities, independent of one another. It is our nature, however, our human nature, to share life with the people around us, drawing our identity in part from them. Every person, even the unborn child, is a gift to others.

Thus Elizabeth can be filled with the Holy Spirit because her unborn son John recognizes Jesus. And she can recognize that Mary is blessed, not only because she is now with child, but because Mary “believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Each mother’s identity is enriched by her son, even as she also plays a role in conferring life on him.

Legal and political philosophies err when they suppose people can always be regarded as independent individuals. Pro-choicers err when they diminish the humanity of a mother by treating her identity as something that can be entirely separated from that of her child. Prolifers serve the common good of society when we hold it accountable to a more complete understanding of humanity.

Remedy the Risk

But let us concede an important point to the pro-choicers: Every pregnancy is a potential threat. Pregnancy can pose a challenge to the mother’s bodily health. It can present countless limitations on her before and after the birth of her child. Others can and often do exploit the vulnerability of a pregnant woman to inflict harm on her: physical, emotional, financial, and/or social.

And yet, this is not new. Every mother in history has faced these kinds of threats to some degree. Elizabeth, beyond the typical age of fertility, carried her child in an era of infant and maternal mortality rates we would find terrifying. Mary may have faced social recrimination for becoming pregnant prior to cohabitation with Joseph, perhaps even the insinuation that her child was a bastard. (“We do not know where [he] comes from….” John 9:29)

We can wonder, too, how often Mary suffered distress, pain, or anxiety concerning her son’s special vocation. (See Luke 2:48, for example, when the boy Jesus is lost during travel.) Every reminder of Jesus’ divine Mission no doubt brought his mother both joy and heartache, as Mary anticipated the hostility that would be directed at a Messiah.

So let us recognize the real risks pregnancy may pose, and do all we can to remedy them. When vulnerable mothers are threatened, let the entire community come to their protection and aid. Let us invest in medical support; share the financial burden; console the distressed; and defend those who have been scorned.

In living and sharing life all of us face a variety of risks. Threats posed by pregnancy, therefore, are no justification for the unbridled legalization of abortion. But even while risk cannot be an excuse, it can be an explanation, one we can understand, and which imposes on us a shared obligation to help remedy the threat.

Empowerment of women

Another category of pro-choice argument claims that abortion empowers women. Hence the emphasis on “choice,” though everything we legislate involves a choice—whether murder, or driving on the correct side of the road, or telling the truth when filing our taxes.

Sometimes the empowerment is relative: If women can choose abortion, then they can be more like men, who often escape responsibility for the child they sire. Sometimes the empowerment is absolute: Pro-choicers may claim that women who can choose abortion are therefore free to chart the course of their lives.

Power isn’t power, however, unless it’s directed to a purpose. But if our purpose were simply to be able to say, “I did it my way,” we would be among the shallowest persons who have ever lived: bourgeois in the worst sense, without reference to God, family, justice, truth, love, or joy. The real empowerment of women must involve women having the power to welcome the child in their womb; to achieve the purpose of humanity.

And that is precisely the point of the Visitation. Do not mistake the gentleness of the women for powerlessness! Elizabeth refers to Mary as “mother of my Lord,” the title “Lord” being heavy with political and religious significance. It’s the first time in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus is referred to as “Lord,” reinforcing the expectation that Jesus’ calling is to overthrow the kingdoms of this world in favor of the kingdom of God.

In other words, Mary and Elizabeth know that in carrying their unborn children they are playing a key role in humanity’s fulfillment of its purpose. Their power is seditious: overturning the kingdoms of men. (If you doubt this, then read on past verse 45, about how God “pulls the mighty from their thrones” and “exalts the lowly.”)

This is more than women’s empowerment; Mary and Elizabeth signify women’s revolution. Because theirs isn’t an imitation of men’s power for trickery or combat, but rather an affirmation of their own unique power to bear children.

And contemporary childbearing is no less revolutionary. Every child conceived is a person destined to live in God for eternity. Every child born changes the lives of family and neighbors, and through them changes the world. To paraphrase an old maxim: The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.

So let us prolifers celebrate with Mary and Elizabeth how the unborn child saves the world. Merry Christmas!