Reshaping Culture 

The ancient custom of foot binding originated in China about 1000 years ago. Somehow it had become fashionable among elite women of Chinese society to have small, dainty feet. To achieve this aesthetic, the feet of girls four or five years old were broken and then tightly bound. The binding of the feet intentionally prevented them from healing correctly, and the effect was the young girl was left with misshapen feet that could fit into a pair of special three-inch “lotus shoes.” It was an extraordinarily painful process that made walking very difficult. The feet were also susceptible to infection, which could be deadly in an age without antibiotics. Nevertheless, the practice continued for centuries, eventually becoming common among lower social classes as well. The custom only started to die out in the 1800s, with the arrival of Christian missionaries who protested what they saw as a barbaric practice against women. It is now a thing of the past. 

The tradition of foot binding gives us an image that can help us understand how entire cultures can be misshapen by a traumatic event that leaves them deformed and sick. A good example of this would be the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade.  Fifty-one years ago this Monday, the Court in Roe declared that there was a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution, making it effectively illegal for states to pass laws regulating it. Nineteen years after Roe, the Court modified but reaffirmed the essence of its prior ruling with the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v Casey. In the Court’s official opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote: “for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.” The abortion license could not be revoked, she argued, because for twenty years people had shaped their lives in such a way that they relied on it as an option. 

In 2022, thirty years after Casey, the Supreme Court released its decision in the case Dobbs v Jackson in which it overturned both Roe and Casey, allowing states to once again pass laws to regulate the practice of abortion. While some states moved to impose significant restrictions on abortion, many others voted in favor of broad protections of abortion rights through state-wide initiatives and constitutional amendments. For those of us who believe in the sacredness of every human life, from conception to natural death, the political success of pro-abortion rights advocacy is a source of sadness but not surprise. Like the practice of foot binding, the cultural trauma of 50 years of Roe and Casey was such that when those cases were struck down and the “binding” removed, we remained misshapen by them. 

Our culture needs moral and spiritual healing, as well as policy reform. Legislation against abortion is an important part of that. At the same time, however, legislatures should adopt policies that help women feel empowered to have their children, mitigating the fear of social and economic repercussions such as abandonment, destitution, violence, or shame. These policies can serve as institutional braces that facilitate the healing of cultural trauma and disfigurement, as well as the necessary conversion of hearts that will reshape our society from one that asserts abortion is necessary to one that recognizes the precious gift of every human life and our shared responsibility to help one other in times of need. 

posed 1/20/24