c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) It’s all about abortion, all day, all night, all week, all month, all year, all the time.

Abortion is the most fevered issue in American life, even surpassing national defense, the fight against Islamic terrorism, and the financial status of Social Security, drug use, health care insurance and education.

Want proof? Try these two names and you’ll see what I mean: Eric Rudolph, and John Roberts.

Rudolph, a follower of the white supremacist anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement, was recently sentenced to two life sentences with no parole for bombing an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., seven years ago that killed a security guard and severely injured a nurse. In August Rudolph will receive two more life sentences for bombing the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park that killed one and injured 111, as well as his bombings of a gay nightclub and an Atlanta abortion clinic. In all, Rudolph’s grim total is two murdered and 150 injured.

By confessing to his crimes after many years on the run in the South, Rudolph escaped capital punishment. At age 38, he faces prison for the rest of his life (“I have finished my course,” he said.) But he has no regrets and gloated in court that “he kept the faith” in opposing abortion.

Rudolph, called “a piece of garbage” and a “monster” by two of his female victims, was unrepentant and without remorse. He boasted that murdering people, even at the Olympics, prevents abortions.

As Roberts begins the Senate confirmation hearings that will determine whether he becomes the next member of the U.S. Supreme Court, his supporters and foes are focused on the prospective justice’s views on abortion. as deputy solicitor general during George H.W. Bush’s administration, Roberts filed a brief arguing strongly against the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that provided constitutional guarantees for abortion.

Years later, when Roberts faced Senate confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, he said his brief did not necessarily reflect his own views, but those of his client, the Bush Administration. At the same hearings, he also declared that Roe v. Wade is the “settled law” of the land.

Almost forgotten are questions about Roberts’ views of the historic principle of church-state separation, constitutional law and his legal positions taken as an appellate judge including trusts and estates, criminal conspiracy, utilities regulation, the power of the executive branch, and other key issues. That may change, but for now, Roberts is the center of an intense interest in one and only one question: does he or does he not support Roe v. Wade?

Abortion, it seems _ both for Rudolph’s skewed view of the world, and for Robert’s judicial record _ trumps all.

But there was a separate development that may shed light on a different future. If the complex matter of abortion can be boiled down to a matter of choice, new reproductive choices on the horizon may cause abortion to lose some of its white-hot heat.

Jamie Grifo, a physician at New York University Medical Center, last week announced, “We have our first delivery from a successfully frozen human egg.” Three years ago, a 36-year-old British woman named Helen Perry also gave birth to her daughter Emily, using her own frozen egg.

Allowing women to freeze their eggs for use later in life, Grifo said, “kind of levels the playing field between men and women.”

It goes something like this: the frozen egg is thawed and implanted into the woman’s womb, where natural fertilization (i.e., intercouse) can do its job. Eggs are used one at a time until a pregnancy is successful.

Standard in-vitro fertilization, on the other hand, takes fertilized embryos _ combined from eggs and sperm _ and hopes that one will result in pregnancy. Often, excess embryos are created, and later discarded, in the process.

Here’s where abortion comes in. Conservatives who oppose abortion say there is no difference between discarding those embryos and terminating a pregnancy through abortion. Both, they say, are human life, and neither can be discarded.

Because science is moving so quickly, women and their partners will have more and more _ dare I say it? _ choices about if, when and how to become pregnant. One wonders how those choices about beginning a pregnancy may impact choices about terminating it.

The rapid changes in human reproduction will provide multiple choices and procedures, including some that are not even envisioned at this time. Because science is absolutely neutral _ only people have beliefs and opinions _ the success of frozen-egg pregnancies may close one heated chapter in American life and open up new exciting life-giving possibilities.

KRE/JL END RUDIN

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s Senior Interreligious Adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.)