Cawthorn sparks outrage after using phrase 'earthen vessels' in anti-abortion speech

madison cawthorn
(Image credit: Bill Clark - Pool/Getty Images)

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) has come under fire after commenting on abortion during a House floor speech Friday, Daily Kos reports.

The 26-year-old pro-Trump congressman — who has a history of inflammatory rhetoric and has been accused of sexually harassing college classmates — began with a thought experiment in which he compared a fetus being aborted to a Polaroid picture being ripped up before it could fully develop.

This analogy, borrowed from anti-abortion activist Seth Gruber, prompted HuffPost writer Sara Boboltz to pen a piece headlined "Madison Cawthorn Thinks Your Pregnancy Is A Polaroid Or A Sunset Or Something."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Cawthorn's next argument sparked even more outrage. "Precious works of our creator, formed and set apart, meet death before they breathe life," he said. "Eternal souls woven into earthen vessels sanctified by almighty God and endowed with the miracle of life are denied their birth." Author, diplomat, and Oxford academic Dr. Jennifer Cassidy tweeted a clip of Cawthorn's remarks, which soon went viral. In her post, Cassidy wrote that Cawthorn had compared American women to earthen vessels.

See more

Several other Twitter users agreed with her interpretation.

See more
See more

This interpretation, however, is difficult to square with context of the biblical passage to which Cawthorn was alluding. He appears to have been quoting 2 Corinthians, an early Christian letter generally attributed to the apostle Paul. In the New King James translation, the passage reads, "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us."

Since Paul includes himself as one of the "earthen vessels," the term cannot refer solely to women. Many biblical scholars view it as a reference to the physical bodies humans possess. With this interpretation in mind, it seems Cawthorn, a vocal evangelical Christian, was using "earthen vessels" to refer not to the mother's body, but to the body of the unborn baby.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Grayson Quay

Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-GazetteModern AgeThe American ConservativeThe Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.