We Need to Talk.

I don’t like to talk about abortion, it never seems to end well. There are usually raised voices and angry accusations. But like most things we try to avoid, the topic of abortion keeps raising it’s ugly head. So I think its time we had the talk.

The issue of abortion has been a motivating and polarizing force in American politics for over 40 years. But for many Christians it hit home when they were asked to make a choice in 2016. Between abortion and Donald Trump. This seemingly binary choice left many of us floundering and politically homeless. But 2016 was just when things came to a head. To take you on my personal political journey we have to go back a bit farther.

MY STORY (If you don’t know me, or don’t care, you can skip this part)

I’ve been a registered Republican since I could vote for the first time in 1998. I’m pretty sure that every persuasive speech that I gave in high school was about abortion. With the possible exception of one on evolution. I cared so deeply for those innocent babies. I agonized, even wept thinking about it. One of the first memories I have of caring about politics was driving home from college in 2000 to vote for George W Bush. I remember watching the election results come in and praying fervently for him to win. I believed that with a Republican president, especially one who professed to be a born again Christian, abortion would finally end, our religious liberties would be protected and God would be welcome in schools again. (This sounds strangely familiar doesn’t it?)

After the national trauma of 9/11, again I thanked God that we had a president who would seek godly wisdom and counsel to lead our country. When my president told me that we needed to invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction I believed him whole-heartedly. When the weapons weren’t found I still believed he had acted honestly on bad information. I voted for him again in 2004. But eventually 2008 rolled around, and I was dismayed and frustrated that 8 years of a Republican president had done little to defeat abortion. Roe V Wade was still the law of the land and Planned Parenthood was flourishing. I was also concerned that attitudes on immigration were shifting. Gone were the debates between Reagan and Bush Sr. about who could be the more compassionate conservative. A new wind was blowing in the party and it was noticeably colder to immigrants.

In 2008 I voted for John McCain. But I couldn’t feel the despair some of my Republican friends seemed to feel when he lost. I didn’t understand their visceral fear and eventually their outright loathing of President Obama. I felt hopeful to live in a country who had elected their first black president, even if I could’t vote for him because of abortion. At this point, in the midst of babies and ministry and life, I will admit that I was pretty unplugged from politics in general. I knew I was pro-life and no other issue even came close, so what was the point in diving deep into any other issues. “Let me know when there is more than one pro-life option” I thought. Then I’ll pay attention. Again in 2012 I voted for Romney although decidedly less enthusiastically. Sometime during Obama’s second term I began to hear stories about unaccompanied minors who were crossing the border in groups, hoping to be allowed to stay. Because of an anti-trafficking law signed by Bush, they were not allowed to be immediately deported. One story that really struck me was about some protesters who followed a bus they believed to be carrying teens and children who had crossed the border. They were ready with their “GO HOME” signs. In a darkly humorous twist it turned out that they were following a bus full of boy scouts, but I couldn’t get those protesters out of my mind. Who were those people? The ones who had made the signs and taken the time to track down and follow that bus? Did they go home to their kids? Their grandkids? Did they go to church the next Sunday? What strong emotion would motivate people to take time out of their lives to make sure a bus full of children knew they weren’t welcome.

This started me on a journey to learn more about immigration and the crisis coming to our borders. That journey is another post entirely, but the end result was that I became even more acutely aware of a dark underbelly of fear and anti-immigrant sentiment. And while I was assured and believed that it was only illegal immigration people were concerned about I still felt uneasy with the shift in my party.

Skip ahead again with me to 2016. I have zero desire to re-litigate the 2016 election. It was really no fun for anyone and I prefer to leave it in the past. But suffice it to say that with my new knowledge on immigration, including the many shortcomings of the Obama administration, I knew that we had moved on from spin on immigration to outright falsehoods. The talking heads on cable news were lying, and lying to incite fear. I worried about what a Trump administration would mean for refugees, asylum seekers and legal immigration. I now had a new source of agony. The fact that while refugee resettlement has traditionally been a Christian endeavor, with the new rhetoric Christians were stunningly silent. Suddenly it was a “political” issue and best avoided in church company. I found it strange that when gay marriage and abortion became political issues, the church spoke up and spoke louder. Why would this be different? But of course it was different. Because it was no longer our tribe that was stepping away from the principles of scripture in welcoming the stranger and recognizing the mission field at our own border. We (I) had become so accustomed to feeling that right was on our side, to think differently meant a foundational shift in world view. Almost as disorienting as losing our faith.

AND NOW FOR THE PART ABOUT ABORTION (If you skipped the personal history start here)

Regardless of my horror at immigration, racial animus, xenophobia and treatment of women, I still had to come to terms with the issue of abortion. The Republican party still gave lip service to the pro-life cause. And the Democratic party seemed to swerve ever farther to the left. It left me feeling politically homeless and not for the last time. So I began to sort through the issue of abortion, to examine it again. I generally came up with more questions than answers.

For starters I wondered, was overturning Roe V Wade even possible?

I had voted Republican my entire life in the hopes of overturning Roe V Wade. I had been told that was the only path back to righteousness for our nation, the only way to end the scourge of abortion. But Republican presidents came and went, majorities in congress came and went and somehow Roe V Wade remained, Planned Parenthood remained and the only thing that seemed to happen was that occasionally a state would pass extremely restrictive legislation that would inevitably be struck down in the Supreme Court. I was told that the answer was more conservative justices, but Roe V Wade was determined by a majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents.

I began to wonder if perhaps this issue was a pipe dream, or more accurately the carrot on a stick that kept me solidly and unquestioningly Republican. My inner cynic wondered why on earth any Republican would want to accomplish the one thing that guaranteed them the Evangelical vote?

Even assuming a good faith effort on the part of pro-life politicians I wondered, if it hasn’t been accomplished after Republican presidents who had Republican majority congresses will it ever realistically be accomplished?

A second question I felt was important to ask is DO BANS WORK?

Assuming that the goal of a blanket ban on abortion was possible, would banning abortion eliminate abortion? I puzzled over this because while it seems common sense to think that making abortion illegal would at least reduce abortions, I’m also constantly warned that bans don’t work, and that violence is in the heart of man and whether or not something is legal or illegal will make little difference because criminals don’t respect the law. And in this case I have to give the people who resist government overreach some credit because it turns out that the abortion rates in countries where abortion is illegal are not in fact lower than countries where it is legal. Which came as quite a shock to me.

Admittedly it’s not easy to pinpoint what exactly causes abortion rates to rise and fall and it is very likely connected to the fact that in countries where abortion is illegal they also have very poor health care and access to birth control. But it does point out that legislation is not the only, and perhaps not even the most significant factor in whether abortion rates go up or down.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30380-4/fulltext

And so I began to wonder, "Is there another way to fight abortion?"

When we encounter a problem we usually start by learning more about it. Why is it occurring? How can it be prevented? What are the best strategies to tackle it?

Who decided that a legal remedy to abortion was the singular answer?

The answer to that is complicated The response to Roe vs Wade from Christians and specifically evangelicals was decidedly mixed. Some opposed, mainly Catholics, and some like the Southern Baptist Convention supported it. Some, like Jerry Falwell were initially silent but later became much more vocal. For additional information on the formation of the Moral Majority, I’ll link three articles from different viewpoints. I don’t want to get too far into the weeds on this, but I think it’s fair to say that the evangelical response to Roe vs Wade was complex and there is evidence to suggest that it wasn’t the only issue of concern for the Religious Right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/01/22/how-abortion-became-the-single-most-important-litmus-test-in-american-politics/?

fbclid=IwAR2qW15p52PDD-6tTwy5AeypcKuaLpVdq0IcsGyJuXe4uBAHbnEgd5CDdzU

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/evangelicals-really-silent-roe-v-wade/

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734303135/throughline-traces-evangelicals-history-on-the-abortion-issue

What I do think is clear is that abortion only became an issue of widespread concern a few years after the Supreme Court declared it to be legal in some cases. Because the issue of abortion has always been framed as a legislative issue I’m not certain that many of us in the pro-life camp have ever looked at abortion from a roots up perspective.

In order to examine this issue we need to ask the question "who is having abortions and why?"

The Who:

What I found was surprising and it painted a very different picture from the one I had of women seeking abortion.

1. Almost 60 % of women seeking abortion are already mothers.

2. 82% of women seeking abortion are over 20 years old.

3. 17% identified as mainline Protestant, 13% as evangelical Protestant and 24% as Catholic

4. 76 % of women who seek abortion fall below 200% of the federal poverty level.

5. Black women are five times as likely as white women and Latina are two times as likely to seek abortion. *This statistic is incomplete without a discussion of the racial disparity in poverty which I’ll address farther down.

This paints a very different picture from the wealthy white career woman who can’t be inconvenienced or the irresponsible college student that you might have pictured. And if that wasn’t your idea of who is getting abortions, the pro life movement isn’t entirely to blame. A recent study was done about how abortions are are depicted in the media. It found that of fictionalized accounts of abortion on television 32.5 percent of women were under 20, zero percent were already mothers and 90% were white.

The Why:

Predictably the number one reason women cite for having or wanting an abortion is financial.

In these statistics from 2004

• 74% of women listed “interferes with education, employment and ability to take care of children or other dependents” as their reason for seeking abortion.

• 73% specifically cited financial reasons such as “unmarried, student, can’t afford childcare or basic needs.”

• 48% cited lack of supportive partner or stable relationship and 48% reported having completed their childbearing or not being ready for another child.

• Taken as a whole, 74% of women indicated that their decision to seek abortion was a sense of emotional and financial responsibility to individuals other than themselves. https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6874-13-29

This picture is in contrast with the idea that most women who seek abortion are doing it for “selfish” reasons; they don’t want to sacrifice their careers or bodies or social lives, or that their decisions are flippant and shallow. In fact, most women in these situations are making decisions based on what they perceive as the best decision for the people around them, most often their children. As I began to look into the causes of abortion one factor stood out dramatically.

Poverty.

This became even more glaring when I discovered that while overall abortion rates have decreased over the past decade, the one demographic where they have not decreased was among women in poverty. Poverty rates and abortion rates are in direct proportion to each other. Which brings us back to the statistic above about black and Latina women. In an article from the Santa Clara University School of Law Michelle Oberman states,

“Poverty matters because regardless of race and ethnicity, low-income women have higher rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. In fact, poor women comprise half of all US women having abortions. A full 76% of abortions occur among women at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. The disproportionately high abortion rates among women of color is largely an artifact of poverty: blacks on average are at least twice as likely as whites to be poor. In terms of median net worth, white households are about 13 times as wealthy as black households.”

Another interesting factor to consider is that in the US women are disproportionately

poorer than men. This is likely connected to the fact that cost and burden of childbirth and children tend to fall heavily on women.

Oberman puts it this way, “That is to say, poverty itself is gendered: More than 1 in 8 U.S. women live in poverty. Women are 38% more likely than men to live in poverty; among poor Americans, women are disproportionately likely to live in extreme poverty.”

To go just bit deeper into the connection between abortion and poverty we need to start with how poverty affects the rates of unintended pregnancies.

“It is a well-established fact that poor women have higher rates of unintended pregnancy than do their wealthier sisters. The disparity is shocking: in 2011, the rate of unintended pregnancy among women with incomes below the federal poverty level was more than 5 times the rate of women with incomes of at least 200% of the federal poverty level, 112 per 1,000 versus 20 per 1,000.

Between 1981 and 2008, unintended pregnancy among poor women was on the rise, while the rate among higher-income women declined steadily.

Between 2008 and 2011, expanded family planning access led to dramatic declines in rates of unplanned pregnancy among poor women, bringing them in line with their wealthier sisters: rates among women of reproductive age with incomes below the federal poverty level dropped from 137 per 1,000 women to 112 per 1,000—an 18% decline in just three years. (During the same years, the rate among higher- income women decreased by 20% between 2008 and 2011).”

I am resisting the urge to copy and paste Oberman’s entire article, but you can find it here. https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1962&context=facpubs

I recommend it as absolutely essential reading if you have any interest in the connection between poverty and abortion in America. But I’ll stop with this last quote:

“By 2014, experts conclude that the robust expansion of publicly-funded family planning services helped women avoid two million unintended pregnancies which would likely have resulted in 900,000 unplanned births and nearly 700,000 abortions. Without publicly-funded family planning services, they estimate that U.S. rates of unintended pregnancy, unplanned birth and abortion for 2014 would have been 68% higher.”

In short, the same politicians who claim to be the champions of life are simultaneously campaigning to reverse the programs that have drastically reduced abortion.

Those are just the statistics for unintended pregnancies, but when we look at the reasons women choose abortion we can see that increasing resources and making work and school accessible to mothers would remove the root cause of abortion for the majority of women.

I could take a deep dive into the many ways our society devalues women family and motherhood, from our high mortality rates for pregnant women and infants, to our lack of maternity leave, affordable childcare, and skyrocketing healthcare costs. But I’ll include a few resources for further study.

https://prospect.org/economy/poor-women-right-bear-children/

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/u-s-is-the-most-dangerous-place-to-give-birth-in-the-developed-world-1286312515541

All of these issues compound when we consider the racial disparities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595019/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html

Ultimately, when I look at how we have addressed abortion in this country I see a false dichotomy. One side that has focused only on legislating a complex problem, without addressing any of the underlying issues and the other side that addresses those issues but has abandoned the dialogue of the value of human life.

Putting the rhetoric aside, I see several realities for me, as a person who values life.

1. I doubt the possibility of ever reversing Roe V. Wade. It is currently the law of the land and I predict it will stay that way. Republicans are counting on the unwavering support of evangelicals to continue to “fight” this battle. It didn’t happen in the past with Republican presidents and Republican congress. I don’t see any reason to think it will be different in the future.

2. Even if it were to happen it would not solve the problem. When we look at the statistics we do not see restrictions on abortion consistently resulting in fewer abortions.

3. The one thing that consistently affects abortion rates across the board is poverty.

Fighting poverty fights abortion.

The inescapable conclusion here is that poverty and abortion are inextricably linked. We can’t fully address one without addressing the other. In fact I think you can argue it would be morally and ethically wrong to do so. An analogy would be trying to end theft in a starving community by enacting harsher and harsher penalties. If you don’t address the hunger, you are just going to end up with a lot of starving people with no hands. Eliminating legal abortion without eliminating the causes only pushes desperate women into even more desperate circumstances.

So far I’ve been pretty tough on Republicans. To be clear, Democrats aren’t getting this right. This isn’t an issue that either side has a monopoly on. Pro-choice advocates often focus on the impact of childbearing on the workplace, which can make abortion seem like the solution to the inconvenient problem of motherhood. When in fact what we need is a culture that is welcoming to parents and families and values children as an important part of a healthy society. Democrats could have the high ground on promoting a whole-life ethic by pointing out that their policies actually result in fewer abortions and better outcomes for women who choose to keep their pregnancies. But they remain largely silent while abortion activists run social media campaigns like #shoutyourabortion and wealthy white celebrities credit abortion with their success. What could these women do with their wealth and power if they focused instead on changing society so that success and motherhood aren’t mutually exclusive?

I can understand their reluctance. The pro-life side has defined the terms to include a complete ban from conception to birth. Never mind that this precludes things like the contraception pill, IUDs and in vitro fertilization. Extreme laws recently passed would outlaw abortion for any reason, including rape and incest and even include science fiction like requiring doctors to try and re-implant embryos from ectopic pregnancies, a procedure that does not exist. Some of these bans would result in women dying from pregnancy related complications. These laws are not really serious legislation as lawmakers know they will be struck down. They are simply theater for their pro-life constituents while lawmakers continue to vote to fund Planned Parenthood. So I can’t blame Democrats for not wanting to risk political capital to engage in these bad faith efforts. Especially since any compromise would not be sufficient for the evangelical right, but would bring the quick condemnation of the abortion lobbyists. They probably feel that there is little to no political benefit to reaching out to pro-life Republicans, moderates and Dems (yes they exist). However, I think they make two important miscalculations.

1. In the Trump era Evangelicals are looking for an alternative. White evangelicals, especially women are abandoning Trump, but they don’t feel comfortable in a party that advocates for abortion “any time for any reason.” In fact for most Americans the issue of abortion is complex, with most people identifying somewhere in between the pro-life, pro-choice labels. Neither party seems able to have nuanced discussion on this issue and therefore neither one is representing their constituents well.

2. A majority of Black and Hispanic voters are religious and value life. Democrats continue to ignore this demographic at their peril. In fact in the early days of Roe V. Wade it was the African American Protestants that spoke out against abortion when the white evangelicals stayed silent. (See the TGC article above on the history of the evangelical views of abortion)

Micheal Wear, one of President Obama’s faith advisers says it well in this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/opinion/sunday/abortion-roe-2020-democrats.html

If you are still with me, congrats! I’m almost done. But this is the kind of issue that can’t be tackled in sound bites and memes. There’s one more elephant in the room. Trump. A lot of Christians held their noses and voted for Trump because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a pro-choice president. Trump has repaid them with some words about babies and the sanctity of life but when he shut down the government it wasn’t over funding to Planned Parenthood. In fact the new PP numbers are out and it turns out for the first time in the last decade abortion numbers are up, and so is their federal funding. Which I consider a very poor return on the investment. Because Trump comes with a high cost. I don’t need to enumerate every example here but if you haven’t been living under a rock you know what I’m talking about. If by chance you have been living under a rock, or a news bubble like I was pre-2012, I have a challenge for you. Stop reading this and spend one hour reading our president’s Twitter feed and 30 minutes listening to any of his most recent unscripted rally speeches.

Now that we’re on the same page you can see that it’s very difficult to hold the high ground on family, the sanctity of life, marriage, character, and integrity with Trump as your mascot. With children separated from their families as a “deterrent” and kept in despicable conditions, many sexually assaulted, traumatized and sometimes literally lost forever in the labyrinth of the foster system it's hard to argue that every child is a precious gift from God.

While contemplating the Trump baggage sent me on this journey, it isn’t Trump that ultimately compels me to change my approach to the issue of life. It is the conviction that the most effective way to fight abortion is to address it at it’s root causes, and to work hard to create a culture in this country that values life from womb to tomb. It is my Christian upbringing that taught me that change starts in the heart. To truly “win” on abortion we need work to win hearts and minds instead of fighting tooth and nail for elusive legislative victories. We do that, not by demonizing women but by valuing life in every aspect.

In the end I’m writing this from a defensive posture rather than an offensive one. I’m not trying to convince anyone who is firmly persuaded in their mind and conscience. It is over this issue that I have been called a moral relativist, a feminist (I’ll take that label with a whole-life qualifier) and a supporter of abortion. Because of my inability to declare my support for any “pro-life” politician over any “pro-choice” candidate I've lost the trust and respect of people I counted as friends.

I feel compelled to give an answer for my convictions. I'm not asking all my Christian brothers and sisters to agree or to follow me down this path, but I am asking that they recognize my liberty to act on my convictions, and they see that sincere believers can agree on the value of life while disagreeing on the best way to uphold it.

Voting and political affiliation is not a litmus test for spiritual maturity or theological orthodoxy.

Most importantly I know there are many others that face the same feelings of homelessness and isolation from the "tribe" that used to provide so much certainty. Taking a step away can feel lonely and disorienting. I hope that my honesty and vulnerability will be an encouragement to them.

Again I don’t claim to have all the answers, or that there are any perfect answers to be found, but I offer this humbly, as a piece of my journey and I hope you will read it as it was intended, with love.

#abortion #prolife #prochoice