Church, can we talk about abortion?
Abortion: either you can’t stop thinking about this debate, or you wish others COULD stop thinking about it - you’re tired of seeing it pop up on your newsfeeds. Just let it go already, right?
I think we need to remember a few things. ("we" meaning the church, particularly the Evangelical church).
Jesus always loved the one whose presence He was in - the person in front of Him. So often when we discuss abortion, women whose stories we don’t know are vilified. Even if you think she’s the most selfish harlot, we are called to be loving in how we discuss her. Even our tradition, which wrongly assumed that Mary Magdalene was a harlot, insisted that Jesus was compassionate and forgiving toward her, inviting her into discipleship. So even if you believe a woman who makes this choice is the worst kind of sinner, our only option is to love her.
Even though abortion is at an all time low, still about 1 in 4 American women have abortions. So think of four ladies, including yourself - if you're not the one, then one of them may be. And just ask yourself if you would handle this conversation differently if you knew your BFF from college is reading and liking your dismissive comments about women who choose abortion because she's afraid you'll find out her secret. Perhaps, if you're passionately against abortion, you might consider this and think: "Ok, well, she SHOULD be ashamed." But remember, the Gospel is not a mechanism for traveling with the burden of shame and guilt. And if the way we talk about sin - particularly our "pet" sins, the ones we use to easily draw boundaries between "us" the pure and "them" the guilty - allows us to use the Gospel to communicate shame, we need to return to the example of Jesus. I mean, seriously, we need to do this. Everyday. We are all guilty of that kind of oversimplification and compartmentalizing. So everyday we need to confess how we use Jesus to make ourselves feel better and others feel worse, because that's not what He came down here for.
As of the most recent study that I could find (feel free to throw in some updated stats if you have them): "Many abortion patients reported a religious affiliation—24% were Catholic, 17% were mainline Protestant, 13% were evangelical Protestant and 8% identified with some other religion. Thirty-eight percent of patients had no religious affiliation."
To focus on the Evangelical number: this data is 5 years old now, and while overall abortions continue to fall, there's no reason to think the proportions are changing with any significance.
13% of all abortions isn't a lot, but it just goes with the above point that these women are real, they're in your churches, small groups, neighborhoods, on your Facebook and insta, they're the other mamas at your kids' schools (in 2015 according to the CDC 59.3% of women who terminated pregnancies already had previous live births, and many women go on to have live births in the future). You have to find a way to love the woman who you grab a latte with after yoga who's terrified of telling you her past - in what possible pursuit of Jesus do we create an atmosphere of that kind of terror?What we're doing, instead, is increasing shame and stigma. Again, I get it - if you believe that abortion is murder, you feel like your hands are tied. They're not, though, because the love of Christ has unbound us all - what if instead of a rhetoric of anger and shame we nurture an environment where women who have made this decision feel able to participate in, even lead, the conversation? Then we might start getting somewhere on prevention.
As it stands, the Evangelical church continues to shroud itself in silence when it comes to sex and sexuality - we are severely under-equipped to talk with youth and young adults about sex. Preaching/teaching “abstinence only” creates an environment of silence around sexuality without actually changing the sexual behavior of young people. Not every woman who had an abortion as an evangelical is young, but the church's fear of sex and refusal to talk about it is part of why we're awful at talking about the pregnancies that sex inevitably creates. These shames are related.
Only a low percent of abortions are because of medical concern - but that low percent is still a large number, and is a painful, significant event in the lives of those who suffer it. Again, our inability to discuss these things well leaves many of our sisters suffering in silence as they contemplate their choice to terminate for their own health/survival, or because of their understanding of the long term health/viability/quality of life of the fetus.
I've mentioned how women are affected a few times above, but I know that the partners of these women also sometimes suffer, too often in silence in our pews.
Then let's consider the added inconvenient fact that:
"Some 75% of abortion patients in 2014 were poor or low-income. Twenty-six percent of patients had incomes of 100–199% of the federal poverty level, and 49% had incomes of less than 100% of the federal poverty level ($15,730 for a family of two). The reasons patients gave for having an abortion underscored their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. The three most common reasons—each cited by three-fourths of patients—were concern for or responsibility to other individuals; the inability to afford raising a child; and the belief that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents."
In the Evangelical world in particular, it is incredibly difficult for a man to carry the shame and struggle of knowing his partner terminated a pregnancy because they knew they could not afford to care for the baby, oftentimes because they already have other children.
Never mind how taking time away from work for pregnancy and maternity leave effects a woman's earning potential as well as her career trajectory - which makes it difficult when a woman who already has one or more children finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy and has to consider how another maternity leave will effect her long term ability to provide for her existing children.
That's if she doesn't get fired, which happens more than anyone likes to admit, despite the fact that it's illegal, but only those with access and means can fight back - if you're already caring for another child at home, forget it, and if you don't have the expendable income to retain a good lawyer, definitely forget it.
It's complicated, friends. It's a complex issue.
Let's just endeavor to keep that complexity in mind, and have a dose of Christlike grace and compassion as we make good attempts to have good conversation around this sensitive topic.
