A Christian Response to Abortion, Part Two

    

    If a fetus is a person and, therefore, its life should have the same value and protection as any other life, what should Christians do with this information? They should protect these lives, of course. This means seeking to reduce and then eliminate all non-life saving abortions. Notice, this is a different statement than “make abortion illegal.” Many European countries have far fewer abortion limitations than the United States, yet far fewer abortions per capital. France and Norway both have about half as many abortions per child-bearing woman and Spain has about a third. On the flip side, in the United States in the 50’s and 60’s (before Roe v. Wade), illegal abortions in the United States were as high as million a year--- almost double the current abortion rate. Abortions are legal in Mexico, but social and religious pressure against it are so strong that it has the lowest abortion rate in the world even when compared to countries in which abortion is illegal. Eliminating elective abortions requires a lot more than a governmental official signing a piece of paper.

So, what can we do?

Educate ourselves about the current abortion picture: A pregnant white teenage may look great on a billboard designed to elicit middle class sympathy, but it is not an accurate representation of women who get abortions in this country. More than half (58%) of all women who get abortions are in their twenties. Less than 10% of women who get abortions are in their teens and teens have seen the sharpest drop in abortion rates of any age group. Additionally, 60% of women who chose to have an abortion already have children. Black women have more abortions than any other race (38%).  White Americans have the lowest abortion rates of any ethnic group. 80% of all women who seek abortions are single.  And more than 50% of abortion seekers are below the poverty line with another quarter considered low income. An accurate portrayal of a “typical” woman seeking an abortion is a black, poor, single mom in her twenties. How Christians reach out to this woman is quite different than how we would reach Juno.  

Change people’s minds: Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, the United States is a democratic republic, which means the highest power in the land is not the President, the Congress, or the Supreme Court; the highest power in the land is “we, the people.” No change happens without most Americans wanting it to happen. Support for abortion (pro-choice) has hovered between 50-60% of Americans for two decades. Only under President George W. Bush did it drop below 50% and only under President Bush were there any meaningful legal limits placed on abortion. Or look at the gay marriage issue. In the early 2000’s, most Americans opposed legalizing gay marriage. Within ten years, those numbers shifted, so the majority of people supported gay marriage. Within a year of the majority shifting, gay marriage was legalized.

Right now, anti-abortion advocates are doing a poor job of convincing people that the fetus is a human. As being pro-life has shifted from a compassionate, social action call to a political club that enables certain sides to label their opponents as “baby killers,” Americans have backed away. As of this year, 64% of Americans support abortion - a high since Pew Research has started asking the question. We must stop villainizing those who disagree with us and start talking with them. Talk about the science (actual science!) that supports a fetus is a person. If they are people of faith, talk about what the Bible says about unborn children. Show them Christians care about the people involved rather than caring about the issue.

Talk about sex and contraceptives: As people compare America’s abortion rate to some countries in Europe, one of the biggest differences they find is that European countries are much more open to talking about sex and educating on contraceptives. This is a complicated issue for conservative Christians who believe that sex should be reserved for marriage, but unborn lives are on the line, so we need to start talking about it. Quite frankly, our current approach is not working. Among teenagers who make the vow to stay virgins until married, 80% of them will break it. Further, Christians chose celibacy till marriage out of our religious convictions and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, so why are we expecting non-Christians to practice it without those convictions or that empowerment?  

In 2019, more than half of all pregnancies in the United States were unplanned. More than 90% of those pregnancies were in women who were either not using birth control at all or using it inconstantly or incorrectly. And more than 40% of those unintended pregnancies ended in abortion. Compare with unplanned pregnancy rates in other developed countries such as Sweden, South Korea, or Spain, those numbers are unfathomable. If women were empowered to get pregnant or not on their own terms--- even if those are not the terms I would chose out of my faith convictions--- abortion numbers would plummet in the United States.

Deal with Poverty: The number one reason women give for abortion is money; they cannot afford a or another kid. Remember, 80% of women who seek abortions are single, and 30% of single mothers in America live in poverty, which goes up when limited to single black mothers. Without affordable childcare, reasonable family leave, upward mobilization opportunities, and reliable healthcare, the prospect of having a child (or often another child) is overwhelming to a woman. It is impossible to fight abortion without fighting the soil that so much of it grows out of.

Get on the Ground: While change at the national level requires a majority of Americans, change on the local level does not. Volunteer at and support crisis pregnancy centers, single parents’ support groups, educational outreaches to the underserved, women’s health fairs, and so many other things that require no legal action to have a huge change on the abortion rates in my community. At a church level, welcome and come alongside pregnant women, single parents, and people struggling with appropriate sexual outlets. Incorporate people with disabilities (a group that is aborted at an epidemic rate) into your community. This is how we show people that fighting abortion is about loving people--- the women struggling and the children in their womb. And it is how we reduce the abortion rate in our communities.

Vote for policies and plans that could bring real change rather than “pro-life candidates”: “Pro-life” is a political identity that for most people requires no further action from the candidate than saying, “I’m pro-life.” Require more. First, realize that not every position has the power to affect the abortion issue. Unless the pro-life candidate for the school board is promising to beef up sex education and improve education in poverty rich areas, they have no power to impact the abortion issue. They certainly have no power over abortion laws. Neither do mayors, city council people, or most other positions we vote for. Of those in positions to impact abortion laws, what are their plans? Would they work? Could they get them through? A pro-choice candidate with a workable plan to deal with poverty in my state could reduce the abortion rate more than a pro-life candidate with no actual pro-life policies in the works or with a policy plan that could never happen.

At the end of the day abortion is not a political issue; it is a cultural one. Changing laws is one piece of changing social practice, and it is the piece that often comes towards the end of social change. Once minds have been changed, other options have been presented, and love has been given hands and feet, legal change will be the easy part.