How My Convictions about Abortion Changed
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"I just can't vote for anyone who could kill the unborn," she said. "I'm sitting out this presidential election." A lifelong Republican, she couldn't vote for Biden or Trump. I understood. But also a lifelong Republican (for the record, no longer), I happily gave my vote to Biden. Yes, it has been a decades-long process, but I have finally shrugged off the garment that abortion is murder and the only legislation that matters. As someone whose first professional job after college was at the local Crisis Pregnancy Center, this was not a simple process.
I’m tempted to insert a history lesson here. Studying the history of the merger of American Evangelicalism with politics is how I began to question my anti-abortion conviction. I would instead refer you to books that provide the context for how abortion became the political litmus test for decades of American Evangelical voting. My role here is to share my personal process. I do wish you all would read up on the history, though.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers exist to provide every support system they can for those facing an unplanned pregnancy, except abortion, including referrals. We did provide adoption referrals, transitional housing, and a clothes closet. Their policies are based on a strong conviction that abortion is the murder of a child. As a volunteer counselor, I always told women that Jesus loved them and would help them without having to kill their unborn baby. Thankfully, I have never had to go through the painful procedure of abortion myself. But, I also didn’t want other women to have to go through it. I considered it a traumatic event and didn’t want women to have to choose it. I also believed, to avoid all the potential pain and suffering of an unplanned pregnancy, those who were unmarried needed to practice abstinence. This was God’s standard and to act outside it meant negative consequences. This was my practice as well, from the time I was 18 until my wedding night. What a time of life to be abstinent! But, that’s a different post. During this time, I circled the local church youth groups with my message. I even spoke once before a class of nursing students at the local community college about why the focus of sexual health should not be on providing birth control.
In other words, I lived and breathed my belief that abortion killed a child and a woman's soul. I was a foot soldier. It's not surprising that some people are deeply disappointed in my change of heart, I guess. A few years ago, even I was pretty shocked at how my perspective of abortion had radically shifted*.
After my first pregnancy and childbirth, I stood in my backyard and looked at the sky. "God, WHY did you make this so unfair? Why do men only donate a seed during a pleasurable act while my body has been turned inside out? Why do I have to bleed for and feed this child with my own pain for years? Couldn't you have spread out this high cost more between the sexes?"
This question has been coupled over the years with my growing awareness that most lawmakers passing anti-abortion legislation are men. It perpetuates the lack of balance of responsibility in human reproduction, which is grossly unfair. If women have to bear the brunt of human reproduction, women should be making these decisions for themselves. Even the most empathetic of men can’t understand what a woman goes through in her reproductive life.
I also came to understand that outlawing abortion disproportionally hurts women living with a low income. If abortion is outlawed, it is the poor - those who have access to substandard medical care - that will suffer. Those in poverty don’t have the same support systems. When we say abortion is always wrong, we are often speaking as those who have never had to face the situation where going through with a pregnancy feels impossible.
But, Jenny. Even if it's unfair, isn't an innocent child being killed?
Maybe. I’ll get to that.
The next Jenga block pulled from my tower of pro-life conviction was when I began to see the lack of legislation for support outside the womb. It seems so obvious to me now. Why do we fight for these unborn children to be "protected" at the cost of women and not support them more once they’re born? The standard line was often that the church needs to take care of others instead of the government. Yet the problems of income inequality and substandard medical care are so widespread they need to be addressed by the government. In the churches I was a part of, we were able to help a woman or two here or there. But, the problem is too large for the church’s resources, and from my experience, we were kidding ourselves. We also weren’t willing to reckon with the deeper reality. Big government would affect our pocketbooks and we didn’t want that.
But, Jenny, ISN’T AN INNOCENT CHILD BEING KILLED?
I no longer think so. Yes, I admit, this was the biggest hurdle. But I sat with the following question for a long time. Does life begin at conception? How do we know? If the death of life should not happen, should men masturbate or wear a condom, or women use any kind of birth control? Some people do believe this. But the farther back we take this argument, the pools of people who practice this get smaller and smaller. As with many of my former Christian beliefs, when they are taken to their logical conclusion, they begin to fall apart.
Okay. What about when the heart begins to beat? Again, maybe. A friend who has her MDiv told me her seminary taught that life begins with the breath. This goes back to Genesis when God breathed into Adam after making him out of dust. That's when the image of God (the soul) enters us, not at conception or even with a heartbeat. This made sense to me. It also showed me the answer to when life begins is not black and white.
When it comes to policy, here’s where I’ve landed. Yes, I still believe abortion is traumatic and morally problematic. But that anti-abortion laws and the lack of access to birth control unfairly punish women of low income is even more problematic.
But, Jenny, what if it was your grandchild?
Please do not assume that anything I am about to write reflects the personal experiences of those I love.
Answering this question is when my tower finally crashed. I had to wrestle with it for about six months before I finally let go. I had to ask myself. Would I want my daughter to have the protection and freedom she would need if faced with a crisis pregnancy? Yes. But wouldn’t I be willing to raise the child for her? Maybe. But could I nurture a grandchild with alcohol fetal syndrome? Probably not. Do I want my children forever tied to a mistake or abusive partner? No. Wouldn’t my love for this child conquer all? Not in my experience. I think it’s magical thinking. Giving birth to a child is for life, even if a grandparent raises them. It binds us in ways that are impossible to shake, especially for women. Shouldn't women be allowed to wrestle with these realities, weigh the cost, and be who decides? Shouldn't we support them in that decision with the best services, whatever it is? Even as a grandparent, I came to the conclusion that I could support my daughter getting an abortion without believing she was killing my grandchild**.
Women bear the brunt of any birth. It is their body, and the buck SHOULD stop with them. They and their doctors need to be the ones free to make the decision and the rest of us need to get out of the way.
The relationship between sexuality (pre-marital sex, contraception, abortion) and Christianity, along with many religions, is complicated and fraught. Cultures and religions have tried to contain the power and potency of sexual activity in so many ways. I no longer think it can be managed by anyone or thing outside of our own personal agency. I feel free now to say and vote that the lawmakers shouldn't be the ones restricting these choices. I no longer have to vote based on one issue. I no longer have to fear that my vote for someone who legislates for less restriction is the vote to kill a child.
I now live with “and” instead of “or” for many of the convictions I used to have. I (and my therapist, tbh) challenge the black-n-white thinking that I was very good at after 45 years in my religion. Life is nuanced and issues like abortion are multi-faceted. Humans are multi-faceted. Friends and Christians, we need to let this one go.
*Unfortunately, my vote for Biden was also the litmus test for some people being in a relationship with me. I have not published that I voted for him before now. No questions were asked. No attempt to understand. No interest or curiosity about my evolution as a woman and human in the last 30 years. To be pigeonholed is painful and I wish we didn’t do it to each other.
**What about my sons, you ask? Shouldn’t they have rights as potential fathers, too? Well, based on my observations about the inequality between men and women, even for my sons, I would want their partner to have the ultimate say. But also? My children’s sexual lives and decisions are really none of my business. I use the example of how I would feel as a grandparent only to illustrate how I have personally wrestled with the consequences of my changed beliefs.