“Reproductive justice” is a term coined by Black women activists in the 1990s to recognize the intersections of race, class, sexuality, nation and gender in reproductive health and decision-making.
SisterSong, an organization that fights for reproductive justice, defines the term as “ the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”
In the current presidential campaign, reproductive freedoms are on the ballot, with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris pledging to pass legislation to protect reproductive access. On the other hand, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, many conservative states have moved to limit severely reproductive freedoms, particularly access to abortion, and one goal for a second Trump term by many extremist conservatives is a national ban on abortion.
“He’s counting on evangelical voters not to abandon him.”
Trump is now tweeting that he’ll be a great president for women and their reproductive rights, but his past record of pandering to the anti-abortion Right suggests otherwise. I imagine, given the unpopularity of abortion bans and Harris’ promise to protect reproductive freedoms, Trump is trying to keep voters who oppose the draconian measures implemented in many red states, and he’s counting on evangelical voters not to abandon him.
Opposition to reproductive freedoms in the U.S. comes mainly from conservative Christians, with most Americans supporting abortion access and other reproductive needs. Only 36% of Americans support a total ban on abortion.
Susan Shaw
Rooted in an insidious plot to use conservative Christians to access political power, Republicans, starting with Ronald Reagan, used abortion as a wedge issue to ensure conservative Christian support for Republican candidates, regardless of their stances on other issues. The clearest example is Trump, who is the antithesis of anything remotely Christian and yet enjoys overwhelming support among many conservative Christians because of his appointment of the justices who overturned Roe.
But is opposition to abortion really the Christian stance?
I’d argue, no. In fact, I’d say Christians actually should support reproductive justice, and here are my reasons why.
One: Reproductive justice is about whole persons whom God loves and tells us to love and care for as well.
According to SisterSong, reproductive justice includes access to “contraception, comprehensive sex education, STI prevention and care, alternative birth options, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, adequate wages to support our families, safe homes, and so much more.”
Reproductive justice is about addressing the whole range of issues related to sexual and reproductive health, including situations of poverty, marginalization and violence that put people at risk for sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancies, trafficking, domestic violence and negative health outcomes, including death.
“Reproductive justice provides a path for ensuring people’s sexual and reproductive health and needs are met as part of attending to the whole person.”
Christians are called to care for the whole person — to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick. Reproductive justice provides a path for ensuring people’s sexual and reproductive health and needs are met as part of attending to the whole person. While abortion access is a part of reproductive justice, it is only one part of a much larger framework that takes the whole person into account.
Two: Abortion is not a sin.
The Bible does not speak of abortion. Not once. Ever.
Some people have read passages like the Psalmist’s song of praise, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb,” to suggest that from the instant of fertilization, a zygote is a full person. The Bible does not make that claim.
In the language of poetry, the Psalmist expresses his sense of God’s activity in God’s ongoing creation. This verse is not a scientific statement of fact; it is a poetic statement of faith in God’s loving presence in the world.
In fact, the Psalmist would have known little about the biology of reproduction and certainly would have had no idea how fertilization happens. Ancient people thought the whole of human life was in semen and that the womb was simply an incubator. Not until the 1660s and ’70s did scientists identify the egg and sperm, and it was not until the 19th century that scientists began to understand how fertilization worked.
Now, none of this is to say fetal life at any stage has no value. Of course it does. In fact, in recent years growing numbers of people have said their pregnancies have come at the right time. Obviously, people value fetal life.
“Another life is at stake — that of the person carrying the fetus.”
But fetal life is not the only concern. Another life is at stake — that of the person carrying the fetus, and, from a Christian point of view, that life cannot be discounted either. Unintended pregnancies can create conflicts of value between a fetus and the person carrying it, and the questions become those of how we weight the competing values and who has the right to make decisions about these two different forms of life.
Many Christians believe people lose the right to bodily integrity and autonomy the moment they become pregnant because they assume unintended pregnancies are always the result of irresponsible sexual behavior.
One study estimates 64,565 pregnancies have resulted from rape in states with abortion bans. And, as we know, apart from rape, consent is a murky concept. People do not always feel they can say no to unwanted sexual encounters — perhaps because they are financially dependent on someone or perhaps that someone is a father or stepfather or grandfather. But even if pregnancy results from a consensual one-night stand, does that really justify forced pregnancy and childbirth? Is that a Christian stance?
Some Christians argue if someone is pregnant it’s God’s will, even if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Grace Ji-Sun Kim and I take that terrible and harmful argument on in our book Surviving God: A New Vision of God Through the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors. We argue God does not will, cause or allow abuse, and we should really ask what kind of God we believe in if we think God wills, causes or allows a father to rape a 12-year-old girl and cause a pregnancy. Requiring her to take it to term is then just another form of sexual abuse and gender violence and certainly not God’s will.
“God does not will, cause or allow abuse.”
People who become pregnant are fully formed human beings. They already exist in self-awareness and the ability to enact agency in the world. A fetus, while a valuable form of life, is not a whole human being. It is a form of life wholly dependent on the body of another human, a full, living human being.
Denying abortion access gives greater rights to existence and self-determination to a fetus than a full person. Christians can differentiate between various forms of human life. We do not have to pretend that a zygote and a 12-year-old girl or a grown woman are the same.
(And, parenthetically, don’t get distracted by the lies out there about late-term abortions and what the Radical Right is now calling post-birth abortion. Practically all late-term abortions result from desired pregnancies that have gone wrong or decisions made harder by institutional barriers. And only 1% of abortions occur in the third trimester. Furthermore, there’s no such thing as “post-birth abortion.” That would be murder.)
So if we have competing values about two forms of life, who gets to make the decision about which life has more value? Legislatures are dominated by men — most of whom know staggeringly little about bodies with vaginas and ovaries and uteruses. Ditto male pastors. And apparently, even a lot of women know little about their own bodies.
A Christian theology of human life recognizes that each of us is unique, capable of our own direct communication with God, and arbiters of our own relationships with God. It also acknowledges that as God’s creation, in the image of God, we have the right to bodily integrity and autonomy and the right to make our own choices about what we do with our bodies. That is between each of us and God. And a Christian theology of human life also affirms our need to address the systems and institutions that enable abuse, limit options, make pregnancies unfeasible and deny access to economic stability, health care and bodily integrity.
“While a fetus is a valuable form of life, it is not a person, not scientifically, sociologically or theologically.”
It is, then, utterly compatible with a Christian view of human life to argue that reproductive decisions lie with the person affected by them, particularly in consultation with their chosen medical professionals. While a fetus is a valuable form of life, it is not a person, not scientifically, sociologically or theologically. Someone capable of becoming pregnant is a full person, entitled to the universal human rights that go along with that.
Three: We can lower abortion rates without making abortion inaccessible.
If Christians really do care about human life, including the lives of people who become pregnant, they should follow the science that shows us how we can lower the numbers of unintended pregnancies and abortions. After all, Christians claim to believe in truth, and so we should accept the truths we know from scientific data.
What do we know?
We know exactly what lowers abortion rates: access to contraception, accurate sex education, the empowerment of women and access to abortion services. That’s right. Having laws restricting abortion does not lower abortion rates. It only makes things more dangerous for people who are pregnant.
So, as Christians, we must recognize it is not rhetoric but scientific data that should guide our policy decisions to create reproductive justice. Arguing that banning abortion will prevent abortion sounds right, but the data show us it’s simply not true. As people committed to truth, Christians must accept truths, even when they do not support previously held beliefs or passionately believed misinformation, falsehoods and lies.
Christians should support reproductive justice because it aligns with our call from God to love our neighbors, to care for the physical as well as spiritual needs of our neighbors, and to trust that the highest authority is the individual conscience before God. Christians should not let their convictions be turned into fodder for ambitious politicians who use them to access power. Rather, we should be the examples of love, inclusion and justice who seek a better world for all people.
Susan M. Shaw is professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore. She also is an ordained Baptist minister and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her most recent book is Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide, co-authored with Grace Ji-Sun Kim.
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