Affirming Life, Affirming Choice

I used to work as a chaplain at a hospital outside of Buffalo. One time I was in the ICU and I met a woman who was in deep spiritual pain. She was very sick and was wracked with guilt about something she had done 45 years before. 45 years before, she and her boyfriend got pregnant, and he asked her to get an abortion, and she did. Now, decades later, as she faced her own mortality, she was afraid that she had done something so terrible that God would not welcome her to heaven.

One of the core practices of good chaplaincy is working with the patient’s theology, not mine. So I asked her about her understanding of God, and something she said was that God is love. That gave me an opening. I talked to her about how my understanding of God is that God was loving, and non-judgmental. That God understood how people made hard decisions, and sometimes mistakes. She seemed to hear that and we prayed together and she was much more at peace by the time I left her.

But I was shaking my head as I walked back to my office. This poor woman was so sick, and she was spending so much energy thinking about a decision she made under duress 45 years before. And the source of her anguish was a religious teaching. A religious teaching that created an intense stigma.

But the truth is that there’s much more nuance in religious teachings about reproductive choice than what is taken for granted. I’d like to take this opportunity to walk through the teachings of some of the major traditions to show just how they think about reproductive choice.

We’ll start close to home with Christianity. This, of course, is the source that Unitarian Universalism comes out of, but we’ve since become so much more. Christianity’s sacred text is the bible and there are two biblical references that have been used by those opposed to contraception and abortion: Psalm 139:13 and Jeremiah 1:5. The first one, Psalm 139: 13, reads “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Similarly, Jeremiah 1:5 reads “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”

However, Christians usually have not heard the texts that assume a fetus is not a person.  Specifically, Exodus 21:22-25 describes a situation in which a pregnant woman who intervenes in a fight between two men is injured and suffers a miscarriage as a result.  The penalty is just the payment of a fine which would not have been possible if a human life had been taken. Then, in Numbers 5:11-31, a husband who suspects his wife has committed adultery can take her to the priests.  They will make her take a potion that, if she is guilty, will make “her womb discharge” and her “uterus drop”. If she is not guilty, “then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.

As usual, the bible is full of gems of wisdom and ethical teaching, and it’s also a hot mess that contradicts itself over and over.

And we see that in the many different flavors of Christianity. Progressive protestant traditions preach the right of a woman to make the best decision as she sees it, while some evangelical sects and the Catholic church take a hard line against any ability of a woman to choose.

The Catholic position on abortion and contraception is especially problematic. Problematic not just because their teachings deny women the ability make choices about their health care and denies couples the ability to make choices about planning their families. They are problematic because the Catholic Church is aggressive about lobbying the government to make Catholic Theologies the law of the land. That is, imposing those Catholic religious beliefs on everyone, Catholic, and non-Catholic alike. It’s so dangerous, and so contrary to the spirt of separation of church and state.

However, the Catholics are not a monolith. There is an organization called Catholics for Choice that’s advocating for change from within. And by the by, two Fridays ago, First Unitarian hosted a celebration for Fr. Anne Tropeano, a woman who just got ordained as a Catholic priest via the Women’s Ordination Conference. I’m so delighted for her and her vision of an inclusive and accountable Roman Catholic church. I imagine that if women could be priests in the mainstream church, the teachings of Catholicism on reproductive freedom would be very different.

For Judaism, the position on abortion is pretty clear. The legal codes and rabbinical teachings tend to depict the fetus as simply a part of a woman’s body. However, just as one may not wantonly mutilate one’s own body, so, too, a woman is not permitted to obtain an abortion merely for reasons of convenience. But just as she is permitted to sacrifice a portion of her body for her greater good, so, too, may she obtain permission for an abortion in order to assure her overall well-being.

In the Jewish tradition the fetus is not a person; it has no rights. So abortion is permissible under a wide variety of circumstances. All four non-Orthodox Jewish movements – Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Humanist – are on record as opposing any governmental regulation of abortion.

Buddhism faces the fact that abortion may sometimes be the best decision and a truly moral choice. For Buddhists, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing troubling about abortion, but it does mean that Buddhists may understand that reproductive decisions are part of the moral complexity of life. Here’s a statement from the Japanese-American Buddhist Churches of America: “It is the woman carrying the fetus, and no one else, who must in the end make this most difficult decision and live with it for the rest of her life. As Buddhists, we can only encourage her to make a decision that is both thoughtful and compassionate.”

On to Islam. There is consensus among Muslims that abortion is allowed if the life of the woman is endangered at any period during pregnancy. Some scholars have now taken the position that the fetus is to be treated as a person from the moment of conception, and as such, any abortion is forbidden. This, however, contradicts with the classical Islamic practice in which the fetus was never seen as a legal person before birth.

In the Koran, Sura 46, line 15 (Suras are the individual chapters of the Koran) it says

“We have enjoined on man Kindness to his parents: in pain did his mother bear him and in pain did she give him birth.”

The interpretation of some Islamic scholars is that God has singled out the woman for mention when speaking of the duties of a person towards his parents shows that her pain must be taken into consideration first and foremost, and the final decision about bringing a child into this world must be hers.

Throughout all these traditions, the various religions seem to imply that they wish no abortions would happen. And that feels like adding a stigma that doesn’t help. Similarly, I’ve heard people imply that every abortion is a gut-wrenching decision. But I’ve spoken with, and read, many women for whom it was a very easy decision, an obvious no-brainer. Perhaps you’ve heard politicians say that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. That “rare” is a weird attempt to hedge their opinion and it’s not necessary. Abortion is a medical procedure and it’s just fine.

Similarly, there is much handwringing about later term abortions, and again, I think that is a way of not saying the full truth: that it is the decision of the woman, and only the woman.

During his run for president Pete Butiegieg, who was raised Catholic and is now Episcopalian, was asked about third trimester abortions, and I thought his answer showed real integrity. Here’s what he said:

So let's put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it's that late in your pregnancy, then almost by definition, you've been expecting to carry it to term. We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name. Women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother or viability of the pregnancy that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. And the bottom line is as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made."

Where is Unitarian Universalism in all this? In 2015 the UUA voted to affirm a statement of conscience on Reproductive justice. It’s long and you can find it on the UUA web site but I want to talk read a couple excerpts from the statement.

“The world we envision includes social, political, legal, and economic systems that support everyone’s freedom of reproductive choice and expression of gender identity and sexuality, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized. In such a world, all communities are places of equality, abundance and safety, free from violence, oppression, and hazardous environments. This world includes access to safe, affordable, and culturally and developmentally appropriate child care and health care. In our vision, everyone has access to accurate information about sexuality and family planning, and safe, healthy, and culturally sensitive reproductive health services.”

The next portion is from the section on the theological grounding of the statement of conscience.

“Unitarian Universalists support gender equity, positive sexuality, diverse sexual expression and the individual’s right to make reproductive choices. Such choices are influenced by social and political systems as well as by factors such as racial/cultural identity, economic status, immigration/citizenship status, relationship with the justice system, health status, and ability. Our religious tradition directs us to respect the diversity of faith traditions that surround us and insists that no singular religious viewpoint or creed guide the policies of our governments.

Our pluralistic congregations include diverse beliefs, backgrounds, and personal stories. Yet we unite in striving to live out the values and principles that call us to work for reproductive justice in spite of the complexities of the issues.”

The statement of conscience is just a leaping off point though. It points the way, and we UUs must go there.

Earlier this month First Unitarian sponsored a public reading of the Roe v Wade decision aloud. You’d think that listening to a legal decision might be a little boring. But the folks who attended agreed that it was compelling and full of fascinating insights. We collaborated with the NM Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I’m a big fan of the NM RCRC and if you’re interested in doing more, the RCRC offers a variety of ways to support the cause. Of course, you can make a donation. But you can also give your time. For example, you can be a legal observer:  Legal observers are specially trained to monitor abortion provider clinics for activities that violate the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE).

You can be an advocacy volunteer. They’re are looking for activists interested in phone banking, data entry, writing personal notes to patients, and making safe sex kits all throughout NM.

You can be a patient driver. Our driver volunteers provide transportation support for patients coming to New Mexico for abortion access. Coming from places such as Texas, for example.

But back to the positions of different faiths on abortion. When we consider the persuasiveness of these religious teachings, we should consider the values behind them. What is valued? Who is valued and who is considered disposable? Ultimately, where does this theology take us?

To help answer this, I want to share a quote from James Baldwin.

“It is not too much to say that whoever wishes to become a truly moral human being…  must first divorce themselves from all the prohibitions, crimes, and hypocrisies of the Christian church. If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

Baldwin’s critique focuses on Christianity, but I think it applies to any religion. If the religion does not make us larger, freer, or more loving, we should get rid of it.

So whether a person can make a religious argument for or against reproductive freedom really depends on whether the religion that one is using for making the case is patriarchal or not. Here’s an easy way to tell: if the religion refers to God is him, it’s a patriarchal religion.

Ultimately, religious debates about reproductive choice are about patriarchy. Patriarchy is the legal, institutional, and cultural systems that give power to men and oppress women. Women are told what to do all the time. Women are told what to wear all the time. Women are told what to think all the time. And the last thing they want is to be told what to do with their bodies.

Women fight for control of their lives every single day of their lives. This is the result of the patriarchy, a patriarchy shored up by a lot of religion. It’s the work of Unitarian Universalism to help us be larger, freer, and more loving. So let’s dismantle the patriarchy and fight for reproductive choice.

So be it, and blessed be.