Organizing religious people in favor of reproductive rights
October 1, 2020 4:28 AM Subscribe
The majority of Americans and the majority of religious Americans are in favor of abortion rights, but the anti-abortion people are organized. This is a substantial article about statistics, beliefs, and history.
"There is a vast prochoice religious community in the United States that could provide the moral, cultural, and political clout to reverse current antiabortion policy trends in the United States. Most, but not all, of this demographic are Christians and Jews. There are also deeply considered, theologically acceptable, prochoice positions and, therefore, prochoice people and institutions within all of major world religious traditions present in the United States, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese traditions.1 Taken together, they have vast resources, institutional capacity, historic and central roles in many towns and cities, and cadres of well-educated leaders at every level—from national denominational offices to local congregational leaders, current and retired."
"The reality that vast numbers of religious people are prochoice may be a revelation to those who have been conditioned by the false narrative that people of faith—almost by definition—oppose abortion. The prochoice religious community needs to dismantle the false narrative that faith = antiabortion to offer the hope and possibility of meaningful, even powerfully fresh cultural and political visions, organizations, and actions. That the vast prochoice religious community is under-recognized, under-identified, and under-organized is both the challenge and the opportunity. Taking on this and other false narratives is the first task of this essay, before sharing lessons from a clear-eyed view of the Christian Right about how the religious prochoice community might organize its power post-Roe."
"There is a vast prochoice religious community in the United States that could provide the moral, cultural, and political clout to reverse current antiabortion policy trends in the United States. Most, but not all, of this demographic are Christians and Jews. There are also deeply considered, theologically acceptable, prochoice positions and, therefore, prochoice people and institutions within all of major world religious traditions present in the United States, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese traditions.1 Taken together, they have vast resources, institutional capacity, historic and central roles in many towns and cities, and cadres of well-educated leaders at every level—from national denominational offices to local congregational leaders, current and retired."
"The reality that vast numbers of religious people are prochoice may be a revelation to those who have been conditioned by the false narrative that people of faith—almost by definition—oppose abortion. The prochoice religious community needs to dismantle the false narrative that faith = antiabortion to offer the hope and possibility of meaningful, even powerfully fresh cultural and political visions, organizations, and actions. That the vast prochoice religious community is under-recognized, under-identified, and under-organized is both the challenge and the opportunity. Taking on this and other false narratives is the first task of this essay, before sharing lessons from a clear-eyed view of the Christian Right about how the religious prochoice community might organize its power post-Roe."
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg recently posted an entire thread of sages and other Jewish authorities showing that access to safe abortions is an important Jewish principle.
posted by jb at 6:16 AM on October 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jb at 6:16 AM on October 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
It should surprise no one that the majority of people who get abortions in American are Christian.
I was raised in an Evangelical family and our entire community was one-issue voters: abortion. I had long thought that abortion was historically the political issue that dragged Evangelicals into politics. I recently listened to this excellent episode of NPR's Throughline about the history of Evangelicals in politics (featuring national treasure Randall Balmer) and was surprised to learn that in fact there was a time when Protestants in this country where officially and staunchly pro-choice, and the issue that brought Evangelicals into politics was actually segregation (and they were not on the good side of that issue).
My entire experience with Christianity is Evangelicism, and everyone I know in that community remains a one-issue voter around abortion. They would continue to vote for Trump no matter what he did or said as long as he continued to install anti-Roe judges in the courts. My lifetime of terrible experiences in this community have made it hard for me to understand or accept the idea of Christianity of any stripe, and I judge Christians harshly and make a lot of assumptions. So I appreciate this article.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:23 AM on October 1, 2020 [14 favorites]
I was raised in an Evangelical family and our entire community was one-issue voters: abortion. I had long thought that abortion was historically the political issue that dragged Evangelicals into politics. I recently listened to this excellent episode of NPR's Throughline about the history of Evangelicals in politics (featuring national treasure Randall Balmer) and was surprised to learn that in fact there was a time when Protestants in this country where officially and staunchly pro-choice, and the issue that brought Evangelicals into politics was actually segregation (and they were not on the good side of that issue).
My entire experience with Christianity is Evangelicism, and everyone I know in that community remains a one-issue voter around abortion. They would continue to vote for Trump no matter what he did or said as long as he continued to install anti-Roe judges in the courts. My lifetime of terrible experiences in this community have made it hard for me to understand or accept the idea of Christianity of any stripe, and I judge Christians harshly and make a lot of assumptions. So I appreciate this article.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:23 AM on October 1, 2020 [14 favorites]
there was a time when Protestants in this country where officially and staunchly pro-choice, and the issue that brought Evangelicals into politics was actually segregation (and they were not on the good side of that issue).
Yeah, Fred Clark has talked about this a lot. Protestantism in America, across the board, seems historically to have regarded abortion as often shameful, maybe even sinful in some circumstances, but neither unethical in itself nor something there is a moral imperative to stop. In fact, they've historically been actively oppositional to attempts to do so, because trying to prevent abortions through force of law, through at least the mid-70s, was viewed as a Catholic thing, and Protestants don't want the Papists getting all up in their government.
posted by jackbishop at 9:15 AM on October 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
Yeah, Fred Clark has talked about this a lot. Protestantism in America, across the board, seems historically to have regarded abortion as often shameful, maybe even sinful in some circumstances, but neither unethical in itself nor something there is a moral imperative to stop. In fact, they've historically been actively oppositional to attempts to do so, because trying to prevent abortions through force of law, through at least the mid-70s, was viewed as a Catholic thing, and Protestants don't want the Papists getting all up in their government.
posted by jackbishop at 9:15 AM on October 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
It should surprise no one that the majority of people who get abortions in American are Christian.
The base rate matters. More than 70% of the people in the U.S. are (or identify as) Christians. So, it would be a bit surprising if Christians didn't account for the majority of abortions.
The thing that I found interesting in your link is that evangelicals appear less hypocritical than I had expected, since they account for 13% of abortions but make up 25% of the population. By contrast, Catholics and mainline protestants account for 24 and 17% of abortions, respectively, which is very close to their representation in the population (21 and 15%, respectively). ... All of that with the caveat that I'm assuming that the way Guttmacher and Pew carve up the religious demographics are sufficiently similar for the two sets of numbers to be comparable.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:19 AM on October 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
The base rate matters. More than 70% of the people in the U.S. are (or identify as) Christians. So, it would be a bit surprising if Christians didn't account for the majority of abortions.
The thing that I found interesting in your link is that evangelicals appear less hypocritical than I had expected, since they account for 13% of abortions but make up 25% of the population. By contrast, Catholics and mainline protestants account for 24 and 17% of abortions, respectively, which is very close to their representation in the population (21 and 15%, respectively). ... All of that with the caveat that I'm assuming that the way Guttmacher and Pew carve up the religious demographics are sufficiently similar for the two sets of numbers to be comparable.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:19 AM on October 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
Actually down to 65% identifying as Christian in the U.S. (2019).
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:28 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:28 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Right, but to get the comparison, I needed to look at 2014 data. :)
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:35 AM on October 1, 2020
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:35 AM on October 1, 2020
Damn that's way too long ago to me to show much.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:39 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:39 AM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is really good. I'm a pro-choice mainline Protestant raised in a pro-choice mainline Protestant community and still mostly living in those circles, but married to a Reconstructionist Jew. One of my ongoing frustrations with Metafilter, and indeed with the US, is people conflating the worst of fundamentalist Christianity with all Christianity and indeed with all religion. The fact that your childhood fundamentalist evangelical Christian church were a bunch of assholes who used religion as a weapon against everyone, and that people like those folks currently control the White House, tells you nothing about the beliefs of your local Episcopalians, let alone your neighbors who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or any other religion. I hope many folks will read this fabulous work of scholarship and learn things about the relationship between religion and abortion rights in the US.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:17 AM on October 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 10:17 AM on October 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
The thing that I found interesting in your link is that evangelicals appear less hypocritical than I had expected, since they account for 13% of abortions but make up 25% of the population.
Very good observation.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:56 AM on October 1, 2020
Very good observation.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:56 AM on October 1, 2020
I think it's still pretty hypocritical. The number would be closer to 0% if evangelicals actually believe what they say that abortion is equivalent to murder. And I think we can conjecture that evangelicals live in areas of the country where abortion is more restricted.
posted by zixyer at 12:25 PM on October 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by zixyer at 12:25 PM on October 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
For me those numbers seem to indicate that even the people who believe it's murder get abortions in sizable numbers. If they can't even live up to their own standards then on what grounds do they have to impose them on the rest of us?
posted by flamk at 3:37 PM on October 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by flamk at 3:37 PM on October 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
For me those numbers seem to indicate that even the people who believe it's murder get abortions in sizable numbers. If they can't even live up to their own standards then on what grounds do they have to impose them on the rest of us?
Well that's the thing, if you read the article you'll see numbers that indicate that all of them don't. For example the article says "Pew reported in 2019 that 56% of rank-and-file Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases." The fact is I, for example, both believe that it's murder and that most people do not agree with that, that the advent of the pill and legal abortion fundamentally changed women's opportunities in this country, that the unborn do not have legal rights in this country, and that there are plenty of cases where even women who are strongly opposed to abortion have no real options when it comes to health care, safe living spaces, the financial wherewithal to provide for a child or any real interest in raising one. It's fine to believe something but quite another thing to force that on the rest of the world. If the 56% is close to right it would indicate *most* Catholics believe something similar. It's why I'm not an active pro-lifer and neither are most folks who go to church with me.
On the other hand I do vote a host of other pro-life issues as political issues: health care, equal pay, employment protections, immigration and a litany of other topics have been somehow thrown out by organized religion as allowable topics until after the abortion vote is considered. It's madness to let that one issue, one that may or may not get decided in any decade much less by any individual president's appointees, deny progress in a dozen different directions. You could reduce abortions, for example, by making universal health care available, along with family leave, subsidized child care, more substantial protections against domestic abuse, and decent jobs and affordable living spaces so that a woman might be able to imagine a viable path to having a healthy child and supporting it over the coming decades. Abortion isn't just some selfish indulgence or anything anyone looks forward to, it's a reaction to a situation with no better options. You fight abortion by adding options and making it easier to avoid the whole situation in the first place by not fighting contraception. Articles like this are important for making it possible to have discussions like this within organized religion. I look forward to a day when it's possible to vote against the Republicans without being considered some sort of heretic by my church.
posted by Cris E at 5:00 PM on October 4, 2020
Well that's the thing, if you read the article you'll see numbers that indicate that all of them don't. For example the article says "Pew reported in 2019 that 56% of rank-and-file Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases." The fact is I, for example, both believe that it's murder and that most people do not agree with that, that the advent of the pill and legal abortion fundamentally changed women's opportunities in this country, that the unborn do not have legal rights in this country, and that there are plenty of cases where even women who are strongly opposed to abortion have no real options when it comes to health care, safe living spaces, the financial wherewithal to provide for a child or any real interest in raising one. It's fine to believe something but quite another thing to force that on the rest of the world. If the 56% is close to right it would indicate *most* Catholics believe something similar. It's why I'm not an active pro-lifer and neither are most folks who go to church with me.
On the other hand I do vote a host of other pro-life issues as political issues: health care, equal pay, employment protections, immigration and a litany of other topics have been somehow thrown out by organized religion as allowable topics until after the abortion vote is considered. It's madness to let that one issue, one that may or may not get decided in any decade much less by any individual president's appointees, deny progress in a dozen different directions. You could reduce abortions, for example, by making universal health care available, along with family leave, subsidized child care, more substantial protections against domestic abuse, and decent jobs and affordable living spaces so that a woman might be able to imagine a viable path to having a healthy child and supporting it over the coming decades. Abortion isn't just some selfish indulgence or anything anyone looks forward to, it's a reaction to a situation with no better options. You fight abortion by adding options and making it easier to avoid the whole situation in the first place by not fighting contraception. Articles like this are important for making it possible to have discussions like this within organized religion. I look forward to a day when it's possible to vote against the Republicans without being considered some sort of heretic by my church.
posted by Cris E at 5:00 PM on October 4, 2020
Nothing Is as It Was: American Religion is Changing and We Need a New Story by Diana Butler Bass chronicles the recent acceleration in decline of white evangelicals in the US--their numbers are now on par with those of white mainline protestants, who are declining at a slower rate. Bass suggests that this is due to disenchantment with Trumpian evangelicalism. It certainly suggests that progressivism among white mainline protestants is not the kiss of death that many have claimed.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:44 AM on October 13, 2020
posted by hydropsyche at 6:44 AM on October 13, 2020
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As someone who finds questions of personal faith broadly uninteresting, but the sociopolitical consequences of such faith both fascinating and alarming, I know I've had to regularly push back against my own assumptions about religious folks.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:05 AM on October 1, 2020 [6 favorites]