“Pro Faith. Pro Family. Pro Choice.”: The religious pro-choice movement
By Wilson Huang
Given the current loudness of Christian anti-abortion campaigners, it is easy to get caught up thinking there is only one religious view on abortion. However, despite what conservative Christians say, there is no one ‘Christian’ or religious view on abortion.
In the United States, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice(RCRC) is an interfaith movement which advocates for access to abortion under the slogan: “Pro Faith. Pro Family. Pro Choice.” While officially forming after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the RCRC (or as it was known as the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights) grew out of the Clergy Consultation Service (CSS) which started in 1967.
The CSS was an underground network of rabbis and ministers concerned about deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions. In response to this, they “quietly referred women [sic] to abortion providers they had researched and found to be safe.”
The RCRC was primarily formed from churches and organisations of liberal Christian (including the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Mission Agency, and the United Church of Christ) and Jewish (including the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism) denominations.
Yet, despite the existence of religious pro-choice movements, there is not much understanding of them and the reasons why they support abortion access. As a way of example, I will be exploring a progressive Christian and Jewish view on abortion.
Danya Ruttenberg is a rabbi who has written about Jewish interpretation of abortion. Unlike many conservative Christians, Jews don’t subscribe personhood of fetuses until birth. In fact, American Jews are one of the highest supporters of abortion rights (83%) according to the 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. They beat out every non-Unitarian Christian group and the national average (57%).
While many conservative Christians argue their case from poetic prooftexts (such as Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139, and 13 Isaiah 44:24), Ruttenberg explains that Jewish law isn’t derived from Psalms.
As Ruttenberg mentions, the Talmud, in the first 40 days of gestation, considers a foetus “mere fluid”. She further mentions that Jewish law sees the fetus as a part of the mother during the pregnancy.
In fact, the strongest argument for allowing abortions comes from the Hebrew Bible in Exodus 21:22-25. Verse 22 (NRSV) reads: “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.” In this sense, the offence for an induced miscarriage (abortion) is merely a fine and is not comparable to murder.
Another religious view supporting access to abortion is from Rev. Dr Rebecca Todd Peters, author of Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice. In a statement to SELF Magazine, Peters explains, “Some of the people who end their pregnancies are people of faith and some of them aren’t. But all of those people are thinking seriously about their circumstances.”
In this sense, Peters’s view comes from an understanding that people think carefully about their decision to have or not to have an abortion. This sentiment was echoed by Rev. Simon Hansford, the Moderator of the Uniting Church Synod of NSW & ACT. He stated, “Most women [sic] who have abortions do so only after a great deal of searching and anguish.”
Ultimately, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of religious views on abortion. However, more often than not, anti-abortion Christians shut down important debate on how should someone of faith approach abortion and claim certainty for their beliefs. Yet, people of faith can and do think differently and genuinely about abortion, and this is something we need to be better at understanding.