Women’s Reproductive Health: A More Honest History

There are so many misconceptions about abortion. Women feel no loss related to the terminated pregnancy. There are no physical symptoms that accompany the procedure. It is an easy decision to make, like having a hang nail clipped off. Abortion is an acceptable method of birth control. It is a decision a woman will regret for the rest of her life. All religions are universally against a woman’s right to choose. Women who choose to terminate pregnancies have emotional problems for the rest of their lives. Women who have abortions will never have children in the future. Abortion requires her partner’s consent. The list goes on and on. In truth, laws vary from state to state and it is important to get accurate information for the geographic region where the procedure is being considered.

Ever since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, our society has defined abortion as something shameful and worthy of judgement.  I hasten to say it is mostly “religious” people who make the judgement.

Many people think the “church” has always believed that life begins at conception. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having accurate historical information is an appropriate place to begin if abortion is going to continue to be used as a political and religious football to control women’s bodies.

There are two major religious groups that dominate the conversation: the Roman Catholic Church and conservative Christian evangelicals.

The Roman Catholic Church has an inconsistent history with women’s reproductive health. In ancient times it was believed that women spontaneously formed a child from withheld menses. When it was discovered that men were half the equation, along with the rise of patriarchal religion, women’s private health care became men’s concern.

In the early Christian church, the Didache asked two questions about abortion: was it being used to conceal fornication or adultery and did the fetus have a rational soul from the moment of conception? The latter debate remains the cornerstone which fuels the anti-abortion movement, although there is no consensus on the answer.

Augustine wrote in the Encridion, that the fetus received its soul at some point in its growth but not at conception. The first official Canon recognized by the Church dates from 1140. It states, in part, that “he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body.”

It became more complicated as Popes disagreed about the issue. The most consistent lines of reasoning regarding abortion were two fold. First, abortion as contraception was a sin; second, abortion was a sin against marriage. This had more to do with property rights concerning women than with morality. Neither, however, was considered murder.

Other Popes like Sixtus V and Gregory the XIV continued the disagreements back and forth. As late as the 18^th century there was theological agreement that the fetus did not develop a soul at conception, but rather at “quickening” when movement was first felt by the mother.

The argument took a radical turn in 1869 when Pope Pius IX stated that excommunication was required for abortion at any stage of pregnancy and that all abortion was murder. This was in direct opposition to the theological positions that predated that document.

For those who believe in Papal infallibility, it is important to note that this doctrine has as complicated a history as women’s reproductive health. To this day there is lack of consensus throughout the Roman Catholic Church worldwide concerning Papal infallibility.

Jump ahead to 1917 and the revised Church Canon required excommunication not only for women who aborted fetuses, but also for all who participated in the abortion.

Jump ahead again to the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The official church doctrine stated that “life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.” This shifted the argument to protecting life. In 1974 the Declaration on Procured Abortion declared that the fetus is a human life from the moment of conception.

So much for the doctrinal purity of the Roman Catholics Church through the centuries.

Protestant Christianity didn’t fare much better, although there was general consensus that abortion was a serious issue. Martin Luther and John Calvin promulgated varying degrees of interpretation regarding the “sin” of abortion. Conservative and fundamental churches held with Roman Catholic doctrine, an irony not lost on church historians.

Given that Protestants don’t agree on much of anything (hence the name Protest-ant), it was not surprising there were multiple views on the nature, purpose and morality of abortion.

What was significant in the Protestant/Evangelical/Fundamentalist debate was that abortion was permissible under certain circumstances. These circumstances included family welfare and social responsibility. “They affirmed that fetal life may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life.”  This was radically different from Roman Catholic Doctrine of the same period.

Mainstream evangelical leaders’ liberal views on abortion shifted in 1968. Christianity Today and the Christian Medical Society hosted a gathering of evangelical leaders to set the “conservative, evangelical position within Protestantism.” Apparently they neglected the fact that they didn’t speak for ALL Protestants, conservative, evangelical or other.

In the ensuing decades multiple conservative Christian voices from seminaries to denominational judicatories weighed in on the abortion issue. There were as many opinions as there were Protestant voices.

The next major anti-abortion movement began when Jerry Falwell confidently declared that conception was the moment when human attributes were given to a fetus. His unparalleled social, theological and political platform gave opportunity for a rallying cry and united much of the conservative Christian movement. Arguing that he spoke the definitive voice on a biblical view of abortion was arrogant. He was also selectively literal in his interpretation of the Bible. Preying on the biblical illiteracy of many people in the United States and using his bully pulpit, he did more to galvanize an anti-abortion movement than any of his contemporaries.

The reason any of this matters is because the “authoritative” voices declaring the way and will of God regarding abortion are selectively biblical and largely politically motivated. The upshot is that men and the women they influence, as well as political affiliations, define the morality of abortion in a singular voice when there are many voices, each with their theological strengths and weaknesses.

For any church, Protestant or Catholic to claim a definitive voice on abortion flies in the face of either tradition’s history. If we are going to argue the “morality” of abortion, let’s at least be honest that the church is inconsistent at best.

It also matters because women carry shame and blame for their unwanted pregnancies and choice for abortion. What is a personal decision for a woman and her health care provider has become a political football used to assert moral superiority and the subjugation of women.

It is time we stopped allowing patriarchal Christianity to define the meaning of abortion for women. The women who have come into my office for pastoral care through the years have, for the most part, drunk the religious Kool-Aid that is all too willing to judge them to hell and back. And it needs to stop.

The only way to stop shaming women for making a perfectly legal choice is for women to shed the shame that is foisted upon them, and the men who impregnate them to take responsibility. When women begin to speak openly about their abortions without shame or self-blame the conversation will begin to change. When women hold men equally responsible for the pregnancies that result from intercourse the conversation will begin to change. When men are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for taking advantage of women who are compromised by drugs or alcohol the conversation will begin to change.

And it is far beyond time for that to happen.