"Making Choices"

This June I had the privilege of attending a Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Student Summit in Washington DC. I went on a lark, not really knowing much about reproductive issues today or even able to articulate how faith and choice connected. As I wrote on my application, "I grew up in a very liberal church and attend a very liberal college, but I don't know how to reconcile these political stances with faith. I know there are religious liberals out there, but we all seem to divide these parts, allowing them to live separately in the same body and mind." I arrived with a great need to find a way of putting these two halves back together, a need that I only just recently discovered I had. In fact, if you'd told me a year ago this time that I'd be working for the National Council of Churches and preaching on a day not reserved for kids, I would have laughed at you.

I set off from New York for the wilds of Minnesota the beginning of my first year of college, confirmed that I did not need to go to church anymore. I was frustrated with Judson, angry at how I felt abandoned, but thought there was nothing else I would be happy with. This clearly turned out to be only a temporary affliction. By the beginning of my sophomore year, this past fall, I was attending Quaker Silent Meeting every Sunday without fail. I had vaguely looked for a more churchy place, visiting a unique Catholic church and contemplating my friend's Unitarian Universalist congregation. But I found the most meaningful time among the Society of Friends. A close friend of mine and I even organized a get together for Macalester students to ask questions of the Clerk of the Meeting, who functions sort of like a minister or board chair. Yet this spring all this new-found connectedness to God seemed to disappear. I was too busy and stressed to take time for what I needed to do, which was think about God. Somehow though I found time to apply for a summer internship through the Lilly Project for Work, Ethics and Vocation, which is specially aimed at students considering positions of religious leadership. I thought it would be the best way to try to think about my own personal questions, as well as finding out what it would be like working for a religious organization, in this case the National Council of Churches.

And this experience has been a time to think about my faith, starting with the Student Summit on Choice. There were many great speakers including Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, an Episcopalian Minister who was chair of the RCRC board and fights passionately to protect a woman's right to a late term abortion. Daniel C. Maguire, author of Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions spoke unlike any other man I had ever heard speak when he talked about the institutionalized sexism and misogyny that is perpetuated in so many religions. We got training on how to organize students on-campus to fight the religious right and how to deal with the media when they're only looking for that inflammatory sound bite. We had denominational breakouts where we talked about the statements on choice made by our different faith backgrounds. The UCC has made many strong statements in support of a woman's right to control her own body, but I'm sad to say ABC is intentionally vague. One of the highlights was getting to lobby, my first time ever; I went with two women from Pennsylvania first to Rep. Carolyn Maloney's office where we got a positive, though brief response from an aide. Then after a lunch of strategizing and practicing answers to possible questions, we bravely went to Senator Rick Santorum's office. Expecting to be quickly dismissed, we instead spent fifteen minutes with two aides, finding common ground, despite Santorum's atrocious record on reproductive rights. We could agree on the need to protect women from harm, just not how to do this. We wanted to keep abortion safe and legal, while he prefers it be outlawed.

I spent much of the conference just listening and soaking it all in, amazed at the range of young women who were attending. Lindsey grew up Southern Baptist, but was converting to Judaism. Michelle was Wiccan. Nikki especially struck me and made me think about my choice background and beliefs. Nikki had grown up in a Nazarene church and attends a conservative Christian college in Georgia. When she made the decision with a number of other students and two professors to attend the March for Women's Lives this April she faced opposition on all sides. Fellow students were angered that the group would attend the march in a school van, fearing that their name would be associated with a pro-choice message. They threatened to physically block the van, necessitating a police escort. Her parents were confused about her decision and what shook me the most was her congregation's reaction. They concluded that she was a lost soul and that they would pray for her safe return to the church. They could not for the life of them imagine why such a smart good girl would ever do something so horrible.

It is clear that there is something wrong here. Her church couldn't understand that Nikki was making a good choice, a choice that supports the efforts of many years of work to protect a woman's right to choose. Something we talked about a lot at the Summit was how reproductive freedom isn't just about women's rights, but human rights. We drew great strength from the Judeo-Christian tradition of the capacity of humans to make choices in their best interest. God created each of us with both the moral fortitude and reasoning to reach tough decisions. Instead of considering today's Ancient Testimony from Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" as a charge against abortion, we understood it as knowing that God would be with us through everything we might face.

God trusts we make these tough decisions after thought and prayer. Abortion is not a decision lightly made. Now imagine having to worry about where you might go to seek counseling or have the procedure performed because anyone who helps you faces criminal charges along with the internal struggle you are surely having. Or imagine that you don't know how you can pay for the abortion because your health insurance declines to cover it or you don't even have health care coverage and the nearest Planned Parenthood is in another state. Even though I can assume that if I ever needed an abortion I would be able to get one safely and quickly, for many women this is or may become a reality. It is not right to simply to accept the privilege I have, but to know that to stand for all women's rights is to stand for humankind.

The fight for choice is not over. As Roe vs. Wade enters its 31st year the assault has never been greater. In Mississippi a law just passed makes is a crime to perform even first trimester abortions anywhere but in a hospital. In Minnesota, where the only abortion providers are in the southern area of the state, a law passed with much opposition from the voters, but little from the legislature requires a 24 hour waiting period between first counseling and any abortion procedure. This would require women traveling from upstate find housing for a night, adding to cost and stress of the procedure. Most troubling is a piece of legislation presently in the House, attached to a health care funding bill, that would make it legal for entire hospitals and insurance companies opt out of providing women with contraceptives and abortions. It would allow them also to provide poor or one-sided information, turning back Title X, which requires full information be provided about all family planning methods.

Copyright 2005-2007 Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom.
This website is a project of Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom, a program of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). The contents of this website and linked websites do not necessarily reflect the positions of the RCRC or the member faith groups of the RCRC.
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