Faith leaders fight for abortions
Lawsuit seeks to reverse Missouri abortion ban
It’s a somewhat familiar story: A group of religious leaders last month filed an abortion-related lawsuit. They argued their religious freedoms were being violated.
But, instead of challenging abortion rights, they wanted to see an abortion ban overturned. The leaders are seeking to reverse Missouri’s abortion ban, arguing that lawmakers imposed their religious beliefs on others through passing it.
“We want this not just to be a lawsuit but also a public awareness campaign to show people they can be religious and also in support of abortion rights,” said the Rev. Cindy Bumb of St. Louis, one of the plaintiffs.
The case’s plaintiffs are part of a movement of faith leaders fighting for abortion access. These faith leaders are trying to change a narrative they say erases the range of viewpoints on abortion within faith communities and the history of religious activism to expand abortion access.
Here are the stories of six of them.
‘The answer to my prayer’
When Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, Bumb, a retired United Church of Christ minister, prayed for God to show her what to do. Then, she got a call asking her to join the Missouri lawsuit.
Soon, Bumb was holding hands in a circle with her fellow plaintiffs.
“This was the answer to my prayer,” Bumb told the group.
Bumb has been “an activist who combines religion and abortion access advocacy” since the 1980s, she said. When she started seminary school in 1987, she marched for abortion rights alongside church members under the “United Church of Christ” banner.
Clergy members organized councils to support women seeking abortions before Roe v. Wade established federal abortion rights in 1973, Bumb said. Still, she said, this history is often forgotten in discussions about religion and abortion.
Bumb said she has been called a witch, has gotten hate mail and threats, has seen her face plastered on “hateful posters,” and has been told countless times she was going to hell. Clergy members may see this and be reluctant to voice support for abortion, but “seeing
clergy stepping out and saying they are in support of abortion rights is powerful,” she said.
“There are people who are hurting that need to know that they are supported by their faith traditions, that God understands the dilemma they’re in and supports them,” Bumb said.
Jewish faith leaders have a duty
Jewish tradition varies on when life begins, but “the basis of Jewish teaching is that if you have to make a choice between the pregnant person and the fetus, the choice is always to save the pregnant person,” said Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis.
Jewish faith leaders have a duty “to protect the people who are most vulnerable and most negatively impacted by abortion bans,” including people with low incomes, uninsured people and communities of color, Talve said.
In addition to lawsuits challenging abortion bans, Talve said, faith leaders need to create nonjudgmental spaces for conversations about abortion. She said it’s also time for more faith leaders who support reproductive rights to speak about it from the pulpit.
“It’s time for us to be bold,” she said. “It’s time to give sermons. It’s time for us to support abortion access.”
Health care and human suffering
Two decades ago, Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, worked on a project that brought 50 Catholic nuns from several African countries to Connecticut to discuss reproductive health care.
“I realized women and men were dying as a result of Catholic teaching, whether because they couldn’t get access to condoms or proper sex education or lifesaving abortion care,” Manson said. “I began to realize how lack of reproductive health care is causing enormous suffering and death, especially among marginalized communities we’re supposed to prioritize as Catholics.”
Since then, Manson has fought for abortion access. Last year, during the annual anti-abortion demonstration March for Life, Catholics for Choice projected several messages on the face of Washington’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception: “Stop stigmatizing, start listening,” “Pro-choice Catholics, you’re not alone.”
“What I worry most about is the damage this narrative does to women who are trying to participate richly in the life of the church but are being told they are somehow complicit in homicide.”
‘Loud and proud’
When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court amid sexual misconduct allegations in 2018, Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, based in Washington, D.C., decided to join the National Council of Jewish Women “to make the world better for women, children and families,” she said.
The council has pushed to expand abortion access since its start 130 years ago, Katz said. In the 1920s, the organization helped found the first 10 birth control centers in the country, which later became Planned Parenthood centers.
Jewish people have been excluded from the narrative surrounding religion and abortion for too long, Katz said.
“We’re here to say loudly that restrictive abortion laws are rooted in just one narrow Christian understanding of when life begins, and it limits our ability to fully practice our own religious tradition,” Katz said.
On Feb. 17, 1,500 Jewish organizations and communities are expected to participate in an NCJW event called Repro Shabbat to learn what the Torah says about abortion, Katz said. Some Jewish leaders will host discussions in their homes. Others will make uterus-shaped challah. “We’ve been offsetting this narrative by being loud and proud in our fight for abortion access as a Jewish community.”
In pursuit of justice
By studying Islamic tradition, Aliza Kazmi said she quickly learned that there is more range in viewpoints than she initially realized on “taboo topics” like abortion. Kazmi is co-executive director at HEART, a Chicago-based national nonprofit aimed at “uprooting gendered violence and advancing reproductive justice.”
“Generally, Muslims understand that there is truly no consensus on anything in our religion other than the belief that there is no God but one God,” she said.
Advocating for abortion access is part of her duty as a Muslim, she said.
“As a Muslim, I feel we have to actively pursue justice, including reproductive justice, and to see it as a racial justice issue, gender justice issue, an economic justice issue.”
HEART has had several workshops to discuss what Islam says about reproductive justice. Attendance for the workshops surged after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a hopeful sign more Muslims are feeling empowered to voice support of abortion rights, Kazmi said.
“We want this not just to be a lawsuit but also a public awareness campaign to show people they can be religious and also in support of abortion rights.” The Rev. Cindy Bumb
‘This is what patients feel’
Katey Zeh, Baptist minister and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, first got involved with the group as a seminary student at Yale Divinity School 17 years ago when the organization offered training on how to support people through pregnancy decisions. Growing up in a conservative white evangelical family, Zeh never thought much about reproductive rights. With this training, that quickly changed.
Afterward, Zeh went across the street to a health center that provided abortion care. She toured the center with the staff and watched anti-abortion protesters yell at patients, invoking her own religious faith.
“I had that first experience of just ‘Wow, this is what patients feel. This is what the staff feels every single day.’”
Zeh volunteered at the health center regularly after that tour. One day, she was asked to hold a patient’s hand through the abortion procedure.
“It was a powerful experience,” Zeh said. “These patients, these amazing humans let me into a very vulnerable moment. It felt so sacred. In this place I was once told was godless, I had this profoundly beautiful spiritual experience. That was the moment I knew this work is what I needed to do.”