Roe v. Wade and Religion

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O’Neill, Delivered at First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, NY January 20, 2008What I assume you need to know before you can listen to this sermon with an open mind and an open heart:- You need to know whence I speak and why:  you need to know that I speak humbly and respectfully and empathetically of a subject that my gender can only understand up to a limit.  Reproductive choice is first and finally about the right of women to make decisions effecting their own physical health and personal responsibility for their own bodies.- I speak as a minister of the liberal church tradition.  I speak as a pastoral counselor of some thirty years experience who has been entrusted with hundreds of personal stories by people facing complex and profound dilemmas struggling with such issues.  I speak as a professional social caseworker before that who worked with poor and indigent dependent working families.  I speak as one who has had occasion to escort women through frightening picket lines in front of abortion clinics while people who called themselves followers of Christ shouted damnation curses into their ears and spat into their faces.  I speak as a scholar of theology, who knows enough about Christian faith to know when it is being distorted and abased in the name of fanaticism.I speak as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather.You need to know that while my own belief in a woman’s right to choose is adamant, I fully and completely respect that the decision whether to abort a pregnancy is never a simple black-or-white matter.  I understand that every such case is as complex as a person’s life situation, that no one is ever completely able to walk in another person’s shoes, nor should anyone ever presume to sit in judgment or make decisions for anyone else.You need to know that I understand this topic is uncomfortable to talk about, in church just as it is anywhere else.  As my friend Rev. Victoria Weinstein writes from our UU Church in Norwell, MA,

“Of course we can see why reasonable people might prefer not to touch the choice issue with the proverbial ten-foot pole, and certainly not in the church or synagogue. It is uncomfortable, and even taboo in some places, to speak about messy physical realities. Words like sex, pregnancy, abortion – these are not easy to say in the house of worship. The human body, and particularly the female body, has been associated in so much of traditional religion with shame and sin. There is still a very tense silence around much of reproductive life, except for sanitized Victorian or Rennaisance images of madonna and child, cleaned up and made pretty for prime time.So there is the long and unfortunate western practice of regarding churches as places where we speak only of spirit and soul, as if the body is not a spiritual, ensouled entity. There is the additional problem of somehow thinking that spirituality and religion shouldn’t concern themselves with political struggles.” (From a published sermon, “On The Dais,” by Rev. Victoria Weinstein, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Norwell, MA. January 26, 2003.)

I am not insensitive to the fact that in this Presidential election year it will be increasingly difficult to speak to any relevant social issues without seeming to touch on politics.  I will state the obvious today as always: this church will never attempt to collectively endorse any candidate or party, nor presume to tell anyone how they ought to vote on any issue.  Some of my dearest friends this year will vote for the wrong people, as they know I will.  But that does not mean I will avoid issues of serious repercussions for our society or for our nation in this pulpit.  And if certain candidates or party platforms happen to support moral positions on issues that have moral bases beyond the merely political, then so be it, I will name such issues as they arise honestly and forthrightly.That said, we must acknowledge that Reproductive Rights and the abortion issue are moral issues before ever they are political.  In a nation governed by laws, the highest courts in the land are given the hugely important task of determining what legal rights shall prevail, and which laws are ultimately reflective of our social compact as a people.  But the courts are not the only arena where such values and such issues are reasoned out, owned or disowned, claimed or rejected, by a society.  The same social discourse that informs our laws and our mores comes with us into our places of worship of a Sabbath morning, just as they accompany us into the classrooms of higher learning, into the marketplace of ideas and ideals where we earn of living.On Tuesday of this week, we will note the 35th Anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that, more than almost other expression of the Court in the last fifty years, has reflected our American society’s yearly and constant struggle to define the boundaries of individual privacy, a woman’s autonomy in determining her own pregnancy, as well as the question of shall safe and legal abortion be an option in this country. The decision of Roe v. Wade was issued on January 22, 1973.  By a vote of 7 to 2, with Justices Rehnquist and White dissenting, (Sandra Day O’Conner was not yet appointed the first woman Justice) the court allowed legal and safe abortion in every state for the first time.In the course of these thirty-five years, national survey after survey, has shown that public opinion has shifted almost not at all on this matter.  The Pew Foundation poll in December finds that a majority (52%) of Americans express support for legalized abortion in most (35%) or all (17%) cases, while 43% oppose legalized abortion in most (26%) or all (17%) circumstances. These findings are consistent with the results from other surveys over the past few years.Women are slightly more likely than men (21% to 14%) to say that abortion should be legal in all cases. College graduates are significantly more likely than those without any college education to say abortion should be legal (62% vs. 46%).Among major political groups, liberal Democrats are by far the most supportive of legalized abortion, with 85% saying it should be legal in all (35%) or most (50%) cases. Majorities of moderate and liberal Republicans (54%), political independents (54%), and moderate and conservative Democrats (58%) also say abortion should be legal. Among conservative Republicans, by contrast, 69% say abortion should be illegal in most (42%) or all (27%) cases.Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants are most opposed to abortion. Less than a third (31%) believes that it should be legal, while two-thirds believe it should be illegal in most (39%) or all (26%) cases. Majorities in most other major religious groups support legalized abortion, including white Catholics (51%), white mainline Protestants (63%), black Protestants (60%) and the unaffiliated (68%).

“I am proud to tell you that the UU General Assembly has made a collective statement to this effect as early as 1963. They did it again in 1968, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1987. Our delegates have not done this for fun. We, as a movement, have unconditionally reaffirmed a woman’s right to reproductive freedoms so many times through the years because those rights are constantly threatened,”  as Rev. Weinstein writes.  (From a published sermon, “On The Dais,” by Rev. Victoria Weinstein, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Norwell, MA. January 26, 2003.)

It won’t surprise anyone to know that each of the remaining Democratic candidates for President is on record as supporting legalized abortion, and each of the Republican Candidates is against it and has promised to look for Supreme Court appointees who would repeal Roe v. Wade given the chance.The make-up of the Supreme Court itself has changed, most recently with the appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and Mr. Justice Alito, two anti-Roe judges.  The current Court is a very precarious 5-4 split in favor of upholding Roe.  The next Supreme Court appointee is likely to be the difference in whether Roe remains the law of the land, or whether we return the state of things before 1973, when about half the states allowed legal abortions, and half did not.  New York did allow legal abortion in 1973 and likely would continue even if Roe is appealed.In 2006, there were an estimated 1.2 million legal abortions in the U.S., down about 9% from 2001.  Anti-abortion legislators in many states continue to make it difficult to obtain an abortion in many parts of the country.  About 87% of all the counties in the U.S. have no abortion providers.So what would likely happen if Roe were to be overturned?  If you’re under age 40, you won’t remember what it meant before 1973.  I was a caseworker with a child welfare agency in a state where legal abortion was not available.  It was not uncommon – mostly among poor women – to have unsafe illegal abortions in such states.  Around the world this year some 80,000 women will die from do-it-yourself-abortions.  In most Latin American countries today – where abortion is illegal and punishable by up to 30 years in prison – there are still about four times as many abortions as in the U.S.  Where abortion is illegal, abortion moves from clinics to bedrooms, from safe procedures to unsafe procedures.The circumstances that drive such desperate and dangerous decisions are the seen and unseen circumstances of so many women’s lives – poverty, poor medical care, abusive relationships, ignorance, rape.  It amazes me to hear time and again the same religious groups that propound against adequate sex education and birth control availability for young people turn around and condemn reproductive choice for women.  It frightens me – I don’t mind telling you – it frightens me to hear a major party Candidate say he favors bringing our Constitution “into line with God’s Word?”  Are we not supposed to understand that this kind of language is open code for Evangelical oppression of more liberal religious viewpoints?Dr. Rebecca Parker, in a wonderful sermon she delivered at the Washington March for Women’s Lives in 2004, wrote that,

    “We live in a broken world—a world where domestic abuse happens and where welfare systems are inadequate. In the U.S. alone 25-30% of children live in poverty. Cultural and religious messages often teach women and girls they are unimportant except when they are serving others and denying their own interests, hopes and needs.In the midst of tragic difficulties and dehumanizing messages, the freedom to choose allows a different life. If she has choice, a woman can move beyond being a passive recipient of misfortune, injustice, violence, or failed social policies and systems. She can begin to inhabit her own life, become a decision maker who improves her circumstances, her children’s lives, and her society. She can claim her creative power to repair and care for life that has been tattered and torn. She can make a way for safety and hope.” (From a sermon, “For All That Is Our Life,” by Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, delivered at the Washington March for Women’s Lives, 2004.)

As the poet reminds us, “we know less than we pretend about life. We know less than we pretend about choice.” (O. Brugnola).  Roe v. Wade was a difficult decision in which the Court had to weigh and choose between relative values, from among complex options and factors.  In the end the Court chose to empower women in the most personal and private matter a woman can ever live through.  I want to support that same empowerment for my own granddaughters when their critical life choices must be made.  That is one reason I choose this church and this faith for my own, because in its theology, in its practice, in its respect for women and men alike, and in its faith in our humanity, it preaches personal empowerment.Something to think about while you’re doing the dishes this week, or while you’re listening to the debates.I thank the Women’s Alliance for making this Sunday our annual observance in behalf of a woman’s right to choose.