- A growing number of faith leaders are pushing for greater access to abortion rights, hoping to change a narrative they say erases the range of viewpoints on abortion.
- While many conservative religious leaders remain at the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, a majority of American Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims say abortion should be legal.
- “The religious, Christian right has co-opted language around religion and abortion,” said Rev. Cindy Bumb of St. Louis
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 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 Rev. Cindy Bumb of St. Louis, one of the plaintiffs.
“The religious, Christian right has co-opted language around religion and abortion and made it all about their own beliefs,” said Rev. Cindy Bumb of St. Louis
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.
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These views on abortion aren’t outside the norm, faith leaders told USA TODAY.
While the Catholic Church officially opposes abortions in most cases, surveys of American Catholics tell a different story. About one in four Americans who have had abortions are Catholic, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights.
And 56% of Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a 2022 Pew Research study. Similarly, about 66% of Black Protestants and 60% of non-evangelical white Protestants say the same.
The 2022 survey did not have enough respondents from other religious groups. But a 2019 survey showed 82% of Buddhists, 68% of Hindus, 83% of Jews and 55% of Muslims say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
To be sure, many religious leaders remain at the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, with many Christian and Catholic leaders arguing that life begins at conception and God is on their side in their battle to protect unborn children. For decades, they have prayed, marched and helped craft legislation and lawsuits seeking to limit reproductive health rights, particularly when it comes to abortion access.
Here are six faith leaders who are fighting for abortion access and against narratives that conflate religion and anti-abortion views.
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Praying for legal abortion rights
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.
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Bumb has been “an activist who combines religion and abortion access advocacy” since the 1980’s, 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 because “the religious, Christian right has co-opted language around religion and abortion and made it all about their own beliefs.”
Bumb said she’s been called a witch, gotten hate mail and threats, seen her face plastered on “hateful posters,” and been told countless times she was going to hell. Clergy members may see this and be reluctant to voice views in support of 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 tradition supports saving pregnant women over fetus
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.
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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.”
Some Catholics support reproductive health care
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 life-saving 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.”
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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.”
The action created a “Twitter firestorm” as bishops and other Catholic leaders called the group satanic and “condemned us to hell,” Manson said. But amid backlash, Manson said they also saw a flood of support.
“They finally felt like their voices were being heard in this church,” Manson said, adding that much of Catholics for Choice’s work involves helping people “heal from this religiously fueled trauma around abortion.”
“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,” Manson said.
More Jewish people are fighting for abortion rights for all
When Justice 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 1920’s, 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,” Katz said.
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Abortion is a racial and economic justice issue for some
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 to center the needs of people who are oppressed and face an imbalance in power and privilege, Kazmi 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,” she said.
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.
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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 said.
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.”
Contact Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.
USA TODAY
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