If Christians Want To End Abortions They Should Stop Getting Them

One of the pillars of the Evangelical marriage to the Republican Party is the Pro-Life movement. By far, this movement is one of the most passionate and mobilized groups in America. But I wonder have they ever taken a moment to ask themselves the question of why, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 65 percent of all abortions are performed on Christian patients (37 percent Protestant and 28 percent Catholic). Sometimes I wonder if they even know this statistic. And if they do, how do they look at themselves in the mirror at night after they have gone to college campuses and given graphic demonstrations to kids that they likely presume are heathens only to know in their own heart that it is their fellow-churchgoers that are having 65 percent of all abortions? So if Evangelicals are so fixated on ending abortions then maybe they should stop having them.

And I know this blog will be met with the predictable No True Scotsman fallacy. This fallacy essentially says that the 65 percent of people getting abortions may identify as Christian, but they’re not really Christian. But surely included in this 65 percent statistic are girls and women who attend your churches and listen to your pastors. And is not self-identifying as a Christian the very foundation of our faith? And for those who would firmly stand by the idea that the people included in this 65 percent statistic aren’t really Christians, at what point have we been given authority to be the arbiter of someone’s faith other than our own? So while it may be more comfortable and expedient to dismiss these people, why not instead consider at face value the implications of this staggering statistic.

The Church has preached against abortions for many years but to no avail. Who have we been preaching to if not our own parishioners? Clearly, if our faith instructs us to be abstinent then we should preach and teach abstinence. But abstinence alone has not worked–not even inside of our own churches. 61 percent of Christians identified they would or have had sex before marriage. And with 65 percent of all abortions being performed on Christian patients, how can we even begin to lecture “the world” about the tragedy of abortions?  Imagine if the Church would practice what it preached.

And to be clear, as I write this blog I am not addressing this to the girls and women who are having to make these painfully difficult decisions. I’m addressing this to the men in their lives who insist on maintaining their iron-clad façade of sexual purity that forces them to pretend as though their kids are not the ones having sex. It is this denial that stifles any conversations of sexual education that could lead to sexual responsibility. And in the absence of proper sexual education and maturity, children, teens, and young adults enter into sexual relationships before they are mature enough to handle them. And as we’ve seen before, because this iron-clad façade of sexual purity must be upheld at any cost, an abortion becomes an option for the family that has preached against it for years. Too often, in order to maintain this facade, the caring and beleaguered mother must quietly take her daughter to the same clinic against which her husband has preached for many years.

Instead of blaming the sexual problems of your parishioners on “worldly influences,” maybe you could simply acknowledge that human beings — even Christian human beings– want to have as much sex as we possibly can. Your daughters want to have sex. Your sons want to have sex. Your wife would love to have sex. And once you come to that realization and drop the mental lie we’ve been telling ourselves for generations with regard to human sexuality, maybe we would start preaching sexual responsibility in addition to abstinence. Then maybe they would see the value in teaching our kids safe-sex. And instead of opposing access to contraception, we would begin to realize that birth control really could reduce the number of abortions in America if for no other group than Christians themselves.

Imagine if Christians got our own houses in order. We could possibly see a 65 percent reduction in abortions. What a victory that would be for Life?! But instead, we’ve allowed the discussion of abortions to be stifled by endless political debates over whether a woman should or should not have access. We’ve become so obsessed with taking away the right that women currently have to obtain an abortion that we’ve completely ignored the priceless opportunity in front of us to drastically reduce abortions across America simply by growing up and having a realistic understanding of the human bodies God gave us.