3 Ways Conservative Christianity's Obsessions Promote Abortions

One of the great ironies of American society is that most abortions in the U.S. are caused by conservative Christians. Read the statistics: Forty nine percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended, a rate that has been painfully stable for almost 30 years. Almost half of those pregnancies end in abortion. Or, to turn it around, over 90% of U.S. abortions are the result of accidental pregnancy. U.S. rates of unwanted pregnancy and abortion far exceed any other country with similar economic development.  So does our rate of religiosity.  The fact that we are outliers on both is not a coincidence. 

Three aspects of conservative Christianity promote abortion:  pro-natalism, an obsession with sexual sin, and an emphasis on righteousness over compassion.   

1. Biblical Christianity is not pro life. It is not even pro human life. Steven Pinker recently estimated that the Old Testament alone describes 1.2 million deaths at the hand of Yahweh or his servants. It is, however, pro-birth. Be fruitful and multiply.(Genesis 1:28) Women will be saved through childbearing. (1 Timothy 2:15). Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant reformation, put it in his own words: “If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not.  Let her only die from bearing; she is there to do it.” Christian competitive breeding, a strategy for increasing adherents, is at the heart of the Catholic anti-contraceptive stance and the Protestant Quiverfull movement.  

2. Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe. We all know what it means. By the time the Abrahamic religions emerged, the male desire to invest in only their own offspring had taken the form of men owning women. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17) Women caught in adultery (or missing their hymens) were killed by the ancient Hebrews, just as they are by some conservative Muslims today. Christianity’s obsession with sexual sin or rather with female purity has produced the American virginity myth. In contrast to more secular, open societies, American teens typically don’t seek contraception for a year after becoming sexually active. Contraception would make them guilty of the sin of premeditated sex.

3. 38,000. That’s the number of Christian denominations. Ever wondered why? Traditional Christianity is about right belief, orthodoxy, rather than right living.Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Acts 16:31 Contrast this with the central virtue of Buddhism, ahimsa, or non-harm. “Catholic” (meaning universal) and “Orthodox” (meaning right belief) are competing turf stakes from one of the first splits after Christianity beat out paganism. But schism and fracture are just one consequence of beliefism. Many believers would rather be right than in community. They’d rather be right than compassionate. They’d rather be right than solve problems. They would rather oppose abortion than prevent it.    

The numbers are in. The most effective way to reduce abortion is to de-stigmatize sexual education, de-mythologize virginity, and invest in broad access to the most effective contraceptives available. In the highly secular Netherlands, that formula has knocked abortion down to 7 per 1000 women annually, one third the U.S. rate. So why does the Religious Right keep their focus on restrictive laws instead of contraceptive access? Why do they promote person-rights for zygotes, in contradiction to the very essence of personhood?  Why do they oppose medically accurate sex ed? Why do they pledge to defund Title X family planning?