Pro-Choice and Christian: Reconciling Faith, Politics, and Justice by Kira Schlesinger (2018)
Recommendation: High
Blurb:
Despite the claim by many Christian leaders that the pro-life/antiabortion position is the only faithful response to the debate about reproductive rights, many people of faith find themselves in a murky middle of this supposedly black-and-white issue. Christians who are pro-abortion rights are rarely pro-abortion. However, they view the decision to carry a pregnancy to term as one to be made by the woman, her medical team, her family, or personal counsel rather than by politicians.
Pro-Choice and Christian explores the biblical, theological, political, and medical aspects of the debate in order to provide a thoughtful Christian argument for a pro-choice position with regard to abortion issues. Kira Schlesinger considers relevant Scriptures, the politics of abortion in the United States, and the human realities making abortion a vital issue of justice and compassion. By examining choice from a Christian perspective, Schlesinger provides a common vocabulary for discussing faith and reproductive rights.
Bo’s Review:
An interesting take on being pro-choice – from a perspective of faith.
The history of abortion is pretty complicated, though current opinions about women in many fundamentalist and evangelical churches seem to be handed down by the church fathers.
Augustine wrote in the 5th century, “I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.”
In the 2nd or 3rd Century, Tertullian wrote, “Woman is a temple built over a sewer,” and said that women are the gate to hell.
Good grief.
It’s obvious that, in Christianity, we start from a perspective of misogyny.
But the author does a fantastic job of painting the diversity of opinions on the subject.
The author notes what most people fail to realize:
“Christians who are in favor of legal access to safe abortions are rarely pro-abortion and do not consider the termination of a pregnancy a decision to be entered into lightly.”
Actually, this is even true of most people who don’t identify as Christian, but are pro-choice.
I think this quote really shows some people’s hypocrisy:
“Joan Chittister, a Catholic nun, has said, I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”
But this author gives a very thoughtful faith-based argument for being pro-choice.
She doesn’t say it this way, but she gives a decent argument that blatantly anti-abortion stances are truly anti-woman and anti-family.
There were way too many quotes that I highlighted in this book to put them all in here. Take a look at this book. Read it with an open mind and an open heart.
It’s an excellent resource and an excellent read.
Note: I received a copy of this book in return for an honest review from NetGalley and Westminster John Knox Press.