Trust women.

Why I changed my mind about abortion.

We have been speaking about abortion at church recently and I wanted to add my voice to the mix. I posted a version of this on social media in 2019, but I’d like for it to have a place that’s a little more easily shared so I am putting it here, slightly edited and expanded from the original, and with sources cited.

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I was raised as a conservative Christian in the 1980s and 1990s, which is to say that I grew up as a pro-life person. My parents weren’t protesting abortion clinics (although I knew people who did that), but I understood that “abortion stopped a beating heart” and that it was wrong.

When the internet was invented and I started to read about and interact with different points of view, I learned that there were people who believed that birth control caused abortion. That surprised me. I learned that there was a difference between the abortion pill RU-486 (Mifepristone) and the morning-after pill Plan B (a high dose of the hormone levonorgestrel that delays ovulation). I thought it was odd that everyone had been conflating the two, and I noticed that nobody who was speaking about these issues so loudly seemed to know a lot about how women’s fertility worked.

I was on the pill for a few years, and then decided that I would like to take a different approach to pregnancy prevention. I went off the pill and started using a diaphragm and charting, and I learned quite a bit about fertility, things that I definitely wasn’t taught at school. The school lessons seemed to be mostly about getting through the absolute least amount of information while still teaching us about the sperm and the egg. The men I knew who couldn’t even look at a box of tampons without wincing definitely didn’t know about ovulation and cervical mucus and luteal phase and implantation. I thought that was strange.

When we did decide to begin trying to get pregnant, I was able to become pregnant without a lot of difficulty. I didn’t have a complicated pregnancy, but I spiraled into a dark postpartum depression nonetheless. This was compounded by the physical issues that came with giving birth (would you like to hear about my 4th degree tear?), breastfeeding and pumping while working, and the very poor maternity leave policy I experienced (and, to be honest, the fact that I was lied to about the policy by a “nice” Christian man). I had a lot of support and a very loving partner, but it was incredibly difficult. In those dark days, it was crystal clear to me that no one should have to go through pregnancy and birth if they did not feel they were ready to do so, especially not in a country that does not respect or support parents by giving them time off after birth. It did not feel that my life was valued at all. It has not felt like our family was valued as we struggled to pay for daycare, or as we have had to fight with insurance companies about coverage for needed medicine. Our country does not support pregnancies or young families at all. America has a very poor maternal mortality rate (even higher for Black women than for white women like me) and it continues to rise.¹ There are a lot of things we could do to show that we value parents and children but the actions I see taking place are about reducing access to birth control and abortion.

A few years after Atticus was born, I got an IUD, in part because of extremely heavy and painful periods. One week later, the Hobby Lobby ruling took place. That was the last day I considered myself to be pro-life, because that ruling was based not on facts about women’s health and about preventing abortion and unwanted pregnancy but on the idea that a “Christian” company was squeamish that IUDs might possibly be able to cause abortions. Birth control does not actually cause abortions.² This was a decision about giving companies more power and control, not truly about reducing abortion.

In the years since Hobby Lobby, I have done a lot of reading and research. I have learned that many of the things I was told to be true by the church are, in fact, not true. There is no evidence that a fetus feels pain until 24 weeks.³ Having an abortion does not increase your risk of breast cancer.⁴ There are many women who do not regret their abortions and who know it was the right moral choice for them.⁵ Abortion is not regularly used as birth control (I don’t have a source for that except that I do live in the world and have many women friends and I don’t know anybody at all who is like, “I won’t bother to do anything to prevent pregnancy. I’ll just slip down to the Planned Parenthood to get an easy peasy abortion”). Birth control should not be equated with abortion.⁶ Abortion is not particularly dangerous (unless access is restricted).⁷ I have read about the underground clergy networks who helped women access abortion.⁸ I have read doctors’ accounts of women who died before Roe and how grateful those doctors were when abortion became legal in our country.⁹ I have also read information that made me realize that many very conservative Protestant churches were pro-choice in the 1970s.¹⁰ I have listened to my friends who have had abortions talk about their choices and how they were grateful those choices were available. I have listened to my friends who have struggled to conceive and how scared they are about laws that make that more difficult. All of this has only made me more sure that we must safeguard the ability to choose, for ourselves, our own paths.

An ongoing theme in the regulations is an willful misinterpretation both about pregnancy and about women’s fertility. We have been lied to, in the name of “protecting the unborn.” But these are not decisions made to actually protect women or children. These are decisions made to protect power and out of a desire to control. Arguments about heartbeats are frustrating to read in that they do not indicate an actual knowledge of a women’s reproductive system. The presence of heart cells that beat does not mean that there is a tiny fully-formed person inside of a woman.¹¹ Ectopic pregnancies cannot be “transferred” to the uterus.¹² Nobody is ripping babies out of the womb to murder them at nine months.¹³ ¹⁴ ¹⁵ Throughout my almost 46 years, I have been on both sides of this debate and I have to tell you that I have found that the arguments against abortion are often in bad faith and they are riddled with untruths and emotional manipulation.¹⁶

I understand that you might be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, but I’d like to ask you to consider that that might be because of this propaganda that is, frankly, not accurate. Again and again, the men (and it is primarily men) who make these laws are not making sober and serious decisions to save lives. There are instances where they are literally fist-bumping each other in celebration of passing restrictive laws.¹⁷ Meanwhile, I do not see any moves on their part to improve healthcare, education, paid family leave, or housing, just to name a few. In states with restrictive abortion bans, women have almost twice as high a chance of dying during pregnancy, while giving birth, or soon after the birth of their child.¹⁸

It is okay for you to believe that every prenate, every fetus, is a life equal to the mother, but that does not make it true for everyone. It isn’t true for me. When I had an early miscarriage I did not see that the same as my later planned pregnancy with Atticus. I don’t know if there is a magical date where a prenate or a fetus becomes a person. I think it might be different for different women in different pregnancies. I think that is why we have to trust women to make these decisions. I hope you will trust me when I say that I have changed my views not out of emotion or convenience but because I have done the reading and listening.

I am a Christian. I love Jesus. And I am pro-choice.

There is no conflict in my faith and my support of reproductive rights. My belief in religious liberty supports the idea that each person, God's image bearer, can make moral decisions in keeping with their beliefs. Religious liberty also means that the beliefs of some should not restrict the options of others. An excellent book on this topic is Trust Women by Rev. Rebecca Todd (Toddie) Peters.

As the Trump administration and the GOP seek to further restrict access to reproductive healthcare, it is important for me as a Christian to weigh in and verbalize my belief that people can make moral, responsible, and good decisions about abortion for themselves, without the coercion of the church or the government. I believe it is more important than ever to speak honestly and openly about fertility, pregnancy, and the need for choice in our healthcare.

1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-maternal-mortality-rate-higher-whats-different/

2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/10/22/birth-control-misconceptions-block-access/74789961007/

3. https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/gestational-development-capacity-for-pain

4. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/medical-treatments/abortion-and-breast-cancer-risk.html#:~:text=Higher%2Dquality%20studies%20have%20generally%20found%20no%20link%20between%20abortions,abortion%20and%20breast%20cancer%20risk.

5. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416421/five-years-after-abortion-nearly-all-women-say-it-was-right-decision-study

6. This study shows how access to contraceptives reduces the need for abortion. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/ss/ss7110a1.htm

7. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion

8. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/19/529175737/50-years-ago-a-network-of-clergy-helped-women-seeking-abortion

9. https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Roe-Report-Part-I-2.pdf (there are many many of these but here are a few)

10. https://friendsofjustice.blog/2012/10/25/abortion-and-white-evangelicals/ (there are lots of places to find this info but this is nice and straightforward)

11. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/heartbeat-bills-called-fetal-heartbeat-six-weeks-pregnancy-rcna24435

12. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-abortion-ectopic-pregnancy-bill-this-ohio-anti-abortion-bill-says-that-ectopic-pregnancies-can-be-moved/

13. https://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/21/13352872/donald-trump-abortion-wrong

14. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/trump-made-false-claims-late-term-abortion-debate-rcna159460

15. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5107942/abortion-roe-wade-ivf-donald-trump-kamala-harris-debate-2024

16. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10196890/

17. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/opinion/alabama-abortion-women.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU8.LbEg.4x51Q7JhjHVr&smid=url-share

18. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/two-new-studies-provide-broadest-evidence-to-date-of-unequal-impacts-of-abortion-bans