Can Evangelicals Be Part of a Pro-Choice Consensus?

[RoyGBiv]

Read the article. The included excerpt is just the summary.

Can Evangelicals Be Part of a Pro-Choice Consensus? Lessons from the Past
By Blake Ellis

With the election of a president who is deeply religious and also strongly pro-choice, supporters of reproductive rights have a chance once again to reach out to potential allies in evangelical communities. Mindful of the pro-choice histories of southern evangelicals like Valentine and Dunn, progressives can build new alliances that might undermine the power of Christian Right leaders who would apparently rather block government support for poor women than work to actually reduce the number of abortions. In doing so, activists might achieve a pro-choice consensus that includes many members of evangelical communities. By reaching out to evangelicals (and other people of faith) who are flexible on reproductive issues, progressives can push the conversation in a far more fruitful direction. That discussion should include serious measures to reduce the incidence of abortion, while also affirming the right of every woman to make her own reproductive choices. And despite the howls of congressional Republicans, poor women are no less deserving of that right than anyone else.

http://hnn.us/articles/61975.html

[Warpy]

1. Churches were in the forefront of making abortion legal

because too many ministers were too used to being called into hospital emergency rooms to minister to butchered and dying women who had illegal abortions. They wanted to get it out of the hands of butchers and into the hands of doctors since they understood that desperate women would always seek them.

If evangelicals can be made to understand that they can only stop the abortions women are likely to live through, they can be brought in for a broad consensus.

However, as long as they see pregnancy and childbirth as a special punishment on women for the sin of sex, forget it. Their misogyny will trump any human feeling for mothers, sisters, wives, or daughters.

[Divine Discontent]

2. I align with most Democratic voters and politicians on this issue

I am a Christian, and despite hoping that no one chooses to have an abortion, since there are alternatives, I'm pro choice because it is no one's decision to make but your own what you do with what's going on inside of you. If a lady comes to a final decision that she cannot carry out a pregancy it's her decision. I believe God knows everything we do, why we do it, and we cannot judge what someone else's decision is based upon.

I think we're safe on the abortion side with Obama in there, could ya imagine if McCain and the stooge had gotten in office? We need change however in something you cannot choose - your sexuality - there's far too many hateful laws being passed in states that bar men from marrying men, and women from marrying women - that's anti-love, and smacks of oppression.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Well said ...

The assumption seems to be, from many sides, that if one is pro-choice, one is anti-religious. The Christian Right fomented this notion, and unfortunately, many on the Left accepted it. We've seen this in discussions on Obama's stances on many things when his religion becomes an issue.

We fail, massively, if we are unwilling to accept the religious faith of others when a great many of those people are in fact on our side.

[Divine Discontent]

6. ditto... eom

[get the red out]

4. To quote the Conservatives' higher power, Ronald Reagan,

"Trust but verify". If people are willing to accept a woman's right to make medical decisions for herself, including the termination of a pregnancy and use of/easy access to contraceptives; there is no reason they shouldn't be a part of the solution. But we do not need to appease the extremist Evangelicals by allowing them to chip away at these rights bit by bit just to keep them from screaming like babies that shit their diapers.

Also, all Christians aren't of the extremist variety. Unfortunately, in recent years, the extremists have gotten the most power and voice of any religious group in this country.

[RoyGBiv]

5. ... aren't of extremist variety ...

I think that's one of the points of this article.

Various Christian denominations have appeared more extremist and some of the followers have become more extremist in their world view in part because extremists grabbed such limelight and, essentially, bought their way into power. Falwell, Robertson, et al have controlled the message for so long because they're on television and control massive purse strings, not because they have any revealed wisdom or were beforehand recognized as especially wise about anything.

But then there's the other side where we fail to recognize the difference, and that in turn often alienates those who would otherwise work with us. The "trust but verify" then ends up going both ways.