Why I’m a Pro-Choice Christian

My first exposure to talks about abortion came from the conservative Chinese church I attended growing up. The youth minister, the head pastor, almost all of the adults, and almost all of the children espoused the same approach: no tolerance—abortion is wrong; it's murder; it should be illegal; and the only possible excuse for it is rape. The propaganda they fed me was the following:
  1. Pictures of how disgusting and brutal abortions were
  2. Stories of mothers who had regretted their abortions
  3. Psalm 139:13
  4. Statistics of how many babies were left unadopted each year versus how many abortions occurred

There may have been more, but that was the gist of it. There were several things that troubled me about the pro-life propaganda at our church (and, I do not believe it was at just our church—but, for now, I will concern myself with the model, not the scope).

In light of the popular evangelical campaign of the 1990s, WWJD, harping on how abortion is murder and should be illegal did not seem like something Jesus would have done. In fact, I'm sure abortions or infanticide occurred during Jesus' time. He may not have approved of it, but he spent most of his time preaching, performing miracles, and loving people. The emphasis seems out of place, in other words. We, as loving Christians, should be spending most of our energy somewhere else.

The strong association my church made between being Christian and being pro-life was also disturbing. There were, of course, pro-choice members of the congregation, but they were constantly subjected to pro-life rhetoric from the pulpit, in the Sunday School classrooms, and even in everyday conversation. What seemed odd to me about it was the idea implicit in equating Christianity with the pro-life movement that Christians somehow valued life more than non-Christians, that telling a Christian that abortion was taking a life would somehow mean more to that person than telling a "heathen" the same thing. Do not even "heathens" hold life sacred?

The quoting of Psalm 139 I found simply amusing. To our detriment as Christians, historically the church has misquoted scripture to support anything from torture and animal cruelty to slavery and misogyny. Psalm 139 speaks of God making David: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" (NIV). God's "knitting" supposedly means that David was "alive" or "human" even as a fetus and that killing him then must have been just the same as killing him at the time he wrote the psalm. But how could seminary-trained religious scholars even imagine David was singing anti-abortion rhetoric or even establishing a theological basis for a scientific view on when babies are "alive" or "human"? Didn't the church learn that what Biblical figures viewed as science is not meant to be theological truth? Isn't that why Galileo got in trouble with the church? Now, of course, all Christians believe the earth revolves around the sun. The context of the psalm (which, interestingly enough, most of the preachers I've heard quoting the psalm leave out) is speaking about how well God knows David: "Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely" (139:4, NIV), "When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (139:15-16, NIV).

I'm not a Biblical scholar, but it seems to me that David is saying God knew him even before he existed, knew him so well that David did not even have to be in order for God to know him. You could even use the passage as a pro-choice argument—that David's emphasis on being in his mother's womb shows just how non-existent he was at the time. He does speak about God's knowledge of him before he experienced life; he does speak about God knowing the words he speaks before he speaks them. The point of the psalm is really that God knows people even before their lives begin.

The tragedy for me about the misinterpretation of scripture is not so much that Christians do so to suit their own politics and agendas so much as that it makes Christianity meaningless to non-Christians. Many jaded non-Christians think you can use the Bible to support anything. Even the devil uses it for his own purposes (Matthew 4). But there is truth in the Bible. The Bible does say something (or a number of things), and twisting is twisting, distorting is distorting, and taking passages out of context is ignoring context. What amazes me is that jaded non-Christian English teachers can actually believe the Bible is more meaningless and subject to interpretation than any other text. Shouldn't English teachers know that context is important to understanding content? I could very well say that anyone could use a Hemingway book to support anything. But there are standard interpretations of Hemingway and there is plenty of context to consider when writing about Hemingway—his life, his worldview, the actual surrounding text, the word choices, etc.

My mom was a social worker. She would indoctrinate me against the church she brought me to. She would, in fact, de-program me from youth group activity and propaganda. As a devoted Christian and Chinese immigrant, she recognized the value of going to church and worshiping with other Chinese people. However, as a social worker, she also believed that many of the things I was learning at church were wrong. I was already aware that the pictures of disgusting abortions were merely a shock tactic. My mom made me recognize, though, herself having worked around adoption, that adoption is not so easy. It's a complicated and expensive process, and the babies who are being aborted are not always the babies couples want (there is a racial angle to adoption). Also, some babies don't get adopted right away, and most couples wanting to adopt do not want a toddler or young child—they want a newborn baby.

I remember there being a debate at my high school once. It was part of the 10th grade English curriculum—a speech class. Part of the speech class was the presentation to the class of a debate on a controversial subject, and someone brought up a pro-choice stance on abortion. Some of the arguments I heard from my classmates were not too intelligent (I'll write it off as 15-year-old parental brainwashing—I was lucky enough to be brainwashed by both my mom and my youth group, so I had a unique perspective). Many of them actually thought "life" did not begin until the fifth month. What does that mean—that someone injects life into a bunch of cells all of a sudden? Could you then take the fetus out of the mother at the fourth month and then put it back in before the fifth month and have it still turn out fine because life has not yet begun? Any argument that says life does not begin until such-and-such a time does not make logical sense. The baby is alive from the moment it is conceived. It is living tissue. It is not necessarily human, though. I remember one particularly volatile Sunday School teacher I had who proclaimed that he did not have two children—he had four. He counted the miscarriages. I almost laughed when I heard him say that. First of all, I knew that's not what he really thought. If someone at a dinner party asked him, "Oh, how many kids do you have?" He wouldn't have answered he had four and that two were dead. He didn't name those unborn babies. Life does not equal humanity. I stand by it. My biology is a little shaky (I was an English major, okay?) but as I understand it, a baby's life begins when a sperm and egg come together and form a one-cell organism that then splits into a two-celled organism and a four-celled organism, etc. That four-celled organism is alive, as much as bacteria or mold is alive. It isn't human, though. It will become a human, though.

It's tricky. At what point does it become a human? I don't know that we can rightly say that, anymore than we can say at what point a girl becomes a teenager or a teenager becomes a woman. I'm a vegetarian. I eat eggs, though. I love eggs. What would those eggs have become, had I not eaten them? My guess is that they would have become chickens. I don't eat chicken, though. There is a difference between a chicken and an egg, whichever one "came first."

I value the sanctity of human life not because I am a Christian but because I am a human. I do not think that contraceptives (even emergency contraceptives) and male masturbation ("spilling the seed") are the same as abortion, and I think even though you are stifling a potential human life when you have an abortion, I do not know that you're committing murder. I think it's wrong, I don't approve of abortion, I take abortion very seriously, and I'm repulsed by the idea of people using abortion as birth control. I do not equate abortion with murder, though. And, I do not necessarily think that just because I think abortion is wrong that it should be illegal.

I honestly do not know where I stand when it comes to abortion. All I know is where I do not stand. I cannot rightly say, "Have an abortion if you want! It's your choice," nor can I say, "It's wrong, and it should be illegal at all times."

Then, there is always the issue of the act of making it illegal encouraging women determined to have abortions to do so dangerously. It is not the same logic as saying that if the government makes pot illegal (which it is now) that people will smoke it anyway. If people smoke pot illegally, it is just as dangerous to their health as if they smoke it legally. If women have coat-hanger or dirty-scalpel abortions, the women could die in addition to the fetus.

Finally, there is the issue of choice: women's choice. You cannot separate the personal from politics. There is not necessarily just a right or a wrong when it comes to abortion. I have my own views, but I think whatever is decided should be decided by women. Women, of course, will disagree with each other, but a woman's body is a woman's body. I do not think men should have the right to legislate women's bodies. Every time I hear men (Christian or non-Christian) make a big hoopla about how abortion is murder and blah blah blah, I wonder if they can hear themselves. I wonder if they can hear how stupid they sound. I wouldn't mind hearing an Asian-American say, "Let's get it together. Let's be more political. Let's not be invisible. Let's not be the model minority anymore," but I'd hate to hear a white person tell me, "You. You Asians. Get it together. Be more political. What's wrong with you?" It's not the same message because it's not from the same messenger. The first says, "We have to do something. Let's change together." The second says, "What's the matter with you? I've done it. Why can't you?" I would imagine it's a similar experience to any woman (pro-life or pro-choice) hearing a man spew off about abortion. He doesn't have a right to talk.

That said, if any woman reading this thinks, "What right does he have to talk, then?" I will be the first to concede that I don't have a right to talk. If you're a woman reading this and you want to write me off and say, "he has no clue what he's talking about," it is your prerogative.

17 comments

  1. I’m a pro-choice Christian too.
    I believe a woman has the right to choose to do anything for or to her body up to the point of conception. After that whatever she does to the ‘gift of God’ is between her and God.

    Whether ‘abortion is murder’ and ‘when does life start’ are not even part of the debate. Children that are born BEFORE the cut-off time (3rd trimester) for an abortion to be done survive more and more frequently these days. I was born in the sixties almost a hundred days early. Here I am… In most countries that would be a borderline call for an abortion. (I would have taken offense to the suggestion)
    All that is irrelevant to the debate. Essentially my view is this: “God has given you something, you are responsible to Him, and to Him alone for what you do with His gift.” Plain and simple. No obfuscation about when does life start, or when is it human, or any of that other rubbish!!

    But… The bible links “child” and womb more often than not. Just an afterthought.

    1. How dare you call yourself Christian. Justify it however you want but if you truly have a deep relationship with Jesus you would never feel this way. To me you are an atheist.

      1. In your eyes, K Steffens, it’s wrong to have an abortion. You think everyone who has one or supports a woman’s decision to have one is an atheist. But just because it is wrong in your eyes doesn’t mean that someone is not a Christian. People do wrong things in other people’s eyes all the time. That goes for Christians too. You are forgiven for any wrongs you have done, are doing, or may do when you become a Christian. Just because people do wrong things in other people’s eyes doesn’t mean they’re an atheist or that they are murderers. Christians are people who make decisions they may or may not regret in the future, but they are forgiven for them. They are the people who are supposed to spread love, not hatred and judgment, which is what most people think Christians do. It shouldn’t matter if it’s wrong or not. The only person who can judge someone for that is God, not anyone else. I hope you learn to be kind and compassionate to others more. If you don’t, you’ll just drive people away from yourself and even God. You must be compassionate, not hateful and condemning. Maybe if more Christians were like that people wouldn’t fear, hate, or avoid us and God, at least not as much. I hope we can all be kinder towards others someday. God Bless all of you, no matter what your beliefs are like.

    2. I understand your viewpoint at only the most basic level. If you believe that it’s okay for a woman to do whatever she wants with her child, do you then argue that child abuse is okay? Would you then argue that a woman could kill her child AFTER birth? While I would agree that a woman would be responsible to God, does that really mean that we should not interfere with such abhorrent offenses? Should we not defend the lives of those children just because “she is responsible to God alone?”

  2. well stated thoughts, and very interesting point about the context of Ps.139. Here’s what I’ll add to the discussion:

    The negatives in the Ten Commandments are not just commands NOT to do something (Thou shall not murder), but they also infer a positive correlative that equally commands just the opposite (Thou shall protect life).

    I know a mother who neglectfully made a mistake recently by leaving her six month old in the car at Wal-mart. She is a good person; it was a terrible mistake, and of course she didn’t mean too. But she was still arrested and charged when a cop saw the baby. The law sees this as failing to protect one’s own child. Why should failing to protect the life of one’s own unborn baby not have the same consequence?

  3. hmmm,
    my view is simple … abortion is, its wrong. You can’t just kill something because it doesn’t fit in with your life.
    My (now) wife and I got pregnant before we were married and it wasn’t even an option for us. We were both highly involved in church and other christian groups, but we never once had the temptation to “sweep it under the rug”
    I agree with steve, the law is the law … it doesn’t matter what we think. To kill is wrong, no matter what stage of life it is.
    My mum has since told me of women she knows that had abortions earlier in life that are still affected by it 20+ years later.
    Abortion is selfish … “its all about me me me” / “i don’t want/can’t look after this child”

    If abortion is right (all the time or only in certain circumstances) .. then surely it must be okay to lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder, lust etc.

    You can’t dumb down Gods law just because you don’t like it.

    -bruce

    1. Yes, you can “kill” something because it doesn’t fit in with your life. It’s in your body, so you can make the choice whether or not to continue to grow this mass of cells or developing human. It is not okay to tell someone that it doesn’t matter if they can’t support a child once it has been born, you must continue to grow this child even though you don’t want to. That is just absurd.

  4. “If abortion is right (all the time or only in certain circumstances) .. then surely it must be okay to lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder, lust etc.” Have you read this statement back to yourself?
    What about your own pre-marital sex? You sit there bragging about how great you and your wife were to ignore abortion as an option, but you then conveniently ignore condemning your own actions which to my knowledge conflicts with God’s commandments (a lot more explicitly and unequivocally than the issue of abortion). You obviously love judging women you have never met but you place a loving blind spot to yourself (dumbing the law down to your own situation).
    Don’t you realise I could say the same to you, if it’s ok to have pre-marital sex and get pregnant before marriage, then it’s ok to lie, cheat, steal rape etc…

    As a Christian we should be more loving and leave the judgement to God’s capable hands.

  5. Yes, all the power to you! I’m Catholic and pro-choice as well. There are a lot of illegal operations going around in Catholic hospitals–like the fact that they don’t stock up on EC (emergency contraception) even though they’re required to.

    People sure do use some fancy words to make abortion look like the bad guy–even in cases of rape and incest. They cover up with words like “God, child, baby, kill, murder, and life.” I’m pretty sure God wouldn’t want anyone to suffer the aftermath of an unprecedented incident. I don’t know, but if I were raped, I wouldn’t want to be reminded everyday by the developing embryo of how that one person ruined my life.

    It’s sad that people are fighting against a woman’s right. If men could give birth, I bet you there would be less of a problem. You’re allowed to remove prostates, tumors, and all that good stuff that grows in you. Why not an embryo? They’re not even in the shape of a baby! If a woman doesn’t have that basic right, then you might as well take away all of our other rights. How sad that nobody supports women and their decisions.

    I say if you have a penis, you have no right to tell a woman what to do. Before a guy ejaculates, that’s their decision. The power is all on them. But anything that happens after that is the woman’s choice.

  6. I am 100% pro-wanted children all the way
    along from conception. I am against
    unwanted children, and the hated and
    unwanted fetus. I am against a fetus
    being a drug addict before birth.
    If I had been aborted, I wouldn’t ‘wish
    it hadn’t happened’. I’m neither sad
    or glad I’m here. I’m here. I’m here
    because that’s the way it went.
    Why is the unborn and the fetus more
    important than the human baby born?
    If people were concerned about the
    unborn, they would provide for the
    woman well until birth including
    counselling, help her get back into
    her life, maybe even let her ‘hide’
    from her condemning family, and also
    ensure the baby would get clothed,
    fed, educated. It’s a responsibility
    and needs follow through.
    I’m 100% for the B pill or 72 hour pill,
    which prevents conception.
    And I’m 100% for not putting any more
    onus on the female than the male.
    Often the female is guilable, stupid,
    uneducated, but males often know, don’t
    care, it’s not their problem. They’ll
    use anything ‘I love you’ and so on to
    have sex.
    It seems evil to me that Christians would
    promote what they call pro-life which can
    be ‘death’ of the woman’s social and
    emotional life, the child’s feeling of
    acceptance and future. It also loads up
    our planet with too many people which
    we can’t take care of.

  7. I did a search for “pro choice Christian” and this article came up. It is nearly 13 years old now, but exactly what I needed to read. I had been thinking I was a weirdo for thinking Psalm 139 wasn’t justification enough to be pro-life, no questions asked. This is an important time for pro-choice Christians to make their voices heard.

    1. The Bible is definitely pro choice. First life begins with breath (gen2:7&job33:4) , then in exodus it is well known babies are not counted until one month old (this of course was due to high infant morality) Jews do not require funerals until 31 days old for this reason. Only the cult Catholic Church had the view of life begins with conception before 1988. The evangelical Billy Gram told christians NOT to team up with the religious right as “they will only manipulate you” but of course they did not listen. It is easier to make a case that God is pro choice than pro life. What about numbers 5:11-31 where it gives instructions to a priest how to pray to God to cause an abortion with dirty water for a women accused by husband of cheating without a witness so we can’t stone her killing women and child, but of course curse of sterility and killing child only effective if she is guilty of cheating, this is all done to cure husband of jealousy (his feelings more important than women,s or child’s life). Then what about psalms 137:9 Happy and blessed to be is he who dashes your infant against the rock. Of course this supports infantcide which I don’t support, but it also shows danger of just taking any verse out of bible and calling it moral. Then there is that verse about being fruitful and multiplying (but the last part of the verse says) to fill the earth and subdue it. I say the earth is already filled and if we do what the cult(they believe the pope is Jesus) chatholic church says NO birth control, we will become so overpopulated we will have to force abortions, and this is what I consider as really evil. Thus my position is that the pro lifers are the real evil ones, as their position is both heresy (it twist scripture) and will
      lead to the sin of forcing abortion.

  8. Please tell me where the Bible teaches that the follower of Jesus has authority over his or her own body. “Authority over one’s own body” is the bedrock of the prochoice moment, yet the entire New Testament teaches that we give up that control and that our bodies become the temple of the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 6:19; Romans 12:1.

  9. Just wondering if it is Gods ultimate will when someone has an abortion. Does He forgive her if the woman made the choice but later regretted it for decades. If it were Gods will for her to have the baby, I’m wondering if something could have prevented her at the time. Since so many people were there to help her terminate the pregnancy, and it is an emotional, vulnerable and confusing time, is she not easily influenced by others? God could’ve put the pro life people in her life at that time instead of people with more liberal viewpoints. I like to believe that God is always in control and he can use this horrible situation, for something good and beyond our understanding.

  10. The fallacies of the pro-life movement are two fold:
    1: The pro-life movement is a misnomer, it is more correct to call it pro-birth. Once the child is born these pro-lifers want no care, education or social services to be provided for that child all the way and including our elderly and disabled. In their world those less fortunate deserve it, did it to themselves, and will receive no assistance.
    2: Those who don’t follow Jesus are not subject to God’s law. God gives no commands to go legislate and force non-Christian’s to live under his law. He instead commands you to spread the gospel, bring people to him and he will change their heart. This we have failed miserably at, much easier to hate and legislate.
    Christ has left the building……

  11. Assuming for 1 minute that the Bible literally had the passage that “abortion is wrong and a sin”, I still don’t understand why there is a push to make it illegal or impossible for people who do not follow the Bible? I was raised Catholic but left the church because of the largely accepted hate and discrimination against large groups of people (based on faith, skin color, sexual orientation, etc). I also respect the rights of other people to follow their own beliefs. The only abortion law that could violate the Bible and Christian beliefs (still under the assumption above) would be one that COMPELLS a pregnant woman to have an abortion.
    @Ima put it more eloquently than I did.

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