I’m pro-life and I don’t support defunding Planned Parenthood

Far from the first time, Rachel Held Evans has described my thoughts in a much more articulate way than I could think of myself (bold emphasis mine):

Anyone else caught in this tension? I’m pro-life in the sense that I believe life begins in the womb and is worth protecting even before birth. However, 9 times out of 10, I find myself totally disagreeing with the pro-life movement’s methods for protecting that life.

For example, completely defunding Planned Parenthood with no plan to replace its other services (like offering affordable contraception, gynecological services, and prenatal care to underprivileged women), could actually lead to more abortions. Teaching abstinence-only education in public schools appears to be less effective than comprehensive sex-education at reducing the teen pregnancy rate. Simply voting for Republicans who want to make abortion illegal (even though they are very unlikely to do so and even though criminalizing abortion won’t stop it from happening) without considering how other conservative social policies affect women most at risk for having abortions seems like an exercise in futility. And opposing coverage for contraception in insurance policies seems like a great way to increase rather than decrease unwanted pregnancies.

It’s just so frustrating to agree with the pro-life movement’s ideals but virtually none of their methods, and to disagree with many of the pro-choice movement’s ideals and yet support many of their efforts to care for women in ways that are likely to decrease the abortion rate. It’s a classic stuck-in-the-middle dilemma and I’ve got no easy answers. Mostly I just find myself shouting at the TV screen no matter who is on to speak!

Look, I don’t agree with Planned Parenthood’s general ethic about sex: I don’t necessarily believe that “anything goes” so long as it’s between consenting adults using protection. I believe that the ideal placement of sex is between married couples. I believe sex is far more than a recreational act. But there is also more to Planned Parenthood than being an “abortion factory,” which it wouldn’t be, if there were less demand for abortions. I don’t know all the facts about other scandals PP has been accused of. But I do know that completely defunding an organization that does so much for women with very limited options in managing their health is a bad, bad idea.

I would love to see a world without abortion. I’m sure most pro-choice people feel the same way. I just don’t think defunding PP is the best way to make that happen. If that means I have to forfeit my salvation, so be it.

Filed under: Feminism, Religion Tagged: Abortion, Christian culture, Christianity, Controversy, evangelicals, Feminism