The narrative we most commonly hear is that abortion is deemed a moral failure. This narrative is driving the political debate around a woman’s choice about her body. This completely ignores the historical fact that women around the world have been subjugated to oppressive male dominated societies. Women have never had autonomy to make decisions about their bodies. In the Bible a woman is ‘caught in the very act’ of adultery and thrown at the feet of Jesus in the expectation that He would make the final declaration her guilt. In doing so, Jesus would have justified her accusers stoning her to death. Within this account, no mention is made of the man with whom the woman was caught ‘in the very act’ of adultery. She was to be killed for the very sin in which they had both participated. The male participant was to go free without any punishment.
Sally Hemmings was a 14 year old child when she was taken to Paris by her enslaver Thomas Jefferson. There she was forced to perform the very act. Each act resulted in her incubating her enslavers sperm to produce children whom he went on to enslave back in his Monticello home. History claims that at least 5 children were produced in these very acts and each human produced was enslaved from birth due to the laws of the land mandating a child born to an enslaved woman was automatically enslaved.
In the late 19th century the term ‘honky’ became part of the African vernacular. This related to the fact that any white man could drive his car along any road or street or even into the yard or property of a then freed African American and just honk his horn. The children were heard to say, ‘the honky is here’. At this point the man of the house, her husband would have to skulk away and let the white man have his way with his wife, daughters or any other female under his care and protection. Hence the term Mother F’er. That is the white man who would F’ your mother.
The non-disclosure agreements that women have been made to sign over the years, were merely ways of exploiting women in the workplace. If they wanted to keep their jobs, they could not disclose of the sexual harassment, or very act they endured on a daily basis.
The Southern Baptist Church, the pillar of sexual morality is now being investigated by the United States Justice Department for its role in hiding the hundreds of pastors and leaders who have been accused of sexual molestation. Yes, even these pillars of purity were involved in the very act. The church has not only been silent but actually complicit in these abuses. Women turned to abortion as the world offered them an alternative that the church refused to offer.
This has always been a part of Jewish law and Christian tradition. In the Hindu and Islam faiths for a woman to bring shame on her home and family is a deed worthy of death. In the American Christian church, a woman was often required to stand before the congregation and confess her evil behavior and could be excommunicated or expelled from fellowship. No such punishment was meted out for the man who impregnated her. His name would never come to light.
The moral failure was placed upon the woman. That narrative still drives the debate. Whether one believes life begins at conception or at the time of delivery, the morality of the issue begins before the actual consummation, or sexual intercourse. Poor women tend to make poor decisions. The disparity seen in the number of abortions in African American women is more reflective of their socioeconomic status than their lack of a good moral compass.
Poor women follow the ‘traditions’ of making the decisions their mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers made and will continue to do so unless there is an economic or social advantage to decide otherwise. These are not decisions devoid of morality. Rather these are decisions influenced and impacted by the moral choices that are made about them. Access to childcare, good jobs, education, healthcare, and decent housing impact the decisions to have or not have children. To become sexually active is most often a desire for intimacy and pleasure in a society where women are called to perform acts and shut up or face the consequences of shaming. This is a moral failure borne by society as a whole.
For poor women, it is not poverty of morality that drives these decisions, but poverty of hope. To address abortion exclusively as a moral failure without recognizing the moral failure that creates the poverty of hope is to, once again, ‘catch her in the very act.’
This brief essay should bring shame to those of us who use abortion as a cudgel of morality while not accepting our own role in ignoring the injustices meted out to women, especially poor women. I would posit that Jesus would say to us, just as He told the woman, Go and sin no more.
John 8:3-11 King James Version (KJV)
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.