When Savita Halappanavar died, it woke up Ireland.
But Amber Therman isn’t enough for the US.
If I cared about life, if I cared about pregnant women and their health, I’d be looking at why black women in the US are 3.5x more likely to die in childbirth.
I drive past a Planned Parenthood when I go to work sometimes. We’ve already banned abortion here, but those fuckers will be out with their gore posters. There are children that are hungry in our city, there are children being abused and neglected because Child Protective Services is no longer functioning here after being sacrificed at the altar of Parental Rights - but these “Christians” aren’t protesting that. They’re protesting abortion at a place that doesn’t provide abortions anymore.
”The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
Methodist Pastor David Barnhart