In 1982 I was a young Evangelical Christian, junior in college and eager to win others over to my worldview. Engaged to my equally ambitious Evangelical best friend, we spent a fair amount of time listening to Christian singer Keith Green from Last Days Ministries. He and his wife Melody were deeply committed and ultra serious Evangelical Christians who were unafraid to challenge the status quo in that world. We pretty much thought of them and their work as coming from a place of a shared, kindred devotion to Jesus. The one place we, and many Evangelicals of the early eighties differed, was with respect to controlling the number of children we would have.
The Green’s were quiverful believers. They believed in having as many children as God would give them. It was a paradigm that arose in response the feminist movement where women at large had finally gained some power to live life beyond being continually pregnant or nursing a baby. The Green’s and many like them saw this freedom as humanist control and therefore a direct assault on God’s sovereignty. It was an ideological wrestling match for most of us with that kind of devotion. In the end, it made no sense to me in light of the realities of my own life as well as the deeply imprinted experience of how birth control through surgery actually saved my grandmother.
The term Baby Boomer came to us as men returned from WWII. My own mother was three at the time and within months of her father’s return was solo no more. Five babies came in rapid succession in the years that followed his return. He came home with severe and undiagnosed PTSD that made him entirely unfit for fatherhood. My grandmother was not only always pregnant but lived a life focused continually on protecting her children from this man. Rarely successful, she endured incredible pain as her babies suffered severe emotional and physical abuse. Social Services did not exist, there were no support systems in place for women and children to assist her in getting away. She and her children were trapped in hell. She told me that when her doctor, aware of what she was going through, suggested she get her tubes tied after baby number six she was so happy. She had said yes before my grandfather had a chance to weigh in and thankfully her doctor went ahead and honored her choice. This reality changed everyone’s life for the better.
Keith and Melody Green, along with a plethora of idealistic Christian teachers, rarely talked about realities like this as justification for birth control because in their minds at that time, there was none. My husband and I disagreed and chose our own path but continued to respect their choice as their own. The issue put us in the Evangelical wing of nonquiverful birth control using people and them in another. The one issue that united us, however, was our shared opposition to abortion as a means of reproductive control.
… in 1981, LDM became actively involved in pro-life ministry—beginning with the release of Melody’s article, “Children, Things We Throw Away?” written a few years earlier. This arm of LDM began to focus national attention on the plight of unborn babies. LDM also reached out to moms dealing with crisis pregnancy. Over 15 million tracts of Melody’s first message—not to mention her subsequent pro-life messages—have been translated into many languages and distributed around the world. Countless babies have been saved as well as protecting women of all ages from the trauma of abortion.
Last Days is still deeply committed to the pro-life work being done throughout the world. We encourage local church participation in pro-life ministry and post-pregnancy care of single moms.
We read all of the pamphlets, we donated money and did whatever we could to encourage women to keep their babies. In 1986 we had a baby born at 28 weeks gestation and as a result our involvement in the ProLife movement only increased. My husband became the first president of our local chapter. We were proud single issue voters and perceived Hillary Clinton as the leader of baby killing feminists.
Today, almost forty years later, we find ourselves still eager to discuss the issue of abortion but find that we are rarely able to because it is such an all/nothing, either/or issue.
There is NO discussion allowed.
No discussion about what leads to a woman choosing an abortion.
No discussion about sexually active teens and their need for birth control.
There is no discussion about the plethora of Evangelical coverups, especially among Southern Baptists who have a wide and deep problem of covering over the sexual abuse of minors.
There is no discussion about how vital social programs are for women who choose to carry their babies to term.
It is clearer by the day that the focus that is perceived to be about life is not really about life as much as it is thought to be. It is instead a focus so small, so narrow and so utterly disconnected from the whole of life that it risks making abortion equal to using a condom during sex. The two couldn’t be further apart but as a result of this unyielding obstinacy, abortion will not be, as Hillary Clinton advocated for, more rare. It will instead become more accessible, more convenient and much less mindfully approached.
Being PRO life is choosing to be engaged in the whole of life. It is facing the reality of rape, incest, poverty, disease and especially complications in pregnancy! So many factors play into a woman’s choice to seek an abortion that are entirely unseen when we are in a fixed state of NO. Sadly, a huge swath of American people live in a state of being that can be defined as fixed in just that way. I believe the sad result is going to bring about exactly what they have feared all along.
Jane Getting Real 