reproductive choice – Feminism and Religion

Women’s Bodies As Battlefield by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in the introduction to her book The Women’s Bible:

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgement seat of Heaven, tried, convicted and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity, a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants . .

We are facing the long-term results of these biblical writings. This upcoming election is so unsettling because it is showing patriarchy in all its ugliness. We see how this is being played out, especially regarding abortion, but in all areas of the functioning of women’s bodies. The reason abortion is at the foundation of it all is that the drive to police women’s bodies is the crux which justifies all sorts of cruelties. It is the same with racism. These are issues that span the pantheon of rights; human, economic, healthcare, bodily autonomy. It takes a police state to quell all of these.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Of Human Life*

This was originally posted on December 30, 2011

Watching the last episode of the Australian series Brides of Christ in which Catherine leaves the sisterhood of the convent because of her disagreement with Humanae Vitae brought me right back to the Yale Roman Catholic chapel and the folk mass I attended regularly. In 1968 just after the publication of Humanae Vitae, priest and co-graduate student Bob Imbelli preached a sermon on the doctrine of conscience, arguing that though it was incumbent on Catholics to think carefully about the papal encyclical on birth control, it was also the responsibility of every Catholic to follow her or his conscience on the matter. In the episode, Sister Catherine encourages a Roman Catholic mother of six who has already self-induced more than one abortion to take the pill, but the woman decides she cannot go against the church’s teachings. Catherine allows an editorial against Humanae Vitae to be published in the school newspaper even though she knows it will probably lead to the expulsion of one of her favorite students.

Why Pro-Life Stops at Birth: Who Really Supports Life and Why by Winifred Nathan

The patriarchal Catholic Church claims to be pro-Life. But is it pro-Life? Or is it pro-Birth? A Catholic Benedictine sister outed the pro-Life movement. Her position: the pro-life crowd shows little if any ongoing interest in life after birth. They’re pro-birth, but not pro-life. Legislators who enact laws to restrict a woman’s right to an abortion, but then stand firm against funding programs that assist the mother and her baby once the child is born are not pro-life. Too often the goal of anti-abortion advocates is for the fetus to make it to birth. Birth is the important value, life not so much.

I propose the starting point for deciphering this puzzle is to look at our desire as human beings for immortality. We want to defy death believing that there is a spiritual continuation of who we are after our bodies shut down. We want death to be a new beginning.

A great deal of effort goes into seeking an answer to the question what comes next. A question we presently lack the capacity to answer. We honestly do not know what if anything happens following death.

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