If you ever want to see the moral and spiritual decline of America, go to a Supreme Court rally about abortion.
From signs using every version of the F-bomb to warnings to stay out of female reproductive organs to calls to “DeScrotus the SCOTUS” and “I loved my F*in abortion!”, the religion of abortion zealotry was holding church on the steps of the highest court in the land. Lots of young and old activists and mothers with young children were shouting praises to the violence of abortion, seemingly oblivious to their own fragile existence that escaped it.
My wife and I were asked to speak at the Women’s Health Matters rally in the same spot before a building whose facade proclaims: Equal Justice Under Law. Oh, the irony of how many times the Supreme Court has gotten that wrong. Their supremely misguided rulings have violently denied millions of human beings equality which is what brought us to DC that day. Our side was fighting the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) illegal erasure of their own medical standards for the abortion pill mifepristone, used in DIY chemical abortions. Not only are the unborn violently denied their equality under law, but women are as well by a government agency that sides with pill-makers over people. A massive 46% (or $3.3 billion) of the FDA’s $7.2 billion 2024 budget comes from -- drum roll please -- pharmaceutical and medical device companies. No conflict of interest there, of course.
The Food & Drug Administration claims on its website: “The FDA’s work, high standards, and decisions are guided by science and focused on protecting and promoting the public health.” Yet, there is no scarcity of peer-reviewed articles and news reports about the FDA’s repeated failures to use science to protect public health (here, here and here). In the FDA v Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine lawsuit, a large coalition of pro-life physicians and other medical professionals were simply demanding that the FDA do their job. The AHM called out the taxpayer-funded agency for “unlawfully removing crucial safety standards for pregnant women who use the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.”
Women deserve so much better than the violence of abortion whether at an abortion mill or in an abortion pill.
So, one side of rally was demanding, at minimum, the return to the FDA’s own safety standards. The other side was demanding zero standards literally celebrating dangerous DIY abortions. Well, welcome to the Back Alley 2.0!
One woman I talked to held a sign that warned: “Don’t let Churches Run the FDA.” I asked her what made her think churches or religion had anything to do with the court case. She said: “It’s the religious right that wants to control everything, and they want to tell us what we can do with our bodies.” I asked her: “What does this have to do with churches or religion if the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is simply asking the FDA to return to their own safety standards? Was the FDA using religion when they created those standards?” She stumbled but stuck to her placard propaganda: “Those doctors are really religious, and they should have no say.” Got it. So, doctors with moral consciences and ethical values regarding human life need to be silent. Thankfully, thousands of pro-life doctors across the country let their voices be heard.
Sadly, not one single church did. There were no churches standing in solidarity with women harmed by DIY chemical abortions there that day. There were no leading pastors demanding the protection of all of those made in God’s image. Not one. So, it struck me as painfully funny to see a sign suggesting the Church’s involvement. How different this fight would be if churches rose up across the nation to show love and compassion in ending our abortion crisis.
The factivist in me couldn’t help but try to engage others that day in civil conversation. One young man, with my brown complexion, held a dry erase board that proclaimed: “Keep Abortion Legal.” So, I asked him why he felt that way. He immediately launched into a diatribe about how “pregnancy is dangerous” and “no one should ever force a woman to give birth.” I said: “Walking across the street is dangerous. 8,000 pedestrians a year die from that. Driving a car is even far more dangerous. But shouldn’t we be supporting women with better pre-natal and post-partum healthcare and supports like pregnancy resource centers to help reduce risks?” He rejected it and said abortion was a form of self-defense.
Reason was definitely not on the menu that afternoon. He would jump from one talking point to another ignoring his own contradictions. When I told him that abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community (364,623), he loudly objected and insisted it was gun deaths. I explained all homicides of black lives amounted to just shy of 14,000. But he was immovable. After ten minutes or so, I thanked him for engaging and told him I loved him because we’re all created in God’s image. He was a little stunned by my words.
As my wife and I exited, we came across a young woman holding a sign declaring: “Adoption is Human Trafficking.” I asked if she was adopted or a birth mom. She wasn’t. I shared my story of being adopted into a family of 15 and being adoptive parents. She was unmoved and said, dismissively: “White colonial parents turn indigenous children into sex slaves.” She insisted black and brown children are only harmed by adoption, so the only way to prevent that was…abortion.
These interactions at the Supreme Court were not in any sense rational. There is a spiritual battle waging all around us that blinds eyes, deafens ears and hardens hearts beyond comprehension. This supreme mess that is abortion zealotry requires more of us to love, more people to speak, more people to be that help and hope. I’m in. Are you?
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