A Letter To Christians Who Secretly Support Roe v. Wade

Dear Christian Friends,

I’ve discovered a secret: Lots of you do NOT support overturning Roe. v. Wade. 

Last week, I received more than a dozen messages from people who whole heartedly agreed with my recent article explaining why overturning Roe v. Wade won’t stop abortion and why we should instead focus on implementing proven policies that will actually decrease the number of abortions and help women. 

Turns out y’all are very aware of the nuance of the situation and lots of you support maintaining some form of reproductive rights for women. Lots of you whom I really didn’t expect to.

I guess I’m not as alone in my perspective as I thought… and neither are you.

So why does it feel like you’re the only one in your circle who thinks that the topic of abortion should be handled with nuance, grace, and compassion? It’s probably because you’re in the same spot I was in for the last few years: too afraid to speak up about it. 

I actually wrote that recent article more than two years ago—right before the 2020 election. And then I sat on it because I was afraid of being called a “baby murderer” by friends or family (like one of my friends recently was). I was afraid of being misunderstood, judged, and yelled at by strangers on the internet. And, maybe, I was a little bit afraid that supporting abortion rights really did make me a murderer (it doesn’t, btw… banning abortion literally results in MORE deaths.)

So I stayed silent. Let everyone around me assume I still supported banning abortion.

And now, I think a lot of y’all might be doing the same thing.

Did you know that only 32% of Americans think Roe v. Wade should be overturned? That’s according to a 2021 Gallup poll. 

And while a great deal more think there should be some restrictions on the procedure, people are starting to realize that this issue is not as cut-and-dry, black-and-white, good-vs-evil as we previously thought and maybe a blanket ban is not the best solution.

Turns out a lot of us who came of age in 1990’s conservative evangelicalism have grown up to realize that life is complicated and shit happens.

The next step on this journey towards believing data instead of rhetoric is to say the facts out loud. Speak up about it. Help our people see and hold the nuance, recognize the power dynamics, and fight for people rather than issues. 

It doesn’t have to be on social media—it could be in your book club, gym, or over a glass of wine around a kitchen table. We just need to help other people realize that they are not alone in their doubts about this issue. That their questions and concerns are valid and that the data points to different solutions than the ones they’ve previously been offered.

So please. Don’t just express your support of a nuanced, multi-pronged solution to this issue with me. Talk about it with other people, too. I know it’s scary and it’s a hot-button issue. Do it anyway.

And on that note, I’m going to leave you with the words of Audre Lorde:

“We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlnessness, the weight of that silence will choke us…

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” - Audre Lorde