Barbara Harris, an Episcopal bishop in the Diocese of Massachusetts where I spent my working life as an Episcopal priest, said to me one day: “You know, Anne, this hatred of gays is really all about women.” Barbara knew. Being the first woman to be elected bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, she received death threats.
I was reminded of Barbara’s words when I recently testified at the statehouse in Augusta in support of L.D. 1619 and other bills that would expand and strengthen access to abortion in Maine. Sixty-five people – physicians, lawyers, women directly impacted and experts in the field of reproductive health – had signed up to speak in support of these bills; 650 had done the same to speak in opposition. Busloads of anti-abortion folk arrived in from churches all over. The testimony went on until 4:00 a.m. the next day.
As I was waiting in line to go through security, a young man in an American flag jacket ran down the hill yelling, “Call them baby killers. That’s what they are, baby killers.” That day, many of the 650 “pro-life” folk were young people and children. To them, and to many adults as well, an “unborn baby” can only be an abstract idea, at best. Really, it’s all about women and about keeping us in our place.
Make no mistake. This hatred is all about women.
It’s also all about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade with wanton disrespect for and disregard of women’s health and safety. It’s all about a federal court’s ruling curtailing access to the commonly used medication abortion pill mifepristone, with naked contempt for the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of the drug that has been used by millions of women to curtail unplanned pregnancies. It’s all about anti-abortion groups pushing 2024 Republican party candidates for office to support a national ban on abortion.
I have spent decades advocating for women’s reproductive health and freedom from a faith perspective. I say that a women’s right to choose is about justice, equality, health and wholeness, and respect for the full humanity and autonomy of every woman. I consider the value of a potential life as against the value of a woman’s lived life to the point when she becomes pregnant: all her experiences – joys and sorrows, hopes and fears – and her current situation, and I come down on the side of that lived life.
So, it’s all about women. It’s all about the mature and relational life of a woman deciding her capacity to continue or end a pregnancy.
I have served as a chaplain at the Planned Parenthood Health Center in Portland on the days when abortions are performed. Most of the women waiting there are young. Most already have children. Many are poor. Some are in homeless shelters or substance abuse programs. All are convinced that bearing a child at this point in their lives would endanger their lives or their welfare or the well-being or their futures. All of them are convinced that their decisions are correct. A very few are afraid they will go to hell for their decision, and it is my job to assure them that they will not.
My teacher Jesus has not a word to say about abortion. What he does show, by word and deed, that women are to be protected, respected, and honored. He defends the women taken in adultery. He has an extended theological discussion with a woman he meets alone at a well. She has never heard of Jesus and yet she is the first in Scripture to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. A woman anoints Jesus before he is arrested and crucified. Women are the first to encounter Jesus when he is resurrected. Jesus is all about women. His love is all about women.
So, I hope and pray that we Mainers will have the compassion to support L.D. 1619. It’s all about women.
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