Dear Revealer readers,

My earliest thoughts about reproductive rights began when I was eight years old and watched the movie Dirty Dancing with my parents on a VHS tape. I loved the movie, wished my family summered in the Catskills, and dreamed of taking dance lessons like Baby and Johnny. But I had absolutely no idea what was going on with Penny’s storyline. After I watched the movie a second time, I asked my mom about Penny. Without changing the topic or telling me it was something I would understand later, she simply explained that Penny had an abortion—a medical procedure for those who want or need to end a pregnancy. But, she said, abortions weren’t legal in the 1960s when Dirty Dancing took place, so women like Penny risked their lives and were often in scary situations. Her response provoked more questions from me, none of which I recall now. What I remember was my mom’s calm, ordinary affect. As she presented it, abortion was simply something that many women need and that, in what seemed like ancient history to me, the procedure was once illegal and dangerous.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

As I grew older, I learned about women in my family who had abortions. I also learned that not all religious traditions prioritize the life of a pregnant person over a fetus or embryo. And I read news stories about violent attacks on abortion clinics. I discovered that not everyone saw abortion, like my mother did, as a necessary medical procedure that some people utilize, and that powerful political coalitions had formed to make abortion illegal once more.

Decades later, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died during Trump’s presidency, I knew what was coming. My childhood view of Penny’s Dirty Dancy storyline wasn’t going to seem like ancient history much longer. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, my husband and I walked to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to join thousands of others—young people, elderly women, queer folk, and cisgender men—in protest. As we shouted, states across the country enacted “trigger bans” to outlaw abortion. And others, like New York and California, made plans to assist pregnant people from states where abortion was no longer possible. Jeff Sharlet, the first editor of The Revealer, refers to moments like this as part of a “slow civil war,” where we witness two Americas within one country.

The stories of opposition to abortion, and of the battles to make abortion legal, are replete with religious voices. Given what is at stake in the United States over reproductive healthcare, I felt strongly that The Revealer’s 2023 special issue should focus on helping people better understand the many contours of this pressing matter. I am therefore enormously pleased to present our special issue on religion and reproductive rights.

The special issue explores unexpected stories about religion’s place in securing access to abortion decades ago and today. It critiques current strategies some progressives are utilizing to widen abortion access. And it explores a range of religious communities’ positions on reproductive politics.

The Revealer’s “Religion and Reproductive Rights” issue opens with a story of how religious leaders have been at the forefront of helping people get safe abortions for years. In “The Cross and the Clinic,” Gillian Frank profiles the Reverend Elinor Yeo, a minister who, like many of her clergy counterparts, worked at an abortion clinic to help thousands of women obtain abortions before and after Roe v. Wade. Following that, in “The Religion of Reproductive Rights Claims: The Jewish Fight to Legalize Abortion,” Michal Raucher examines how liberal Jewish groups are using religious freedom precedents to argue that abortion should be legal throughout the country, and she shares her concerns about why that strategy is unlikely to work.

The issue also considers how several religious communities are responding to debates over reproductive politics. In “Rejecting the Pill,” Katherine Dugan interviews Catholic women who are opposed to contraception and investigates why they see themselves as better feminists than those who advocate for birth control. Following that, in “Ironic Progress,” Dheepa Sundaram explores how rightwing Hindu support for abortion access, rather than a sign of a progressive victory, actually advances a nationalist agenda to make India a Hindu state by promoting abortion among lower caste, Muslim, and Christian Indians. Then, in “To Be Pro-Life in an Age of Extinction,” Sophie Bjork-James explores why white evangelicals, a group that once supported legalized abortion, changed their tune so vociferously, and illuminates how white evangelicals connect their anti-abortion politics to their opposition to addressing the climate crisis. Next, in “The Racial and Religious Contours of American Family Planning,” Samira Mehta considers how Protestants have promoted contraception to create “ideal” nuclear families, and why today’s movement for reproductive justice must look at issues beyond abortion. And in “Mothers in Zion,” Amanda Hendrix-Komoto reflects on the cultural pressures Mormon women face to be mothers and how that influences their participation in today’s debates over reproductive rights.

The special issue also includes the newest episode of the Revealer podcast. Two writers from the issue join us to discuss the role of religion in the fight to make abortion access legal and in the movement to outlaw it. First, we chat with Gillian Frank about religious leaders who have helped countless people get abortions. Then, we chat with Sophie Bjork-James about pro-life evangelicals and connections between their anti-abortion activism and their approach to ecological disasters. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As this special issue demonstrates, religion’s place in debates over reproductive rights is incredibly varied. If we only focus on anti-abortion religious voices, we will have a limited understanding of the battle for reproductive freedom. At the same time, we must not lose sight of how anti-abortion religious communities are engaging in today’s politics and what they hope to achieve in the near future. These are urgent matters. And, so, I hope the insights in this special issue will bring many of us greater clarity about how to secure better reproductive healthcare and freedom for everyone.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.