At the start of Brett Krutzsch’s editor’s letter he reflects on his first experience engaging with reproductive rights via the character of Penny, in the movie Dirty Dancing. In response to his eight-year-old confusion about Penny’s situation, his mother calmly explained Penny’s need for an abortion—a necessary and not uncommon procedure. With time, Brett learned that “not all religious traditions prioritize the life of a pregnant person over a fetus or embryo,” and that his mother’s perspective on abortion was far from universal. Despite these conflicting perspectives, one would never have imagined that decades later, in June 2022, Brett and his husband would gather with thousands in Washington Square Park to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade—that after fifty years of progress, women’s rights to bodily agency and reproductive freedom would be on the chopping block.
This special issue of The Revealer delves deep into the religious nuances and perspectives on the reproductive rights debate. It unpacks assumptions and misconceptions about religious practitioners’ views on abortion—sharing often unexpected stories about religious, pro-choice advocates and the unexpectedly conservative ideologies underpinning some progressive perspectives. Of course, as Brett writes, these insights are not intended to obscure the harmful ways that anti-abortion religious communities are currently engaging in politics; but rather, to provide “greater clarity about how to secure better reproductive healthcare and freedom for everyone.”
The Revealer’s October special issue begins with “The Cross and the Clinic”—a story by Gillian Frank profiling the Reverend Elinor Lockwood Yeo. Reverend Yeo, like many of her clergy counterparts, worked at an abortion clinic in Milawaukee to assist thousands of women obtain abortions before and after Roe v. Wade.
Michel Raucher then examines the ways that liberal Jewish groups employ religious freedom precedents to argue for the legality of abortion across the country. In “The Religion of Reproductive Rights Claims: The Jewish Fight to Legalize Abortion” she critiques this strategy, sharing her concerns about its shortcomings.
Building on the pieces by Frank and Raucher, Katherine Dugan interviews Catholic women opposed to contraception in “Rejecting the Pill.” She considers their claims to being better feminists than those who advocate for birth control.
In “Ironic Progress: The Hindu Right’s Expansion of Abortion Access” Dheepa Sundaram considers a surprising twist on abortion access. Rather than a sign of progressive victory, right-wing Hindu support for abortion access becomes a tool for advancing a nationalist agenda to make India a Hindu state.
Like Sundaram, in “To Be Pro-Life in an Age of Extinction,” Sophie Bjork-James considers the religious community contours of the abortion debate. She illuminates how white evangelicals, a group that once supported legalized abortion, now connect their anti-abortion politics to their opposition toward the climate crisis.
Bringing together race, religion, and Protestant perspectives on contraception, Samira Mehta argues in “The Racial and Religious Contours of American Family Planning” that the current movement for reproductive justice must push beyond issues of abortion.
Finally, in “Mothers in Zion,” Amanda Hendrix-Komoto unpacks the cultural pressures Mormon women face to become mothers. According to Hendrix-Komoto, these pressures are not separate from these women’s participation in today’s debates over reproductive rights.
Our October special issue also includes the latest Revealer podcast, “Religion and Reproductive Rights,” featuring conversations with two contributors to the special issue. Gillian Frank joins The Revealer’s Brett Krutzsch to discuss religious leaders who have helped countless people receive abortions. And Sophie Bjork-James dives into pro-life evangelicals’ connections to anti-abortion activism and ecological disasters. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
