as a 37 year old Black woman, i never imagined a time or a world in which i would not have the right to an abortion. when i was in high school, i had a teacher who identified as a steadfast feminist. i vividly recall the day that she introduced us to Roe vs. Wade. i’d never heard of the case or the constitutional precedent that it set. abstinence was the moral and sexual expectation of young girls in my church and familial networks, and so topics such as safe sex, contraception, “teenage” and “unwed” pregnancy, and most certainly abortion, were among the taboo topics upon which we were not empowered to think for ourselves. so, when my teacher waxed passionately about Roe, it was the first i had heard about it.
i remember feeling empowered by the fact that i had a right to an abortion. i didn’t know if i would ever need or want one, but i took a great deal of peace and power in the fact that if i did, i would be within my legal rights to do what i needed to do. over the years, my analysis of Roe has become quite nuanced through my hermeneutical lens as a Black woman. but, i’ve always felt secure in the fact of my right to choose. this has never changed - until recently. until friday. i am so sad. i feel so raw and vulnerable. so unprotected. already, i find myself weighing the potential consequences of my decisions. i know that my maternal ancestors, Black women who were not in possession of their bodies and their wombs, wanted more for their progeny.
for me, Roe didn’t only represent my right to terminate a pregnancy, regardless of the circumstances surrounding my conception. it represented my agency. my power to make the best decisions that i could make for my health, my wellness, my life and my future. it represented that while i exist in a tumultuous relationship with the governing forces of the country, we could at least agree that i deserved the right to make my own, autonomous decisions about my body. we could at least agree that i possessed the self-awareness, self-reflectiveness, and decisiveness to be my own agent. today, i regret that i ever allowed myself to believe so highly of said forces. today, i’m reminded that the consolidation of such sweeping power to the Supreme Court is dangerous to people like me.
every month, i preside over the Lord’s Table. i proudly proclaim that at God’s table, there is extravagant welcome, wild grace and deep love. in Sisters Chapel, we host an open table, and as such, it gives me deep joy to welcome everyone to the Table. since my earliest days as a follower of Christ, the sacrament of Communion (i.e. Lord’s Supper, Eucharist) has been the site of my most transcendent experiences of the Divine. whether i’m in a Catholic or a Protestant table, there’s something overwhelmingly mystical about the shape of the liturgy, the necessity of symbols, and even the image of Jesus inviting “whosoever will” to dine with him. as a liturgical theologian whose work specifically inquiries of the power of language, the Eucharistic prayers and scripts have always held a special place in my heart.
every month, i speak the Words of Institution over the simple elements of bread and juice. when i take the bread into my hands, it becomes a symbol of the Body of Christ when i repeat the following words of Jesus himself: “this is my body, broken for you.” in my hearing and interpretation, i cannot help but hear a clear statement, a declaration, even, of bodily autonomy. we recite or hear these words of Jesus every time we have Communion, and we praise that he chose to “die for our sins.” we don’t question Jesus’ bodily autonomy. in fact, we celebrate it.
these words have always had a dual impact on my body and my spirit, even as i speak them in the context of Communion in my spiritual home. on the one, they serve as a reminder that anyone with a body unlike that of Jesus, (i.e. women, particularly non-white, non-cisgender, non-heteronormative women), simply cannot express the same bodily autonomy. for me, this same Jesus who models what it looks like to walk in a full awareness and reclamation of one’s flesh, also models the type of power and privilege that have been enjoyed mostly by free cisgender heterosexual, and in this country, white, men. on the other hand, these make a strong case for a Christocentric standard of bodily autonomy. we should all have the same bodily autonomy as Jesus. if he could “enter freely into his Passion1,” we should all be able to enter and live freely into the choices that we make for our bodies.
i have some ideas as to why we unquestionably allow Jesus to have, to proclaim, to assert and to walk in, his bodily autonomy. when we speak of bodily autonomy, we speak of the understanding that an individual has the right to choose what they do with their bodies, and that whatever they do with them is their business. therefore, i’ll be brief here, because the point of this reflection is not what Jesus did with his body, but that he had the right to choose what he did with it.
with his bodily autonomy, Jesus supposedly acted on behalf of all of creation when he “died for our sins” on Calvary. he made himself into a scapegoat. with his autonomy, he didn't act on his own will, but on the will of his Parent, whose purpose for sending Jesus in a body was to restore harmony with humans for all time. or, maybe we’re okay with his bodily autonomy because Jesus was male-bodied and such persons are and have always been, granted more power. maybe we’re okay with it because he gave himself up to an act of violence, and for some reason, we still haven’t deconstructed our cultural glorification of violence, especially that of the Cross.
to be sure, i know that evoking Scripture in a discourse on reproductive rights and justice is a slippery slope. The Bible has been wielded violently against women and the full spectrum of our lives, and serves as a cornerstone of the pro-life movement. even the story of the conception of Jesus raises real concerns around God’s exploitation of God’s power within the womb of Mary, and the true nature of her consent in a relationship that was laden with power dynamics.
however, evoking Sacrament is somewhat different. these holy rituals exist to remind us that we are at once spirit and flesh. we exist with God and within this world. the Sacraments remind us that we are fully embodied, fully and enfleshed, and that our bodies are sites of constant divine presence and activity. they remind that not only are we in need of grace, but they we are living in it everyday. Jesus’ words, spoken at his table, may point us in the direction of a conversation on bodily autonomy for all people, and i wonder what that conversation would mean to those most vulnerable at this critical point in time.
the real consequence of the religious, moral and legal polarization of abortion is that we forget that this isn’t only a religious issue. it isn’t only a moral issue. this isn’t only a political issue. this isn’t some superfluous hot topic of debate. this is about women, our families, our agency, and the status of our citizenship. this is about women’s lives. this is about anyone who can become pregnant, whether they want to be or not. this is about real people with lives.
real people who agonize over the decision to terminate.
real people who are unable to survive a pregnancy, or to bring it to full term.
real people who have no desire to live with, or to raise, a daily reminder of a rape, an incest, or some other unfortunate event that results in an unwanted pregnancy.
real people who have no desire, or who are are not ready, to be mothers. real people who can’t afford another child.
real people who do not have, or cannot afford, access to quality healthcare for themselves.
real people who do not have the support system to be able to raise a child.
real people who refuse to relinquish their agency and control over their bodies.
it’s not only about the women who decide to terminate. it’s about those of us who support their decision.
real people, such as the upright providers, who formally train to be able to provide safe, high quality care, often at the risk of their own safety and protection. who view their work as a necessary category of women’s healthcare2.
real people, such as at the clinic staff who use the triage period to affirm a woman’s decision and to assure them they are in good care.
real people, such as the clinic escorts, who physically walk with women through lines of protestors who’ve come to dissuade and shame women for coming to the clinic. who stand as a buffer between women who are seeking care and those who seek to do them harm.
real people, such as the clergy, who sit with women for prayer, and to provide spiritual presence in an otherwise isolating moment. who use their pens and pulpits to demystify reproductive matters, and who embody a theology of grace and goodness, and who help us to commune with God who actually loves women, loves the LGBTQIA+ community, loves Black folk, loves us.
real people, such as the staff of national and local reproductive care organizations, such as SisterSong, NARAL, and The Afiya Center, who devote their lives to political advocacy, helping patients pay for abortion care, public awareness raising, sex education, and provision of counseling and otherwise resources.
real people, such as the legislators and politicians, who refuse to use their power, afforded to them by the vote of the People, to ban a woman’s freedom to choose what’s best for her. people such as Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Breyer, whose poignant dissent well states the sadness of so many of us:
“With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection, we dissent.”
these real people believe that women are capable and worthy of making our own decisions. we need them. i lift them in my prayers and intentions.
excerpted from the current Roman Catholic Eucharistic prayer. this wasn’t always a part of the Eucharistic liturgy, so i find this update striking and important. when i’m on break for the summer, i worship at a local Black Catholic parish. so, i’ve heard these words every Sunday for the last month.
in my original post, i recommended a book by a certain practitioner/author who has since been accused of sexual misconduct by several women of color in the reproductive justice movement. i thank a good friend and sister for reading this and informing me. i have updated this post to omit any reference to him or his work.