Excerpt from Reproductive Justice and an Ethic of Love
Rev. Laura Folkwein
This blog post is an excerpt from a sermon Rev. Folkwein gave at University Congregational United Church of Christ in Missoula Montana in August 2019.
When I asked a church member what he thought should be said in a sermon on reproductive justice, he said, “Jesus was about love and compassion. That is what should be said. People in difficult situations should know love and compassion.” Another colleague of mine said that the following are the church’s most important questions: “Are we loving well enough? How can we love better?” Brian McLaren, a progressive pastor and teacher sees church in the 21st Century as a “school of love,” where we are always teaching and learning how to love ourselves, love our neighbors, and love God.
If we address reproductive justice with an ethic of love like this, we might fight less on the political stage and practice that ethic by making sure that the people in our community and around the globe have the resources, the right, the space, and the time to make their own very personal decisions about their own bodies, and how and when to reproduce another human.
An ethic of love calls us to walk with everybody in the midst of the joys and challenges, and complexities of having children too—to provide good healthcare, and childcare, and education, and a solid social safety net. It calls us to offer a parents’ night out at church, or to smile gently and put the cereal back on the shelf when someone is in the grocery store with a kid having a meltdown. An ethic of love in the context of reproductive justice does not shame people who have made or are making the choice to have an abortion. To practice an ethic of love is to listen, to go to the clinic and hold a hand, and to bring soup.
Loving, for me, is also advocating to protect a person’s right to choose how and when they reproduce by taking a stand politically, against laws that limit access to contraception, abortion and reproductive healthcare overall. And loving is being willing to talk about difficult things together, listening to one another’s stories, passionate viewpoints, and experiences, without judgement. With deep breaths and hand holding, if necessary.
We can do that here in the church, I am confident, because we have God’s help.
And a lot of us, like the woman in the story,1 have reached out for Jesus’ garment ourselves. We have prayed desperate prayers on sleepless nights, or thrown up our hands in many moments of unknowing, and we have taken courageous actions for our own and others’ well-being.
One way you might practice this ethic of love today is to write a love letter to yourself, or your younger self, if that beloved person made hard choices about childbearing, family and future. Write a love note to an abortion provider, or someone you know who has made the decision of ending a pregnancy. These love notes might just say, “We focused on reproductive justice in worship at church today, and I thought of you. I love you, God loves you, and I am proud of you.” Or maybe your note will be an apology for shaming or ignoring someone who has struggled with this issue, or who you have struggled with. Only you know what your expression of love in the context of reproductive justice will be.
I also invite you to share your stories about reproductive justice with someone who will listen. Silence has a habit of feeding shame. Tell someone what you have gone through, and give them the chance to love you and honor your story. If you share your story with me, I will listen and I will pray with you. I will thank you for your courage, and I will thank God for you, as I thank God for Shiprah and Puah, and all the midwives and medical caregivers before and after them, and as I thank God for the woman who reached out for Jesus’ garment.² Amen.
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Texts:
- First Testament – The Hebrew Midwives (Exodus 1: 15-19)
15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 ‘When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.’ 17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, ‘Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?’ 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.’
- Second Testament – The Woman with the Issue of Blood (Luke 8:43-48)
43 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians,[a] no one could cure her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter[b] said, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”