In an opinion piece published by the Louisville Courier-Journal, self-described “faith leader” Rev. Lauren Jones Mayfield expressed her support for legalized abortion and argued that she is aligning herself with “the oppressed.” Mayfield, who “is on the board of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky,” said supporting legalized abortion coincides with her beliefs:
As a faith leader, I am often asked, “How can you support abortion?” As a follower of Jesus, I often wonder, “How can I not?” The Abrahamic religions repeatedly tell of a God who sides with the oppressed. Today, a majority of those seeking an abortion are women of color, women living in poverty, women under the age of 25, and women without access to adequate forms of birth control. How can I not offer compassion to those who are unintentionally pregnant?
Mayfield’s moral compass is askew. There are many means by which people can express compassion for a pregnant woman who did not plan her pregnancy — condoning the murder of the woman’s offspring is not one of those means.
According to Mayfield, abortion “is a way for women to exercise their right for reproductive justice.” Seriously? Despite Mayfield’s outlandish assertions, true justice requires defending the unborn child’s life.
She then referenced “patriarchy” and “white supremacy” when she stated: “And yet, in a world, both biblical and contemporary, littered with patriarchy and white supremacy, women continue to be subjugated to politicians and religious leaders who claim to know more about their well-being then they ever could.”
Mayfield also argued:
On Jan. 17, 2017, a Guttmacher report was released stating that the abortion rate in the United States in 2014 was at an all-time low. The report reaffirms what we already know: that making it more difficult to access safe, legal abortion does not change whether women seek it. Instead, it makes it more dangerous and threatens women’s lives and health.
But even if women seek abortions and endanger themselves in order to obtain them, it does not follow that abortion should be legal.
Thieves may imperil themselves while committing a robbery, but that does not necessitate the legalization of theft; murderers may endanger themselves while they commit a homicide, but that does not mean killing should be legal. Likewise, a woman’s decision to kill her unborn baby does not require the government to legalize abortion. According to Mayfield:
This conversation is indeed about life in addition to medical privacy, a woman’s ability to time pregnancies, a family’s hope to parent without government interference, and the reality that we can dialogue about life-altering topics, like abortion, with kindness and authentic listening. Attempts to legislate individual morality impairs our collective ability to offer support and space to understand another’s journey.
Yet the issue of abortion is not an issue of “individual morality,” because it concerns two distinct individuals, the mother and her offspring.
Mayfield concluded her piece as such:
In all sincerity, “Thank God for Roe.” Legalizing abortion empowers women to find healing, exercise agency, and in the words of Dr. Willie Parker, a Christian abortion provider in the deep South, “to make a choice.” After all, this is the part of us that is like God, the part of us that is sacred.
