There is no question that the Christian community is the driving force behind the anti-abortion movement in America. A Pew Research Center review of outside literature tells us where major religious groups stand on abortion.
Some religious groups have little or no ambivalence about abortion. For instance, the nation’s largest denomination – the Roman Catholic Church – opposes abortion in all circumstances. The second-largest church, the Southern Baptist Convention, also opposes abortion, although it does allow an exception in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.
Other sizable religious groups in opposition to abortion with few or no exceptions include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and the Assemblies of God, the largest U.S. Pentecostal denomination. Hindu teaching also is generally opposed to abortion.
It’s intuitive to surmise that Christian women would have fewer abortions than women of different religious preferences or women who don’t affiliate with any religion at all, but that’s not the case.
Christian Women get abortions at the same rate as non-Christian Americans.
In one study, Pew Research tells us that in the U.S., Christianity has been on the decline, and in 2015, 70% of Americans identified as Christian. In that same year, a Christian abortion alternative network, Care Net, commissioned an abortion study performed by Lifeway Research, a Christian research organization. Their findings? Not what one would expect.
In 2015, 70% of abortions were performed on Christian women, the exact same percentage as Americans who identify as Christians.
The study commissioned by Care Net and conducted by Lifeway Research was quite extensive. There were approximately 90 questions. The report is 95 pages. Below are just a few of many interesting findings.
Methodology
- A demographically balanced online panel was used for interviewing American women between May 6-13, 2015
- Quotas and slight weights were used to ensure the sample matched national totals for ethnicity, age, income, and region
- This nationally balanced sample was screened to only include those women who indicated that had ever had a pregnancy termination/abortion medical procedure
- The completed sample is 1,038 surveys
Page 32
- Seven in 10 (70%) women who have had an abortion indicate their religious preference is Christian
Page 36
- 52% of churchgoers who have had an abortion have no one at church who knows they have had a pregnancy terminated
Page 42
- 44 percent say they attended a Christian church at least once per month or more at the time they aborted their child.
- 20 percent of the respondents attended church at least once a week at the time of their first pregnancy termination.
- 6 percent said they attended church more than once per week.
- 54 percent said they rarely or never attended a church
Page 12
- 76% of women indicate local churches had no influence on their decision to terminate their pregnancy
Page 18
- 30% of women who have had an abortion indicate they have had more than one pregnancy termination or abortion
Page 20
- 49% of women who have had an abortion agree that pastors’ teachings on forgiveness don’t seem to apply to terminated pregnancies
The anti-abortion Christians sure do want you to think that they are holier than thou on the abortion issue. Hypocritical is a perfect description for Conservative Christians who call themselves pro-life but don’t want to fund daycare, food programs, etc. for babies born into economically disadvantaged families.