Tolkkinen: This is the sliver of common ground in the divisive abortion debate

ALEXANDRIA, MINN. – It’s not every day you hear a panel of evangelical women admitting they had abortions.

The women came from the Dakotas to speak at a church in Alexandria on Monday at the request of Steve Boyd, who is running a primary campaign against U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach.

For a conservative Christian town like Alexandria, the audience wasn’t huge, about 80, leaving many empty seats. Boyd said more people show up at public hearings on wolves.

It’s too bad. These women have a story worth hearing. For one thing, it takes tremendous courage for any woman, especially an evangelical, to admit to having an abortion. For another, though they might not realize it, they walk on a rare sliver of common ground with pro-choice advocates who are trying to destigmatize abortion.

From the left, it’s “Shout your abortion.”

From the right, it’s “We are women who have chosen not to be silent,” as Jody Clemens put it. Clemens started the North Dakota chapter of Forgiven and Set Free, a group that reaches out to women who are suffering from guilt and shame because of their abortions, and which has been speaking out about Christians who have abortions.

The latest research shows that 1 in 4 women will have an abortion in her lifetime. And although research also has shown that as many as 4 in 10 women who have had an abortion attend church regularly, these women often encounter a culture that ensures they remain silent.

Said Clemens: “We hear things like this: ‘It’s so disgusting.’ ‘What a shameful woman.’ ‘What woman would ever do such a horrible thing?’ ‘Don’t they know abortion is murder?’”

In evangelical circles, the perception of women who have abortions is that they must be from “broken homes,” or women who live on the street, she said. But in reality, it could be the woman sitting in the next pew.

“Who do you think is this woman who’s having an abortion?” Clemens said. “People have so many misconceptions.”

The five women on the panel said they grew up in Christian homes. One was a pastor’s daughter. One was studying to become a midwife. One was teaching. One was 17. One had watched her mother trapped in an abusive marriage and vowed not to be like her. They felt they had no choice but to terminate their pregnancies, for a variety of reasons that are common to all women who make the same, difficult decision. Some were scraping by financially; one was afraid of losing her job, another afraid of the judgment of family and society.

They all said they regret having an abortion and that their abortions changed their lives in negative ways. The woman who wanted to be a midwife found herself unable to continue the program. Two said they came close to suicide. One woman, once she married, lived in fear that her husband would learn her secret and divorce her.

These stories, too, are important. Their experiences with grief and shame and need for redemption might be heavily influenced by their environment, surrounded as they were by anti-abortion sentiment throughout their lives. But they are nevertheless real and an important part of the abortion experience. We need to listen to each other, but the abortion debate is so polarizing that neither side wants to grant any credibility to the other side for fear of losing ground.

The panel of women, who call themselves “post-abortive ladies,” needs to listen to the other side, too. There was no mention on Monday of the women unable to get abortions even in extreme situations in states with strict bans, such as the Oklahoma woman with a molar pregnancy who was told to wait in a hospital parking lot until her health reached a crisis point, at which time the hospital would help her. Yet those stories are just as real and important as their own.

And it would help for them to develop self-awareness. They cheer the shuttering of abortion clinics, then bemoan the dangers of taking abortion pills without medical supervision.

They say that society needs to step up and help pregnant women so that they don’t terminate their pregnancies. Yet critics charge that the states with the strictest abortion laws are the least likely to support mothers and children.

And in shutting down abortion clinics and pursuing punishing laws, they’re moving further away from their goal of ministering to women who regret their abortions. Because not only do those women have to deal with condemnation from fellow churchgoers, they also risk running afoul of the legal system if they were to admit having an abortion.

Conservative Christians are getting a glimmer that despite their work, all their organizing and all their political compromising, the overturning of Roe v. Wade hasn’t met their expectations. The number of abortions went up in 2023, not down.

If nothing else, a shift away from harsh rhetoric around abortion would help everyone — those who feel guilt from their abortions and those who were relieved they had the choice.