My God, My Body, My Decision

All Souls forum brings spiritual salvo to battle for reproductive rights

“Use self-control!” The anti-abortion protestor yelled the command at Kylie Shelley as she entered a Brookside restaurant on a Saturday evening earlier this month. Shelley, regional organizer for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, was taking a dinner break during the weekend’s “My God, My Body, My Decision” Reproductive Justice Forum, held just down the street at All Souls Unitarian Church. Those protestors who weren’t stationed in front of All Souls were in Brookside to picket Hop Bunz and Cosmo Café, two restaurants supporting the forum by donating 10% of that day’s food sales to the Oklahoma Roe fund.

“That was really interesting to me, because it all weighs on the woman,” Shelley recalls. “It could mean a variety of things. Use self-control to not have sex before marriage? Or use self-control to wait it out and have a baby that you’re not ready to have? That was an interesting thing to yell at someone.” 

    Despite the fact that access to abortion care is just one component of reproductive justice advocacy, conventional thinking usually pits Christianity as anathema to the movement. But if one of those protestors had stepped off the street and into All Souls’ sanctuary, they would have found themselves in the company of their own; Christ’s message of love and acceptance was conjured more than once. The night’s events culminated in a moving speech by the nationally renowned Dr. Willie Parker, an abortion doctor, reproductive justice advocate and devout Christian.

    “In the movement, the reproductive justice movement specifically, we always think about Christianity and religious people as being in opposition to our objectives,” Shelley says. “So I think it’s really inspiring to have someone like Dr. Parker, who provides abortion care himself, come to Tulsa and talk about how he does this because he’s a Christian, not in spite of being a Christian.”

Barbara Prose is a senior minister at All Souls and former midwife. We meet in the church’s library to discuss her role in launching the event and bringing Dr. Parker to Tulsa. 

“There is something about women and sexuality and power and control that has yet to be unlocked,” she says. “The conversation is important.”

She created the forum to give people an open, public space to talk about reproductive justice “in a broader context.”

Along with Dr. Parker, Prose brought together an interesting lineup of local luminaries including Bishop Carlton Pearson, Oklahoma State Representative Jeannie McDaniel and Dr. Kirsten Havig, an anti-human trafficking activist.

The phrase “reproductive justice” is relatively new, used to describe the labyrinth of cultural ills (from teen pregnancy and limited access to birth control to human trafficking and poverty) that all contribute to unintended pregnancies and abortion. It’s not just about being pro-choice anymore, it’s about being pro-woman and pro-community.

“It’s about women’s autonomy,” Prose says. “It’s because of a love of life and family and children that women need to be able to safely get abortions when they think it’s the right thing to do.”

Lack of contraceptive use is responsible for 95 percent of unintended pregnancies. In 2013, Oklahoma’s publicly funded family planning centers helped prevent 20,700 unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in 10,300 unplanned births and 7,100 abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. By averting unintended pregnancies and other negative reproductive health outcomes (e.g. sexually transmitted infections), publicly funded family planning services in Oklahoma saved $135.2 million in federal and state government dollars in 2010.

Prose began her career in midwifery in her early 20s. For her, there is a weaving together of the “personal and political and intellectual” between birthing babies and liberal ministry.

“I think being made in the image of God, one meaning of that is that we are given these incredible powers. We’re given the power to create life and end life,” Prose says. “Let’s do it in open and responsible ways.”

So, when does life begin?

She asks me to stop typing as she puts her head in her hands to think. “You could say life begins when we take the first breath,” she says. “It begins with the breath.”

She shakes her head, starts again. “That’s too simplistic an answer.”

She refers to Dr. Parker, the forum’s guest of honor. “He talks about life being a process. Life isn’t something that is or isn’t. We are born dying. We are all part of this process, which is creation. Our lives all get interrupted at a certain point.”

Violet Rush is pissed off. 

The founding singer/songwriter/bassist of the now-disbanded Tulsa punk band Bitchcraft is also the president of the Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a women’s rights group founded 37 years ago as part of a national coalition of mainstream religious organizations that believe in a woman’s right to reproductive autonomy. The group runs the Peaceful Presence escort program as well as the state’s only Roe Fund.

“A big reason we exist is because it’s patently unfair for a group of fundamentalists and zealots to co-opt God and religion and faith to restrict the constitutional rights of half the population,” Rush says. “We’re a religious group but we believe in the separation of church and state, and we believe that you can be pro-faith and pro-choice. We don’t see any conflict there.”

One in three American women will have an abortion by the time she is 45. Women who have abortions make up a broad cross-section of the population: 58 percent are in their 20s; 61 percent have one or more children; 85 percent are unmarried; 69 percent are economically disadvantaged; and 73 percent report a religious affiliation. No racial or ethnic group makes up a majority: 36 percent of women who obtain abortions are white non-Hispanic; 30 percent are black, 25 percent are Hispanic, and 9 percent are of other racial backgrounds.

Abortions are in steady demand in Oklahoma, with an average of 5,852 performed each year, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Despite these figures, the number of clinics where women can access the procedure is on the decline. In 1993, there were 11 abortion clinics in Oklahoma; by 2008, the number dwindled to 4. Now there are two, one in Norman and one in Tulsa.

Oklahoma has some of the strongest restrictions on abortion in the nation, including state-directed counseling with information designed to discourage a woman from having an abortion; a 24-hour waiting period before the procedure is performed; little insurance coverage available; and parental consent and notification requirements for minors.

This forum couldn’t come soon enough for women’s rights activists like Rush. “Being able to do this is a big fucking deal,” Rush says. “We are in a place where we don’t feel afraid.”

Rush expected protestors, whose zealous belief and activism are similar to hers with one difference. “I don’t care if you politically agree with us, we are fighting for your constitutional rights,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re yelling at me, I will fight for you.”

She acknowledges all people have varying beliefs about when ensoulment—or life—begins. “If you believe ensoulment begins when the egg implants in the uterus, you can have that belief,” she says. “But if you ever need an abortion, give us a call. We’re here to help you.”

On the Saturday night of the forum, while protestors accosted Brookside diners and forum participants, Dr. Parker stood at the pulpit in All Souls and told of his own journey from doctor to activist, and how he reconciles his Christianity with abortion care. 

“When we wrestle with our conscience and lose,” Parker told the congregation, “We really win.” 

Parker is a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky, and holds degrees from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Michigan. He provides abortion care for women in Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Illinois.

Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and trained in preventive medicine and epidemiology through the Center for Disease Control, he is also the physician plaintiff in the federal lawsuit preventing the closure of Mississippi's only abortion clinic. The U.S. Supreme Court may soon hear this case.

Parker recounted an experience early in his career—before he became a women’s health advocate—of listening to Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech in which King tells the story of the Good Samaritan.

This prompted Parker to do some serious soul-searching. “What does it mean to be a Good Samaritan?” he asked himself. 

His conclusion: It means doing good for someone because they need help, not because you agree with their politics or religion. With this epiphany, Parker began offering abortion services.

“Right now what we’re going through is a devolution of women’s rights, they’re slowly being eroded,” he said. “When we talk about the powerful versus the powerless, if you do nothing, you’re by default helping the powerful.”

He exhorted the audience to not let identity politics override our basic humanity, and argued that there needs to be better communication and cooperation between all groups fighting for equality and freedom. He summoned the Black Lives Matter movement as a prime example. 

“If you look at it a certain way, [Black Lives Matter] is a reproductive rights issue,” he said. Just as women have the right to terminate pregnancies, “mothers have the right not to lose their children to violence.” 

Oklahoma State Rep. Jeannie McDaniel (D-Tulsa) is in her 12th year in the state legislature. During this time, the mother of five and grandmother of eight has enacted more than 50 bills to improve reproductive rights for the women of Oklahoma. So when Rev. Prose invited her to speak at the forum, McDaniel eagerly accepted.

“I love the words ‘reproductive justice,’” McDaniel said. “It paints a broader brush. Not only for reproductive rights but other issues this trickles down to. From wages, education, healthcare and domestic violence, it’s about a woman’s right to make choices about her body.”

Oklahoma abortion numbers are hovering at the same rate while other states and countries with better family planning policies are seeing a decline. 

“We’re at about 5,000 a year. They’ve stayed the same,” McDaniel said. “We are not improving women’s health … We need to wake up and pay attention.”

Additional reporting by Josh Emanuel.

For more from Jennie, read her article on Oklahoma's largest hydroponic farm.