Even though I was active for years in the pro-choice movement, recently I have concentrated on writing and other pursuits that I didn’t have time for when I was working and involved in the KNEA, Wichita-NOW, Mainstream Coalition, the Peace and Social Center of South Central Kansas, and other liberal activist groups. However, as an older woman who came of age before the Roe v. Wade decision, I thought I might have something worthwhile to say at the rally. A strong pro-choice statement is worth repeating as we find women’s access not only to legal, safe abortion, but also to birth control and sex education increasingly under fire.

I was a mom and college student keeping up with three small kids and my class work in the 1960s. I read The Feminine Mystique when my youngest son was a baby and had that “click” of recognition that feminists talked about. In the ‘70s, after I moved back to Kansas, I joined the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, but as a teacher I focused my activism on teacher rights through KNEA.

In 1991, I became involved in the counter demonstrations against Operation Rescue, then under the direction of Randall Terry. I also joined Wichita NOW, the Unitarian Church, and PCAL, the support group for Dr. George Tiller’s clinic. Later, I served as co-chair of the Wichita Choice Alliance and the Kansas chapter of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I also helped form ZAP, a small, fast-action street theater group.

When Julie Burkhart became the director of ProKanDo, Dr. George Tiller’s PAC, she asked me to be her back-up spokesperson. In those years, I was also doing clinic support at Wichita’s abortion clinics. Even so, I never set out to be a pro-choice activist. There are two reasons I’ve become known as one: I write letters to the editor on the issue and I’m not afraid to be interviewed on TV and for the newspaper.

Coming from a fundamentalist religious background, I have dealt with the question of morality as it relates to reproductive justice. Surely, plenty of pious talk has come out of the Kansas statehouse during the session that ended in the spring of 2011, and more talk of morality likely will come next session. That talk of morality has been couched thusly:
• in terms of making abortion safe for women, translation, the TRAP law that sets up impossible standards for clinics;
• in terms of saving fetuses from pain, translation, we know scientists who study such things say fetuses are incapable of experiencing pain until just before birth but we don’t care what they say;
• or in terms of saving taxpayers and health insurance policy holders from paying for abortions they don’t approve of, translation, defunding Planned Parenthood and forcing women to buy riders to health insurance policies to cover abortions, the “spare tire” law.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, said of reproductive justice: “… We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point… is not in a position to speculate as to the answer….It should be sufficient to note...the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth….[O]rganized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family.”

One of my friends, a Roman Catholic woman, often refers to the primacy of conscience when she talks about abortion. In her philosophy, and in mine, women are able to decide in good conscience whether they are capable of and ready to take care of a child.

All human life is sacred. One morning, the day after I’d done an interview for ProKanDo on a local TV station, one of my water aerobics acquaintances came into the Y locker room and said, “I saw you on TV last night. I thought you were ‘pro-life.’” My response? “I am pro-life. I’m pro women’s lives.”

While I’m not particularly religious, I still adhere to the basic tenets of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice: “We have a responsibility to ensure that the dignity of women and their decisions regarding childbearing are respected. We hold human life to be sacred - and that includes the life of the woman as well as the potential child. Being pro-choice means we honor all choices. It means we trust women and their families to decide whether and when to have children. In a pluralistic society such as ours, government must not impose laws about childbearing based on any one belief about when personhood begins. Government does have an important role in safeguarding the constitutional right to choose, protecting clinics, and ensuring that abortion and family planning services are available to all without regard to income.”

For years, televangelists and political extremists have claimed all religions oppose reproductive choice. "Religious Right" political groups have been so vocal that it sometimes seems they've drowned out moderate and mainstream views such as ours.

The fact is that the vast majority of Americans of all faiths agree with Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice positions. Three-quarters of Americans agree that abortion is a personal decision for women, who are often guided by their religious beliefs and values. Seventy-eight percent reject government intrusion in decisions about bearing children. Large majorities want comprehensive sexuality education to be available in schools, comprehensive reproductive health services to be available in hospitals, and family planning services to be available to all, regardless of income.

According to the RCRC statement, and here I paraphrase, people of faith have a responsibility to ensure that the dignity of women and their decisions regarding childbearing are respected. Many religious communities work for a world in which every child is wanted, loved and cared for and support birth control, family planning, safe and legal abortion, and health care for all. Being pro-choice means honoring all choices. It means trusting women and their families to decide whether and when to have children.

In a pluralistic society such as ours, government must not impose laws about childbearing based on any one belief about when personhood begins. Government does have an important role in safeguarding the constitutional right to choose, protecting clinics, and ensuring that abortion and family planning services are available to all without regard to income.

The Coalition members are national organizations from the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Association, Conservative and Reform Judaism, and many other traditions. While RCRC is religiously and theologically diverse, members agree that reproductive choice is consistent with our faith and values.

The most immoral, unjust actions are those taken by anti-choice leaders such as Troy Newman, Randall Terry, Bill O’Reilly, Donald Wildmon, and Michael Bray, among others, leaders who rouse unstable people like Scott Roeder and Paul Hill to a fever pitch, motivating them to think it is okay to kill abortion providers and clinic worker.

Despite what Sam Brownback and his preacherly group think, letting a woman use her conscience as her guide is the only moral and just stand one can take on abortion.

What we must do now in the name of reproductive justice is identify pro-choice candidates for the 2012 election, support those candidates with money, volunteer work, and whatever else needs doing, then get people out to vote for those candidates. This is our moral obligation in the name of reproductive justice.