The 80% Solution: Christians Doing the Right Thing

By Donald R. Barbare

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469195391

Donald R. Barbare

A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW After sending me off to Catholic School, my parents discovered that I held a different point of view, one that often squared me off with the priests and nuns trying to ensure I stayed on the right side of the ledger and escaped the fiery furnaces. Fortunate for me, I learned to think for myself at an early age, thanks to my mother and father who were the same ones that taught me not believe everything I heard. Although just six-years-old, I could read the signs that said “No Negroes Allowed” and “Colored Water Fountain,” which were common during that time and provided me with a different point of view about “rocking the boat.” I knew when to open my mouth and when to keep it shut because danger rested at every corner until I reached home. Nevertheless, growing up in a country town prepared me for a world that was about change quickly. I remember setting in the “colored only” balcony at the movies, but it would not be long before I sat anywhere I pleased, and my different point of view served me well. A freethinker since a child, I always wanted answers. I wanted to know “the why, to the why.” More times than not, the answers provided only partial solutions and I started from that point and kept going until I was satisfied. That inquisitive nature led me to a career as a journalist and two college degrees. Although, I left the print industry, what I learned there helped me become a better researcher and sharpened my eye for the truth. Even as a child, I read constantly and retained information like a sponge, but it was my ability to ask the tough or embarrassing question that marked my search. What was I searching for? I did not have an idea, but I knew I would know when I found it. When the answer came, I felt embarrassed that it had not occurred to me sooner. Knowledge! That was the answer. Knowledge. Upon acquiring knowledge, I suddenly became aware of how much there is to know and how little time I had to acquire it. More importantly, I also learned that the quest for knowledge never ends. For many, the answer is contentment. They found an answer and stopped, but there are many answers, the correct one is not always, where we stop. “I became a skeptic as soon as I was old enough to tell someone. My Catholic School education solidified my thoughts, as there were plenty of questions, but no answers that didn’t ask me to check my mind at the door. Even with my parents, “Because I said so,” was never good enough. That searching and challenging nature led me to a communications career in newspaper, television and radio.” Donald R Barbera, 2012 Don is a graduate of Pittsburg State University and holds degrees in Journalism and English. With nearly 20 years in print journalism, he is an experienced writer and instructor, having held adjunct faculty positions at three universities. He has written hundreds of newspaper stories and articles, as well as a book of poetry, “Until It Ropes Like Okra,” non-fiction titles such as “Black and Not Baptist.” A man for all seasons, he has been a journalist, photographer, editor, radio news announcer, feature writer, and television personality. Don’s other work includes numerous appearances in small poetry magazines and opinion columns. He and his wife Deedee have three sons and two grandsons.

Book preview

Getting Started

Writing about religion is a complex multifaceted task and this book holds no illusion of even scratching the surface of today’s American religious scene much less of being an exhaustive study of how religion affects behavior in the United States. I am aware this book will not change the minds of those prompting it because they will not read it. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to address the issues so vociferously espoused by the Evangelical Right.

Evangelical Christians in the United States insist they have a better way of living. Understanding the idea is straightforward, the Evangelical Christian way would produce a better, more moral and ethical American society. With that in mind, I tracked documented Christian behaviors considered both desirable and undesirable. With the vaunted claims of the Religious Right, I looked for a clear difference in behavior compared with non-Christians. I collected information from various publications, including multiple Christian sources. I also targeted Protestant Christian pastors, understanding that they are not reflective of the flock, but in the best cases, they should be.

To facilitate understanding and present information in an organized fashion, I divided the book into the sections, all of which present different views of Christianity in the United States, including facts, figures, and opinion. Section I, The Issues, concentrates on concerns commonly brought up by the Evangelical Right, tarred, feathered and dragged through the streets by a press that has nothing better to do. Every chapter is a standalone piece about a particular subject regularly captured in the nation’s headlines like, abortion, premarital sex, teen birth rates, contraception, the death penalty, and same sex marriage. Each chapter examines the well-known morality claims, laws, commandments, or beliefs of Christianity and compares them with the documented behaviors of today’s followers. Other chapters in the section explore less discussed, but equally important topics such as adultery, divorce, pedophilia, abuse, and the prosperity gospel.

Section II, A Closer Look, investigates the state of Christianity in the United States and contains information about the stack of issues facing the church such as shrinking attendance, loss of membership, and a reputation that dwindles each day in no small part because of the judgmental approach of the Evangelical Right. It is a mixture of fact and opinion regarding the problems facing Christians today including an analysis showing the controversy generated by the Evangelical Right is mostly a case of Christian infighting.

Finally, in Section III, Source of the Problem, I close out the book with a topic that I have long thought about, but only recently has the media discovered it. Religiosity skews heavily toward the South nowadays; yet, despite elevated rates of religion in the South, it is easily the most dysfunctional part of the country, and seems mired in the past, steadfastly refusing to move into the 21st century. While I am not the first author to write about it, from the long list of negatives attached to the South, I believe it is past time to shine the light where it belongs.

Research for this book came from various places including numerous Christian magazines, newsletters and websites, as well as national newspapers, best-selling books and other materials. I spent many hours at the public library and used the Internet as a search tool as well as a research partner. I tried to be careful in selection of research from the Internet by verifying stories and articles at least three times, often more. Wherever possible, I used research from Christian sources. The reader will notice an abundance of information from the Barna Research Group and the Gallup Poll and it is by design, as both have established Christian links. If there is prejudice in their data, then it is bias by those researchers.

Investigations of this type are demanding as new events, studies, books, and research happen each day, making it difficult to remain current. I started this book in May 2005. In August of 2011, I decided to stop the research and start writing. I tried to remain current and present only the most up-to-date information available, but in an age of constant change and instant communications, the best any of us can hope for is to stay close.

I tried to keep my writing at an accessible level and focus on the salient points about belief and behavior. Admittedly, this report is not scientific in any sense nor is that its intent. Rather, It is what it is, a gathering of information comparing stated belief with documented behavior. If I have any advice for the reader, it is to keep an open mind. Unfortunately, I found it nearly impossible to avoid the mention of politics when discussing some religious matters, as they are joined at the hip and when I started, it was an election year. Where appropriate, I write about it although I believe mixing the unwieldy wedge of politics into the brew along with religion distorts rather than clarifies.

For this writing, I am unconcerned with the behavior of non-Christians. My focus is comparing the stated beliefs of Christians with documented behaviors. I will speak of the Evangelical Right, which is my main concern, but I will also refer to them as Fundamentalists, Right Wing Evangelicals, Conservative Christians, and the Christian Right. Although, I mentioned the role of Evangelical Christianity had in finally spurring me to write about something I try to ignore; when I write of Christians, I refer the entirety of Christianity in the United States. Although I will mention evangelicals, born-agains, and Catholics, they are all Christian just as those that seem Christian in name only. The main purpose of this book is to show that Christianity has little or no affect in changing bad behavior despite claims by American religionists that without the God of their religion, the country would sink into moral chaos. The book will make it clear that US Christians do as they please despite the presence of God and their stated beliefs.

After examining the issues publicized by the Evangelical Right compared with the actions of the United States’ overwhelming Christian majority population, it is difficult to avoid concluding the problem lies within American Christianity. If that is the case, the answer also resides there: Christians doing the right thing—acting like Christians.

Section I: The Issues

Chapter 1: Abortion—American Inquisition

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.—Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973

Incendiary comments by outspoken Evangelical Christian anti-abortion figureheads portray the procedure as an evil perpetrated by the non-Christian left. In response, The Center for Reason, a private research group, undertook a study to test the premise: Christians have fewer abortions than non-Christians. The results disprove the premise.¹ With nearly 80 percent of the population claiming Christianity, it should be no surprise the largest population receiving abortions is Christian.

ABORTION AMBIGUITIES

Of those receiving abortions in the United States, 65 percent are Christians, 37 percent are Protestants, and 28 percent are Catholics.² Also, one out of six abortion patients describes herself as a born-again or an evangelical Christian,³ making it clear that Christian religionists need to start preaching to the choir as it appears their robes are dirty. Those professing no faith make up 22 percent of abortion patients.⁴

There were 1.21 million abortions in 2008, down from 1.31 million in 2000.⁵ Even though rates dropped, abortion splits the United States at the voting box, but research shows that evangelicals are just as likely to seek abortion and that many are two and three time visitors. Many Christians who wind up at an abortion clinic end there precisely because of religion. Rather than face the religious judgment of family and friends, many women opt for the abortion clinic. Ironically, almost a quarter (298,569) of all abortions take place in the states of the old Confederacy—the most religious portion of the country.⁶,⁷

Abortion protesters often try to label women who receive them as afraid of being mothers, but more than likely they are wrong as 61 percent of women having abortion are already mothers.⁸ The Guttmacher Institute agrees saying that women with one or more children account for nearly 60 percent of abortions in the United States.⁹ In addition, married women obtain 17 percent of all abortions.¹⁰ A group that religious anti-abortion advocates should know well is the 46 percent having abortions that did not use contraception during the month they became pregnant. Large portions are teenagers that come from religious backgrounds opposed to teaching contraception.¹¹

Despite anti-abortion advocates desire to blame rates of abortion on teenagers, more than half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women having abortions each year are 20 or older with employed women accounting for nearly 70 percent of abortions in the United States.¹² In addition, abortion rates are much higher for women living in poverty, as three quarters of women getting abortions say they cannot afford a child,¹³ but it is not a service used solely by the poor, as women whose household incomes are $50,000 and more obtain 11 percent of abortions.¹⁴ At current rates, about half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy, and more than a third will have an abortion by age 45.¹⁵

Obviously, life, financial considerations, or even inconvenience can trump religion when it comes to abortion. As the statistics show, despite the shrillness of the debate, one point is clear; Christians use abortion services more than any other group in the country making it known that Christianity has little affect in reducing the demand. Not surprising, more than one third of born-again adults believe that abortion is a morally acceptable behavior.¹⁶

The lowest abortion rates in the world—less than 10 per 1,000 women of reproductive age—are in Europe, where abortion is legal and available.¹⁷ The highest rates of abortion occur in countries that severely restrict abortion like Nigeria, Mexico, and Brazil.¹⁸ In the United States where claims of religion are strong, abortion is highest when compared with other industrialized countries.

Today, abortion deaths in the United States dropped to eight a year compared with nearly a thousand in 1950.¹⁹ Those unaware of abortion’s history do not realize that it was a leading cause of maternal mortality in pre-Roe America, and it remains so today in many developing countries where abortion is illegal. Worldwide, more than 200,000 women die each year because of illegal abortion related procedures.²⁰

Population and resource concerns often override religion when it comes to survival especially where poverty reigns or when societies become modernized. In Uganda and the Philippines, the desired family size has fallen sharply since the 1980.²¹ In both countries, modern contraceptive use remains low, leading to high rates of unintended pregnancy. As a result, both countries’ abortion rates have surpassed that of the United States, despite each having strict abortion bans combined with strong religious and cultural traditions condemning the procedure. Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria and Peru all banned abortion, but illegal and self-induced abortions in these countries often end depriving living children of their mothers.²² Just as in the United States, contraception is often difficult to obtain or blocked because of religious reasons, similarly unintended pregnancy rates are also high.²³

The evangelical stance on abortion is both interesting and confusing. While some understanding generates from the human concern for life, whatever empathy established finds itself mitigated by the Evangelical Right’s obvious lack of concern for life outside the womb. For all the drastic measures taken to prevent abortion, evangelical concern disappears for those living in the world without assistance.

For instance, the surety of evangelical jurisprudence shows no concern for life when it comes to state sanctioned executions. Guilt or innocence barely receives a thought despite the possibility of innocence forever erased with the death of the convicted. Evangelicals even seem willing to sacrifice the lives of their children and others to fight in unsanctioned wars while the well-to-do sacrifice nothing. Conservative evangelicals can collect enough money to construct crude anti-abortion signs and paraphernalia, but are both unable and unwilling to help defray the costs of childbirth, which many see as welfare despite that it might benefit those mothers deciding to forgo abortion.

Considering that Christians receive most abortions, it may be of benefit for anti-abortionists to come up with concrete alternatives that help with unwanted pregnancy other than denial of abortion, condemnation of contraceptives, abstinence only sex education and punitive social conduct. Unplanned and unwanted pregnancy deserve real answers that solve problems instead of blind support for unsupported propaganda that not only helps create more problems, but shows a stunning disregard for human life and a penchant more intent on punishing unwanted pregnancy victims than helping.

PRO-BIRTH—ANTI-LIFE

Evangelicals must also rethink the priorities for their political engagement. There is too much truth to the charge that we have been pro-life only from conception to birth. The sanctity of human life also pertains to people dying from hunger, AIDS, tobacco smoke, and capital punishment.²⁴—Ronald J. Sider

A close look at the so-called pro-life movement reveals the faction focuses almost entirely on preventing abortion. On achievement of that goal, concern for that child’s well-being disappears more often than not. Issues affecting the quality of human life after birth like childcare, health insurance, education, poverty aid, and housing fall under welfare, which is not popular among conservative Christians that make up the majority of the movement.

Social programs that house, feed, and even clothe the less fortunate fall under the welfare heading; as such, many evangelicals look on them with contempt despite their alleged concerned for life. None of these positions remotely represents a pro-life perspective; although war and abortion may seem miles apart, when considering the awesome disregard for humanity, the designation pro-life is an obvious misnomer for a group with such feeble moral underpinnings. The term pro-birth, more accurately describes the anti-abortion group, improperly named for far too long.

Among Evangelical Christians, war seems an acceptable method of solving problems despite the high financial and human cost, just as the death penalty appears a favored method for dealing with some criminals. Pro-lifers, for example, are often opponents of public programs that would assist children born in poverty, which is often the social fate of those whose mothers chose the pro-life option over pro-choice, even though they were not financially equipped to support other additions to their families.²⁵

"Pro-lifers are often proponents of the death penalty, they generally oppose gun control laws like those in Canada, England, Japan, and other countries where death from gunshot wounds is rare compared to the number killed in the United States. Pro-lifers generally favor the unprovoked war against Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of more than 4,400 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis. Such positions as these shows a disdain for life after it has been born . . ."²⁶

With more than 120,000 adoptable children in the United States,²⁷ an excellent opportunity exists for the Evangelical Right to demonstrate their concern for life by adopting some of those hoping to land in a good Christian home. The shallowness of the anti-abortion, pro-birth stance reveals itself in the failure to adopt the forced deliveries. Almost 60 percent of waiting children are black or Hispanic, which plays a major role in the 70,000 children that go unadopted every year.²⁸

There is no shortage of religionists against providing social relief programs to aid poor women, as help of that nature falls under welfare, which most Conservative Christians oppose. Yet, it will cost a middle-class U.S. family about $222,360 ($286,050 adjusted for inflation) to raise a child born in 2009 to the age of 17, according to the report Expenditures on Children by Families 2009, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).²⁹

Broken down by family income, parents with an income between $56,670 and $98,120 can expect to spend $222,360 and a family earning more than $98,120 can expect to spend $369,360. According to the report, costs for food, shelter, and other child-raising necessities total from $11,650 to $13,530 per year, depending on the age of the child.³⁰

According to the 2011 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia, the poverty levels are set at $10,890 for a single person, $14,710 for a family of two, $18,530 for a family of three and $22,350 for a family of four.

In 2010, there were 46.2 million people living in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009 and the fourth consecutive annual increase. The 2010 report marks highest poverty rates in the 52 years of its publishing.³¹

Using the lowest figure from the USDA report, a middle-class family would have an estimated $1,020,060 to spend toward raising a child. For a family of three, using the federal poverty guidelines, a family of three would have $333,540 toward raising a child.³² A disparity that devastates the latter’s child’s chances for competing in a society where being poor is a sin blamed on the impoverished.

It is easy to protest abortion and legislate against it. However, when it comes to dealing with the financial realities of living, Conservative Christians are notably absent from the help line. Once a child is born, Conservative Christians imitate Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of the whole affair deeming their job accomplished.

THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.33

In an all-out attack on women’s rights, religion inspired state legislatures and the United States Congress have introduced amendments and laws that would block abortion, torture women seeking abortion and invite murder.³⁴ As a whole, the proposals introduced in 2011 and early 2012 are more hostile to abortion rights than in the past.³⁵ The new proposals are not only hostile to abortion rights; some clearly stand as punitive measures designed to punish women for having sex.

So far, religion fueled hatefulness has surfaced in a proposed law that would allow hospitals to let women die instead of providing a life-saving abortion.³⁶ A proposed law in South Dakota would make it legal to kill abortion providers. In addition, South Dakota requires that counseling include information related to abortion complications, even if the data are scientifically flawed.³⁷ Nebraska introduced a bill that allows a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit justifiable homicide in defense of her fetus.³⁸

Kansas adopted a bill that would allow family members to sue healthcare providers over late term abortions, meaning that ex-husbands, parents, and even kissing cousins could block an abortion because they do not like it.³⁹ Georgia considered a bill that would potentially demand the death penalty for miscarriages.⁴⁰ Oklahoma passed a law that requires placing the names of women receiving abortions in a public database.⁴¹ A Texas law requires doctors to describe sonogram images to their abortion patients and requires women to hear the descriptions.⁴², ⁴³

Mississippi considered an amendment to the state’s constitution to make a fertilized egg a person.⁴⁴ A revised Mississippi sex education law requires all school districts to provide abstinence-only sex education.⁴⁵ Virginia passed a bill that allows forced ultrasound.⁴⁶ Virginia also stripped funding to low-income women for abortions in pregnancies involving fetal anomalies.⁴⁷

These rules are perhaps the most prehistoric and vindictive pushed by religious agendas out of touch with reality and seeking to punish women by taking away their rights and make it exceedingly difficult to obtain an abortion, which has been legal since 1973. However, the above is just the beginning. Anti-abortionists want to revise abortion refusal clauses to allow any hospital employee to refuse to participate in any way in an abortion as well as limit abortion coverage in all private health plans.⁴⁸

Since, 2012 is an election year a certain amount of anti-abortion rhetoric comes with the American elective process, but the focus on abortion and contraception while the country struggles economically seems highly misplaced. Nevertheless, these brutal and vengeful proposals and laws if left on the books, pushes abortion back into the alleys with less than professional operators, unsanitary conditions and an enormous jump in maternal deaths because of bungled abortions. Nevertheless, abortions will not go away because of legislation or religion.

ABORTION HISTORY

Few are aware of abortion’s sordid history in the United States or how social strata often made the difference in who lived and who died. The illegality of abortion disproportionately affected poor American women and their families forcing them to seek illegal abortions while the rich had unidentified medical procedures. Abortion came under no law in the United States⁴⁹ until modern times when the procedure became illegal, but making abortion outside the law did not end the practice. Instead, criminalizing abortion put many women at risk when in desperation they sought out the services of illegal abortionists and died as a result. This side of abortion stays hidden, as does the high number of deaths that fueled formulation of the bill.

In the 1950s and 1960s, an estimated 200,000 to 1.2 million women a year had illegal abortions under unsafe conditions.⁵⁰ Today, the number of illegal abortions performed each year in the United States varies, but the large death toll from these procedures is unacceptably high and unnecessary. Despite improvements in the safety of abortion, as recently as 1965, illegal abortion still accounted for an estimated 201 deaths—17 percent of all officially reported pregnancy-related deaths that year. Epidemiologists believe the number was likely much higher, but to protect women and their families the deaths officially listed to other causes.⁵¹, ⁵²

Before Roe vs. Wade, a woman could obtain a legal abortion by getting the approval of a hospital committee established to review abortion requests, but it was an option available only to the rich and well connected. Less affluent women had few alternatives except dangerous and illegal abortion.⁵³ According to a study of abortions performed at a large New York City hospital from 1950 to 1960, the incidence of abortion was much higher among patients with private physicians than among women without their own doctor.⁵⁴ Low-income women found themselves admitted to the hospital for post-abortion care following an illegal abortion.⁵⁵

The toll of illegal abortion on the lives of women and their families finally made decriminalization a moral imperative. Few of today’s activists for either side of the debate are familiar with the role the American clergy played in helping to bring together a program covered with controversy. Before Roe vs. Wade ever received consideration, advice from theologians, doctors, scientists, jurists and philosophers came into consideration to find an answer to the horrendous carnage of botched abortions in the United States that resulted in crippling injury, life threatening complications and death.

Evangelical Christians lay ignorant that such procedures were a concern and offered no resistance to a cause the Catholic Church fought for years. With the awakening of the Moral Majority, a gross contradiction in terms, the Evangelical Right found a place to hang its moral hat and hide its disgraceful nation-leading divorce rate, which 40 years later still holds dubious distinction of being number one.

Rather than finding solutions for unplanned pregnancy, other than an aspirin between the knees as one politician suggested, the Evangelical Right successfully intimidated poll sensitive politicians into doing their dirty work. Today, states try to negate the 1973 Supreme Court decision by implementing punitive, cruel, and sometimes degrading laws designed to limit abortion or make it distasteful by passing laws requiring that women listen to ultrasound of the fetal heartbeat.

A VOICE OF SANITY

I’ve never seen anybody who said they were coming in to an abortion, wanted to see the ultrasound, reacted to it, and then changed their mind on the basis of that, said Ellen Wiebe, an abortion provider and director of the Willow Women’s Clinic in British Columbia, Canada.56

Wiebe is one of the few researchers that conducted studies worldwide in an attempt to gage women’s reactions to viewing an ultrasound pre-abortion.⁵⁷ The study, published in 2009 in the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Healthcare, found that, when given the option, 72 percent of women chose to view the sonogram image.

Of those, 86 percent said it was a positive experience and none changed their mind about the abortion.⁵⁸ Another study by Wiebe published in 2009 in the journal Contraception, analyzed how many women chose to look at the embryonic or fetal tissue removed during an abortion. Only about 28 percent of women showed interest—they’re curious, Wiebe said—but of those, 83 percent said that viewing the embryo or fetus did not make the process more emotionally difficult.⁵⁹

Fetal sonograms are not new as 18 states have laws on the books either requiring a woman to receive information on ultrasound services or requiring they undergo an ultrasound before an abortion with the assumption that it will encourage women to keep the pregnancy after viewing the image.⁶⁰ A little research by pro-birthers would reveal that women who get abortions know it terminates the pregnancy and are determined to do it long before they ever set foot in the doctor’s office.⁶¹ Nevertheless, the war against women continues unabated.

ABORTION’S REALITY

The 1973 approval of abortion by the Supreme Court was in part recognition of this reality. Abortions will continue as they have throughout history. The only question is whether it will return to musty motel rooms or clandestine locations with unqualified providers. Meanwhile, the rich will do as they did in the past—make arrangements, meaning that money can buy a safe abortion in a hospital. Conversely, poor women have little choice other than seeking a life-risking illegal procedure or self-induced abortion.

Lost in the cacophony of religious rhetoric, misinformation and propaganda is the reality of unwanted children. There are a multitude of reasons women seek abortion including, interruption and possible ending of life pursuits, affordability of another child, adulterous pregnancy, incest or rape and even inconvenience. Despite conservative ideas about abortion, it is legal in the United States and has been for nearly four decades.

The zeal of Christian Conservatives blinds them to the fact that 65 percent of the problem rests under the umbrella of Christianity. With 76 percent of American claiming Christianity, the figures are nearly predictable. What is surprising is the finger pointing engaged in by Conservative Christians when it is clear the problem lies within their own ranks.

Additionally, new research about rising adolescent abortion rates shows a positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and a negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution; rates are uniquely high in the U.S. contradicting claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates.⁶²

Despite the South’s religiosity or because of it, it is among the leaders in abortion rates. Since evangelicals are just as likely to seek abortions as anyone, perhaps a twist on Oklahoma’s idea about those seeking abortion needs an adjustment to include the religion of the abortion recipient in its scarlet letter database. Publishing the faith of those receiving abortion might help make the hypocrisy clear, but if one point is plain in all of furor over abortion, those in-favor of the punitive and vengeful legislation are blind when it comes to the obvious and that is they have met the enemy and it is them.

The attempt to end all abortion and thwart access to contraception is just the beginning of a war on women, as I will explain further in the Chapter 14: Abuse: Second Class Citizens, where I will briefly write about quiver—full theology and its implication for women. I will also address the reality of abortion in Chapter 29: Rethinking the South and the reader will see that those creating the most stir are also the ones generating the need.

VIOLENCE

Turning up the anti-abortion volume by the Evangelical Right on the abortion issue has had disastrous results, especially for the families of murdered abortion providers. The stirring of the already blistering contention surrounding abortion by the Evangelical Right is at least incitement if not aiding and abetting murder.

In the early 1990s, anti-abortion extremists concluded that murdering providers was the only way to stop abortion. The murder death of Dr. David Gunn in 1993 marked the beginning of a new phase in anti-abortion tactics. Since then, there have been seven subsequent murders and numerous attempted murders of clinic staff and physicians, several of which occurred in their own homes.⁶³ In the U.S., violence directed toward abortion providers has killed four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort.⁶⁴,⁶⁵

According to statistics gathered by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.⁶⁶,⁶⁷,⁶⁸,⁶⁹

Over the years, law enforcement officials recorded more than 400 cases of terrorist activities by anti-abortionists and the count is rising. Murder, kidnapping, death threats or assault and battery are not the only dangers faced by abortion providers and their staffs. More than 200 arsons and bombings have caused more than $13 million in damages and endangered countless lives. There have been about 100 butyric acid attacks throughout the United States and Canada, causing in excess of $1 million in damages.⁷⁰

Butyric acid is a clear, colorless liquid with an unpleasant, rancid, vomit-like odor. Anti-abortion extremists began using butyric acid as a weapon against abortion facilities in early 1992. The goal of introducing butyric acid into a clinic is to disrupt services, close the clinic, and harass patients and staff. Depending on the amount used and the method of dispersement, butyric acid can cause thousands of dollars of damage, requiring clinics to replace carpeting, furniture, and conduct extensive cleanup of the facility.⁷¹

In efforts to terrorize and disrupt, since 1998 more than 600 letters threatening anthrax poisoning arrived at reproductive health care clinics. The letters threatened that clinic personnel exposed to the letters would die.⁷² After 9/11, terrorist attacks, the use of Anthrax threats at abortion clinics around the country began to escalate.

The Rap Sheet

Doctor who Performed Abortions Shot to Death—Wichita—Dr. George Tiller, whose Kansas women’s clinic frequently took center stage in the U.S. debate over abortion, was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his Wichita church Sunday morning, police said. Wichita police said a 51-year-old man from the Kansas City, Kansas, area was in custody in connection with the slaying of Tiller, who was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions. The killing, which came about 16 years after Tiller survived a shooting outside his Wichita clinic, took place shortly at the Reformation Lutheran Church. Officers found the 67-year-old dead in the foyer, police said.⁷³

Abortion Doc’s Killer Gets Life Sentence—Wichita, KS—An anti-abortion zealot convicted of murdering a prominent Kansas abortion doctor was sentenced to life in prison and won’t be eligible for parole for 50 years—the maximum allowed by law. Scott Roeder, 52, gunned down Dr. George Tiller in the back of