Religion – Page 3 – Population Matters-USA

*Ann Telnaes Editorial Cartoon* used with permission of Ann Telnaes and the Cartoonist Group. All rights reserved.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The United States of America is becoming a theocracy. The Dobbs decision has bypassed the Congress by having the Supreme Court establishing a de facto religion which forces unwilling women to become mothers.

So far this religion has evidenced itself with the Court’s failure to uphold the Roe v. Wade decision. The Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gave power to individual states to regulate the legal status of abortion. Remember, the majority of Americans are prochoice, according to several recent polls. There are fears that more is to come, perhaps even resuscitating the Comstock laws which forbad use of contraception.

Abortion has not always been frowned upon. Back when the Constitution was written, women’s healthcare was in the hands of women, including herbal abortifacients, and it is likely that men had no idea what was going on. It is silly to think that the Constitution would include anything about women’s healthcare, let alone abortion, yet part of the argument in the Dobbs decision is that there is no mention of abortion in the Constitution. Remember, the people at the Constitutional Convention were all white males! Abortion was acceptable in colonial America and didn’t become illegal until the mid-1800s.

This new religion was sired by the coupling of rightwing politics and conservative religions, including Roman Catholicism and the evangelicals who have overtaken the South. The primary tenets of the new religion pretend to be in favor of narrowly defined “life”, claiming that human life begins when human sperm and egg meet. It appears that most followers of this new religion don’t care much what happens to the “life” except when it is in the woman’s reproductive tract—with little attention to the person who supports that uterus. After birth, they tend to not support healthcare, social services or education—especially sex ed. Teen pregnancy rates are highest where the evangelicals are strongest.

In reality, the “prolife” people may be courting death. They are encouraging continued human overpopulation with consequent destruction of Creation. Humans are causing the massive extinction of species, many of which are essential to our own existence. Our clever synthesis and use of chemicals is toxifying the air and water with poisons, some of which last forever. And don’t forget the climate chaos that even Trump cannot ignore.

The high priest of this new religion is Samuel Alito, the principal author of the Dobbs decision. His bishops are John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett; all supported the Dobbs decision. These 6 justices were all appointed by Republican presidents; the three dissenting justices were appointed by Democratic presidents. It is unlikely that this happened by chance. The unescapable conclusion is that this judgement was politically based.

What can be done about this apparent incursion of a state religion into the USA? A group of religious leaders have sued the State of Florida, which has one of the most prohibitive abortion laws in the country. These leaders claim that that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the state’s new abortion law. One of them, Reverend Laurie Hafner of the United Church of Christ, stated “I am pro-choice not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith.”

Similarly, a patient at Planned Parenthood asked me, after her abortion, “Are you a Christian?”

“Yes”, I responded. “I am a Quaker. I feel obliged to perform abortions because it is one way I can help people and also help this overpopulated world.”

Rather than preserving the sanctity of human life, as believers in this new religion profess, it worships the contents of a pregnant woman’s uterus and damns the imagined evil of abortion. This religion ignores the fact that one in five human pregnancies ends in a spontaneous abortion, also called “miscarriage”. If human fetuses are so holy, why does God allow miscarriages to happen?

I am worried that minority religious beliefs are being imposed on the majority by a powerful minority. We must push back in the upcoming elections and send a signal to the Supremes that we won’t tolerate a state religion.

In Africa, as elsewhere in the world, religious beliefs have an influence on the number of children a woman will bear. There are many factors that go into family size choices, and religion is one that is rarely explored.

In the USA, Utah is an example of how religion influences family size. It has had the highest fertility rate, probably in part because of its large number of Mormons (Latter Day Saints). This religion has traditionally encouraged large families, and many Utahans have complied. I know an example from my practice. An LDS patient from Utah requested reversal of her tubal ligation, which was done after her 5^th child was born. She regretted the sterilization and wanted more children. I succeeded in putting her tubes back together, and she ended up with 12 kids!

In many African countries—especially south of the Sahara—the predominant religions encourage high fertility. Many groups of both Christians and Muslims believe that children are gifts from God and feel that contraceptive use is prohibited. Part of the motivation for large families seems to be that there is strength in numbers—especially if a group feels threatened. In addition, agrarian people tend to look upon children as a resource for work, while urban societies may consider kids financial burdens. Furthermore, rural people have less access to contraception than those who live in cities. A third major group of religious believers, those who follow traditional faiths, tend to have many children, perhaps because they are more likely to be subsistence farmers.

What can be done to help women get effective birth control? IUDs and implants, the most effective temporary contraceptive methods, are expensive and require skilled providers. Fortunately, a promising new variation of an old method has won favor in several African countries. For over 50 years women have trusted DMPA (DepoProvera®) for contraception. It is very effective, but requires a shot every 3 months—which is especially difficult for rural women. Some women have sickle cell anemia, an inherited disease in Black Africans, which causes painful crises. DMPA can actually prevent these crises in addition to preventing pregnancy!

Sayana Press® is the same medication in a more convenient form. In a trial, Ugandan women who chose Sayana Press® were taught how to give themselves the first shot in a clinic. They went home with 3 more shots to self-administer at 90-day intervals. This meant only one clinic visit a year—much better for someone who might need to walk miles or take an expensive bus to the nearest family planning clinic.

Education is an important way to empower women and for them to gain control of their fertility. Perhaps this teaching could include mention of the advantages of smaller families. In Sub-Saharan Africa, as in other parts of the world, the more years of school a girl or woman attends, the smaller her family is likely to be. Joyce Asimit Simiyu of northwest Kenya is a good example. She is the oldest of seven kids. Although elementary school was free, her family didn’t have resources for her to go to secondary school. The Quaker Girlchild Education Fund provided scholarship aid for high school and eventually she finished college. She and her husband are the parents of only two.

There are innovative ways that family planning services are delivered in Africa. Catholic dogma is against modern contraceptive methods, but people have found ways around that doctrine. I asked a Catholic nun who runs a health center in Tanzania if they provided contraception. “No,” she said, “we leave that to the Protestants down the road.” Rwanda is another example, where much of the health care is provided by the Catholic Church. After the 1994 genocide, the government recognized the importance of family planning and placed a family planning clinic close to each of the Catholic facilities.

Many places in Africa already exceed the land’s ability to feed its people, yet the world’s fastest growing populations are there. What works to slow growth? In many cultures religious leaders are key to promoting successful family planning. Although they may not be interested in slowing the growth of their congregation, most leaders will want to improve the health of their mothers and children. One of the best ways of doing that is with contraception to lengthen the interval between pregnancies.