Summary For most of history, religious and political elites treated certain personal behaviors as “social crimes” not because they directly harmed anyone, but because they didn’t serve the tribe, the church, or the state. Suicide, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, prostitution, drug use, and gambling were policed as threats to population growth and social control. Today, white […]
Tag: bodily autonomy
A Secular Case For Abortion
Summary A secular case for abortion starts from reality, not revelation: it asks what we owe to actual, sentient people here and now—not what a particular theology says about souls and sin. For decades, the Christian Right has tried to define the entire debate with one claim—“abortion is murder”—grounded in the belief that a full […]
Your Bible Doesn’t Get to Control My Pregnancy
In the United States, abortion law is not just about medicine or “life.” It’s about whether the Christian Right gets to crawl up inside everyone else’s body and stay there by force. The politicians pushing bans are not offering careful bioethics; they are offering obedience to a particular reading of a particular scripture, dressed up […]
“Abortion Is Murder”? Then Why Don’t All Religions Agree — Or Even Believe the Same God?
Summary Abortion bans in America are not grounded in neutral facts. They are rooted in one contested religious interpretation of when “life” and “murder” begin, even though other Christians and other religions disagree. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and secular ethics all reach different conclusions about abortion, personhood, and sin. In a pluralistic society, no single […]
Beyond LGBT Rights: The Broader Struggle Against Christian Extremism in America
Summary The Christian Right likes to ask how a “small” minority like LGBTQ+ people can have such a big impact on national politics, as if it were all media manipulation or a secret agenda. What they miss—or hide—is that LGBTQ+ rights have become a frontline in a much larger fight against Christian nationalism and religious […]