I recently read an article that was relating rape culture to anti-choice agenda. I was outraged when I saw the vultures that stand outside of abortion clinics harassing the women who are merely exercising their rights over their bodies. I was so angry to see the low, cheap, deceptive tactics they were using to ‘level the playing field’. They were disguising themselves in orange vests to mimic the clinic escorts who were hired to safely get women through the lion’s den of craziness outside.

I was appalled, but I was not surprised.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in Southeast Georgia. My church use to help organize these events called “life chains” every year around the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade verdict. Members of the various churches around my town would line up along side the main highway wearing pro-life t-shirts and holding posters to show their disagreement with the courts decision to allow women to decide what they want their internal organs to be used for. They would call in the local press to cover the event and tell them all about their beliefs and the reason they’re there, talking to them about all of the alternative options pregnant women have.

Fundamentalist Christians have a long history of trying to trick people into believing the way they do. One of the most recent and disrespectful things they have done is when their golden boy, Kirk Cameron (Mike Seaver from Growing Pains), led a campaign to ‘educate’ college students on creationism. He spoke in a short video about how there is a high percentage of Athiests teaching at colleges now and that with prayer, the ten commandments and the Bible taken out of schools that students are not getting the information necessary to make an informed decision about whether or not they believe in evolution. To give them this information Ray Comfort decided to write a “special introduction” to Charles Darwin’s Origin Of Species book. Living Waters (the Christian company Kirk and Ray work with) published a 150th anniversary edition of the book with the fifty page introduction bound into it. The “introduction” attempts to use Darwin’s personal life to discredit his studies and life’s work. It talks about Darwin being a racist, hating women, and even connects evolution to Hitler. The video was sent to churches asking for their help in spreading this knowledge. They wanted people to buy copies of the book to distribute for free at their local college campuses on the anniversary of the books release.

This is deceptive, rude and absolutely disgusting. It’s akin to saying Michael Jackson wasn’t a musical genius because you think he was weird or that Bill Clinton wasn’t an excellent president because he got a blowjob from a woman that wasn’t his wife. Regardless of what went on in Darwin’s personal life, he spent a lot of time and effort on his scientific theories and he should not be disrespected in such a way. It’s hypocritical of a religious group that believes that lying is wrong. It’s as underhanded as wearing clothing to mimic a security guard at an abortion clinic so that you can trick women into trusting them.

It’s repulsive.

I watched the video that was embedded in the article and it showed the protestors harassing a woman who was walking into the clinic. One woman was telling her all about how her fetus had fingers, toes and a heartbeat, as if this information was suppose to open her eyes and make her change her mind about not wanting a child. When that didn’t work they started telling her about all the people who wanted to adopt her baby, telling her she didn’t have to do this and that she should really consider adoption. They told her they loved her and cared about her and begged her not to ‘kill her baby’.

Anti-choice protestors don’t love or care about pregnant women or their children. They love feeling superior and only care about making sure women suffer the consequences of their immoral decision to have sex. When it comes to actually making an effort to help that doesn’t involve shaming them, they don’t want their precious tax dollars to be spent on programs that pay for prenatal care, WIC, welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. They bad mouth all the ‘welfare queens’ for staying home and having more children so they can leech off of the government teat, yet they don’t want to help fund programs to provide food, medical care and daycare vouchers to these single mothers so that they can get a job to take care of the children they insisted they shouldn’t abort. It’s only important until it starts to affect their wallets. As long as they can make examples of those less fortunate than they are, ostracizing them and shaming them for mistakes they’ve made, they’re happy.

Women’s bodies are not public domain. No one should be able to impose their beliefs, whatever they are based on, and insist on forcing women to do something they don’t want to do. We should not be expected to be incubators for unfortunate couples who are unable to have biological children. We should not be made to endure the pain, complications and stigma that accompany pregnancy to appease a God we may or may not believe in.

I’ve long since changed my Christian beliefs about abortion. Before I had children of my own I was one of those people trying to convince women not to have an abortion. I believed that if they just knew what they were doing then they wouldn’t go through with it. Now it infuriates me to see stories where women are treated as nothing more than our reproductive organs, like the recent case where a woman was ordered by the court to follow her doctors orders and go on bed rest to prevent a miscarriage. Knowing the difficulties of pregnancy and the responsibility of taking care of children has opened my eyes to the many reasons why a woman might not be ready for or ever desire children. I’m tired of hearing Christians lie and tell people “Your mother was pro-choice.”. Just because a woman has children of her own does not mean that she believes in revoking the rights other women have to do what they wish with their bodies.