Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t

Disclaimer: I use gendered language in this post as I am speaking directly to my experiences within an institution that upholds a strict gender binary as well as heterosexism and patriarchy.

Morgain can recall the smallest detail of every event of our shared childhood, from what we were wearing when something happened to even what the weather was like. But I don’t remember most of what we lived through during our childhood. So when memories are vivid and clear, it means they were particularly impactful.

One of those memories is when I moved back home to Michigan from Missouri after my college graduation two weeks prior. I was unsure what I was going to do about anything in life. Part of my graduation weekend had been breaking up with my abusive, alcoholic boyfriend of 6 months. (There is a whole story here, but it’s not time to tell that one.)  On this particular day, I was sitting in a bathroom stall at Books a Million ( BAM!) in Traverse City, MI,  staring at a positive pregnancy test. I had gone to Traverse City because it was 20 miles from the small town where my parents lived. There was a low probability of running into someone I knew. I had stopped in a nearby Walgreens to buy the test. The weather was sunny and people were bustling around doing their usual summer time business in a tourist town. I didn’t have anywhere I felt safe to take the test, so BAM! it was. I took the test and waited the obligatory 10 minutes. I didn’t look ahead of time because I didn’t want to know what I already knew -that I was pregnant. 

In that moment, I had to make a choice.

You see, I was a “crispy” Christian. I went to a private Christian college. I attended church twice a week. I taught Sunday school. I sang in the church choir. I didn’t party or swear. Girls like me didn’t get pregnant out of wedlock. And now there were only two things I could do to “save” myself among the church community.  I could  never tell anyone about this, go get an abortion, and guarantee I would not be tied to a mean human the rest of my life.  Or, I could marry the contributing party quickly and quietly and settle into married life. There was also a third option: If I didn’t marry but kept the baby, I would have to live my life in the church as “one of those women.” The woman who was tainted. The woman expected to be humble and contrite every time her sin was mentioned. The woman who was no longer allowed a leadership role (what few leadership roles women are allowed in the church). This would be the rest of my life in the church.

Meanwhile, the other responsible party in this pregnancy would just have to either walk away and join another church or repent and move on. Men can just move on. Women must stay and endure.

So in that bathroom stall staring at those two little lines on the plastic stick, I had to choose. Although the choice was easy, I knew it was going to be difficult. I chose to keep the pregnancy, to refuse to marry the abuser, and to bear the weight of being “that woman.”

The effects were tangible.

Friends stopped talking to me. I was not allowed to sing in the praise and worship group. I was given the side eye a lot. There is a happy(ish) ending to this part of my story. I found a church that was loving. I was accepted into their fold with kindness that is not often reserved for “a woman like me.” This church was also the one in town that folks from the LGBTQ+ community felt welcome and safe, and I know that is not a coincidence.

I don’t regret my decision, but let me make one thing crystal clear: The church is often not kind to  folks who don’t measure up to their standards. The “pro-life” title they have given themselves is a lie. There is little concern for our refugee siblings, our immigrant siblings, our old, unattractive, or homeless siblings. There is only real room for the shiny pretty humans. And because of that, if you go to church, you sit next to folks who’ve been in my situation and  chosen an abortion. They will never tell you, because they know that they have everything to lose if they do.

So as with so many other aspects of the Evangelical American church, women are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If a woman chooses abortion, she cannot tell anyone as she will be damned in the eyes of her community regardless of whether she “repented” her sin or not. She can choose to marry, but then she will be tied to a potentially life threatening man the rest of her life. (She is then expected to endure abuse with poise and grace, quick to forgive and eager to please her spouse so he doesn’t feel the need to abuse again. Divorce isn’t an option, but for extreme cases. Even then, she must prove to her community again and again how she or her children were in grave danger and that is why she divorced. Often, the church then expects the woman to remain celebit and not remarry, as she is technically married in the eyes of the Lord.) If this woman instead chooses to remain unmarried and carry the child to term and keep it, she will significantly reduce her likelihood of marrying, or she’ll be expected to settle by marrying someone who is “good enough.”  And if this woman carries the baby to term and then chooses adoption, she still carries the shame given to her by her sin. She might be able to escape that by moving and joining a new church, but if that community finds out, the shame is piled on again. 

All of these experiences create layers of trauma in a way that makes their already weighted existence heavier.

Christian women who are expected to continue to bear children long after they themselves want to. Every new child is years more of caring for another human, whether she is able to care for that human or not. In the Christian home, a woman is not supposed to deny her husband sex. Not only can this be a form of sexual assault, but it also makes it impossible for a woman to ever truly have control over her own reproductive health. Nothing she has is her own, including her body.

So while we sit here and see the Supreme Court make decisions that make a direct impact on the bodies of millions of people in this country, it is important to recognize the egregious harm the church has done and continues to do to women. And for a group that claims life is precious, they have made it abundantly clear that life is only precious for some.

Song Suggestion: Silent All These Years ~ Tori Amos