Abstract
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the USA overturned Roe v Wade, the culmination of a 5 decades-long effort to remove the strongest legal protection of abortion the USA has had thus far. The abortion discourse in the USA has been essentialised to a polarised debate, in which pro-life is equated with a religious–moral injunction to protect the unborn fetus from pro-choice secularists. This rhetoric obfuscates the decades-long activism of faith-based reproductive rights groups for maternal choice and empowers an outlying religious interpretation of prenatal fetal life over the majority of other religious (and non-religious) Americans.
Abortion is supported by the majority of religious groups in the USA,1 and most women seeking abortions are religious.2 Thus, the narrative pitting religion against abortion is not only inaccurate and medically dangerous, but violates these patients' religious freedoms and right to private reproductive decision making.
More than half of physicians in the USA are religious.3 Many feel that facilitating the full spectrum of reproductive health care is not only allowed by their faith, but required. In abortion care and research, we often discuss religion in terms of providers' conscientious objection to involvement. However, the voice of religious providers facilitating access to safe abortion because of their religious beliefs is often unheard.
Many who feel they do not align with a pro-life or pro-choice stance are choosing to remain silent on the sidelines—this is dangerous. While providers of faith do not all agree on the metaphysics of life's beginnings, there is enough diversity within and between faith traditions that, collectively, we should not allow one minority religious interpretation to remove the right to safe abortion access. Failing to protect abortion rights exacerbates socioeconomic and racial inequity, increases the rate of unsafe abortion and pregnancy complications, and harms patients,4 compromising the fundamental bioethical (and religious) principle of non-maleficence.
For religious providers of all medical specialties who believe in protecting patients' reproductive rights, it is incumbent upon us to raise our voices within our departments, medical systems, professional organisations, and state legislatures to turn the upcoming tide and ensure policies and laws are implemented that protect abortion services now that Roe has fallen. Pre-Roe, networks of faith-based clergy and medical providers coordinated to facilitate abortion access for their constituents: this kind of organization will now be called upon again. We summarise key considerations for religious medical providers in a post-Roe USA in the appendix.
Medicine and law are two fields in which we often assume religion has no role. However, if the recent and upcoming abortion restrictions have taught us anything, religion is profoundly present and powerful in both spheres. If the voice of a religious minority can have such an impact, then medical providers of faith who support reproductive rights should certainly make an impact as well.