I’ve Lost Faith in the Way the Black Church Polices Women’s Bodies
Black women do not need to follow a White supremacist standard to receive God’s love
“If I get pregnant again, I’m having an abortion!”
My nineteen-year-old sister, who had just given birth, said this in jest to me when I was 11. We didn’t condemn abortion; rather, we talked about it as a matter-of-fact social good, kind of like getting your tonsils taken out. I never truly understood it as a sinful, undesirable procedure, but a banal alternative to pregnancy and motherhood.
My parents did not teach my sister and me that teenage pregnancy and abortion were atrocities and grounds for shame and the source of imminent poverty. My parents explained to us that continuous racism, such as racist housing policies and discrimination in classrooms and job interviews, are some of the ways Black people remain in poverty.
But I was also raised in the church, and the conversations there about sex, sexuality, and family were another story.
For example, I bristled in church one morning as I listened to the preacher say, “I’m tired of babies having babies!” It was confusing. Why would someone call out people as they are sitting in a pew next to us? To embarrass them? To show what has already…
