One of the biggest challenges to promoting women’s access to healthcare and supporting reproductive rights is the stonewall response from Christians that the Bible says it’s all wrong. They will not hear statistics of how comprehensive sex education and access to contraception actually lowers abortion rates. They will not stop the harassment of women walking into a women’s center with disturbing signs and threats of eternal damnation. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking a different approach this weekend by placing a full page ad in two separate papers, one in Oklahoma and one in Kansas, pointing out Biblical references that contradict the common bible-belt stance to abortion.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be running a full-page ad in Sunday’s Tulsa (Okla.) World and Wichita (Kan.) Eagle asking the question, “What does the bible really say about abortion?”
The answer is (as the ad puts it): “There is no biblical justification for the assault on women’s reproductive rights.”
The advertisement features a compelling portrait of birth control crusader Margaret Sanger, and her quote: “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body.” It documents that the bible does not condemn abortion and, in fact, “shows an utter disregard for human life.” The ad reminds the reader: “We live under a secular Constitution that wisely separates religion from government, and protects women’s reproductive rights.”
The ad is funded and was largely written by Brian Bolton, a retired professor and Life Member of FFRF, in memory of FFRF’s principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor (1926-2015), who was propelled into freethought activism by her experiences working to legalize abortion in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Gaylor observed that the battle for women’s rights “would never end” until the root cause of women’s oppression, “religion and its control of our government,” is challenged.
The ad refers the reader for more information to Bolton’s article, “God is So Not Pro-Life” and FFRF’s nontract “What Does the Bible Say About abortion?”
The ad first debuted earlier this spring in the Austin American-Statesman and will appear later this month in the Houston Chronicle.
FFRF warmly thanks Brian Bolton, who lives in Texas, for his generous support and commitment. Bolton additionally sponsors FFRF’s annual graduate student essay contest.
For more information on bible sexism and its reach into civil law, also see Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So, by Annie Laurie Gaylor, published by FFRF
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charity, is the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government separate.
– See more at: https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/26622-ffrf-runs-full-page-ad-in-tulsa-wichita-debunking-anti-abortion-claims#sthash.cRLDQxkj.dpuf
