Popular Christian Author Says Her Views on Abortion are 'Ever-Evolving' - How Pro-Lifers Are Responding
A popular Christian writer who calls herself a "doubt-filled believer" says her views on abortion are “ever-evolving.”
Rachel Held Evans, a Tennessee native and self-described Crimson Tide fan, recently tweeted that she was concerned with overturning Roe v. Wade and its effect on certain populations.
The original tweets were deleted once the New York Times best-selling author came under scrutiny for trying to wrap her mind and her faith around the atrocities of abortion.
According to Evans, abortionists target poor communities and those of people of color; therefore, she feels that blocking this access to abortions will only leave it available to wealthy white women.
The Christian Post reports that Evans tweeted her outrage at the possibility of overturning Roe v Wade.
“Just like in the past, wealthy women would travel for abortions & poor women would resort to deadly Gosnell-style "back alley" clinics & home procedures...” she tweeted.
To the untrained ear, Evans' cause sounds noble, but longtime pro-life activists, like Rev. Dean Nelson – who serves as national outreach director at Human Coalition and chairman of the board of the Douglass Leadership Institute – see things differently.
"Any attempt to paint legal abortion as a good for minority communities will backfire for two reasons," he said. "First, because the abortion industry was built on eugenic principles and thrives today by continuing to target women of color in low-incoming minority communities.”
As for what Nelson calls Evans’ misguided commentary on the plight of communities of color, he reminds her of the following facts.
“In places like New York City, where Roe is fully enshrined, the racial targeting is so rampant that more African-American children are aborted than born," he pointed out. "No person who truly values racial equality thinks these are good statistics.”
The Twitterverse was not too happy with Evans' comments that ending abortion rights would save “millions of lives” in communities of color, which she added are a population the current White House has “actively oppressed.”
Followers objected to her train of thought.
Oh my goodness...
— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) June 29, 2018
Every now and again the wind blows the curtain open to give us a glimpse of the darkness within the heart of the abortion movement.
So the lives of people from “poor communities of color” is not worth protecting from abortion?pic.twitter.com/hwZKzZ7vxy
Some question if Evans’ progressive views are the norm among the next generation.
A recent Gallup poll insists more than half of Millennials feel that abortion should be limited to certain circumstances.
Catherine Glen Foster of Americans for Life tells CBN News she thinks the wind is shifting in a new pro-life direction.
She adds that the recent poll only underlines the new reality, which shows “that the percentage of Americans who self-identify as 'pro-life' has skyrocketed by 15 percent since the mid-1990s and now totals 48 percent.”
Kristin Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, agrees and tells pro-lifers not to worry, saying she has faith that the country’s young people see through the abortion rhetoric.
"This is the most pro-life generation – even more pro-life than their parents, who see the life issue as the human rights issue of our time," she said. "That means they don't just vote their values, they act on them in their daily lives like students do in Students for Life of America's pregnant on-campus program."
Rev. Nelson thinks the pro-life position has been getting a bad rap.
He tells CBN News the truth is that minority women do not need Roe "because it is opponents of Roe – pro-life activists – who extend compassion and care to pregnant women of color, even as the abortion industry targets their children for destruction."
As for Planned Parenthood targeting communities of color, Hawkins echoes Nelson’s sentiment.
“The fact that so many precious lives are lost in minority communities where abortion mega-providers locate so many of their businesses is tragic and a reflection of the abortion industry’s disrespect for people of color,” she said in a statement to CBN News.
Hawkins, a mother of four -- two of which are challenged with cystic fibrosis -- thinks Evans may need to dust off her hymnal.
“I would remind Ms. Evans of the old Sunday school song: 'Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world.' We need to respond to need with help, not death by abortion,” says Hawkins.
