Please note this entry is written with Christian readers in mind, but we hope the ideas are also useful to Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who regularly participates in a religious community.
If your church doesn’t already address abortion directly, consider having a private meeting with church leadership to discuss their approach. This can be a sensitive and tricky conversation, but you may find that the church’s silence isn’t a result of indifference of condonation so much as uncertainty and intimidation. The Equal Rights Institute has a fantastic, detailed article about how to discuss the issue with your pastor or priest. Here are the cliffnotes:
- Have the conversation in private.
- Come to the meeting with humility.
- Ask if there is already a church policy about what would happen to a woman in the youth group if she became pregnant.
- Make it clear that you realize that what this pregnant teen is imagining would happen is probably a lot worse than what would actually happen.
- Tell a story.
- Present this as an opportunity for the pastor to be able to say something brief about abortion in a way that shows how much he loves his flock.
- Offer to help with practical stuff like throwing a baby shower.
See the full article for a lot more information about how the church can talk about abortion directly and be a place of welcoming, forgiveness, and healing, and about how you can work with church leadership to create that environment.
How To Be Pro-Life 