A pro-life plea this election season

Leslie Leyland Fields: 20 percent of all women obtaining abortions self-identify as evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, or born-again, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute. That's somewhere around 200,000 believing American women a year ending the life of their child.

Can this be true? While I was speaking on a talk show about the topic, a woman called in and said, "I work outside an abortion clinic, trying to save lives, and you wouldn't believe how many cars in the parking lot have Bibles in their front seats and Christian radio stickers on the back. The women are almost always alone, and they're really scared."

I understand that fear. And I think local church culture bears at least some responsibility. We've so spiritualized the fight for life, we may be losing lives because of it. We know God is the maker of every human being. We know that premarital and extramarital sex is contrary to God's Word. Our beliefs on this front are passionate and unbending, and they should be. But I fear that our conviction and certainty can lead to lack of compassion when women make mistakes.

I attended a church a few years ago whose (male) leaders would not support a church-sponsored baby shower for a pregnant teen unless she repented of her sin—publicly. If there is no room for error, no message of grace, women in crisis will continue to drive out of church all the way to abortion clinics, their Bibles on the front seat, scared toward death.

I fear as well that the politicization of "pro-life" has desensitized us to seeing the people involved.