Talking pastorally about fertility and beyond

Emma Percy muses on the theological issues around abortion.

As always, the summer is going far too quickly and the new academic year fast approaches. I am in planning mode, checking lecture slides to see what to retain and where I need to refresh, reading around to find good seminar material and filling in the endless templates required for modern university teaching. I am excited to be welcoming new PhD students, including some who will be looking at theology and women’s reproductive bodies. One is considering birth trauma and two are looking at infertility; all of them will need to address inherited Christian ideals of women and motherhood.

It is over 20 years since I first began to explore theological ideas about motherhood. As a young mother and relatively new priest I searched the shelves of the theological library for books on motherhood and found the shelves were almost bare. This surprised me. I had grown up within the Church and women’s essential motherhood was an implicit assumption. As I explored a call to ministry I was told, especially by those who opposed women’s ordination, that God had created women primarily to bear and love our children. Yet there were very few books that considered what the experience of maternity might mean theologically. Feminist theology, which had encouraged me to recognize my lived experience as grounds for theology, had little to say about my role as a mother. This lack of material at the time led to my own PhD and subsequent work drawing parallels between mothering and ministry.

More theology addressing motherhood has since been published but there is room for much more. I am excited that issues around women’s reproductive experiences are increasingly seen as sites for theological reflection. Yet I am also aware that these are areas where people must tread gently and carefully. Women receive inquisitive questions about whether they want children, why they haven’t had them, whether they want more if they have. Negotiating how to voice the decision not to have children is difficult within Christian contexts where this can be seen as refusing God’s gift. Knowing how and when to share experiences of pregnancy loss or infertility treatment is complex. Inappropriate responses to these situations have caused pain to many and the need for good pastoral support is real. Those who experience difficult births, post-natal depression or just ambivalence about motherhood may find it hard to challenge ideals of maternal bliss. Questions about God’s providence, prayer, hope and faith are challenged by human reproduction’s precarity and unfairness.

Alongside the pastoral issues are the ethical concerns. Most Christian churches assume that couples will use contraception to plan their family. Yet there are debates in some church circles about what type of contraception is permissible. Strong anti-abortion positions maintain that certain forms of contraception are at some level abortifacients. The ethics of abortion also impact discussions around infertility treatments. Is it OK to create embryos that will be destroyed? What does it mean to keep embryos frozen for years, what is their status in God’s eyes? Abstract ethics and legal definitions of what human life is during gestation may not translate easily into compassionate pastoral care for those trying to make sense of their desire to have a child.

Pastoral theology engages with the concrete messiness of people’s lives. At its best it can help people sift through inherited assumptions about who God is and what is expected of us, to find the love at the heart of the gospel. Letting go of ideal constructions of motherhood can help women talk about their traumatic experiences of birth, discuss the realities of post-natal depression and work through the difficult decisions around infertility. Perhaps the hardest theological assumption to challenge is that God is the one who opens and shuts the womb, God who gifts each child. Key Bible stories can appear to reinforce this position, leaving those who do not conceive, who miscarry or who find themselves pregnant when they really do not want to be, struggling to make sense of what God is doing. It is from these places that we can begin to explore theology in new ways. How do we retain a sense of God’s presence and compassion while challenging God’s role in human procreation? What does prayer look like when prayers seem to go unanswered? What does it mean to be a woman if we decouple women’s purpose from the procreative potential?

My recent research has focused on the pastoral issues of deliberate endings. Talking about abortion within Christian circles is not easy. Traditional attitudes to women, sex and motherhood play into the view that abortion is ungodly; for some it is simply a sin. Others accept there may be circumstances where it is the least bad option, but rarely can a woman express her belief that it was the best option for her. The theological questions about God’s role in conception and God’s compassion for those who do not continue a pregnancy all need exploring.

My reflection on these issues has shaped a feminist pastoral theology, which is published as How Do We Talk About Abortion? I am not declaring whether abortion is right or wrong in an abstract discussion. It is, I think, important for us to accept the reality that abortions happen and have always happened. Research shows that people of faith have abortions. This should elicit pastoral care rather than judgement, and must recognize that most women who have an abortion feel a sense of relief, grateful for the provision of a safe way to end the pregnancy.

My hope is that the book will enable people to talk in a more nuanced way about this topic. Ideally it will impact the statements church bodies make and lead to better resources for those making abortion decisions. Pastoral care that listens and responds in ways that challenge stigma is needed. A number of really helpful books and articles on the topic have been published recently, especially in the USA, so alongside the books on motherhood my shelf now has some very good theological books about abortion. With my book I aim to take this field further: these theologies intersecting and informing each other as issues of human reproduction are considered in messy reality rather than a ‘sanctified’ ideal.

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Revd Dr Emma Percy is Senior Lecturer in Feminist Theology and Ministry Studies at the University of Aberdeen and a licensed priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. She has been a campaigner for the full inclusion of women in the Church and served two terms as Chair of WATCH.

Her book How Do We Talk About Abortion? is out this month and available to order here, with 20% off all orders before the end of September.