Legal fellow warns of potential religious violence ahead

Americans United for Separation of Church & State focuses on promoting secular politics within abortion debate

Abortion rights supporters and advocates will likely face an increase in religious turmoil and discord as a result of the Supreme Court’s impending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church & State have pushed for a secular approach to lawmaking that doesn’t impose personal morality when shaping statutes and bills that will govern society. Adrianne Spoto, a legal fellow with the group, explained what’s already started to happen

“Even now, in just in a couple of days since this draft opinion was leaked, it seems like that's going to be potentially in the forefront of political fights,” Spoto said. “And as it has been lately largely justified on religious grounds.” 

Religion has always played a role in both the antiabortion and abortion rights movements. But what differs between the two approaches is over whether personal faith should galvanize a person to pass limitations pertaining to abortion access. 

Spoto warned that injecting religion into political rancor typically leads to violence. She has a point. The violence of the 1980s and 1990s toward abortion providers is an example. Groups like Operation Rescue blockaded abortion clinics. Others like the Army of God took credit for various bombings of different reproductive health centers. Some journalists and scholars wrote that there was a hierarchy of leaders within extremist antiabortion circles that orchestrated, aided and abetted people the media described as lone wolves. 

Many of those groups found justification within the theological arguments of Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical pastor who argued against abortion in his work and filmmaking. There were people who branched off those teachings to push for more aggressive methods of stopping abortions. Michael Bray, a Lutheran Minister, wrote A Time to Kill: A study concerning the Use of Force and Abortion in 1994. He argued for the use of force against abortion providers. 

Spoto thinks history could repeat itself. 

“If their legislature is able to pass a law saying, ‘Yes, fetuses are people. And all abortion is illegal,’ they could be all the more emboldened to take violent action against those providing abortions, whether they're in your state or another,” Spoto said. 

Already some candidates for office have positioned themselves as morally correct on the issue because of their personal faith. As has been argued in the past, conservatives have said that America is based on white Christian values. 

“When you have the government favoring a religion, specific religious beliefs, the religious views, that's bad for the government and that's bad for even the religion that's being favored,” Spoto said.