Jen Hatmaker voices support for abortion, calls opposition ‘political theater’
Author says pro-life lawmakers should provide a multitude of subsidies from free child care to marriage counseling
Christian author Jen Hatmaker, a mother of five, has voiced her support for Roe v. Wade after a leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion suggests that the landmark decision that legalized abortion appears set to be overturned.
The overturning of the 1973 Supreme Court judgment will cause “immediate, disproportionate harm,” and “not just emotional harm; physical and legal harm,” Hatmaker wrote on her blog.
Last week, Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion regarding the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which suggested that five of the nine Supreme Court justices voted to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15-week gestation and they would overturn Roe v. Wade, which usurped states' laws on abortion and legalized the practice nationwide.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
An overturned Roe v. Wade decision would send the issue back to the 50 respective states to each determine their abortion laws.
Hatmaker, who made headlines in 2016 for affirming same-sex marriage, claimed that data “unambiguously” proves that “making abortion illegal doesn’t lower abortion rates.”
“It simply makes them more dangerous,” she argued. “And dangerous for whom? 1-in-4 American women have had an abortion, so … dangerous for your daughters, your sisters, your best friends, your colleagues, your neighbors, your church friends, and of course those of you reading with your quiet, private personal history here, as it should be, yourself. It will be disproportionately dangerous for women of color and under-resourced women, as all social ills are.”
Hatmaker further argued that abortion is a choice women make for “endless personal reasons including the health of the mother, the health of the baby, rape, incest, viability, financial instability, a dangerous home environment, lack of help, and of course reasons that are theirs alone … as are their bodies.”
She added, “This is intensely personal and private, and women deserve agency and choice not only with their bodies but over the decision to parent for the rest of their lives. Anti-abortion advocates have every right to their convictions, but those convictions should only apply to their bodies, their families, and their futures.”
Hatmaker called the legislative opponents to Roe “political theater.”
“If this rabid energy was genuine if it had any integrity, it would come baked in with the fiercest and staunchest advocacy for free birth control, comprehensive sex education, maternal health care and paid maternity leave.”
The list included: “subsidized child care, affordable housing, marriage counseling and family support systems, guaranteed food security, victims’ rights for all the rape and incest survivors forced to carry their abuser’s baby, subsidized medical care for all the women forced to carry a baby to the detriment of their own health or that of their baby, life insurance for the families whose mothers died in forced childbirth, and every conceivable support for a mother, baby, and family from birth until forever.”
However, many of her followers didn’t agree with her.
“Each life is precious and deserves a chance,” wrote one follower on Facebook. “Reversing Roe V. Wade will give more unborn children a chance at life. There is no other way to look at it or justify keeping abortion legal. While every woman that becomes pregnant has infinite value, so does the life she carries inside her. So many women have experienced abortion and it not only has caused irreparable harm to them but permanently taken away the rights of the unborn person inside them. There are pro-life people who care about both the baby and the mother.”
As The Christian Post reported last week, an ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that most Americans don’t want the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, but a recent Fox News poll shows that about half of registered voters favor banning abortions past six weeks gestation.
In the most recent ABC/Post poll, 54% said the Supreme Court should uphold Roe and 28% wanted it overturned. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, while 37% thought that it should be illegal in all or most cases.
When asked whether they would support a law in their state banning abortions after six weeks gestation, 58% of respondents indicated that they would oppose it. Fifty-seven percent of participants said they oppose banning abortions abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but how late into the pregnancy those surveyed think abortion should be available remains unclear.
Sixty-seven percent said abortion should be legal if the unborn child has severe birth defects, with 23% opposed. Forty-eight percent said they support legal abortion in cases where the mother cannot afford a child and 45% disagreed.
A Fox News poll conducted from April 28 to May 1 by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research suggests that 54% of over 1,000 registered voters surveyed believed their state should ban abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, while 41% opposed such a ban.
Exactly one-half of respondents expressed support for banning abortions after six weeks of gestation, while 46% thought abortion should remain legal beyond the first six weeks of pregnancy.
Hatmaker also made headlines in 2020 after she publicly said she was “glad” her daughter is a lesbian.
“I can’t get past the hundreds of messages and notes and emails and texts y’all are sending Sydney and me after our podcast last week. We screenshot and send them to each other every day, because WE ARE SO UNDONE,” Hatmaker wrote in a lengthy Facebook post at the time.
“Estranged moms asking their gay children to forgive them. Gay grandmas coming out for the first time. Siblings and aunts and kids of trans people reaching out with apologies and connection. Mamas saying they can love and affirm their young, closeted gaybies with no reservations now. LGBTQ people who finally believe Jesus loves them,” she added.
