Dr. Risa Cromer is a 2025-2026 PRRI Public Fellow focusing on reproductive health and rights. She is also an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University.
PRRI’s 2022-2023 mainline Protestant clergy survey presents two important findings about faith leaders’ attitudes and activities related to abortion. Most clergy surveyed oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade (73%), often more strongly than their mainline Protestant churchgoers (51%). However, fewer clergy report discussing abortion with their congregations (27%) than poverty and inequality (89%) or racism (80%).
If clergy support for abortion access is strong but discussion with congregants is low, what explains the gap? How else might their support take shape? In this Spotlight Analysis, I present data from interviews with mainline clergy who support abortion access to show how that commitment is expressed both at the pulpit and throughout congregational life.
As part of a larger study, I interviewed nine mainline Protestant clergy who actively support reproductive rights and justice in their congregational work.[1] Six serve in the United Church of Christ, and the others serve in American Baptist Churches USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church. Eight identify as women (including one who identifies as a genderqueer woman) and one as a man, and five identify as queer. Two lead congregations in states where abortion remains broadly protected, while seven serve in states where it is restricted or banned. Their accounts reveal how advocacy for reproductive rights and justice operates in mainline churches.
Approaching Abortion Directly
Even clergy who preach explicitly about abortion frame it in different theological terms, from personal testimony to scriptural interpretation. One associate pastor in a state that protects access to abortion disclosed her own abortion in a sermon as Roe was falling, moved by the belief that reproductive decisions, including abortion, are “holy.” In a state where abortion is banned, another pastor and her co-pastor each preached on abortion after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision but took different routes. Her sermon centered on a theology of solidarity with those the ruling would harm, while her colleague’s examined what scripture says about when life begins. Yet sermons that explicitly name abortion capture only a small part of how clergy express support for reproductive rights and justice in congregational life.
Approaching Abortion Indirectly
Other clergy preach on abortion indirectly. A pastor in a restrictive state with grassroots organizing experience said sermons solely about reproductive justice are rare for her. More often she preaches on something related, like racism or poverty, and uses a pregnancy or parenting example to illustrate her point: “I am trying to normalize talking about these things as one part of the human experience and I find sometimes that’s easier for people to metabolize.” For her, this approach is part of a stepwise strategy for making abortion something that can be talked about more openly in church.
Those who choose not to preach on abortion make their support known in other ways. An Episcopal rector in a state that bans abortion approaches reproductive justice issues “sideways,” reserving explicit discussion of abortion for private conversations in her parish office. She has, however, shared with her congregation and colleagues that she has comprehensive training in caring for people in “reproductive crisis” and trusts that those who need her will find her. “I come at it on the side and I get so much done,” she said. Another pastor in a state that bans abortion addresses reproductive rights not in sermons but during her church’s informal “prayers and concerns” sessions after worship, during which people have disclosed pregnancies, losses, and other intimate matters.
Beyond the Pulpit
Beyond the pulpit, support for abortion is built into the everyday structure of congregational life. Several clergy have helped to form reproductive justice teams or ministries that organize actions, including writing postcards to legislators and letters to editors, hosting film screenings and conversations, and assembling care packages for abortion patients. A pastor in a state that restricts abortion access has guided her own congregation and others in adopting a formal reproductive justice designation through education, dialogue, and a vote. Another pastor in a state that restricts access convened her congregation to gauge its appetite for reproductive justice ministries and was encouraged by the turnout for the first meeting.
Educational programming is another form of support clergy provide. Two lead congregations that offer Our Whole Lives, a faith-based sexuality curriculum that, without being centrally about abortion, builds comfort with discussing the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive experiences in church.
Material care threads through their work. Clergy keep practical resources on hand, including free gas cards for people traveling out of state for abortion care, a miscarriage kit in a pastor’s office, and free condoms and emergency contraception at a church located near a university campus. Others extend their care into movement and clinic spaces. Two have served on the boards of reproductive health organizations; some have also testified before lawmakers. One pastor volunteered for many years, alongside a dozen of his congregants, as an escort at the local abortion clinic, walking patients past protesters to the door.
One of the least visible but most common ways that abortion-supportive clergy care for congregants is through pastoral care. Individual conversations in the office, after worship, and during ministry activities are where congregants have repeatedly disclosed their abortion stories. As one said: “Every time I’ve ever had a conversation with the congregation about [abortion], there’s the people who react negatively, but there’s also the women who come to me in private and say ‘thank you.’ Like, ‘I’ve been going to this church 20 years and as much as I love it and as safe as I feel, I’ve never told anyone here that I had an abortion.’ That’s what keeps me doing the work.” Pastoral care in this context includes referrals to abortion funds and clinics, compassionate listening and validation, and efforts to repair the theological harm caused when faith is used to shame bodies and sexuality.
Beyond the Survey Data
Taken together, these accounts suggest that survey measures of congregational discussion capture only one dimension of clergy support for abortion access. Across the various ways mainline clergy show their support, two themes recur. First, clergy rarely approach abortion as an isolated issue. Many draw on reproductive justice, which links abortion access to racial justice, gender equity, LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and immigrant rights. Second, their work is often strategically indirect. Unlike the rainbow flag, which can signal welcome to LGBTQIA+ congregants, support for abortion access has no widely recognized public symbol. Being publicly identified with abortion rights advocacy also comes with real risk. Clergy described receiving hate mail, being doxxed by anti-abortion activists, and undertaking work that could not be safely discussed on the record.
Nearly sixty years ago, the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion put its name in the newspaper and the word “abortion” in its title so that pregnant people would know where and how to find help. In the post-Dobbs United States, publicly supporting abortion is only one way mainline clergy put their faith-based commitments to reproductive freedom into practice. Across these accounts, support appeared in sermons preached head-on and sideways, in prayers and designation votes, in gas cards, miscarriage kits, and clinic escorting, and in conversations a congregant risks only once she is sure she will be met with compassion.
A fuller accounting of faith leaders’ support for abortion rights requires qualitative research into congregational life. Such research reveals how clergy translate their commitments to reproductive rights and justice into action through sustained relationships and trust-building. Quantitative studies, in turn, should measure support where it is practiced — in pastoral care, congregational infrastructure, and quiet conversations — not only where it is preached.
[1] “Reproductive rights” describes support for legal access to abortion whereas “reproductive justice,” a human rights framework first coined by Black women activists, affirms a broad set of freedoms to have, not have, and raise children safely and sustainably.
