There has been a pro-life movement on this land, for millennia.
Those who today call themselves pro-life, have always been their enemy.
My father was a farmer when he was a young man. He taught us the value of good, vibrant soil. How deeply the quality of the soil mattered, and how important it was to have microbes and fungus and all the little things, that make life come to life. So many of the necessary nutrients found in soil, are a delicate balance that keeps it able to restore itself year after year, and capable of producing so much of what keeps us alive.
He taught us the value of a seed, and how different a natural seed is from those that have been manipulated for mass production. He taught us the magic, sacred nature of water. How you can combine all these elements to grow beautiful, colorful, energetic food. And how good my body felt, when I ate food I had helped grow, or had been grown near land I called home.
The original peoples of the land we call the Americas, were both stewards of creation, and active participants in the creating of ecosystems. From the Great Plains to the Redwoods, the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes, each of these regions were grown and supported by human beings, over the course of thousands of years.
We are surrounded by relatives; the earth, the air, water, animals, plants, trees, fungus, and all the humans who have been here since time immemorial. Each of these have played a role in a vast movement for life. This movement is what sustains some of the largest, most productive agricultural land in the world. This movement is what has sustained hundreds of millions of people, and this movement is what sustains you and I now.
When Europeans first arrived on these shores, the Pope issued a law. This law would be more consequential, in more corners of the earth, than nearly any passed before or after. What could make a law so powerful ?
The law held simply, that any land taken from a non-Christian, was legally taken. If you were Indigenous, or if you were Pagan, or if you were Muslim or Buddhist or otherwise, your land — according to the Pope — could be legally taken by any European Christian, by any means necessary.
This law led to the Doctrine of Discovery, and was the legal foundation used to conquer and colonize all of North America, South America, Africa, Australia, most of Asia, many of the islands, and the Middle East.
All across the world, white Christians encountered lands and people living on that land, who worshiped the earth, or the water, or the animals, or other deities, or one another. And according to the head of the Christian empire, those people were legally allowed to be removed from the land, however necessary.
They were allowed to be killed. They were allowed to be raped. They were allowed to be tortured. They were allowed to be burned. They were allowed to be removed, by any and all methods, to allow white Christians to take over their land.
Eleven European countries conquered 80% of the landmass in the world with this law in hand, and this law represents the beginning of most modern nation states today.
This law is the foundation of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and everything that is south and below. And although the movement to claim control by any means necessary happened everywhere, it began here. First in modern day Haiti, and then in the Carolinas.
The Missions were a strategic centerpiece in colonial expansion. They worked to evangelize the people, enslave the population, remove their spirituality, and generationally subjugate them. This was true on all continents.
The first President of Liberated Kenya, said these words in his inauguration speech.
“When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they had the Land, and we had the Bible.”
Across places like California, where more than 300 languages once thrived in one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth, the Missions played the same role. A Chumash elder I had the great honor of spending time with, said that the Mission Arches are to him, what the Swastikas above Camp Gates, are to Jews. The symbol of a place, built to steal their labor and lives.
Before the great Patrice Lumumba, first President of Liberated Congo, was assassinated by the United States and the United Kingdom, he said these words,
“The only thing which we want for our country is the right to a Worthy Life. To Dignity without pretense, and to Independence without restrictions. This was never the desire of the Belgian Colonialists and their Western allies.”
Native people have always known that those who heralded themselves as heroes of democracy, were Colonizers first. But by and large, white people have been able to inoculate themselves from this point of view. Forced displacement, mass shootings, state-funded genocide and open air POW camps we call reservations, have allowed white folks to pretend as though these grave crimes against humanity are distant history, with little relevance in modern day. But just because you don’t hear their perspectives on a day to day basis, or encounter them in your regular life, doesn’t mean they are not held by those on the other side of the Great Doctrine.
The arrival of social media presented an opportunity for voices to rise, that had previously been entirely erased from distributed public discourse. The subjugation and distant removal of these perspectives were finally given a chance to come to light, and be heard by settler society. This began at a time when the largest generation in human history, was coming into political consciousness. Together they represented an enormous bloc of people unusually open and willing to receive ideas that have always been on this land, despite the violence waged to eliminate them, and to hear points of view, that have for so long, struggled to survive.
This has quite clearly terrified the colonial power structure. They see a generation that is bigger and more connected globally than any before, and who is utterly opposed to their wars and conquest. Utterly opposed to their subjugation of people and planet. Utterly opposed to the racial hierarchies that have defined our legal system. And utterly opposed to the misuse of extrajudicial violence by police and our military. They know they will have to do more to control us, than any American regime in the past.
This is why we are now seeing such concerted efforts to ban books, to ban protest, to make the teaching of our history illegal, to remove Voting Rights, and to criminalize vulnerable communities such as those who are trans.
Those in power have clearly recognized that they will no longer be able to win through popular elections. Their only chance of maintaining Colonial Rule, will be through a hostile takeover of American governance. They have removed one of the great victories of the Civil Rights Movement in the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, they have removed our Miranda rights, and they have now removed the fundamental rights of Women to Bodily Sovereignty.
When abortion is illegal, women die. They die. Many, many, many die. It is a simple fact.
A recent study at Duke showed that when abortion is illegal, the deaths of women go up by more than 20%. Of course, this falls disproportionately on people who are already marginalized and vulnerable.
Abortions save lives. Abortion saves lives every day, all the time. Abortion is necessary in a wide variety of circumstances, and has been practiced by people since time immemorial. The right to an abortion, and to all forms of body sovereignty, are an intrinsic part of what it means for a person to be free.
Even as I type those words, it’s clear that they are not my own, but simply an echo of the millions of thunderous feet on streets, over generations of colonial subjugation, pulling away from work and family and life and love and art and survival, to demand their basic human rights. Colonial Christianity has never fully acknowledged these rights, just as it has never fully acknowledged the rights of non-white Christians, or non-Christians more generally.
My father was a Jewish man who left Queens at 18, to pursue adventure on new horizons. He met a woman in California, and followed her family back to West Texas, and eventually to a town called Abilene. For nearly 20 years he owned a large commercial building near the center of town, and for nearly 20 years he kept his identity largely secret.
I moved back to Abilene five years ago, and every day I think about why he chose to live that way. And every day, I’m confronted with the dominance of Colonial Christianity. Control of the land, and the laws, and every aspect that determines the context of our lives.
The city has been good to our family for generations, and I will forever be grateful for the friendships created here. Like much of the South, it is filled with kind and polite people, who will always greet you with a smile and a handshake. But beneath the manners of modern times, is a history rife with violence.
In many corners of town, there is transformation and a challenging of the status quo. I have found the underground of Abilene to be full of grit and determination, with talent long ignored, and deep wells of passion. Few know better the structures of oppression, than those who live so close to it. At a time when Texans are threatening to secede from the Union and criminalize homosexuality, and at a time when the banning of books is being publicly demanded, the necessary context is that the city was originally created to be a colony for a very specific religious movement. Though overwhelmingly built by the Black community and the Latino community, it is the white Christian community that owns it.
When the abortion ban was first announced in Texas, and tens of thousands marched in Austin, there were some forty of us here in Abilene. In this town once called home by one of the lawyers who argued on behalf of Roe, young women mostly of color, marched with courage and conviction. I walked in awe of their bravery, as we were surrounded by white men with signs calling us murderers. This kind of blind righteousness, so endemic among Christian Nationalism, will do nearly anything to not see the genocide they generationally perpetuate. Every accusation is a projection.
It is a cultural movement I know well. My mother’s family has been in texas since before it was texas, and have always believed they were called by God to be stewards of the land. In its root form, this belief is beautiful, and one that cultivates great growth. But when merged with violence, and the belief that the land belongs only to those who share your symbols, it becomes a nationalism that will work to dominate everything it touches, until met with an equal or greater force.
The Colonists believe that the existing order, is the natural order. They believe that White Christian Men ought to be in charge of the structures that determine our lives. That they ought to be the sole arbiters of the laws and guns and violence, and the upholding of our fundamental rights. This is the doctrine of discovery. This is colonial ideology. This is colonial supremacy.
This land that was home to the buffalo for millennia, and lived on by the Jumano and Kiowa and Wichita and Comanche people, for thousands and thousands of years, today has nearly no one nearby, who keeps their traditions and language alive. Instead it has been replaced by a religious movement supremely convinced of their supremacy, and their right to dominion over land and people.
Today I speak to my ancestors in my prayers, and welcome them to support the people in their struggle to be free. To come with broader eyes than they were able to see from, in their time. I feel them with us, beckoning a new relationship with the land, and all the people who now call this land home.
This November we will vote on whether to make this town a “Sanctuary City for the Unborn.” At a recent vigil for women’s rights, a local man named Joey Devora stood among a courageous circle, and said after centuries of slavery, segregation and displacement, it was time Abilene became a Sanctuary City for Freedom. Our hearts swelled with hope.
There is a generation rising across the colonized world, and especially in places like the South, ready to do whatever it takes, to liberate the people of this land. To create a future where all people, and all living beings, have their foundational rights protected. The legal structures may still be controlled by those who swear fealty to the Doctrine of Discovery, but if enough of us begin to decide otherwise, I do believe we can build a land where all are free.
I am pro Life.
In every part of my being, I am For Life.
Everything I value and love and hold dear, is for Life.
Everything I pray to, and worship, and struggle for, and fight for, is for Life.
I am for the rivers and I am for the springs.
I am for the mountains and I am for the snow.
I am for the oceans, and the symphony of creatures that call her home.
I am for the grass, and for the forests and trees.
I am for the birds and the wetlands and estuaries.
I am for the salmon and the soil.
I am for all the animals who walk and fly and crawl.
I am for the humans and the children and the elders.
I am for the women and the men and the spectrum of genders in between.
I am pro life in every way I know how to be.
And we will continue to struggle around the world, until all are free.
In the depths of my soul, nothing has guided me more, than listening to the ever present whisper of Life. And no matter how much the colonizers wish to claim that term, know that it is a lie. Life demands versatility, expanse, diversity, acceptance of all that is, and deference to water. Conquerors cannot be for Life. They are for their dominion, their domination, and their supremacy.
If you are a Christian, and filled with the righteous desire to protect the innocent, know that there is a vast community of human beings, fighting for Life, and ready to welcome your support and creativity and labor and dedication.
When children are stuck at the border, and families are separated without Habeas Corpus, we need a movement for Life.
When native mothers see their daughters stolen, and their sisters go missing at far higher rates than any other people, we need a movement for Life.
When Black mothers watch their children shot down day after day after day after day, we need a movement for Life.
When climate scientists put their bodies on the line, to warn humanity of ecological collapse, we need a movement for Life.
When Indigenous People pray for the water and move to protect it with their very lives, we need a movement for Life.
When school children walk out of classrooms across America, demanding gun control so they can safely learn in schools, we need a movement for Life.
When teachers and nurses and construction workers and all forms of laborers, demand better pay, paid parental leave, and healthcare for all people, we need a movement for Life.
And when refugees flee war, often driven by exceedingly profitable arms dealers, and mining and oil companies, we need a movement for Life.
To those who have previously identified with the anti-choice movement, I say please join us. Please hear the millions of human beings crying out across our country, and recognize that there are no babies without Mothers. To reduce abortions, we must invest in the safety of Mothers.
In Jewish law, God calls us to protect Mothers as one of our highest obligations. In Islam, the life of the Mother is held as sacred and primary. Indigenous nations have often been Matriarchies, and held precious the medicine needed to give yourself an abortion, or offer it to others.
Within Christianity, there has been a great divide since Rome adopted the religion, and used it to justify its expanse. To understand this division, it’s critical to understand the religion’s founding story:
Jesus was brought up on charges by a religious power structure, and ultimately sentenced by a violent Nation-State. If you grew up being told — as many children are — that America was God’s chosen land, just as Jesus was God’s chosen son, then you heard the story upside down. You heard the myth first used by the Romans to justify their expansion of empire, then used to justify the Crusades, and eventually used to conquer the Americas and beyond. You heard the story of Colonialism.
Because in the real story; America, is Rome. And Jesus, is the persecuted.
The marginalized. The oppressed.
Colonial Christianity distorts the founding story of its faith, to tell those who love Jesus that they ought to be supportive of Roman style conquest and control, rather than in creating a society that protects the most vulnerable among us. This is the modern Right.
In contrast, there are significant communities of Christians who understand their Savior stood with the oppressed, and comforted the afflicted. That he opposed those who used Religion as a tool for Control and Power, rather than connection with God and all of Creation. That he opposed those who used places of Worship, as places for Profit. That he opposed those who utilized oppression and violence. And that he gave his life, working to heal.
This tradition is overwhelmingly found in the Black Church, and among Christian Abolitionists. Across the ages, it has been a powerful force for social change, and against the forces of Colonialism.
The fight to outlaw abortion reveals the depths of the hypocrisy intrinsic in those who would use a Savior of the oppressed, to justify their oppression. Where mothers and babies and innocent people are actually begging for Life, those who call themselves “pro-life”, are nowhere to be found. The same movement that fights to strip women of their inherent freedom to bodily sovereignty, also works to prevent the measures that would make life more livable for mothers, and make child rearing a more beautiful, safe journey, rather than the isolated, dangerous and expensive one it is today.
If you wish to protect the unborn, please join all those working to address poverty and homelessness and war and ecological destruction. All those working to create healthcare for all, housing for all, a living wage for all, and most importantly, fundamental freedoms for all.
A pro life society would work together to be sure our children’s air is clean, and our water is clean, and our land grows clean food.
A pro life society would prioritize our health and our wellbeing and our education and our livelihoods.
A pro life society would form communities where mothers and families can support one another, and share with one another in the daily challenges children often bring.
A pro life society would demand an end to nuclear weapons, and take the resources we spend perpetuating war around the world, and invest them instead, in perpetuating peace.
A pro life society would do everything in its power to end fossil fuels and fracking, and protect the aquifer networks where our grandchildren and great grandchildren’s futures reside.
A pro life society would work to transform systems of domination like prisons, for-profit camps on the border, and the death penalty, into systems for healing, rehabilitation, restoration and reintegration.
A pro life society would work with Native Nations all over the continent, to ensure sovereignty, to honor historic Treaties, and to give back their sacred places and possessions, so they can steward and shepherd the land as they have since the beginning of time.
A pro life society would support women and children as its core and central obligation.
And yet where were those who used that name, when a generation of Native women were sterilized ? Where were they, when the Boarding Schools stole hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children, and sent them to places that hated their culture, language and religion? Where were they when those children were tortured and beaten, and far too often killed.
It was largely white Christian women who ran the Residential Schools. Who adopted Indigenous children into abusive homes, and perpetuated generational trauma. Colonial Christianity used residential schools and violent displacement to fill orphanages, and homes that allowed only a single expression of faith. This wholesale system of child-trafficking over generations, resulted in a destruction of language, cultures and lives, nearly unmatched in history. It is the descendants of those who supported the Boarding Schools, who today lead the movement against bodily sovereignty for all people.
The anti-choice movement has always been fraudulent, in that it has fought to give rights to those not yet sovereign, and steal them from those who are alive right now. This fraudulence is especially true, given that the Justices who have overturned Roe, were only confirmed because they explicitly lied to Congress in their confirmation hearings.
They lied. The four men and one woman, who believe they have the right to remove fundamental rights for hundreds of millions of people, lied under oath, and to the entire nation. Each of them committed perjury, in full view of the public, and with consequences that will leave far too many dead and suffering. To proclaim this a righteous victory for Jesus, as so many Evangelicals have done, reveals the true intent of a religious movement that has replaced God with Power, Salvation with Nation, and Freedom with Colonial Subjugation.
American Christians can either choose freedom of Religious expression for All People, or they can choose a theocratic repression which almost always leads to fascism. They cannot choose both.
I believe we will be victorious. That those who love Life, and are willing to give our lives to defend it, will win. That all living beings, will one day be free. That when this chapter of human history is written and complete, and our generation’s final struggles have come to pass, and it is time for the future to carry the banner, we will hand them a world that is freer than the one we were born into.
But for today, these laws of oppression are real. And many human beings will die and suffer as a result.
So begin to build. To build power in your community, in your town, in your city, in your county. Build solidarity amongst one another, and build power for vulnerable people. Build community power, with each other and for each other. Build spaces for art and expression, build pathways for community healing. Build circles of truth and reconciliation, and build monuments in the public square.
And if you are in a big city and have any degree of mobility, please consider going home. Go back, to the land of your childhood, or the land of your forebearers. Go back, where those in power have been unaccountable for generations, and where vulnerable citizens suffer as a result. Go out, and find commonality among those who grow our food, and produce so much of what keeps us alive, and where strict hierarchies are maintained, between the Owners, and the Laborers. Build in places where divergent people have been all but silenced, and grow a whisper to a roar.
The places “in between”, will struggle greatly in this new era of repression. And while cities will likely remain central for many in our generation, they often operate as fundraising engines for the aggressive oppression of rural and border communities. The work of shifting power will demand significant migrations away from places that concentrate youth and resources, and toward places where the power structure continues to hold on, with white and ferocious knuckles.
In places like west texas, trans and queer people are actively under threat. The public library is being actively attacked for welcoming a plurality of stories. And all those who are marginalized or vulnerable, speak of the hostility that is ever present.
Dr. King calls on us to disobey unjust laws. While each person is entitled to their own view, the laws throughout history that have precluded revolution, are those that degrade a portion of the people, while elevating the power of others. Laws that prevent the full expression of your humanity. And laws that prohibit your foundational freedoms.
The court rulings removing and criminalizing our Miranda Rights, our Voting Rights, our Right to Religious Expression, our Right to Protest, and our Right to Bodily Sovereignty, are fundamentally unjust, and demand generational defiance.
Women from sea to shining sea, are now plotting to intentionally break the law, in order to protect vulnerable women. This kind of revolutionary love, is the foundation upon which a new Union could grow on this land.
We who wish for the freedom of all people, may not have learned the pathways to unity, but I do believe that as the threat of Religious Fascism becomes more clear, we will begin to join with one another in pursuits many of us have only imagined, and find our collective way to liberation.
Deep within my soul, I will forever believe, that together we will be free.
sean david