There has recently been a debate in the Gazette about whether the feminist graffiti sprayed on the Bethlehem House, a crisis pregnancy care center in Easthampton, is vandalism and hence domestic terrorism, or free speech. Or was it a misguided action by those who are undermining the charitable work of a religious center providing goods and services to pregnant mothers in need?
A recent letter to the editor states that, “Bethlehem House provides clothes, diapers, bibs, etc. for women who might not be able to afford these items for their newborns. There is no political agenda.” The writer asks, “Why deface the property of charitable works?” and says “I will pray for those vandals, as my religion teaches me, and let a higher power bring them to justice.” But who is exactly guilty here and what would “bringing them to justice” mean?
Is the main purpose of the Bethlehem House charity simply to help poor pregnant mothers? Or is it to serve the political agenda of the religious anti-choice movement supported by the Catholic diocese sponsoring the charity? I maintain that the main aim of crisis pregnancy centers like Bethlehem House is to counsel women and pregnant people against having abortions, and they often use deceptive advertising to promote this goal.
As Michael Hutton-Woodland points out in his guest column in the Gazette on Aug. 27, it is mostly Christian conservatives denying abortion rights who want to coerce a pregnant person to carry a fetus to term. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision struck down the nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. Now more than half of U.S. states propose to outlaw abortions even in the case of rape and incest and when the mother’s life is in danger. Noted African American professor and reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross said in a recent panel at Smith College that the Dobbs Supreme Court decision permitting abortion bans creates an immoral situation: women are forced to birth unwanted children at the risk of their own lives, often to the detriment of their other children, family and community.
I maintain that states’ abortion bans constitute immoral violence against women by the state. Our Constitution proclaims religious freedom, but abortion bans unconstitutionally impose conservative Christian ideology and prevent people’s freedom to live by their own religion and morality. What is our moral and political responsibility to protest this immoral legal and political state of affairs? When slavery was legal, abolitionists who helped escaped slaves were violating the law. No doubt had the phrase been available, they would have been called “domestic terrorists” by slaveowners outraged that their human property had been “stolen.”
Sometimes it is morally justified to break the law. I would argue that the feminist graffiti defacing the property of the Bethlehem House is a justifiable moral and political act. It is a free speech act challenging the anti-abortion movement. It reframes the moral and political debate as about people’s right to bodily autonomy. The debate is not about whether to give charitable handouts to poor mothers-to-be with limited options. Yes, the graffiti defaced property. It was nonviolent civil disobedience. But what is the minor value of the damage worth, compared to the immorality and violation of religious freedom by laws and situations that force people to give birth and deny basic citizenship rights?
We in Massachusetts are fortunate to live in a liberal state that passed the Roe Act in 2020 protecting abortion rights, and in 2022 increased reproductive protections with the passage of the Act Expanding Protection for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care (see Carrie Baker’s Gazette column on Aug. 25). But as good as these laws are, they still do not require crisis pregnancy centers to tell the truth about all reproductive options available. And they do not protect pregnant people who lack resources, including information, medical care, or access to abortion pills at the right time.
Those of us who feel a moral and political obligation to protect all women and pregnant people’s rights to their own reproductive autonomy regardless of class or race should support moral and political acts of resistance. Our present order in the U.S. is unjust. The Supreme Court Dobbs decision has just declared war on our constitutional rights to religion and bodily autonomy. They may be coming for you next.
Ann Ferguson, is a professor emerita of Philosophy and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at UMass Amherst and lives in Leverett.