Resources for Christians who support women’s reproductive decisions and access to abortion
Based on the book Trust Women by Rebecca Todd Peters
This site is not created or maintained by Rebecca Todd Peters, though she was consulted about the content of the Trifold and Pamphlet below. You can find more of her work at rebeccatoddpeters.com. If you have questions about the site or the resources provided here, you can reach us at TrustWomenATX at gmail dot com.
Trust Women:
A Christian ethical framework
that recognizes abortion as a moral decision
and honors all the reproductive paths women travel
as they thoughtfully, responsibly make
moral decisions about their lives
and their families.
Introduction
In Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice, a minister and ethicist offers a stirring argument that abortion can be a moral good, understood from within a Christian moral framework. Rebecca Todd Peters argues that “Child-bearing is a deliberative moral act rather than an accident of nature.” —Trust Women, p. 172. She shows us that when we take the sacred role of parenting seriously, we can understand a pregnant person’s choice to accept or reject their pregnancy as one responsible decision in the context of a full and faithful life.
Todd discusses the history of our views about abortion, within and outside the church; the damaging effects of framing the abortion debate between “pro-life” and “pro-choice;” and the complexity and nuance of pregnancy as an unfolding social (not merely biological) process. She introduces a new term, “prenate,” to capture the unique status of a potential child, morally valuable as a potential person but still not-yet a person until birth. Todd describes the history of our moral beliefs about the prenate, and she opens up new possibilities for us to understand the utterly unique relationship between the pregnant person and the prenate.
Todd ultimately argues that women who choose to have an abortion (or have a child) are making serious, thoughtful, responsible decisions, and we must support them and trust them to know their situations and their families best. She argues that we must shift our narrow focus on whether specific abortions can be justified to a broad consideration of reproductive justice across society. She urges, “The moral question we face is how to create a society where women’s lives and well-being, and the well-being of their families and communities, are public-health priorities.” —Trust Women, p. 186
Downloads
Trifold Brochure about Trust Women: Introducing the key questions of the book.
Pamphlet about Trust Women: a ten page PDF introduction and summary of the main ideas of the book.
“Women’s capacity to control their fertility is a moral good. Abortion can be a good and responsible decision that women make faithfully, without regret, and without shame.”
Rebecca todd peters, TRUST WOMEN, P. 205
Contact
If you’d like more information about any of these resources, email us at TrustWomenATX at gmail dot com. You can find out more about Rebecca Todd Peter’s work at rebeccatoddpeters.com.
If you are interested in using these materials for a bookclub or Christian education series on Trust Women, please email us at TrustWomenATX at gmail dot com. We have slides available with discussion questions, and we also have some availability to teach a virtual session or series on the book for your group.
Trust Women ATX 