Why some Black churches aren?t elated about the possible end of Roe

Wade could be overturned, the Rev. Cheryl Sanders felt conflicted.The senior pastor of D.C.’s Third Street Church of God personally doesn’t support abortion but is weary of the politics around being labeled “pro-life” and is grappling with how to address the issue before her predominantly Black congregation. Some leaders of Black churches say they can’t help viewing the debate through a racial lens: Black women are more likely to have abortions, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data, while government reports show they are also three times as likely as White women to die of pregnancy complications.Even among those who oppose abortion, the topic is fraught. Research shows that Black pastors are less likely to mention abortion in their sermons than White pastors of evangelical churches, and opposition is often more implied than stated directly.We don’t “have a rule at our church, that if you had an abortion, you can get kicked out or you’re condemned,” Sanders says. While Black churchgoers share religious values with White Christians, their racial identity, along with historical distrust over issues such as civil rights, has made it more difficult to come together, says the Rev. John Fils-Aime, senior pastor at Central Baptist Church on New York City’s Upper West Side.“There’s a lot that we share in common,” Fils-Aime says. Black Protestants (66 percent) were more likely than Catholics overall (56 percent) or White evangelicals (24 percent) to agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a March 2022 survey conducted by Pew Research Center.Many Black church leaders believe that there are other issues more deeply impacting the day-to-day lives of congregants.“There are more pressing issues in the Black community than abortion. … This is just a distraction,” says Pastor Lynntesha Roberts Henley of Cherry Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dothan, Ala.But on the issue of abortion, Black church leaders have been more mum.