A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women's Freedom to Christian Nationalism

A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women’s Freedom to Christian Nationalism
2/28/2024 by Chloe Nazra Lee
Republicans and anti-abortion politicians cannot ignore their role in the IVF ruling out of Alabama—yet another devastating turn for women.



A mural in Rochester, N.Y., by Sarah Rutherford. (Courtesy of Chloe Lee)

I hold many other identities than “Dr. Lee.” I once taught Sunday School. I love reading and community artwork. And I want to be a mother.
Sublimating my excess maternal energy into my preschoolers, I tried to make my classroom feel cozy and fun. We made bracelets, colored beads representing different verses of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father, who art in heaven,” pale blue). We played Memory Match to learn the 10 Commandments using homemade cards. I wanted the children’s spiritual life to be welcoming and enjoyable. I taught that God is love, respect, integrity and empathy. My first true crisis of faith happened when I left my marriage to a person whose least problematic feature was his proclivity for prostitutes and Ashley Madison. I could not stay married to someone who treated me with cavalier contempt. Beyond my ability to keep a clean home and to tend to his practical needs, I believe I was worthless to him, a wife only on paper.


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Ignorance and Ideology Have Led Us Here

Republicans cannot ignore their role in this devastating turn. Rigid anti-abortion efforts, enacted without an iota of nuance, led to this point—where embryos are equated with children. But it turns out that cutting off people’s chance to start families is wildly unpopular. Republicans are abruptly appreciating the precarious political position in which the Alabama ruling leaves them. We can arguably attribute this outcome to sheer thoughtlessness. Politicians’ ignorance of basic biology that informs policy is historically well-established and offers a scathing indictment of the American education system. As recently as 2019, Ohio introduced a bill banning abortion and demanding that physicians treat ectopic pregnancies by re-implanting the embryo in the woman’s uterus. (No such medical procedure exists.
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Abuse and hypocrisy, often from men, threaten family stability more than feminism or divorce ever could. I’ve written extensively on what it means to be a good man, and I wish Johnson would encourage men to follow these examples, which would actually be consistent with his stated biblical worldview. But men who believe in the inherent inferiority of women will never own their destructive actions.

Meanwhile, feminism gave me an education and career, helping me escape male contempt. Women who preceded me, including my grandmother and great-aunts, of minimal education and few resources outside marriage, were less fortunate, confined to lives of sexual and physical abuse by “Christian” husbands, some of whom even served as church deacons. Their families only remained intact because the women could not leave. I left my ex-husband for many reasons, and I’m lucky that I had the option to choose a better life for myself. I want the same for women nationwide. Women must resist the future that hypocritical men flying under false colors of morality have designed for us. *************IF OUR COUNTRY'S CONCEPT OF FAMILY STABILITY RELIES ON DEPRIVING WOMEN OF THEIR CHOICES, WE DO NOT HAVE STABLE FAMILIES, WE HAVE PRISONERS!!! *************

https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/28/women-choice-freedom-republicans-religion-ivf-fertility/