Church Life Today

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, a wide array of commentators bemoaned how much more support would now be needed for women who become pregnant when abortion is no longer available, or less readily available. What that implies, of course, is that abortion is a substitute for other supportive measures for pregnant and parenting women, or even more to that point, that those other forms of support are substitutes for the perceived cure-all of abortion. My guest today calls out this implicit assumption in an essay she wrote that specifically focuses on the ways in which institutions of higher education do or do not adequately support women as women, with their distinctive reproductive capacities in view.Angela Franks is Professor of Theology at St. John’s Seminary in Boston. She is no stranger to our own McGrath Institute for Church Life as she currently serves as a Life and Human Dignity Writing Fellow for our Church Life Journal, and she has joined me on our show before to talk about gender, bodies, and the sp