The controversy around whether or not one should be able to end their pregnancy often stems from religious beliefs, not political ideologies. When looking at the general U.S. population, approximately 64% of Americans believe abortion should be “legal in all or most cases.” However, this statistic dramatically fluctuates when breaking down opinions based on religious affiliation. For instance, a 2022 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute shows that 71% of white evangelical Protestants, 56% of Jehovah’s Witnesses and 67% of Latter-day Saints hold the belief that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, a significant contrast to the 30% of white mainline Protestants, 20% of the Jewish population, 21% of Buddhists and 14% of religiously unaffiliated Americans who believe the same.

It doesn’t take much to notice a correlation between opinions on abortion and religious beliefs. In many cases, those opposed to abortion belong to a Christian denomination due to the Christian belief that life begins at conception. State-imposed abortion bans are often rooted in this belief, as Christian legislators believe they are acting in the defense of life by criminalizing abortion. These restrictions vary state to state, with the majority of strict regulations being found in the South, a region dominated by actively practicing Protestants. However, other religions, such as Judaism and Islam, do not share the Christian belief that life begins at conception. Similarly, there is no shared belief about when life begins among those without a religious affiliation. Yet, these faith-based bans affect them too.

The question then becomes: How can lawmakers use faith to justify banning abortions for the protection of lives when their constituents cannot even agree when those lives begin? If a belief in Christianity causes one to hold that life begins at conception, they can choose not to have an abortion. But the United States is not governed by the Bible or any other religious text; it is governed by the Constitution, a document that strictly prohibits favoring one religion over another. It is deplorable for lawmakers to force those with different personal convictions to give birth, and it disregards the fact that the United States is not, and never has been, a nation of one religion.