James Talarico

The Bible is silent on abortion.

And when that happens with a social issue as important as abortion, we Christians have to take scripture as a whole, and we've got to try to make some kind of ethical determination.

Right now in Texas, we have the most extreme abortion ban in the country, no exception for rape, no exception for incest.

We have girls as young as 10 years old who are

assaulted, who are raped, who are victims of incest, and who can't access basic reproductive care, who aren't able to make the decision about whether or not they are going to create.

And again, just my personal belief is that we have to give women and girls the freedom to make this decision as moral agents, as our sisters in Christ.

And I'm not saying that's an easy decision to come to, but that's where I've arrived.

And I will say that I think me and Pope Francis, Pope Leo,

Any Christian who's against abortion rights, we can find common ground on reducing the number of abortions.

We know how to do this.

If we treat this issue as a public health issue rather than as a culture war issue, we could reduce the number of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and therefore reduce the number of abortions.

Scientifically valid sex education is

available contraception.

These are all policies, universal healthcare, prenatal and maternal healthcare.

We know that all of these policies work to reduce the number of abortions, and that should be a giant area of common ground, no matter where you land on the legality of abortion itself.

Well, again, if people are...

truly pro-life, they should be deeply disturbed by this abortion ban in Texas because we have women who are literally dying in emergency room parking lots because their doctors are too afraid to provide the basic healthcare they need.

We have rape victims who are being forced to give birth to their rapist babies.

We have...

Politicians trying to control what public highways women are using to travel out of state to get the care they need and who are suffering because of it.