There's overlooked nuance in the abortion debate.
When I first heard the Rev. Clinton L. Stancil preach this year, I knew I wanted to work with him on a video for Times Opinion. He was engaging and kinetic, untethering himself from the pulpit of Wayman A.M.E. Church in St. Louis, where he is the pastor, and bounding around the chancel, his oratorical crescendos blowing out the church's overmatched speakers. |
I had read about Stancil in a 2019 news story in The Times regarding the conversation around abortion and abortion rights among African Americans. He had staked out a nuanced position at the intersection of liberal civil rights activism and religious conservatism: He was opposed to abortion on moral grounds but was also vehemently pro-choice. His opposition to sweeping restrictions to abortion access put him at odds with some of the leadership of the A.M.E. Church. |
In conversations with him — first by phone and then in person in St. Louis — he explained to me how his views had evolved. He anchored his lifelong, anti-abortion stance in Scripture, but had come to his pro-choice views more recently, through ministering to disadvantaged Black communities around the country. For him, discussions about abortion and abortion rights in the Black community shouldn't be separated from discussions about police prejudice, high unemployment rates, the lack of access to health care, the poor state of urban schooling and what he called "the school-to-prison pipeline." |
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These conditions, he said, have contributed to social dynamics that compel Black women to have abortions at high rates, and he worried deeply about how the new restrictions would make matters worse for Black communities. |
In St. Louis, I also spoke with his wife, the Rev. Christine Stancil, a minister at the church, and met members of their congregation. (Clinton Stancil began his service the weekend I was there by saying a prayer for a young man who had just overdosed on the steps of the church.) |
In a novel approach for Opinion Video, we decided to film Stancil presenting a guest essay in the form of a sermon. His custom is to improvise his sermons based on notes. He drew up an outline based on our discussions, and on Sunday, Oct. 9, a three-person film crew recorded the sermon, which Stancil delivered as a postscript to his regular morning service. |
There was no bounding around the chancel this time; the "spirit of the Lord," to use his phrase, didn't move him in quite that way. But there was a lot of power in it all the same. |
What Our Readers Are Saying |
This pastor articulates my opinion exactly. Unfortunately, in today's polarized "you're either all in with us or you're against us" attitude, nuance gets crowded out or shouted down in social media's rant-o-sphere. — Anthony Davis, Wash. This man is spot on. I cheered during this sermon. My only bone to pick is that a person who does not think that abortion is a good idea but supports a woman's right to choose is still pro-choice. But at this point labels don't matter. Actions do. — LoisGH, Sunnyside, N.Y. Amen. I do support life but I also support a woman's right to choose. Until our country is willing to support parents with substantial leave, support families who are facing challenges and stop shaming women when there are two people involved in the conception of life, I do not want this legislated. — Lindsake, Houston |
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