Abortion in the United States' bible belt: organizing for power and empowerment

Over the past 30 years, intensifying in the last decade, Christian fundamentalists and the Catholic Church in some United States' Southern and Western states have mobilized congregants, funds, political campaigns, and legislative and judicial support to effectively transform private religious norms and morality about sex and family structure into public law. This has resulted in an erosion of women's autonomy and reproductive rights in these states.Religious discourse has now become a vehicle used by politicians and legislators to advance conservative ideology and morality. Charismatic evangelists preach from the pulpits of their mega-churches via television denouncing President Obama as the Anti-Christ and women who obtain an abortion as murderers or "baby killers" tantamount to felons. Such clerics and their churches also regularly violate their non-profit status by explicitly promoting political candidates by name and adopting specific political positions in their weekly sermons [1]. The controlling influence that these wealthy theocrats exert on public opinion and community social norms is an unchecked abuse of power.Anti-female rhetoric, couched in appeals to some sort of religious morality, has become a routine component of the American political environment. Rhetoric is one thing. The reading of scripture into actual law is something quite different. In fact, the reading of scripture has become, in some states, the dominant cultural paradigm, profoundly anti-female and sustaining gender inequality.Anti-abortion activists have developed a language of blame and shame. These accusations are based on biblical passages that form a picture of women who chose to have an abortion and their physicians as murderers.The Christian Right raises billions of dollars to support ultra-conservative state-level candidates and legislators to promulgate their religious views. These philanthropists have developed interconnected funding priorities and strategies to advance their pu