WASHINGTON (AP) — The Rev. Warren H. Stewart Sr., a Phoenix pastor, has had countless discussions with fellow Black men this election season about the economy, criminal justice, immigration and other issues dominating the political landscape in the battleground state of Arizona. But he never discussed abortion.
“This is about justice. This is about the possibility that Donald Trump will reverse all the gains of the civil rights movement. This is not about abortion,” Stewart said.
This stands in stark contrast to what President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been saying on the campaign trail. Win the support of voters who support abortion rightsMeanwhile, Trump and his supporters are trying to win over anti-abortion voters.
nevertheless Black men traditionally support the Democratic Party.But they are widely believed to be unenthusiastic about Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee. They make up nearly 7% of the electorate, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, and their thousands of votes in Arizona, Pennsylvania and other battleground states could determine the outcome of the election this year.
Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina remains concerned that Trump’s hyper-masculine campaign style is alienating black male voters who feel unrepresented in mainstream politics. Clyburn is trying to buck that trend..
Biden, 81, is trying to shore up his loyal base of support after dismal debate performances stoked concerns about his age. He recently appeared at the Mount Airy Church of God. Christian meetings were held in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the state to quell lingering doubts and rumors.
What you need to know about the 2024 election
“I honestly have never been more optimistic about the future of America if we come together,” Biden told the crowd in a brief address that echoed Harris but did not mention abortion rights.
Among black clergy, few are better placed to assess Biden’s character and fitness than Bishop Reginald T. Jackson.
Bishop Jackson, 70, the 132nd bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was a publicist for Biden’s first run for U.S. Senate in 1972 and first saw the candidate’s shortcomings up close as a student at Delaware State University.
“This stutter? It’s nothing new,” Jackson said from his Atlanta home.
Jackson said Biden’s recent gaffes at the debate and subsequent press conferences shouldn’t stop him from touting his record of support for historically black colleges and universities and his administration’s defense of minority-owned small businesses.
“It’s as if what the president accomplishes is being treated as some kind of state secret,” Jackson said.
Jackson said she doesn’t believe the federal government should interfere with abortion decisions that should be left to women and their doctors, and she’s pleased with how the Biden team has handled the issue.
Abortion has remained a contentious issue in black Protestant churches for the past half century, fraught with questions about sexuality and gender that the Christian community has historically struggled with.
In interviews, black church leaders acknowledged that their churches aren’t always adept at talking about human sexuality, a trait they share with mainline Protestant churches. In “Moral Struggle: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics,” author R. Marie Griffith, a humanities professor at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that a wariness about discussing sex — particularly one that grapples with deeply held views about women’s sexuality — is at the root of many of the most divisive political issues.
In particular, Black male pastors like Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, have been vocal in their support for abortion access, especially during his 2022 reelection campaign.
But Warren Stewart, head of the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix, while acknowledging the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe as a “political gift,” wants Biden and Harris to talk less about abortion. He believes abortion should only be legal when the life of a birthing person is at risk.
Some disagree. The Rev. Leslie D. Callahan, the first woman to serve as pastor in Philadelphia, historic The pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church said all men, regardless of race, need to decide which functions of their bodies they want the federal government to control. Black women Highest maternal mortality rate In the United States, CDC’s 2022 report.
“Without bodily autonomy,” she said, “where is true freedom?”
She noted that Biden, who supports protecting abortion access, is not being asked to step down from the presidency, just from the campaign.
“If he’s fit to govern, I don’t see why he’s not fit to run for office,” Callahan said. “If we’re going to vet Biden, we should vet his presidential record and his policies. If we’re going to vet his fitness, we should vet his opponent’s fitness consistently and equally.”
Trump is trying to win over black votersAbout 70% of Black adults still have a generally unfavorable view of Trump, according to an Associated Press analysis of two consecutive polls conducted in June by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Policy Research, but that figure has fallen 20 percentage points since the beginning of 2021.
but, The Trump campaign has said black men may be more likely to identify with Trump’s message.Black men and black women have similar views of him.
Black men’s views of Biden are also not overwhelmingly favorable: About half of black men have a somewhat favorable or very favorable view of Biden, while about 7 in 10 black women and about 4 in 10 black men view the president unfavorably, according to an analysis of polls.
The Rev. Otis Moss Jr., pastor emeritus of Cleveland’s Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, one of the largest and best-known black churches in Ohio, is uneasy with Trump’s position, saying the former president is interested in protecting prenatal life but not postnatal life.
“Women – women’s human rights – should not be violated because of someone else’s political ideology,” Moss said.
Vice President Harris, a member of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, spoke about her religious beliefs during a speech in March. Visiting a Minnesota Planned Parenthood Clinic This will be the first visit by a sitting president or vice president.
“No one should have to abandon their faith or their deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies,” Harris said.
“If she wants, she will consult with a priest, pastor, rabbi or imam. But is it the government going to dictate to her what she can or cannot do with her body?”
Callahan said individualized pastoral care is better suited to helping women and families navigate difficult and nuanced medical choices, including abortion, than blanket government policies. Often, people must choose between two difficult options, neither of which is optimal, she said.
“The final consideration in that choice is whether you can find a doctor who is willing to take whatever risks it takes to get you back to your physical, mental and emotional health,” she said.
This election season, Planned Parenthood’s advocacy and political organizations are working to engage, educate and mobilize demographic groups, including black men. Jamesa Bailey, director of black campaigns and leader of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said internal data shows that when black men learn about how abortion is an issue in the presidential election, they are three times more likely to educate other voters and more likely to make plans to vote.
Combined with issues of access to safe and legal abortion, black Americans are more than twice as likely to die in childbirth, a well-documented problem. the study States with the strictest barriers to abortion report the highest rates of black maternal mortality. The health crisis for black mothers in America Mr Bailey said the movement had proven “very powerful”, adding that this could be why it had seen a “huge increase” in support from clergy and faith groups across the country.
She said they have introduced themselves as faith leaders in their communities in about 20 states, and that their presence is helping to make a bold new statement for the community: that faith in God does not contradict faith in a woman’s right to choose.
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