It’s as cringeworthy as it is blasphemous.
Artist and activist Viva Ruiz released a new music video last Tuesday called the “Thank God For Abortion Anthem.” Ruiz appears in the video as the “Abortion Pope”, with vestments adorned in gold “Abortion” and “Thank God For Abortion” lettering.
It gets worse.
There’s a joyous choir wearing their own “Abortion” sashes, animated Holy Spirit doves flying throughout, and other religious imagery intertwined with abortion propaganda. Oh, and that’s not to mention the twerking dancers on the altar.
The video is meant to be a “reclaiming” of religious imagery and ideas that have resisted the movement for reproductive rights.
In other words, it’s a complete distortion of who God is. Dare I say, a demonic distortion.
Speaking of demons, the video also features a group of pro-life (or should I say, anti-abortion) activists being exorcised of the demons of patriarchy.
Ruiz founded the Thank God For Abortion campaign in 2015. It started with the creation of a T-shirt making the bold claim that the Christian God is to be thanked for abortion access. The campaign appeared as a float at the 2018 New York Pride March.
“People who have had abortions are more holy,” Ruiz told Jezebel (is there a name more fitting?).
According to Jezebel, Ruiz “is on a mission to reclaim the god concept, which she says the right has distorted and weaponized by putting more ‘Christian pro-abortion propaganda’ out into the world.”
Shout Your Abortion, a campaign to break the stigma surrounding abortion, and a supporter of the new music video, quoted Ruiz with the following statement:
“TGFA is a spiritual mission to affirm the sanctity of abortion having people. Queer people, gay people, trans people, and people of faith all have abortions. Where have our narratives been? I have had 2 abortions, am Latinx, queer, fluid, and Christian. We know that God loves us and we are blessed. Blocking access to abortion is racist, is classist, is ableist, is gender based violence. We demand that everyone regardless of faith stand with us for reproductive freedom under the banner of bodily autonomy: we belong to ourselves.”
Do we dare analyze the lyrics of this “pop masterpiece”?
“Who you think you’re talking to?
It’s about me, not you.
Why you still squawking, boo?
We ain’t got the time for you.
It’s about my body.
Get yourself out of me.
We demand sovereignty.
Abortion rights safe and free.”
In one bold (and blasphemous) moment, Ruiz declares, “The power of Christ compels me.”
“You don’t speak for me.
I speak for me.
Who can tell me what we need to be free?”
She must have missed the “You are not your own” teaching in First Corinthians.
Ruiz has completely missed the Christian God in her attempt to “reclaim Him”. Following Him is not about a demand for sovereignty. It’s anything but that. Following Christ is the laying down of our lives for one another and the submission of our will to His own. It’s an other-focused religion that seeks the good of our neighbor (including our unborn neighbor) rather than a self-focused one demanding autonomy at the expense of others.
More to the point of abortion, it’s a religion that believes all life inherently holds value, and that woman and child are meant to be protected and cherished.
Have Christians been perfect at representing God accurately? No. In fact, sometimes we’re pretty bad at it.
But it’s hard to take seriously any moral criticisms of those who would celebrate the dismemberment of the unborn and who would attack a woman for adopting children born into poverty in a third-world country.
Caitlin Bassett graduated from Liberty University in 2017 with her Bachelor’s in Politics and Policy. She grew up in the great Pacific Northwest, but now calls Northern California home as she pursues ministry school.
