The pastor running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia claimed in a recent podcast interview that abortion is “consistent with” his beliefs as a minister and vowed to fight to keep it legal if he wins the election.
Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat running in the special election to finish the remainder of Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s unfinished term, made the comments during an appearance on WGAU host Tim Bryant’s “Mission: Timpossible” podcast last Thursday.
Bryant, who interviews local and statewide leaders on his show based in Athens, asked Warnock how the Democratic Party’s support for abortion rights fits with his role as a “minister, a leader of the church, (and) a man of God.”
The pastor responded to Bryant’s question by declaring that he believes that health care is a “human right” and “something that the richest nation in the world provides for its citizens.”
“[A]nd for me, reproductive justice is consistent with my commitment to that,” he stated. “I believe unequivocally in a woman’s right to choose.”
Warnock argued that a woman’s decision to have an abortion as “something that we don’t want government engaged in,” adding that such a decision is “between her and her doctor and her minister.”
“I will fight for that in the United States Senate,” he promised.
Warnock indicated that he would also work to make sure that “women can receive the kind of services that they need in order to have a healthy pregnancy and … healthy baby.”
After discussing the high infant mortality rates in the African-American community and the racial disparities among women who die during childbirth, Warnock doubled down on his support for “women’s health, women’s choice and reproductive justice.”
The reverend told Bryant that his advocacy on behalf of those issues was “consistent with” his view as a Christian minister.
“Do you think it’s consistent with God’s view, that God endorses the millions of abortions we’ve had in this country since Roe v. Wade?” Bryant asked, referencing the 1973 Supreme Court decision that determined there is a national right for mothers to choose an abortion.
Warnock responded: “I think that human agency and freedom is consistent with my view as a minister.”
Warnock serves as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where both Martin Luther King Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastors.