PENnED

There are women in this country whose names should be spoken with reverence — not because they sought controversy, but because they suffered and died under laws passed by people who claimed to be defending God. Their stories are not political talking points. They are human lives, cut short or scarred forever by legislation shaped by fear, certainty, and a profound misunderstanding of Scripture.

Amanda Zurawski, in Texas, was forced to wait until she was septic — literally dying — before doctors were legally allowed to help her. She survived, but with permanent damage to her body and her future fertility. She nearly lost her life because lawmakers believed that “obedience to God” meant denying her medical care.

Samantha Casiano, also in Texas, carried a baby with no skull and no brain because the law gave her no choice. She was forced to endure months of anguish, deliver a child who could not live, and watch her newborn die in her arms. She called it torture. And she was right.

Mylissa Farmer, miscarrying in Missouri, was turned away from hospitals because doctors feared prosecution. She had to flee her own state while actively losing her pregnancy, because the law valued an impossible ideal more than her life.

Ciji Graham, in North Carolina, died after doctors hesitated to treat her dangerous heart condition during pregnancy. Their fear of violating abortion restrictions cost her her life. She should still be here.

And there are others — women who hemorrhaged, women who developed infections, women who were told to wait in parking lots until they were “sick enough,” women who died with non‑viable pregnancies still inside their bodies because their doctors were afraid of the law.

These are not tragedies of nature.
These are tragedies of policy — policy shaped by people who believed they were obeying God.

But the God revealed in Scripture is not a God who demands the death of women to prove moral purity.

The God revealed in Scripture is not a God who delights in cruelty disguised as righteousness.

The God revealed in Scripture is not a God who asks us to abandon compassion, context, or common sense.

When Christians support laws that cause women to suffer and die, they are not defending God. They are defending an ideology that has replaced God.

And so I honor these women — not as symbols, but as human beings whose lives mattered. Their suffering is a rebuke to any theology that forgets mercy. Their stories are a reminder that righteousness without compassion is not righteousness at all. Their names deserve to be spoken, remembered, and held with tenderness.

May their memory call us back to the heart of God — the God who heals, the God who protects, the God who commands us to love our neighbor, not sacrifice them on the altar of certainty.

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Note: This reflection was originally published as a Facebook post.