On a brisk Saturday morning in October, Missoula pastor Mark Pritchard began preaching from a podium on the steps leading up to the state Capitol building in Helena. The first few minutes of his speech were somber. He reflected on his view of the moral blight of abortion in America, the biblical mandate for the pro-life movement and the need to reject the “lies” driving Montana’s constitutional abortion rights amendment, CI-128. The ballot initiative was the reason for the rally, and it took center stage in Pritchard’s remarks. Christians who believe in defending life, he said, have an obligation to stand against the proposed amendment. And if they do so, he continued, Montana could buck the trend of abortion rights measures passing in state after state since the erasure of federal abortion protections in 2022.“Montana has more deer than people,” Pritchard said, inaccurately, drawing laughter from the crowd. “If you find six people — not a lot — if you and your organizations find six people, tell them the truth … You know what happens in a week? We win.” The dozens of rally-goers, holding signs denouncing abortion and CI-128, cheered.With less than two weeks until Election Day, and absentee ballots already circulating in Montana, active opposition to CI-128 is swelling to the surface of the state’s political discourse. Fueled by pastors, priests, faith-based anti-abortion advocates and conservative Christian policy groups, the movement to defeat the constitutional amendment is trying to make up for its dearth of financing with grassroots messaging — sowing a grim narrative of how CI-128 could change abortion law in Montana for decades to come.“A new constitutional standard is enshrined, and all of our existing laws and regulations are fair game for a legal challenge that is then measured against this new standard that’s written into our Constitution,” said Matt Brower, who heads the lobbying arm of Montana’s two Roman Catholic dioceses, during the Saturday rally. “Make no mistake, this is a planned strategic approach by the abortion lobby and Montana is their newest target.”Attendees at the Helena rally against CI-128 on Oct. 19, 2024. Credit: Zeke Lloyd / MTFP Attendees at the Helena rally against CI-128 on Oct. 19, 2024. Credit: Zeke Lloyd / MTFPBrower’s group, the Montana Catholic Conference, has called on Montana bishops to publicly oppose CI-128 and launched a social media video series criticizing the initiative. The Montana Family Foundation, a Laurel-based conservative Christian advocacy organization, has begun circulating a letter asking for the signatures of Montana pastors who will pledge to “prepare our congregations to vote against this ballot initiative.”Those groups and other CI-128 opponents are deploying additional messaging strategies, too. Critics have focused on the paid signature gatherers who worked to put the initiative on the ballot, suggesting a campaign motivated by the clipboard wielders’ hourly wages. And they deride the out-of-state funders and political action committees financially fueling the CI-128 campaign committee Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights.The pro-CI-128 ballot committee has said its initiative, which garnered roughly 119,000 signatures this fall, about 81,000 of which were verified by election administrators, is widely supported by the Montana electorate and will be victorious come November. The weekend before the opposition rally, initiative supporters held their own similarly sized event on the Capitol steps. Speakers pointed to the consistent flow of abortion restrictions passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2021 and 2023 as evidence of the need to cement protections for reproductive decision-making in the state Constitution. “Some politicians want to take our rights away instead of defending our Constitutional rights and embracing freedom,” said Sharen Kickingwoman, a policy and advocacy director with the ACLU of Montana, one of MSRR’s member groups. “Time after time, they push more extreme bans, and we’re tired of it. And we’re going to tell them that at the ballot box this November.”Abortion is legal in Montana, and there is no current limit on the procedure tied to any particular gestational week of pregnancy, allowing medical providers to use it as needed when a fetus is not viable or patients experience serious health complications. Those protections derive from a unanimous 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling, Armstrong v. State, interpreting the state Constitution’s right of privacy to include the medical right to abortion. MSRR is emphasizing the tenuousness of that legal security after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a federal right to abortion — a precedent more than twice as old as Montana’s at the time it was reversed.If passed, CI-128 would prohibit restrictions on abortion access before fetal viability, a determination made by the treating health care provider. The state government would be allowed to regulate abortion after viability unless a treating health care provider determines the procedure necessary to “protect the life and health of the pregnant patient.” In practice, the amendment would not change Montana’s current legal landscape regarding abortion access. But going forward, CI-128 would make it harder for lawmakers to enact many types of abortion regulations and restrictions, creating conflicts that would likely play out in state courts for years, if not decades, to come.MSRR has highlighted CI-128’s grassroots support as it faces attacks over out-of-state donations from the likes of Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, former Democratic New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and liberal “dark money” groups such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund that aren’t required to disclose their donors. Those and other non-Montana contributors make up the vast majority of MSRR’s $15.7 million in receipts as of late September. Sharen Kickingwoman, policy and advocacy director with the ACLU of Montana, speaks at an October rally in favor of CI-128 at the state Capitol building in Helena. Credit: Mara Silvers / MTFP CI-128 supporters at an October rally at the state Capitol building in Helena. Credit: Mara Silvers / MTFPThe group said it trained hundreds of volunteers to help gather signatures in the leadup to CI-128’s late-August certification. Many other Montana residents have rallied to knock doors this fall to encourage voter turnout. In mid-October, more than 250 Montana health care providers signed a letter supporting CI-128, casting it as a critical protection against government overreach.In the leadup to Election Day, MSRR is targeting voters it expects to be in favor of the initiative and bypassing those who are likely to disagree, emphasizing turnout over persuasion, campaign field director Dylan Cole explained at a September volunteer training. The campaign predicts that CI-128’s fate won’t hinge on changing the hearts and minds of people who staunchly oppose abortion rights.Opponents of the initiative readily acknowledge some of their challenges. Unlike supporters, political committees launched by the Montana Family Foundation and the Montana Catholic Conference have yet to receive a windfall of support from national organizations. Campaign finance records from the most recent reporting period show that a handful of anti-CI-128 political advocacy groups have reported expenditures of about $400,000 in cash and in-kind donations since late September. And other conservative-dominant states, including Kansas and Ohio, have passed abortion rights measures in recent years, signaling a negative trend for anti-abortion advocates. But opposition groups in Montana are hoping that they can defeat CI-128 by appealing to church-going Christians and mobilizing congregation-wide action, potentially making Montana the first state to defeat an abortion rights amendment since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Nine other states also have measures on the ballot this fall that would solidify or expand legal protections for abortion.Pritchard, the Missoula pastor of the Southern Baptist Convention congregation Church at The Gates, has delivered sermons and created shareable videos opposing the initiative, appealing specifically to the members of his church and their like-minded peers.“There’s an opportunity here for Christians to apply our faith,” he said in a recent sermon posted on the church’s website. “Did you know that Christians vote at an abysmally low rate? … If we showed up, this thing would be over tomorrow.”It’s difficult to pinpoint how often people who identify as Christian participate in elections. National exit polling in recent cycles has shown that White evangelical voters made up about 25% of the electorate. About 70% of voters in 2020 said they attend religious services occasionally or weekly.  As 501(c)(3) nonprofits, churches are prohibited from campaigning for or against partisan political candidates. But guidance from the Internal Revenue Service states that churches and other tax-exempt nonprofits “can engage in a limited amount of lobbying (including ballot measures) and advocate for or against issues that are in the political arena.”Across the country, most people who identify with a religious tradition say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to 2024 findings from the Public Religion Research Institute. That trend did not hold true for some religious denominations, with fewer than a third of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints and White evangelical Protestants supporting legal abortion. Mark Pritchard, pastor at Church at The Gates in Missoula, speaking at a rally against Constitutional Initiative 128 in front of the state Capitol building in Helena on Oct. 19, 2024. Credit: Mara Silvers / MTFP Matt Brower, of the Montana Catholic Conference, speaks at a rally against Constitutional Initiative 128 in front of the state Capitol building in Helena on Oct. 19, 2024. Credit: Mara Silvers / MTFPThe 2020 U.S. Religion Census estimated that roughly 35% of Montana’s population, or 378,000 people, claimed affiliation with some kind of religious organization. That figure included 113,000 Catholics, 51,000 Latter-day Saints, 43,000 Lutherans and 32,000 Pentecostal Christians. While PRRI found that 57% of Montana adults support abortion access in all or most cases and 15% oppose abortion entirely, it’s not clear how stances on abortion rights and CI-128 break down among the state’s religious groups. Many churches in Montana have not taken part in organizing for or against CI-128. Other congregation leaders have endorsed the initiative’s stated intent and criticized recent laws seeking to curb or regulate abortion access. Lisa Harmon, senior pastor at Billings First Congregational Church, said her congregation has not been specifically involved in supporting CI-128, but that the church strongly supports preserving individual bodily choice. The MSRR campaign held an organizing event at the church last weekend, she said.“We just really believe in the right to make personal and private decisions about one’s reproductive health. And, especially from a Christian theology, Jesus modeled this deep respect for human dignity and autonomy,” Harmon said in an October interview with MTFP. Any law that restricts abortion, she said, “is oppressive.”“The Bible is full of stories of people who have tough decisions to make,” Harmon continued. When it comes to choices about abortion, she said, “It’s not something that we should be mandating or the government should be mandating.”  Pastor Carrie Benton, who leads Mountain Lake Presbyterian Church in Seeley Lake, said she has only recently begun seeing signs pop up in front of local homes urging voters to reject CI-128. Benton, who specified that she was speaking to MTFP on her own behalf and not representing the views of her congregation, said she has not previously preached about the ballot initiative, though that could change if her parishioners ask for more dialogue about it. Many of her sermons have political themes, Benton said, but she typically avoids giving direction on partisan issues. “I want people to be able to think through these things on their own. And in Presbyterian tradition, we adhere to what we call the freedom of conscience. That’s one of the doctrinal things that we hold very dear,” Benton said. “I will never get up to the pulpit and say you need to vote for or vote against this thing.”But for some particularly vocal Christian groups, abortion constitutes a moral evil and demands community-wide opposition. In an October interview with Pritchard, one of the Montana Family Foundation’s staff members described the fight against abortion as part of a broader “spiritual war” between good and evil, a term Pritchard later echoed. “I want people to be able to think through these things on their own. And in Presbyterian tradition, we adhere to what we call the freedom of conscience. That’s one of the doctrinal things that we hold very dear. I will never get up to the pulpit and say you need to vote for or vote against this thing.” Pastor Carrie Benton, Mountain Lake Presbyterian Church, Seeley LakeAt the October rally against the initiative, Derek Oestreicher, the Montana Family Foundation’s legal counsel and director of government affairs, stressed the faith-based nature of the opposition movement.“This is not just a political issue. It’s a moral issue. It’s a spiritual issue. And we cannot remain silent. We must speak boldly to our neighbors, in our churches, in our families,” Oestreicher said. “The results are in God’s hands. The duty is ours and the results are God’s.” Benton, the pastor from Seeley Lake, does not agree that opposing abortion’s legality is a Christian mandate. She described how harrowing it has been, since the end of Roe v. Wade, to read news accounts of women in other states struggling to access health care treatment and sometimes dying during pregnancy because abortion bans constricted medical options and care. “For me, it’s morally reprehensible to try to pass legislation that then makes [a patient] feel unsafe and unprotected to talk to her medical provider when she is bleeding,” Benton said. “And so I absolutely feel that we do need something like this in our Constitution to protect women’s health care.”Some experts and scholars have argued that using religion to justify abortion bans and restrictions is a key element of the broader Christian nationalist movement, which depicts the United States as a Christian nation where law and policy should reflect Christian values and tenets. The “spiritual warfare” framing often foregrounded in conservative Christian movements creates a moral ultimatum on abortion and other political issues, said Katherine Stewart, author of several books on religious nationalism.“Once you establish that there is no grey area or middle ground on this issue, and it is pure good versus pure evil, people are willing to compromise on every other issue in order to be on the right side of this one,” Stewart said in an October comment to MTFP.Some national advocacy groups have said that pushing for abortion restrictions on a religious basis threatens the religious freedom of citizens who adhere to different faith traditions and, more generally, the reproductive freedoms of all Americans. “If all people of faith, not even including the non-religious, turned out to vote, we would have a majority supporting reproductive freedom in almost every region of the country,” said Rachel Laser, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in an October interview with MTFP.  Her organization has characterized state abortion restrictions as an effort by conservative and predominately White Christian lawmakers to advance a religious cause. People from diverse faith backgrounds have opposed post-Roe abortion limits, Laser continued, “because they, from their own religious perspective, believe that people who find themselves pregnant need to be able to make their own decisions about their own body according to their own religious beliefs.”In October conversations with MTFP, Pritchard did not disagree that anti-abortion groups and certain Christian sects are trying to influence policy based on their own views. “Every law is an outworking of someone’s morality. I can ask the same question, ‘Why should your morality be privileged over mine?’” Pritchard said. “Humanity needs transcendent direction.” “Every law is an outworking of someone’s morality. I can ask the same question, ‘Why should your morality be privileged over mine?’ Humanity needs transcendent direction.” Pastor Mark Pritchard, Church at The Gates, MissoulaThat attitude of conviction rippled through the rally-goers who arrived at the Capitol in October to congregate for the defeat of Montana’s initiative. Still, many reflected on the challenge their movement faces before Election Day. Myles, a member of the Diocese of Helena who did not give MTFP his last name, said that when he thinks about the proponents’ financial resources and influence, the fight against CI-128 feels like a “David versus Goliath” match-up.He said he has begun fasting on Wednesdays leading up to Election Day, in addition to his Sunday prayers against CI-128. His priest encouraged the congregation to do both, he said, to aid in their opposition to the initiative. “Sometimes prayer is not enough,” he added. JoVonne Wagner and Zeke Loyd contributed reporting.The post From the pulpit, abortion initiative opponents urge congregations to vote against CI-128 appeared first on Montana Free Press.