If the Pope Wants Women's Equality, He Must Support Reproductive Rights

By Jessica Valenti, Guardian UK

04 May 15

The Vatican’s war on the wage gap is great, but it won’t mean much without access to birth control and abortion

n Wednesday, Pope Francis spoke about women’s equality in St Peter’s Square, calling the wage gap between men and women a “pure scandal” and calling for “radical equality between men and women” (at least, he did in the Vatican’s English translation in the original Italian, he called for equality between spouses).

“Why is it taken for granted that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights.”

Pope Francis the feminist? Well ... not so fast.

True equality for women or wives – even economic equality – is dependent on access to birth control and abortion, which is something I suspect Pope Francis won’t come out in favor of anytime soon. So while it’s nice that one of the world’s preeminent religious leaders believes in fair wages for fair work, the sentiment rings hollow for women who know what it really takes to have equality in the workforce and beyond.

Studies have shown that access to contraception early in a woman’s life makes women more likely to pursue higher education, and to work at higher-paying jobs. The ability to decide whether and when to parent – and how to space out the children they choose to have – impacts the kind of jobs that women can have and the kind of salary they will bring home.

The United Nations Population Fund has called access to family planning a “key factor in reducing poverty” globally, and a study of the United States found that the advent of the birth control pill closed the wage gap by 10% in the 1980s and by 30% in the 1990s.

One long term study on family planning – conducted over the course of 20 years in over 70 villages in Bangladesh – showed that women who were offered birth control and reproductive health services as part of an outreach program reported a 40% higher monthly income than those women who weren’t a part of the program.

So unless the Pope’s vision for wage equality includes the ability to plan when and if to parent, it’s incomplete.

It’s likely too much to expect that this Pope – or perhaps any Pope – will ever come around so far on feminism: despite praise for his support of workers’ rights and women’s roles outside of the home, this is the same man who derided a group of US nuns as “radical feminists” and anti-choice ideology is at the heart of the Catholic Church.

But while we shouldn’t hold our breath for the Pope to tout the link between economic and reproductive justice, it doesn’t mean we can’t expect a more nuanced understanding from our political leaders.

Republicans have long claimed that Democrats’ focus on access to birth control and abortion are just about women voting with their “vaginas” not their pocketbooks – refusing to admit that reproductive rights impact women’s economic futures. As 2016 draws closer, I’m sure we’ll see the same kind of obfuscation again and again (though hopefully with less gaffes this time around).

But no matter what politicians – or the Pope – believes, women know that their economic futures are tied to reproductive choice. If we want women to thrive, to make more money and be raised out of poverty, we have to make sure that women can control their bodies and plan their lives. Believing anything else is the real “scandal.”