Kast’s experience shows how widely people’s moral perspectives on abortion can vary, including among clergy. Although she has clear views on abortion, she lives in community with people who see the issue very differently. Part of her job, and her life, is to navigate those differences with care, which can sometimes be complicated. I asked Kast about how her views have changed, what it’s like disagreeing with her conservative-Christian family, and why she believes scripture justifies abortion. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Emma Green: When you were growing up, what did you think about the morality of abortion?

Jes Kast: My family has deep roots in the pro-life movement. When I was a child, before I even knew this language of pro-life and pro-choice, my family would talk with vigor about protecting the unborn. I heard that at church. I heard that at the dinner table. One of my family members had a sweater that said, “Endangered Species,” with all of the different animals. One of the pictures was a fetus inside of a womb.

That’s what it meant to be Christian: to protect the unborn.

Green: Did you engage in any activism around this issue?

Kast: The first protest I ever went to was when I was 12. It was an anti-abortion protest. We lined the streets in my small Michigan town, with signs—something along the lines of save the unborn babies. It was a silent protest.

Green: When would you say you first started questioning the values you had been taught around abortion?

Kast: It began with other issues, which led to abortion. I was in college, a private Christian school in Michigan. At that time, President [George W.] Bush was talking about [weapons of mass destruction].

I remember sitting with my mom and my dad at Chili’s. And I said, “I don’t believe that there are WMDs, and I’m not sure I trust President Bush.” In that mind-set, to be Republican is to be Christian. That all went together. And I began questioning it.

Green: How did that connect with the question of abortion?

Kast: I began to understand myself as a woman in ministry. I began to see myself as this Christian feminist. I began to own my voice differently, and to question the rules of engagement of Christianity that I was raised with.

I began saying things like “Why is it that abortion is the only issue that my parents and family really care about?” I have a very good relationship with my family. I’m not trying to paint them in negative light. But why? Why is this the only issue?

Like many Millennials coming out of evangelicalism, I began to care about different justice issues. I began to care about the Earth, and racial justice, and interfaith justice. And one of the topics that arose for me was abortion.

I began questioning: What about bodily autonomy? Isn’t that justice? How would God ever infringe upon that?