The latest poll results conducted by a Christian research group shows that 70 percent of women who have abortions profess to be Christian.

Besides divulging that the vast majority of abortion recipients claim to be Christians, LifeWay Research also divulged last week in their study sponsored by the pregnancy support organization, Care Net, that 40 percent of women who reported having abortions indicated that they frequently attended church when they terminated their pregnancies.

Despite their church attendance during the time of their abortions, approximately half of the frequent churchgoing women who had abortions responded that they didn’t tell other church members about their abortions and kept their pregnancies secret.

Lifeway found that 43 percent of women who had abortions reported to have attended church at the time at least once a month during the interval of time that they terminated the lives of their preborn babies. Furthermore, it was reported that 20 percent of the more than 1,000 women surveyed who had abortions said that they went to church at least once a week when they terminated their first pregnancy. In addition, six percent indicated that they attended church two or more times per week, with 54 percent responding that rarely went to church or never went to service at all.

Open environment?

Not feeling free to discuss their unplanned pregnancies with other congregants, just 7 percent of women in the survey claimed to have shared their decisions to have an abortion with a person from their church — most likely taking into account that a majority of Christian churches in the United States favor pro-life decisions over the pro-choice arguments. Statistics published by Lifeway also show that 52 percent of respondents indicated that nobody from their church had any knowledge about their abortions.

Even though strong pro-life biblical messages are shared with most congregations from the pulpits of American churches, a whopping 76 percent of respondents to the survey expressed that their church did not have any influence on their final decision to have an abortion.

In addition, Lifeway Research also divulged that 64 percent of the women surveyed conveyed that they feared that church members would probably use the opportunity to gossip about their pregnancy and decision to have an abortion instead of assisting them in finding out about alternative ways to handle their pregnancies. It was also discovered that 36 percent of participants anticipated or experienced receiving some kind of a judgmental response to their pregnancy from those at church. Twenty-six percent reported experiencing or expecting to experience some form of condemnation from congregants once they found out about their pregnancies or decisions to have an abortion.

The survey also divulged that a mere 16 percent of respondents said they anticipated or experienced any kind of a “caring” reaction from those at their church. In contrast, it was found that 14 percent of the study’s participants that they expected of experienced a helpful response to their pregnancy situations.

Good or bad thing?

The pro-life movement has expressed that the results of Lifeway Research’s survey shouldn’t be a call for alarm for America’s churches.

March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told the Christian Post on Wednesday that the findings should not work to condemn churches.

“I’m not surprised, but I don’t think that necessarily reflects anything bad about churches,” commented Mancini, who leads her Christian organization’s pro-life rallies held at the nation’s capital every year.

Mancini points out that those going ahead with abortions in the Church are convicted of their wrong decision and therefore do all they can to keep from sharing their unbiblical decision with other congregants out of fear of rebuke.

“That would be fantastic if she went to a church member, but the reality is that they know often that they are not doing what’s right, so they are not going to go [to anyone] who is an expert in morality to find that out,” Mancini explained. “They want somebody to tell them that it’s okay and they are not going to hear that from a church — at least most churches.”