A recent “pro-choice” billboard campaign in Chicago, designed by a progressive “reproductive health and justice” charity for Muslims, has reignited a complex conversation on abortion rights within the Muslim American community.

Using social justice language of the left, the billboard has called on Muslims to align themselves with secular arguments for abortion and support “reproductive rights” fully. However, the call did not resonate with many in its target audience. Many Muslims found the position represented on the billboard failing to capture the depth of Islamic perspectives on abortion and thus unrepresentative of their world view.

When I, along with other female students from the Chicago-based Muslim college Darul Qasim, wrote an open letter in response to the billboard campaign underlining its inadequacy and oversimplification of a deeply complex issue, we received an outpouring of support from the community. This was a reflection of the concerns many Muslims have over the binary framing of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” in the abortion debate.

Since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a case that had found American women had the right to make their own reproductive choices, abortion has been a primary topic of discussion and source of division in communities across the country. As the issue further divided an already polarised nation before recent landmark elections, both sides of the debate began presenting their position as the only right and moral one. In this environment, Muslims found themselves struggling to sift through propaganda........

© Al Jazeera