Should TEC be a member of a Religious Coalition? by Georgette Forney

In January of 2006, the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council affirmed its membership of a pro-abortion organization called the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). Since then, five dioceses (Albany, Mississippi , Pittsburgh , Quincy , and Springfield ) have passed resolutions objecting to the decision. In addition, two resolutions were introduced at General Convention seeking to rescind the RCRC affiliation, but were rejected and two dioceses (San Diegoand Virginia ) considered resolutions expressing concern with the EC’s choice. Also, conferences representing United Methodists in eastern Tennessee , South Indiana, and Northwest Texas passed resolutions calling on their denomination to withdraw its membership of RCRC.

What is it about the RCRC that creates this response? Could it be one of the following reasons?

1.       The RCRC opposes legislation designed to protect women. This includes Parental Consent laws that require a parent’s approval before their minor-aged daughter can have an abortion and Informed Consent laws that provide women with information about the physical and emotional consequences of abortion. They are also working against laws being introduced in various states that establish health care regulations at abortion clinics.

2.       The RCRC refers women facing unplanned pregnancies and those who have experienced abortion that are seeking reconciliation and forgiveness from Jesus Christ to secular counseling resources such as Planned Parenthood, ignoring the 4000 Christian pregnancy resource centers.

3.       The RCRC supports Partial-Birth Abortion (PBA). The following is a PBA procedure as described by a nurse at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: “Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms – everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus… The baby’s little fingers were clasping and un-clasping, and his little feel were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp… He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.” This description is included in the recent Supreme Court opinion that upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, a law signed by President Bush in 2003. The Coalition filed an amici curiae brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down the law. (Note: the Supreme Court decision affects one procedure. It’s still legal to perform abortions with the standard “dilation and evacuation” process that uses forceps to grab the unborn baby and pull it apart limb by limb while in the uterus all nine months of pregnancy.)

4.       Various RCRC statements contradict the Book of Common Prayer and General Convention resolutions. In the book Holy Abortion? A Theological Critique of the RCRC, author Michael J. Gorman, Dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland documents six published statements by the RCRC that directly contradict the BCP and General Convention resolutions. One example is the RCRC’s publication Considering Abortion? Clarifying What You Believe. It states “You are to claim your godlike, God-given role in creation by saying yes or no, secure in the knowledge that whatever you decide, after having honestly sought what is right, God will bless.” However, TEC’s Resolution A054 passed at the 71^st General Convention doesn’t bless all decisions regarding abortion, it states: “We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere convenience.”

These are four important reasons why TEC’s affiliation with the RCRC is a concern. However, it’s the RCRC’s biblical justification for supporting abortion that best exemplifies why the Executive Council should withdraw its affiliation.

Under the heading “What does the Bible say about Abortion?” their website states: “At the time the Bible was written, abortion was widely practiced in spite of heavy penalties. Even so, the Hebrew scriptures had no laws forbidding abortion and there is no condemnation or prohibition of abortion anywhere in the Bible. This was chiefly because the Hebrews placed a higher value on women than their neighbors did. Abortion is not mentioned in the Old or New Testaments. There are some references to the termination of pregnancy. The most well-known, Exodus 21:22-25, says that if a pregnancy woman has a miscarriage as a result of injuries she receives during a fight between two men, the penalty for the loss of the fetus is a fine. If the woman is killed, the penalty is life for life. It is obvious from this passage that men whose fighting has caused a woman to miscarry were not regarded as murderers because they had not killed the woman. The woman had greater moral and religious worth than the fetus.”

The RCRC ignores the stories in 2 Kings 8 and 15 describing King Ben-Hadad and King Shallum’s armies ripping open pregnant women, along with the punishment that was prophesied in Hosea and Amos. These stories are more applicable as they relate to purposely terminating a pregnancy versus the story in Exodus that refers to miscarriage.

Furthermore, the RCRC overlooks three valid examples of God discussing unborn children in their mother’s womb which speaks to their personhood acknowledged by their Creator in Genesis 16:11, 25:21, and Luke 1:15, while completely dismissing the reference to John leaping in his mother’s womb when Mary visits in Luke 1:41. In their publication Personhood, the Bible, and the Abortion Debate the RCRC states that they don’t consider Psalm 139 to be about the sanctity/creation of life. They claim the psalmist is not addressing abortion and is free to use poetry and metaphor without need for precision or definition. The RCRC similarly states that Jeremiah 1:5 is really about the prophet’s calling, not his creation. The references to the prophets’ formation by the Lord in Isaiah 44 and Job 10 and 31 are also not acknowledged.

After carefully analyzing the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s publications and website, it becomes clear that it is an organization that talks about ‘religion’ but has no foundation in Judeo-Christian principles or a worldview based on the Scriptures.

In contrast, the Episcopal Church is a Christian Communion that is supposed to be faithful to Biblical teaching. Affiliating with the RCRC, which is a ‘religious’ organization that promotes philosophies contrary to authorized Church teachings invalidates the mission of the Church. That is why the Episcopal Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice should be terminated. As Christians, we proclaim the Gospel of Life. We don’t justify the shedding of innocent blood nor do we encourage people to make choices that lead to death. Christianity is about LIFE, eternal.