wfn.org | ELCA Assembly Maintains Abortion Statement

[News News <news@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 21, 1999

ELCA ASSEMBLY MAINTAINS ABORTION STATEMENT
99-CWA-54-DM

     DENVER (ELCA) -- The 1999 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) declined Aug. 21 to tamper with the
ELCA's social statement on abortion, which was adopted by the church's
1991 assembly.
     This year's assembly turned back an effort to amend the 1991
statement by removing language that supports legal, publicly-funded
abortion if the fetus has "lethal abnormalities incompatible with life"
and that opposes abortion after viability of the fetus "except when the
mother's life is threatened or when lethal abnormalities indicate the
prospective newborn will die very soon."
     The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the
ELCA, is meeting Aug. 16-22 here at the Colorado Convention Center.
There are more than 2,500 people participating, including 1,038 ELCA
voting members.  The theme for the biennial assembly is "Making Christ
Known: Hope for a New Century."
     A committee receiving resolutions from the ELCA's 65 synods
recommended that the assembly decline a proposed resolution from the
ELCA Southwestern Minnesota Synod that would have amended the social
statement and encouraged membership in Lutherans For Life, a pan-Lutheran pro-life organization.  A move to substitute the synod's
proposal for the committee's recommendation failed, 748 to 154.
     Voting members approved the committee recommendation, which also
encourages "continuing moral deliberation throughout this church on
abortion."  It declined "to recommend involvement in specific
organizations."
     Lisa Jennison, voting member, ELCA Southeastern Iowa Synod, who
tried to make the failed substitution, asked what support for a woman's
right to choose abortion says "about our church and its care for 'the
least of these?'"
     The Rev. Scott Cady, voting member, ELCA New England Synod, a
part-time hospital chaplain, told the assembly that issues of life and
death are best left in the hands of families and their physicians and
clergy.
     The Rev. Harvey L. Nelson, voting member, ELCA Southwestern
Minnesota Synod -- the synod that originally had offered the proposed
resolution -- told the assembly that voting members from his synod
supported the committee recommendation and would bring the proposed
changes to a future assembly "through proper channels."  He said he was
speaking on behalf of the Rev. Stanley N. Olson, bishop, who had been
called away from the assembly.
     In other business, the churchwide assembly voted 908 to 25 to
adopt the committee's recommendations on 25 other issues that were
presented as a package.  These issues were considered non-controversial
and were not debated.
     Recommendations approved as a package included:
     -- support for a "Decade for a Culture of Nonviolence" (2001-2010)
and a "Year of Education for Nonviolence" (2000);
     -- opposition to so-called "workfare" programs that "in effect
coerce people to work under conditions that violate their dignity or
freedom;"
     -- commendation for those who have advocated for just immigration
policies and have served recent immigrants and refugees; and
     -- acknowledgment of a new ELCA resource, "Talking Together as
Christians about Homosexuality: A Guide for Congregations."

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html