wfn.org | PC(USA) Leans Too Far to the Pro-Choice Side, Group Says

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

26-January-2000 
00034 
 
    PC(USA) Leans Too Far to the Pro-Choice Side, Group Says 
 
    Church entities urged to support moderate policy adopted by '92 GA 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A team assigned to review the abortion policy of the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has concluded that church entities have 
downplayed a 1992 policy considered moderately pro-choice in favor of an 
unbridled pro-choice policy adopted in 1983. 
 
    The team said General Assembly entities have "generally complied" with 
denominational policy, but its findings substantiate the claims of 
Presbyterians Pro-Life and other groups and individuals that Assembly 
entities have failed to adequately include the 1992 policy - which is much 
more cautionary about abortion than the policy from nine years earlier - in 
denominational resources and programs. 
 
    Last year's General Assembly ordered the review of abortion-policy 
implementation in response to complaints and assigned the job to the 
Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), which appointed the 
monitoring team. 
 
    The team's report - not yet completed - was presented in abbreviated 
form to the ACSWP during its Jan. 20-23 meeting here by ACSWP members Dora 
Lodwick of Denver and the Rev. Nancy Becker of Portage, Ind., both of whom 
served on the review panel. 
 
    Reporters were not allowed to see the preliminary report. The Rev. 
Peter Sulyok, the ACSWP coordinator, said that was because "the monitoring 
team hasn't even seen what Dora and Nancy have prepared." 
 
    The final report will be discussed by ACSWP during a Feb. 14 conference 
call. It will be accompanied by a voluminous report by consultant Margaret 
Jendrick on the shortcomings of the PC(USA)'s implementation of the 
abortion policy since 1992. 
 
    "We have concluded that in numerous instances, General Assembly 
entities cited the 1983 policy when the 1992 policy would have been more 
appropriate," Becker told the ACSWP. 
 
    When the 1992 policy was adopted, the Rev. Howard Rice, then the 
General Assembly moderator - who chaired the special committee that wrote 
it - said the new policy "moves the denomination from a somewhat more 
exclusive pro-choice position to a more moderate pro-choice position that 
recognizes the moral ambiguities and difficulties with abortion." Rice said 
the new policy "allows a little more room in the church for people who hold 
different points of view to find their own point of view articulated for 
them by the church." 
 
    The 1992 policy qualified the pro-choice stance of the 1983 policy by 
calling abortion "the choice of last resort," and said that, while "the 
considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally 
acceptable (decision), it is "certainly not the only required decision" in 
a case of problem pregnancy. 
 
    The policy also states that abortion must not be used as a means of 
birth control, for gender selection, or to provide fetal parts for medical 
research. Since 1992 the Assembly also has addressed so-called "partial 
birth abortion," saying that the procedure is of "grave moral concern" to 
the church. 
 
    Lodwick and Becker said the final monitoring team report - which will 
go to the upcoming General Assembly in Long Beach, Calif., for approval - 
will recommend that the shortcomings cited in the report be referred to the 
appropriate entities for "corrective action"; that an internet site be 
developed that will include all policy statements and resources on abortion 
and problem pregnancy; and that denominational resources on abortion be 
reviewed periodically to ensure full compliance with General Assembly 
policy. 
 
                 Measure on police `abuse' draws fire 
 
    An ACSWP resolution on police accountability that was also ordered by 
last year's Assembly sparked some lively debate within the committee. The 
resolution focuses on "abuse and misuse of authority by law enforcement," 
and, in the words of  ACSWP member Jan Sharpless of Sacramento, Calif., 
"acknowledges the tension between supporting enforcement and preventing 
brutality." 
 
    The resolution calls on the church to join efforts to establish 
"accountability in all law enforcement"; urges presbyteries to convene 
gatherings of citizens and law-enforcement officers to encourage faithful 
law enforcement; asks legislatures to strengthen laws against harassment 
and injury by law enforcers; and asks the denomination to provide resources 
to help churches be stronger advocates for police accountability. 
 
    Although the resolution approved during the meeting was "vastly 
improved" over earlier drafts, the Rev. Vernon Broyles, the associate 
director of the National Ministries Division, suggested that "the 
honorableness of law enforcement as a profession needs to be lifted up as 
the starting point (of the resolution), not brutality." 
 
    Broyles' plea was reinforced by written feedback received from a group 
of Presbyterian police officers who reviewed the resolution for ACSWP. They 
rejected it, Sharpless said, as "too harsh on law enforcement and not 
reflective of life on the streets." 
 
    "If law enforcement views the situation on the streets as what these 
officers call `a scourge,' then the police are not going to treat citizens 
with the respect the Bible demands," Sharpless responded. "Their reaction 
simply reinforces our resolution." 
 
         Policy on gambling not likely to please Native Americans 
 
    The committee also approved a resolution on gambling that calls upon 
Presbyterians to "refuse to participate in organized and institutionalized 
forms of gambling as a matter of faith," and to urge their governmental 
officials to eliminate state-sponsored gambling, such as lotteries. 
 
    The "most ticklish" provisions of the resolution, said Broyles, are 
those calling on Native American tribal leaders to "reconsider the personal 
and social costs of gambling and to limit the spread of tribal gambling." 
 
    Casino gambling has increasingly become an important economic factor on 
otherwise impoverished Native American reservations around the country. 
It's a tricky issue, Broyles said, "because General Assembly policies 
regarding Native American autonomy conflict with our long-standing policies 
on gambling." 
 
    The resolution could also raise a ruckus between Presbyterians and 
Catholics over the issue of Catholic church-sponsored bingo parlors, which 
committee members agreed come under the provisions of the resolution. 

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