wfn.org | Stated Clerk Urges Defeat of Late-Term Abortion Bill

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

13-May-1997 
97205 
 
       Stated Clerk Urges Defeat of Late-Term Abortion Bill 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--General Assembly stated clerk the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick 
has written a letter to the U.S. Congress urging it not to pass a pending 
law that would outlaw a late-term abortion procedure called "intact 
dilation and extraction."  Opponents of the controversial procedure call it 
"partial birth abortion." 
 
     In his May 7 letter, Kirkpatrick wrote that "the bills introduced as 
S6 and HR929 do not adequately address the concerns in the [abortion] 
policy statement of the General Assembly." Specifically, he noted, the 
pending legislation "disregards the health of the woman and her future 
childbearing capability."  Kirkpatrick also objected to "the bills' call to 
enact criminal penalties for a medical professional who may provide an 
intact D and E." 
 
     While acknowledging that the General Assembly's position "may not be 
shared by all Presbyterians," Kirkpatrick cited current General Assembly 
policy: "There is diversity of opinion in the church as to whether or not 
abortion should be legal and on the extent to which the government should 
be permitted to regulate or prohibit abortions.... The General Assembly 
recognizes that if fetal development is no longer the standard by which the 
government measures the extent of its involvement in abortions, then our 
lawmakers must find some other acceptable standard by which the rights of 
the mother to terminate her pregnancy will be balanced against the state's 
interest in protecting the unborn child." 
 
     Kirkpatrick's letter outlined eight "affirmations" that should guide 
abortion legislation: 
 
1. The state has a limited legitimate interest in regulating abortions. 
2. No law should impose criminal penalties against women who choose and 
   physicians who perform abortions. 
3. No law should deny access to safe and affordable services for women 
   seeking to terminate problem pregnancies. 
4. No law should completely ban abortions. 
5. No law should limit access or counseling concerning abortion or limit 
   public funding for abortions for the socially and economically 
   disadvantaged. 
6. No law should prohibit access to or use of contraceptive measures. 
7. No law should sanction the harm or harassment of persons seeking 
   abortion counseling or services. 
8. No law should condone mandatory or forced abortion or sterilization. 
 
     In a May 13 statement to the Presbyterian News Service, Presbyterians 
Pro-Life executive director Terry Schlossberg criticized Kirkpatrick's 
letter for "focusing on the legal portion of the General Assembly policy as 
if the moral section of the policy were nonexistent or of no consequence 
when the church speaks in the public arena." 
 
     Schlossberg characterized the "intact dilation and extraction" 
procedure as "bordering on infanticide" and said that "no reasonable person 
regards this procedure as necessary to retaining any woman's access to 
abortion at any term of pregnancy" or "as necessary to protecting a woman's 
life or health or future childbearing capability." 
 
     She charged that Kirkpatrick's letter, "in its omission of any moral 
word to the world, puts the church in the position of being simply another 
political lobby without moral scruples" and that his "legal commentary is 
not balanced by the moral perspective of our policy that  The strong 
Christian presumption is that since all life is precious to God, we are to 
preserve and protect it.'" 

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