wfn.org | Agreement on Abortion Erodes

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
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Note 562 by UMNS on Jan. 22, 1998 at 10:09 Eastern (11690 characters).

CONTACT: Joretta Purdue				   35(10-21-71B)562
	    Washington						Jan. 21, 1998

United Methodists agreed more
on abortion issue 25 years ago

by Joretta Purdue*

	WASHINGTON (UMNS) –- Before the Supreme Court's historic Roe vs. Wade
decision 25 years ago, the United Methodist Church had already concluded that
abortion should be de-criminalized and become a matter for the women involved
to decide.
	In addition, some of its clergy and members were risking arrests to make it
safer for women seeking an abortion. 
	The church's 1972 General Conference –- official policy-making body --
expressed support in the denomination's Social Principles for "removal of
abortion from the criminal code, placing it instead under the laws relating to
other procedures of standard medical practice."
	A resolution on responsible parenthood passed in 1972 reflected major changes
from that of 1968, warning of the consequences of bringing unloved and
unwanted children into the world and rejecting "simplistic" arguments for and
against abortion. 
In contrast to the earlier statement which favored abortion approved by a
panel of physicians in cases of rape, incest or other extreme circumstances,
the 1972 resolution called for women to be "free to make their own responsible
decisions concerning the personal and moral questions surrounding the issue of
abortion."
The 1972 resolution was drafted by the Rev. Rodney Shaw, a member of the
Wisconsin Annual Conference, who was a staff member at what is now the Board
of Church and Society.
Looking back, Shaw recalled that he had been working on disarmament and
despaired of making a difference in the nuclear arms race at the same time he
became aware of potential for equal devastation from the "population bomb."
Other Methodist clergy favored choice for a variety of reasons based in their
own deliberations and moved by the situations they encountered in counseling
women with problem pregnancies.
	Many became members of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, an
organized network that risked arrest by referring pregnant women to other
areas where safe legal abortions could be obtained. 
	The service was founded in the mid 1960s by the Rev. Howard Moody, an
American Baptist minister in New York.
	The Rev. Eugene Hamilton, currently pastor of the Little Falls (N.J.) United
Methodist Church, joined the consultation service in 1967 when he was serving
the Methodist Church in Fairfield, N.J., a small town not far from the urban
areas of Newark and Paterson, N.J. and New York City.
	"A real need existed," he said.
	Not only were there abortions of the coat-hanger variety being performed in
nearby urban areas, but the patients of one abortionist in the area were
subjected to ongoing demands for additional money, Hamilton said.
	Instead, pastors like Hamilton interviewed people who sought their help,
spelling out the options and making sure the pregnancy had been verified by a
physician.
Women who chose abortion were usually referred to clinics in Puerto Rico or
Mexico, he recalled. A lesser number were sent to England, and for a short
period there was a clinic in the South, he said. All were investigated by the
service to assure good care, sanitary conditions and that the women were not
being victimized, he added.
	When abortions became legal in New York in 1970, the underground railroad of
abortion redirected its referrals to that state.
	The women Hamilton helped ranged from a 12-year-old to a married woman in her
50s who had thought she was long past child-bearing and was very concerned
about the developmental dangers her age held for the fetus.
	"Never, ever did I find anyone who I felt was taking that decision lightly!"
he declared.
	Laity, too, were finding themselves involved. 
Judith McWhorter Widdicombe, a nurse and mother in St. Louis in the late
1960s, was a volunteer on a suicide prevention line when a woman called
threatening to kill herself if she could not get an abortion. 
Widdicombe, a Methodist, did not have any information for the desperate
caller. Abortion was a felony manslaughter in Missouri at the time. But, a few
months later she and the psychiatrist who headed the suicide prevention
service embarked on a referral service to help women obtain safe abortions.
Then, Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case
of Roe vs. Wade. Seven of the nine justices had agreed, striking down the laws
under which women and their doctors were forbidden this procedure.
	Ironically perhaps, it was the only United Methodist on the court, Justice
Harry Blackmun, who wrote the court's majority opinion. The court based its
reasoning largely on a woman's right to privacy.
	Like the churches, the court did not view the matter lightly. Blackmun, in an
opinion that was 80 typewritten pages, acknowledged "the sensitive and
emotional nature of the abortion controversy" and worked to trace the history
of attitudes and regulations extending back to ancient times.
	He noted that "the restrictive criminal abortion laws" then in effect in a
majority of states were "of relatively recent vintage" --  mostly from the
latter half of the 19th century.
	Blackmun wrote that while the Constitution does not mention a right to
privacy. . .  "the court has recognized that a right of personal privacy does
exist under the Constitution. . . " 	
	"This right of privacy . . .  is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision
whether or not to terminate her pregnancy," his decision said.
	However, it was not an unqualified right, the justice reasoned. He concluded
that in the interests of maternal health, states could regulate abortion
procedures and facilities from the end of the first trimester.
	In St. Louis, Widdicombe consulted with her board and announced that the
Pregnancy Consultation Service would open a clinic to provide abortion
service. Then she had to figure out what that would involve.
	On the official opening day, May 24, 1973, the new clinic became the object
of an anti-abortion demonstration, the first of many.
	Subsequently, Widdicombe co-founded the National Abortion Federation and was
its president. She also served on the board of the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) and was its interim director at one
point.
	In the months following the court decision, the Religious Coalition for
Abortion Rights (RCAR) was formed by several Protestant denominations and
Jewish groups to protect the ruling.
	Jessma Blockwick, the Board of Church and Society program staff member who
was liaison between the board and RCAR, remembers that Shaw raised foundation
money to permit the coalition to hire a director and to begin organizing state
coalitions.
"We played quite an important educational role, too," Blockwick remembered.
"We did a lot of workshops on the abortion issue around the country." 
The coalition also published educational materials including booklets and
pamphlets on why the various religious groups thought it was important to
preserve the freedom of choice, or, as it was stated in one publication, so
the religious views of one group would not prohibit others from exercising
control over their reproduction that was consistent with their own religious
beliefs.
	 Initially much opposition to the ruling came from the Roman Catholic Church,
but some United Methodists also believed that abortion should be prohibited.
	By the seventh anniversary of Roe vs. Wade in 1980, the Rev. Ken Unger, a
United Methodist clergyman from Ohio, had formed Protestants Protesting
Abortion and led a delegation of members to Washington for the anniversary.
	In 1987 nine United Methodists decided "to form a national organization to
help United Methodists deal with our church's inability to minister to the
problems of our pro-abortion society," as a group publication put it. 
The organization was named the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and
Sexuality and continues as an unofficial caucus of the denomination. In
Lifewatch, the group's quarterly newsletter, the Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth,
editor, recently said, "The Book of Discipline's paragraph on abortion needs
to be changed  to be protective of the least of these, the unborn child and
mother."
Changes have also occurred in the legislative and judicial arenas. In 1980 the
Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which had been struck down by a lower
court. The amendment freed governmental bodies from the requirement that
abortion not be denied because of poverty.
In 1989, the Supreme Court whose composition had changed somewhat since 1973,
announced its decision for Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, the
clinic founded by Widdicombe. The case had been initiated years earlier to
challenge a Missouri law that included several anti-abortion provisions. The
decision gave the states increased latitude to restrict abortions.
United Methodist participation in the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights
was warmly debated at the 1992 General Conference and affirmed by a vote of
485-448. Delegates were assured that neither the Board of Global Ministries
nor the Board of Church and Society had given any financial support to the
organization since about 1986 although both boards had seats on the RCAR
board.
At the end of 1993, RCAR moved to larger quarters in Washington, thus leaving
space it rented in the United Methodist Building. At the same time the
organization changed its name to Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
	Sally Geis of Denver, Colo., a sociologist and a member of the Board of
Church and Society in 1972, observed that the United Methodist Church reflects
the mood of the culture.
	She said that there was much more consensus in the church 25 years ago --
"not that there wasn't some dissent, the divisiveness of the issue has
ascended through time." Pro-choice people within the church have moved from
being pro-active to being defensive, she remarked.  
   "I was very proud of the church  that we were on the cutting edge," said
this daughter of an obstetrician. She recalled her father's trying to save the
lives of women who had back-alley or self-induced abortions in the days before
penicillin.
	The partial-birth abortion issue is eroding support for choice, she said,
adding that it is seldom used and then only in the most difficult
circumstances. Choice, like democracy, appears to require eternal vigilance,
she added.
	Shaw, at 81, also looked back at the changes. "Freedom of women's choice" was
the argument most used in the early days, he said, but now the issue is being
understood as authoritarianism versus individual freedom. 
	That translates into the question, he said, of who has the right to force a
woman to have a child she does not want, and what are the implications for
society.
	"The authoritarians will talk about respect for the unborn life, but at the
same time many of them are opposed to the contraceptive movement," Shaw said,
citing Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) as a "a driving force in Congress"
in reducing U.S. expenditures for contraceptives overseas and in this country.
	Methodist Women, on the other hand, were responsible for making family
planning available without cost to more than five million low-income women in
the United States, Shaw said. "If you are going to be concerned about
abortion, you have to be first of all concerned about women's ability to
prevent pregnancy," he declared.
	Shaw, who has helped found population organizations, is 
officially retired but continues to work with population groups.
# # #

	*Purdue is news director for the Washington office of United Methodist News
Service.
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