The hottest agenda item at a number of this year’s denominational conventions may be abortion. Even in communions where the issue was thought to be “resolved,” a fresh round of debate can be expected as many responsible churchmen begin to rethink their positions. Sentiment for easy abortions, so evident as late as a year ago, is being increasingly countered at the level of public discussion, as well as at the legislative and judicial levels.
In a number of states, anti-abortion forces have been able to defeat liberalizing bills or to counter court decisions that struck down existing statutes. Last month the Maryland House of Delegates rejected by a surprisingly wide margin (77–59) a bill that would have permitted a physician to perform an abortion on request up to the twentieth week of pregnancy. The bill was similar to one approved by the Maryland legislature last year but vetoed by Governor Marvin Mandel.
President Nixon aligned himself with the anti-abortion movement this month in a statement confirming that he had overturned a Defense Department regulation issued last summer liberalizing abortion rules in military hospitals. “I have directed that the policy on abortions at American military bases in the United States be made to correspond with the laws of the states where those bases are located,” he said. The statement was issued following disclosure in the Washington Post of the policy change.
Nixon said he had acted partly because laws regulating abortion in the United States have been the province of the states, not the federal government. He went on to add, however, that “while this matter is being debated in state capitals and weighed by various courts, the country has a right to know my personal views.” He expressed those views with unusual candor—seldom has an American president talked so forthrightly on a hotly debated issue with personal as well as social ethical implications.
“From personal and religious beliefs,” he said, “I consider abortion an unacceptable form of population control. Further, unrestricted abortion policies, or abortion on demand, I cannot square with my personal belief in the sanctity of human life—including the life of the yet unborn. For surely, the unborn have rights also, recognized in law, recognized even in principles expounded by the United Nations.”
Nixon’s statement may prod a number of American clergymen who have supported the liberalization of abortion laws to rethink their positions. Several denominations are currently on record with statements adopted in legislative assemblies that virtually condone abortion on demand. Among the most liberal are the statements adopted by American Baptists, United Presbyterians, and United Methodists.
The United Methodist statement runs counter to the views of the denomination’s three top moral theologians, Albert Outler, Paul Ramsey, and J. Robert Nelson. Outler and Nelson were among twenty-two professors and physicians who recently signed an anti-abortion statement. The statement asked: “How long can we meaningfully say that all men are created equal while the innocent unborn are sacrificed to personal whim, convenience, or that new test of Americanism in our increasingly technologic and impersonal age: the qualification of being perfect, or being wanted, or being viable?”
Ramsey spelled out his position in some detail in last summer’s issue of Religion in Life, and in contributions to two books, John T. Noonan’s The Morality of Abortion and Daniel H. Labby’s Life or Death. Ramsey’s is probably the best brief argument against abortion currently in print. The most exhaustive is by Germain Grisez of Georgetown University, a 559-page work entitled Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments.
Pro-abortion arguments have tended to move on the premise that pregnant women should have the final say, that men have too long made these decisions—from a non-existential perspective. If there is indeed a change of public and/or ecclesiastical mood on abortion, it is undoubtedly attributable in part to the fact that women themselves have been speaking out more against—as well as for—abortion. And in some cases at least, they are not merely reciting rhetoric but are taking positive action in showing compassion toward pregnant women.
New volunteer groups called Birthright have initiated a telephone hot line for women with unwanted pregnancies. The group, offering alternatives to abortion, includes both Protestants and Catholics and now operates in Washington, Toronto, Chicago, Denver, Cleveland, and Minneapolis.
Birthright obviously attracts volunteers who oppose abortion, but is not a lobby as such. Its main idea is that pregnant women go through a great deal of tension and confusion and need help for this.
Another underlying premise is that abortion can bring on emotional trauma far exceeding that sustained by continuing the pregnancy.
Abortion is not an issue of theological liberals versus conservatives, nor is it grass roots versus leadership, as with many current matters. Most ministers are still publicly silent on the subject. Many clergymen as well as physicians are yet undecided or unclear about the moral issue. Lacking authoritative counsel, unmarried women and young couples often make decisions on existential grounds.
Presumably, the showdown on abortion laws will come when the U. S. Supreme Court rules on appeals. That may still be a number of months away.
The Churches’ Stand On Abortion
American Baptist Convention (resolution adopted in 1968): “… We … urge that legislation be enacted to provide: 1. That the termination of a pregnancy prior to the end of the 12th week (first trimester) be at the request of the individual(s) concerned and be regarded as an elective medical practice and licensure. 2. After that period, the termination of a pregnancy shall be performed only by a duly licensed physician at the request of the individual(s).”
Episcopal Church (resolution adopted at 1967 General Convention): “… Resolved, That the 33rd Triennial Meeting of the Episcopal Church support efforts to repeal all laws concerning abortion which deny women the free and responsible exercise of their conscience.…”
United Methodist Church (resolution adopted by General Conference in 1970): “… We urge … that church-related hospitals take the lead in eliminating those hospital administrative restrictions on voluntary sterilization and abortion which exceed the legal requirements in their respective political jurisdictions, and which frustrate the intent of the law where the law is designed to make the decision for sterilization and abortion largely or solely the responsibility of the person most concerned.…”
United Presbyterian Church (report to General Assembly, 1970): “Our committee’s position is that abortion should be taken out of the realm of the law altogether and be made a matter of the careful ethical decision of a woman, her physician and her pastor or other counselors. In the later stages of pregnancy, serious consideration must be given to the competing claims of the developing fetus as well as to the increasing risk to the life of the mother in surgical abortion.…”
Lutheran Church in America (resolution adopted at 1970 convention): “On the basis of the evangelical ethic, a woman or couple may decide responsibly to seek an abortion. Earnest consideration should be given to the life and total health of the mother, her responsibilities to others in her family, the stage of development of the fetus, the economic and psychological stability of the home, the laws of the land, and the consequences for society as a whole.”
All the above opinions presuppose the validity of the tissue theory, which Dr. Paul Ramsey, professor of ethics at Princeton University, rejects. “It is known,” he says, “that heart-pumping starts by the end of four weeks, at about the time the mother begins to wonder whether she is pregnant or not.… The fetus is capable of its own spontaneous motion at ten weeks and it responds to external touch or stimulation much earlier. All essential organ formations, except limbs, are present at eight weeks. Tissue, anyone?”
Unconditional Withdrawal: Strategy For Peace?
The anti-war movement in the churches, virtually dormant for a number of months, took on new life in the latter days of Lent. Dozens of young seminarians highlighted the latest protest with a sit-in near the White House in Washington during Holy Week. More than 70 were arrested.
Six well-known religious leaders1President Daniel Burke of LaSalle College, Vice-president Stephen Cary of Haverford College, Episcopal Bishop Robert L. DeWitt, Rabbi Eugene Lipman, General Secretary Dudley Ward of the United Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns, and United Presbyterian Stated Clerk William P. Thompson. not previously identified as extreme doves were among the demonstrators. They appeared on Palm Sunday vowing to fast the entire week in protest of American policy in Southeast Asia.
The protesters got unprecedented backing from four leading religious journals: The Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, Commonweal, and The National Catholic Reporter. (Editors from Crisis, Commonweal, and NCR were among those arrested.) An editorial that appeared jointly in the journals said the United States is “repeating the crucifixion of Christ” through its Viet Nam policies.
The appeal for an end to the war was worded in a more general way than other recent statements. Some anti-war churchmen have become very specific.
Fifty American Protestant churchmen, most of whom had previously expressed anti-administration sentiments on the war in Southeast Asia, went to Paris last month and conferred with the heads of all four delegations to the stalemated peace talks there. They returned issuing a statement calling for unconditional withdrawal of U. S. troops and asking President Nixon to direct “all United States air, naval and ground forces in Indochina not to drop bombs or to fire weapons except in response to direct attack.”
The group said they did not seek or obtain any information on the whereabouts of five American missionaries who have been held captive by the Viet Cong, three since 1962.
Josiah Beeman, director of the United Presbyterian Washington office, arranged the trip.
A number of high-ranking denominational officials were among those who went to Paris. Some were said to have paid their way out of “office expenses,” others to have had their funds “raised locally.”
The group’s statement did not ask that a withdrawal date be made public, but appealed to the President and to Congress “to declare immediately their pledge to withdraw unconditionally all U. S. military forces from Indochina in the immediate future” (italics theirs).
The same day that the anti-war group returned to the United States, a team of four churchmen concerned about prisoners of war left for overseas. They said they hoped to talk to diplomats in a number of capitals in an effort to win release of the captives and regain peace in Indochina. They intended to end up in Hanoi if visas could be secured.
The four are Missouri Synod Lutheran president Jacob A. O. Preus, Roman Catholic archbishop Joseph T. Ryan of Anchorage, former United Presbyterian moderator George E. Sweazey, and President Nathan Bailey of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
DAVID, KUCHARSKY
