 Committee approves statement endorsing late-term abortion By Steven Strickler The Layman Online Thursday, June 20, 2002
The two committees had worked on the statement over the past two years. Known as 13-04 for the purposes of the committee, it as approved by a vote of 45 in favor, 9 against and 2 abstentions. If approved by the entire 214th General Assembly, it will represent an endorsement of late-term abortion – the first time that a mainline denomination has sanctioned the procedure. A minority report is being prepared and will be presented Friday to the entire General Assembly. The General Assembly's Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, and the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns, as well as the two other committees, recommended that the Huntingdon overture be answered by the statement. Commissioners responded by approving 13-04 and defeating 13-02. According to the agenda of the committee, 13-04 was to be presented first and voted upon. Then, the overture advocate for last year's overture 01-47 from the Presbytery of East Tennessee would speak. The Huntingdon overture essentially was a reiteration of last year's East Tennessee overture, which was deferred to this year's General Assembly in anticipation of the "Statement on Late-Term Abortion" representing a response to that overture. On two separate occasions, commissioners made motions to reverse the order so that the view of the churches in East Tennessee Presbytery could be heard before that of the General Assembly committees. Both times the commissioners defeated those motions to ensure their work on 13-04 was their first priority. Attorney Judy Woods of the Advisory Committee on Litigation, who presented 13-04 to the committee, made clear that the statement was not intended to write new General Assembly policy on abortion but, rather, focused on late-term abortion in the light of the general policy on abortion approved in 1992. When questions were asked about the gray areas of the statement, Woods said, "We didn't attempt to clarify those areas." She went on to explain that the gray areas were intentional so that the difficult decision about late-term abortion could be left to a woman and her doctor. When Woods completed her presentation and questions were answered, Jeff Hollingsworth, a lawyer from East Tennessee Presbytery, stepped to the microphone as the overture advocate for 01-47. He had five minutes to share the history of last year's deferred overture in relationship to the statement before the committee, which was supposed to be an answer to that overture. The intention of 01-47, he said, was for "the church to express moral opposition to abortion, and to care for women who are in abortion situations. This statement, 13-04, doesn't address our concerns." Hollingsworth indicated that, according to the 1992 General Assembly policy on abortion, "life is a precious gift we need to protect and defend." He reminded commissioners that the discussion surrounds a baby who is viable and "we are morally opposed to ending that life." He drew attention to the first sentence of the statement, which says, "The church has a responsibility to provide public witness…." He asked, "Where is the Scriptural basis for (the statement)? What does God say? Life is precious. If we adopt this and a woman asks for advice (about aborting her baby), we'll have to say that we don't know what advice to give her." Hollingsworth's testimony did not lead commissioners to reject the statement or change its content in any significant way. Instead, in "quasi-committee as a whole," commissioners spent hours working on the exact wording of the statement before they arrived at a consensus. The following is the approved version: Statement on Late-Term Abortion "The church has a responsibility to provide public witness and to offer guidance, counsel, and support to those who make or interpret laws and public policies about abortion and problem pregnancies. Pastors have a duty to counsel with and pray for those who face decisions about abortion. Congregations have a duty to pray for and support those who face these choices, to offer support for women and families to help make unwanted pregnancies less likely to occur, and to provide practical support for those facing the birth of a child with genetic (strike genetic and replace with medical) anomalies, birth after rape or incest, or those who face health, economic, or other stresses. "In life and death, we belong to God. Life is a gift from God. We may not know exactly when human life begins, and have but an imperfect understanding of God as the giver of life and of our own human existence, yet we recognize that life is precious to God, and we should preserve and protect it. We derive our understanding of human life from Scripture and the Reformed Tradition in light of science, human experience, and reason guided by the Holy Spirit. Because we are made in the image of God, human beings are moral agents, endowed by the Creator with the capacity to make choices. Our Reformed Tradition recognizes that people do not always make moral choices, and forgiveness is central to our faith. In the Reformed Tradition, we affirm that God is the only Lord of conscience-not the state or the church. As a community, the church challenges the faithful to exercise their moral agency responsibly. "When an individual woman faces the decision whether to abort a pregnancy, the issue is intensely personal, and may manifest itself in ways that do not reflect public rhetoric, or do not fit neatly into medical, legal, or policy guidelines. Humans are empowered by the spirit prayerfully to make significant moral choices, including the choice to continue or end a pregnancy. Human choices should not be made in a moral vacuum, but must be based on Scripture, faith, and Christian ethics. For any choice, we are accountable to God; however, even when we err, God offers to forgive us. "The ending of a pregnancy after the point of fetal viability is a matter of grave moral concern to us all, but (strike but, read and) may be undertaken only (add in the rarest of circumstances and only) after prayer (add and/or pastoral care,) and when necessary to save the life of the woman, to preserve the woman's health in circumstances of a serious risk to the woman's health, to avoid fetal suffering as a result of untreatable life-threatening genetic (strike genetic, read medical) anomalies, or in case of incest or rape." During the public hearing session Monday, many people testified that the approval of 13-04 would mean a reversal of the 1997 General Assembly's resolution on abortion and a weakening of the 1992 policy, and that such approval would mean ignoring the medical fact that the live delivery of the baby (after 20 weeks) is safer for the mother than abortion. They urged the approval of 13-02, the Huntingdon Presbytery overture. Nearly an equal number of people spoke against the overture and for the statement. After 13-04 was approved, Elder Bruce Andrews of Northern New England Presbytery proposed an amendment that would have added the following sentence to the end of the statement: "Except in cases of fetal suffering, serious consideration shall be given to terminating the pregnancy in such a way that the life of the fetus may be preserved." Opponents of the amendment understood the addendum correctly to imply ending the pregnancy by live delivery, but insisted 13-04's reading was sufficient. It was defeated 40 to 8, with 7 abstentions. A final effort to lead commissioners toward a statement eschewing late-term abortion came from YAD Eric Richey of the San Diego Presbytery, who proposed that the final sentence of the third paragraph be removed and replaced with the following: "The church counsels women late in pregnancy to make a decision most likely to preserve both their own lives and the lives of their children. The ending of a pregnancy by abortion after the point of fetal viability is a matter of grave moral concern to us all and may be undertaken only when necessary to save the life of the mother. We urge our members to surround these families with their prayers and tangible support." When Richey's proposed amendment was defeated 38 to 16, the majority spoke with a clear voice: the right of a mother to kill her baby by means of late-term abortion was to be defended at all costs irrespective of all other concerns. The following is the defeated overture from Huntingdon Presbytery: "The Presbytery of Huntingdon overtures the 214th General Assembly (2002) to affirm the following elaboration on the General Assembly's most current policy on abortion as its moral counsel to the church and the culture on late-term pregnancies: "Unborn babies who are able to survive outside the womb are to be cherished and protected as precious gifts of God. When pregnancy-related problems arise, the church supports efforts to preserve the lives of both mothers and their unborn babies. Abortion is to be considered at this stage of the baby's development only when a live delivery threatens the physical safety of the mother. We urge our churches to continue to support with their prayers, their presence, and their tangible help those families in their midst that experience difficulties late in pregnancy." |
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