 Abortion advocate to speak at Washington Office dinner By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, April 25, 2003 The Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has engaged a leading abortion advocate to speak during its annual awards dinner in Denver on May 29. The dinner will be an adjunct to the 215th General Assembly in Denver May 24-30.
EMILY'S list is a political action group that has raised millions of dollars for pro-choice women who are Democratic candidates. DeGette, who has been a member of Congress since 1996, is one of its beneficiaries. She is chair of the Pro-choice Caucus in the U.S. House, a group that advocates partial-birth abortion. The U.S. Senate voted 64-33 on March 13 to prohibit partial-birth abortions, which allow doctors to kill viable babies just as they are being delivered. Eleven of the Senate's 13 Presbyterians, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., voted with the majority. Speaking on the Senate floor, Frist, an internationally prominent transplant surgeon, described what happens during a partial-birth abortion. "It begins by turning the living fetus around, partially pulling it out of the uterus feet first, and then thrusting the base of its skull deeply with 8-inch long scissors. Next the scissors are forcibly opened in the skull of the fetus to create a hole large enough to evacuate the brain and the contents of the head. Once the skull is collapsed, the now dead infant is pulled from the uterus through the birth canal. This procedure is most commonly performed in the second trimester of pregnancy, from 20 to 27 weeks." The House is scheduled to vote soon on the legislation, which President George W. Bush favors. DeGette is also in the congressional minority that has opposed President Bush's decision to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. "Last summer, I voted against the House resolution authorizing President Bush to use unilateral military force in Iraq," DeGette said in a press release posted on her Web site on Feb. 12. "I continue to oppose unilateral action by the United States unless there is an imminent threat to our security." On the abortion and war issues, DeGette, who doesn't list a religious affiliation on her House Web site, reflects the thinking of some Presbyterian leaders. The 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted in 2002 to become the first mainline denomination in the nation to approve of partial-birth abortions. Before 1983, the denomination regarded "the destruction by parents of their own offspring, before birth, with abhorrence, as a crime against God and nature." The 1983 General Assembly adopted the denomination's first pro-abortion position, saying that abortion was not only a right but also a woman's responsibility if she did not think she had the means to support a child. After enormous opposition to that view, the 1992 General Assembly approved a statement that contradicts itself. Seeking to appease both sides, it said abortion is morally justifiable and that opposition to abortion is also morally justifiable. While the denomination ostensibly recognizes both views as legitimate, the Washington Office and other agencies of the denomination give no platform to the pro-life perspective. |
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