 PCUSA continues to support abortion of viable babies By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, July 1, 2004
For the third straight year, the national governing body continued to sanction a pro-abortion policy that permits unrestricted abortions, including those of viable babies. In continuing that policy, the 216th General Assembly voted 286-185 to override a committee's recommendation that called for more consideration of protecting the lives of babies. The committee would have modified the denomination's statement by affirming the "protection of viable babies in the womb. In cases where problems develop late in the pregnancy, we urge our members to support the live delivery of the baby. In the interest of protecting the life and health of both the mother and the baby, late-term abortion should be considered only if the physical life or mental health of the mother is at serious risk and no alternative means of delivering the baby alive is available. Furthermore, we urge our members to provide pastoral and tangible support to women in problem pregnancies, seeking ways that the church can intervene to mitigate the problems in a pregnancy or late-term abortion. We affirm adoption as a provision for women who deliver children they are not able to care for and ask our members to assist in seeking loving, adoptive families." But the commissioners voted not to place any limits on the denomination's support for aborting viable babies, a practice that is banned by federal law. Ironically, an overwhelming majority of Presbyterians serving in the U.S. House and Senate voted in favor of restricting partial-birth abortions. During the debate on the floor, some commissioners noted with irony that the abortion issue before the plenary session immediately after a presentation on the "Decade of the Child," which the PCUSA supports. Arguing against defeat of the committee's proposal, Margaret Ward of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta said, "The Decade of the Child presentation included a slide: 'All children are a gift of God.'" But arguments such as those made by the Rev. Margaret Anne Fohl of the Presbytery of Philadelphia prevailed. The denomination's current policy, she says, "fulfills the church's role to give moral guidance. It does not prescribe any sort of discipline. It offers compassion." |
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