Church Members Aim for
Thaw in Abortion Debate
Bishop’s Remarks Draw Protest
By Gary Broughman
Movements sometimes begin with the small acts of individuals who finally have had
enough. A group of progressive Christians in New Smyrna Beach, Florida,
frustrated that their Bishop seemed to be joining the mainstream media in over
simplifying the moral questions surrounding abortion, is hoping its actions can
play a part in thawing the frozen standoff over this highly divisive issue.
The group, which grew out of a social principles class at Coronado Community
United Methodist Church, sent a formal letter of protest to their Bishop,
Timothy Whitaker, objecting to remarks he made in a Washington D.C. address
marking this year’s anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Whitaker’s response, while not ceding his opposition to abortion, explained his position
as just one part of “God’s revealed purpose of creating a peaceable kingdom.” He also offered what could become a small opening for compromise if people
truly motivated by moral values—not political advantage—could gain control of the debate.
Whitaker, Bishop of the Florida Conference, is a prominent leader of the United
Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest protestant Christian denomination with over 9 million members
and 35,000 churches. His comments came as part of a sermon preached to a
conservative group that meets annually in opposition to the rights granted
women under the Roe v. Wade decision. His description of abortion as “murder,” seen as confrontational by some pro-choice believers, was a call to arms for
anti-abortion activists eager to reverse the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision. However, in his response to the letter of protest from his
church members, Whitaker indicated a possible willingness to accept a legal
right to abortion under carefully circumscribed principles.
“… it may be that abortion will never be completely outlawed, but it may be
possible for the government to enact laws and support institutions that delay
or discourage abortion and that reduce the number of deaths,” he wrote.
While Whitaker was in the nation’s capital describing abortion as a “moral horror,” Senator Hillary Clinton was also commemorating Roe v. Wade—and attempting to steer the debate toward compromise—in a speech before the New York State Family Planning Providers. Using words
that surprised some in her audience, Mrs. Clinton tried to balance her
steadfast support for a woman’s right to choose with an acknowledgement of her dislike for abortion.
“I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even
tragic choice to many, many women,” the senator said. “… Yes we do have deeply held differences of opinion about the issue of abortion.
I for one respect those who believe with all their hearts and conscience that
there are no circumstances under which any abortion should ever be available.”
Mrs. Clinton went on to describe numerous ways in which abortion could be
reduced, while still maintaining access when needed. “… So my hope now, today, is that whatever our disagreements with those in this
debate, that we join together to take real action to improve the quality of
health care for women and families, to reduce the number of abortions …”
Despite her conciliatory remarks, Senator Clinton continued to reject a
government imposed remedy. And with the anti-abortion camp set on prohibition,
not reduction, Clinton’s speech was roundly criticized as empty rhetoric and her offer to help “people of good faith to find common ground in this debate” was repeatedly scorned.
The Clinton episode is indicative of why “common ground” is unlikely to emerge from the political realm. Any chance to heal the national
estrangement over this issue, may have to come from within traditional moral
values communities such as churches not already co-opted into supporting a
conservative agenda the protest writers described as “generally anti-life.” But even in those mainline churches, anti-abortion activists are attempting to
advance their belief that legal abortions must be eliminated in all
circumstances. In fact, the position Whitaker advocated in Washington, contrary
to his church’s official statement on the issue, would allow abortion only in the most “extreme medical conditions,” that is, to prevent the actual death of the mother.
Although the Methodist Bishop’s thoughtful sermon avoided the stridency of “pop” activists like James Dobson or Rick Santorum, selective reports of his
Washington remarks rendered them indistinguishable from the others. Whitaker
later explained his primary purpose is to change the official statement of his
church, which tries to balance opposition to abortion with concern for pregnant
women. The statement on abortion, contained in the United Methodist Church’s controlling document, The Book of Discipline, concludes by saying, “… we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of
the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable
pregnancy.” He also objects to a church resolution enacted in 2000 endorsing “the legal right to abortion by the 1973 Supreme Court
decision.”
Whitaker distanced himself in his sermon from hard knuckle conservatives on
issues like war, capital punishment and social justice; but in the “either/or” climate clouding the abortion debate, his statements seemed to place him in the
common school of anti-abortion activists, a group which is not only absolute in
its abortion position, but campaigns to outlaw oral contraceptives used by
millions of American women to prevent unwanted pregnancy. “How can we even begin to discuss a solution to this morally damaging issue
(abortion on demand),” the Florida protesters asked, “as long as the anti-abortion position is controlled by people whose nature and
habit is to never compromise and to force on others constraints that will never
be accepted by the American people?”
Martha Ross, a long-time Methodist and active Coronado member who helped
organize the protest, said Bishop Whitaker’s sermon bothered her on two levels.
“First, I was offended by the stand he took, creating the impression he was
speaking for us as Florida Methodists,” she said. “If he would have said what he did as Mr. Timothy Whitaker that would have been
alright, but as Bishop Whitaker, he was not being true to the social principles
of the church. The Bishop calls his speech a sermon but I saw it as a political
speech. As a Methodist I was offended politically and spiritually.”
Ms. Ross also disagreed with Bishop Whitaker on the content of his comments.
“It was the idea that he was not giving any consideration to the woman and what
is going on in her life. He was much more concerned about an unborn fetus than
about a living woman.”
To illustrate that point, Ms. Ross described the recent experience of a close
friend, a Roman Catholic, who a few months into her pregnancy learned from a
sonogram that the baby she carried was severely malformed with no skull or
brain tissue above the eye level and problems everywhere including the heart.
Her doctors advised her she was unlikely to carry the baby to term and trying
to do so could compromise her own health. That was hard enough to digest, but
what followed could only be described as abusive, Ms. Ross said.
“She had to go to an abortion clinic to have her pregnancy terminated and when
she arrived there she had to pass through the protest lines. That’s not right.”
Adding that her friend is “finally beginning to heal emotionally” from the experience, Ross then suggested trying to imagine the emotional cost
if the woman “had been forced to try carrying the fetus to term,” knowing at any moment she could be carrying a dead baby in her womb.
Ms. Ross said she too cares very much about the unborn, but asks people who take
absolute positions against abortion to “care a little about living, functioning women and their families.” She added that because of the Roman Catholic position on abortion, her friend
couldn’t turn to her church for emotional or spiritual support. “She and her husband had to bear it alone.”
Situations such as this contribute to making pro-choice advocates cynical about
the self-styled moral superiority of the “pro-life” camp. If they can turn their backs so easily on the suffering of a living
being, how can we believe they really care about the life of the unborn?
To be fair, intransigence exists on both sides of the abortion argument, with
some on the “pro-choice” side fighting just as hard against any limitations. Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were criticized from the left as well as the right. If the center is
ever to prevail in the interest of a reasonable policy that prescribes neither
a total right to abortion nor an unnatural concept of “life” that separates the fetus from the mother and defines life as beginning before
pregnancy, good faith and good will must prevail.
Unfortunately, we are now like people stuck on an immobile ice flow. If we are
ever to see movement, moral people in the middle must be willing to chip off
those standing on the edges and let them float out to sea. The farther off they
float, the less audible their voices will become. Maybe then the thaw can
begin.
All content Copyright © Gary Broughman, 2007
