From Pro-Choice Clergy Archives - Page 3 of 5

Presbyterian minister says a baby becomes a person only when he is loved

Prolife author Dave Sterrett said:

“A Presbyterian minister in my city once said that he would support his teenage daughter to get an abortion. When another pastor asked him, “When do you believe a human person begins to exist?” The Presbyterian minister replied, “I think someone becomes a person when they are loved.”

Dave Sterrett Aborting Aristotle: Examining Fatal Fallacies in the Abortion (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015) 96

The baby below died in an abortion clinic. He was never loved. Was he therefore never a person?

This other baby, around the same age as the aborted one, was wanted and loved, but was stillborn. Was he a person because his mother loved and wanted him?

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Episcopal Bishop Leslie Cadigan gives her reasons for supporting abortion

Episcopal Bishop George Leslie Cadigan:

“It is at once the glory and the burden of each of us that we are called upon to make such difficult personal decisions according to our conscience. When we deny that liberty to any one of our number, we give away a part of our own birthright. When, more specifically, we condemn a woman for making an independent judgment according to her own conscience, relating to her reproductive life, we denigrate her personhood.

The “rightness” or “wrongness” of abortion as the solution of a problem pregnancy is not the critical issue here. The issue is the larger ethical one: can any one of us stand in the role of judge for the personal decisions of others? What robes shall we wear? Greater than the debatable immorality of terminating an undesired pregnancy is the immorality of refusing a woman access to medical help when she has determined that she needs it.”

John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: the War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 21

So the rightness or wrongness of abortion is not the issue? One would think that if abortion was wrong, it would be wrong because it’s killing of the child. Like the one above, at 9 to 10 weeks. See what a 9 week old baby would look like after an abortion. Killing a child is wrong – wrong in every way – and it should be condemned.

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Abortion is pro-life, not violence, says pastor

“Because the fetus feels no pain, a function of the brain as yet undeveloped, and the woman acts under her own will and conscience, it is still not violence to a human being.…

It is not enough to say that abortion is not violent. Abortion is a positive decision and not a lesser evil. It gives women control over their lives, their fertility, their education, their vocations, and their responsibility to their families, and is therefore profamily and pro-life.”

Pro-choice Methodist pastor John M Swomley

John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: the War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 82

this isn’t violence?

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Saying women should abstain unless they want children is “violence” says minister

From pro-choice Methodist Minister John M Swomley:

“There is also covert violence in the idea that women should not have sexual intercourse if they don’t want children. An act of sexual intercourse is not an implied contract to have children. While this may be the belief of those who accept the doctrine that every sexual act must be open to procreation, it would be violent for any government to decide that such a sectarian doctrine should be enforced against anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, who does not accept that teaching.”

John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: The War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 58

Suggesting a woman shouldn’t have sex is violence, but abortion is not? Look at the picture of an aborted baby (first trimester) below and ask yourself if a suggestion of abstinence is more violent than abortion.

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Abortion justified by original sin?

Methodist minister John M Swomley who we’ve heard from before, disputes the belief that unborn babies are “innocent” and should not be killed:

“The first claim is that society should protect innocent human life that is unable to protect itself. The term “innocent,” originally used by various popes, refers to fetal life which has committed no sin. Yet the Roman Catholic Church has proclaimed only one person, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as having an immaculate conception and hence free from original sin. In any event, public policy cannot be founded on theological claims to innocence.

There is another meaning of “innocence” which comes from two Latin words, in (not) and nocere (to harm), and therefore means “not harmful or dangerous.” However, it is precisely the fact that some pregnant women (and their physicians) view the fetus as harmful or threatening to their health or welfare and hence leads them to consider abortion.”

John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: the War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 14

Tiny remains of a baby aborted at 7 weeks

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Methodist pastor: caring about the unborn is “idolatry”

“Opponents of abortion in America have attributed to fetal life a sacredness that is actually idolatry… Fetal idolatry denies a woman’s right to control her body, her life, her destiny, all of which must be sacrificed to an embryo or fetus once she is pregnant…

Fetal idolatry shows no mercy. … One of the major critiques of idolatry about unborn life is its lack of concern for the abundant or purposeful life to which all of us should be called. No one of us should be an unwanted child or have to experience emotional abandonment or lack of compassion and love in childhood.”

Minister John M Swomley

John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: the War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 78

Swomley is an ordained United Methodist minister, from 1960 to 1984 he was professor of Christian Ethics at St. Paul’s school of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He’s also president of Americans for Religious Liberty and a longtime board member and sometimes vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union and chair of Church – State committee (at the time this book was written)

Is caring about unborn babies like the one below “idolatry?”

Are prolifers without mercy? what about the unborn baby’s right to live? Does that matter?

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Minister: Planned Parenthood is doing “sacred work”

From Tom Davis , who is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and a chaplain and professor at Skidmore College:

“I contend that Planned Parenthood is engaged in a form of sacred work, the work, that is, of securing reproductive justice for women… Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is thoroughly secular. But when it comes to the issue of sacred work, that doesn’t matter. The scripture is clear about one thing: sacred work, the work of justice, is sacred no matter who does it.… In the biblical view, sacred work is love, and in practical social realities, sacred work is justice.”

Tom Davis Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005) 6 – 7

Below: some “sacred work” at 9 weeks

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The Virgin Mary: The First Pro-Choicer?

“I was reminded of being with men and women from the Unitarian faith tradition last year as they celebrated Mary who by her assent, they believed, was one of the first women in the New Testament to express Choice.”

Sister Donna Quinn, Pro-choice nun

“Pro-choice nun still fighting for women’s care” Chicago Tribune December 08, 2009

These pro-choice Christians are trying to claim the Virgin Mary as a pro-choice symbol and one who would have supported abortion.

The baby above is 9-10 weeks. Go here to see a picture of what babies at this stage look like after an abortion, and ask yourself if Mary would approve.

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Rev: Pro-lifers make fetus “an idol”; should support abortion

Rev. Robert Buchanan:

“The biblical tradition also acknowledges that we human beings find it difficult to restrain ourselves from making idols that represent the divine. One of the early stories of conflict in this regard is that of the Golden Calf… I suggest that the sacred fetus is the modern equivalent of the Golden Calf. The sacred fetus has become an absolute around which a host of decisions are made. And these decisions become progressively more destructive. If the fetus is sacred, the mother is subservient, a view that is destructive to women.”

The Rev. Roger Buchanan, “The Modern Golden Calf,” Clergy Voices, June 1996, 5

The babies below are both 7 weeks old. Most abortions take place at this time or later. The first one is a healthy child in the womb at that age. The one underneath has been aborted. Is protecting these children making an idol out of them? Or is it justified?

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United Church of Christ minister: Planned Parenthood Does “Sacred Work” of “Love” and “Justice”

Tom Davis, who is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and a chaplain and professor at Skidmore College:

“I contend that Planned Parenthood is engaged in a form of sacred work, the work, that is, of securing reproductive justice for women… Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is thoroughly secular. But when it comes to the issue of sacred work, that doesn’t matter. The scripture is clear about one thing: sacred work, the work of justice, is sacred no matter who does it.… In the biblical view, sacred work is love, and in practical social realities, sacred work is justice.”

Tom Davis Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005) 6 – 7

Below: An example of some of Planned Parenthood’s sacred work

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