CLERGY: PRO-ABORTICIDE

I've recently been relieved of my assumption that there were no more pro-life Democrats. Now I discover that there is at least one rabidly pro-choice 'Baptist'. Go figure.

'Pro-Choice' Clergywoman Claims God Often Wills Abortion
By Bill Fancher
April 1, 2004

(AgapePress) - Many conservatives may be surprised to learn that, in the battle over abortion, the vast majority of religious denominations and their clergy support the pro-abortion side.

At many of the pro-homosexual rights and pro-abortion rights rallies that take place across the United States, a large contingent of clergy who support these rights can often be found. Conservative Christians often find it difficult to understand how members of the Church and especially the clergy can support ideas and lifestyles that are contrary to the teachings of the Bible.

Nevertheless, these members are in the Church, and they have a rationale for their positions. One such clergy member is Dr. Roselyn Smith-Withers, an African-American minister in the Baptist church. She believes that abortion is a decision that can be sanctioned by God. "I believe God speaks to women and enables them to make decisions for themselves," she says.

The Baptist clergy member, who is a clergy counselor for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, considers herself a "Christian pro-choice advocate." She recently testified in a congressional committee hearing and told members of Congress she believes God sometimes directs women to have abortions.

"I believe that when we do not agree or understand the challenges that a woman is facing, we can be absolutely certain that God understands," Smith-Withers says.

The pro-abortion-rights minister contends that her Christian faith does not conflict with her position that women "have the moral authority to make decisions that are healthy, helpful, good, and of God," even if one of those decisions is to end the life of an unborn child.

Smith-Withers recently told Congress that God can enable a woman to choose abortion as her best option, and it is part of her ministry to alert women to this. "I believe that God has called me to a ministry that includes compassion for all of God's children, through all phases of their experience," she says.

And there's more from Dr. Smith-Withers:

Clergy Counselor Tells Senate
Abortion “A Responsible, Moral Decision”

Reverend Dr. Roselyn Smith-Withers told a Senate subcommittee hearing March 3 that most women who have an abortion “believe they have made a responsible, moral decision.”

“Both my personal experience as a clergy counselor and scientific research have shown that, while some women may experience regret, sadness or guilt after an abortion, the overwhelming feelings are of resolution, peace, and having coped responsibly and morally with a difficult situation,” she said at a hearing on the “impact of abortion on women.” The hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, chaired by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS).

Reverend Dr. Smith-Withers, a Baptist minister and trained counselor in the RCRC All Options Clergy Counseling program, expressed concern about the efforts to stigmatize abortion and women who have had abortions. These attempts “simplify the complex nature of each woman's feelings” and try to “induce guilt and undermine a woman's self-respect and confidence that God can and does speak directly to her.”

The claim that abortion is harmful is not borne out by the scientific literature or by personal experiences of those who counsel women in non-judgmental, supportive modalities such as All Options Clergy Counseling, she said. “It may be the negative attitudes of others that cause harm, not abortion.”

Each year, 2 out of every 100 women aged 15-44 have an abortion. According to the latest figures available from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, in 2000, 1.31 million abortions took place in the United States, down from an estimated 1.36 million in 1996. Forty-nine percent of pregnancies among American women are unintended; approximately half of these are terminated by abortion.

Lest we mistake the RCRC as a balanced advocate for women's health, let's go here:

RCRC Will Continue to Expose Deceptive Campaign About Abortion Procedures, Applauds Lawsuits to Stop the Ban

The “partial-birth abortion ban” bill of 2003 that has been signed into law by President Bush arose from a deceptive and corrupt misinformation campaign to inflame the public, confuse the media, criminalize doctors, and strip women of their ability to make medical decisions. RCRC will continue to expose this campaign to deny women full and effective reproductive health care. We also will continue to work to reduce the need for abortion while preserving both women’s right to make the decisions they deem best and the legality and availability of procedures, including abortion, that safeguard the life and health of women.

We are heartened that three lawsuits have been filed to stop the ban, which lacks the morally as well as legally required health exception. This bill interferes with the basic responsibility of medical professionals to inform patients of all options and the ability of women to choose a procedure that is the safest and most appropriate for them. Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, it should be unthinkable that a doctor could be prosecuted as a criminal for performing an abortion procedure yet that is what would happen under this bill.

The absence of a health exception makes it clear that the purpose of this legislation is to undermine the legality of all abortions throughout pregnancy, not to outlaw some procedures. As a coalition of faith groups with various positions on abortion, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) does not advocate for abortion or take positions on specific abortion procedures. We do advocate that, as moral agents, women are entitled to make medical decisions concerning their health and reproductive lives according to their faith and conscience as well as on factual, sound, safe and compassionate medical advice.

This is full-blown horse manure. This principled, nuanced position clearly and boldly advocates the slicing and dicing of human beings. Period.

THINGS WE THROW AWAY

Let's see, we've got 'sex-positive' education for all British kids, check. We've got contraceptives easily available, check. We've got morning-after abortifacients, check. The results should be decreasing rates of unplanned pregnancies and STD's, and fewer surgical aborticides given the convenient chemical alternative. So what's the problem? [emphases mine]

In Britain, one in five pregnancies ends in abortion
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 31/03/2004)

More than one in five pregnancies in Britain ends in abortion while the number of childless women over 40 "increases substantially", according to new figures.

For the general population, parenthood has largely become a matter of choice as opposed to chance, says the Office for National Statistics.

Its report said 36 per cent of all pregnancies in women under 20 were terminated, a figure that has continued to rise despite the widespread availability of contraception and the "morning after" pill.

Among women of all ages, 23 per cent of pregnancies were terminated in 2000.

The report suggested that many women wanted to delay their families until they were married or financially secure.

But often the delay was detrimental and - despite the huge rise in the number of multiple births over the past 10 years as a result of fertility treatment - the birth rate is at an all-time low.

Although the statistics seem alarming on the surface, the vast majority of these women are forced into a decision to terminate their pregnancies for the sake of their health. Isn't that right?

Tony Kerridge, of Marie Stopes International UK, a pro-choice family planning agency, said: "I don't think there is any real evidence that women are using abortion as a method of contraception.

"Some women come to our centres who have had repeat terminations but we always discuss contraception with them. The vast majority of pregnancies are the result of unprompted and unplanned sex acts, maybe where contraception was not available."

He refuted suggestions that the abortion law needed to be tightened. "The legal requirement is that you need to seek the permission of two doctors. We think it is patronising and paternalistic to expect women to justify their decision. Individuals should be allowed to make choices about their health."

I'm wondering, if violent crimes were the result of "unprompted and unplanned" circumstances, would that make them undamaging to society? At least with condoms everywhere, the kids' health is protected.

New episodes of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people under 20 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose from 669,291 to 1,332,910 between 1991-2001.

Rates of chlamydia in female adolescents have more than doubled since 1991. More than a third of women with the infection are under 20.

The report's authors, the Health Protection Agency, said the data underestimated the true prevalence of chlamydial infection, which does not present symptoms in up to 90 per cent of infected females and can lead to infertility if left untreated.

If I didn't know better I'd say that Britain hates children. Born and unborn. However our zeal to defend women's health should never, ever deter us from eradicating orthodox Christianity and its shackling, Puritanical, freedom-squelching, backwards sexual ethics.

NEVER CROSSED MY MIND

America, my country, is absolutely insane. Apparently being against "intact dilation and extraction" means that you are a patriarchal, woman-hating, mean, elitist, religious extremist. But Dr. Johnson, who has never thought that perhaps an 8-month-gestation unborn child could possibly suffer pain during its dismemberment and/or the evacuation of its skull, is a calm, fair, sensitive, sophisticated, noble servant of humanity. Oh and abortion is so much more palatable if we grieve over the life that we have ended. Yeah. Lord, have mercy.

Judge Asks Doctor if Fetus Can Feel Pain
Thu Apr 1, 8:02 AM ET
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - A doctor who performs abortions found himself quizzed by a federal judge about whether a fetus feels pain during a controversial abortion procedure and if the physician worries about that possibility.

The inquiry, at times graphic, came in U.S. District Court on Wednesday after lawyers on both sides had finished questioning Dr. Timothy Johnson, a plaintiff in one of three lawsuits brought to try to stop enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

"Does the fetus feel pain?" Judge Richard C. Casey asked Johnson, saying he had been told that studies of a type of abortion usually performed in the second trimester had concluded they do.

Johnson said he did not know, adding he knew of no scientific research on the subject.

The judge then pressed Johnson on whether he ever thought about fetal pain while he performs the abortion procedure that involves dismemberment. Another doctor a day earlier had testified that a fetus sometimes does not immediately die after limbs are pulled off.

"I guess whenever I..." Johnson began before the judge interrupted.

"Simple question, doctor. Does it cross your mind?" Casey pressed.

Johnson said it did not.

"Never crossed your mind?" the judge asked again.

"No," Johnson answered.

Abortion-rights supporters are challenging the federal ban, the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The law has not been enforced because judges in New York, Lincoln, Neb., and San Francisco agreed to hear evidence in three separate trials without juries before deciding whether it violates the Constitution.

The simultaneous litigation centers on the ban of what lawmakers defined as "partial-birth" abortion and what doctors call "intact dilation and extraction" — or D&X.

In the procedure, a fetus is partially delivered and its skull is punctured. An estimated 2,200 to 5,000 such abortions are performed annually in the United States, out of 1.3 million total abortions.

Government lawyers say the law protects fetuses from pain during the abortion procedures that usually involve crushing the soft skull or draining brain tissue to shrink the fetus to a size in which it can be pulled from the body.

Doctors say the procedures decrease the frequency of surgical instrument insertions into a woman, eliminate the dangers that parts of a broken fetus might be left behind and give couples an intact fetus to grieve over.

In the Lincoln court, Dr. Joel Howell, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, testified that the federal ban targets procedures intertwined with the most common methods of terminating pregnancies.

Lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights contend that the ban is vague and could be interpreted as covering more common, less controversial procedures, including "dilatation and evacuation." An estimated 140,000 such procedures take place every year in the United States.

The San Francisco case was in recess Wednesday and resumes Thursday.

In the Manhattan courtroom, Casey also questioned Johnson about whether physicians warn women that a fetus is dismembered during an abortion.

"So you tell her the arms and legs are pulled off? I mean, that's what I want to know. Do you tell her?" Casey asked.

"We tell her the baby, the fetus, is dismembered as part of the procedure, yes," answered Johnson, a University of Michigan professor and research scientist at the school's Center for Human Growth and Development.

Casey asked Johnson if doctors tell a woman that the abortion procedure they might use includes "sucking the brain out of the skull."

"I don't think we would use those terms," Johnson said. "I think we would probably use a term like 'decompression of the skull' or 'reducing the contents of the skull.'"

The judge responded, "Make it nice and palatable so that they wouldn't understand what it's all about?"

Johnson, though, said doctors merely want to be sensitive.

"We try to do it in a way that's not offensive or gruesome or overly graphic for patients," Johnson said.

Why on earth do you have to be labeled a right-wing extremist to want these barbarisms to end? Turns out there are liberals who are pro-life. I never knew that.