Protestant Leaders Criticize Tone of Abortion Debate

The heads of 10 Protestant religious bodies, deploring the tone of the debate over abortion, said Sunday that the nation must find a way to preserve “choice” while promoting the value of human life.

Acknowledging that they have differing views on abortion, the 10 said in a signed statement that they were united “in our deep and abiding reverence for both the mystery of human life and the freedom of human conscience grounded in insights brought by a community of faith.”

“The tenor of the ongoing debate in this country, and the use of words ‘pro’ and ‘anti,’ has inappropriately reduced complex moral issues that have an effect on both personal behavior and public policy to simple rights and wrongs, pros and cons,” the statement said.

“Such simplistic reasoning is not true to our understanding of the faiths we hold.”

The nine men and one woman cleric signing the statement called on all involved in the debate “to conduct it in a spirit of civility and to refrain from questioning the motives and morality of others.”

The leaders said their own commitment to “a deep understanding of the sacredness of all human life” led them to oppose “the use of abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection or convenience.”

At the same time, however, they said: “It is a fact of national life that Americans hold many different views on abortion” and the nation “must find a way of respecting conscientious choice while at the same time promoting the value of human life and community prior to conception, from the moment of conception, throughout life, until the moment of death, and beyond death.”

Signing the statement were: Stated Clerk James Andrews of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Bishop Richard Oliver Bass, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Joan Campbell, executive director, U.S. office, World Council of Churches; Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; the Rev. John Humbert, general minister and president, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); the Rev. Donald Miller, general secretary, Church of the Brethren; the Rev. Paul Sherry, president, United Church of Christ; Bishop Melvin Talbert, secretary of the Council of Bishops, United Methodist Church; the Rev. Daniel Weiss, general secretary, American Baptist Churches in the USA.