Volume 4, Issue 2

Reproductive Rights And Civil Rights

Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Earl Warren
By Reverend Thomas R. Davis

Reflections on the life and work of Justice Harry Blackmun, who died earlier this year, inevitably invite a comparison with Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Under Blackmun's leadership, the court found that the right to privacy was broad enough to encompass a woman's right to end a pregnancy by abortion. Under Earl Warren, the court found that the entire structure of racial segregation was unconstitutional.

Both men sought to provide justice to an entire class of people. The Bible tells us that the provision of justice is sacred work. According to the prophets, it is what God demands of us. As Micah instructed, "... and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." (6:8)

Warren and Blackmun brought to the task of "doing justice" a desire to do more than simply establish rules of law. Each learned from his experience that simply following the law could inflict great injustices on those least able to secure justice. Earl Warren was astounded to discover on a trip he took to Virginia that his driver, an African American, was not permitted to stay at the inn where Warren had a room. Instead, the driver had to sleep in the car. Blackmun, under the tutelage of Justice Thurgood Marshall, became increasingly sensitive to the problems of the poor and later, with the help of his three daughters, to the problems confronting homosexuals and women.

Following their momentous decisions, both Warren and Blackmun faced a torrent of angry opposition, directed at each of them personally. Billboards screamed, "Impeach Earl Warren," and the White Citizen's Council attacked him unmercifully. The newly formed "right-to-life" groups targeted Blackmun, and tens of thousands of letters poured into the court. Blackmun read them all, even the worst.

Time, however, has treated the two men and their decisions very differently. Race relations leave much to be desired in this country, but the hatred directed against Earl Warren has dissipated. As Southern whites came to realize that integration imposed no hardships on them, the White Citizen's Council faded away.

Those opposed to reproductive freedom for women continue to vilify Justice Blackmun, even in death. In an article in the May/June issue of Life Advocate, Cathy Ramey concluded that in the hell to which he was surely going, "Harry," deserved a "a sizable period of conscious torment" for his "judicial decision-making." (Ms. Ramey was a defendant in the so-called Nuremberg Files trial that, earlier this year, resulted in a jury verdict of $107 million in favor of Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette, Inc., and others. See Clergy Voices, April 1999.)

A reason for the different reactions to the civil rights and reproductive rights movements is not difficult to find. In establishing justice for African Americans, Brown v. Board of Education and all subsequent legislation did nothing to diminish the freedom that white America enjoyed. Most important, the religious defense of segregation withered away.

In establishing justice for women by giving them control over their bodies, Roe v. Wade posed a threat to the patriarchy that is so central to fundamentalism. Thus, despite the fact that reproductive rights for women diminished neither the freedom nor the material welfare of men, it drew enormous religious opposition. Religious organizations that had shown little concern about illegal abortions were now outraged.

A woman's right to choose when and whether to have a child seems to threaten something else: the belief of some churches that male clergy are to determine the role and the meaning of women's lives. Here, too, opposition has continued to grow.

It may be that a resolution of the abortion issue must await the day when women achieve full and equal participation in the leadership of all major political, corporate, and religious institutions in our society. In the meantime, we owe a debt of gratitude to Justice Harry Blackmun for the freedom we do have. In a dramatic and compassionate form, he exemplified the Biblical injunction, "Hate evil and love good and establish justice at the gate...." (Amos 5:15)

Why A "Real" Minister Works For Planned Parenthood

By Reverend Mark Pawlowski

Rev. Pawlowski is an ordained Presbyterian minister who serves as executive director/CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Central Michigan in Kalamazoo and is a member of the PPFA Clergy Advisory Board. The following is excerpted from a letter written to a skeptical young relative explaining why a "real" minister can head an organization that provides reproductive health services — including abortion.

The suggestion that a real minister could not have the job I do is hard to hear. My answer is I consider that I am in a prophetic and social action ministry. Planned Parenthood, as an organization, meets the reproductive health needs of women who are economically and socially disadvantaged. Remember Jesus' call to ministry after his baptism? "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captive, recovery of the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." I also believe that Jesus was about love and forgiveness and acts of justice, love, and mercy. All too many Christians today profess to know what is right and wrong instead of doing right and working for peace and justice.

Insofar as abortion is concerned, I have difficulty with those who claim to know when the soul is joined with the fetus. I believe that God gives life — at first breath. I think an honest discussion about the Jewish revelation of "nephesh" (the Hebrew for "God's breath of life") and the significance of birth might help all sides. I prefer this perspective because I do not think I could come up with a rational theological explanation for the approximately 40 percent of all fertilized eggs that are naturally aborted. No one believes that abortion is an unequivocally optimal solution to the problem of unintended pregnancy. This does not mean that legislatures should make abortion a crime or make it so difficult to obtain that, for many women, it might just as well be illegal. Instead, we must encourage people to make responsible choices about their sexual lives, so that every child can be a wanted child.

Planned Parenthood provides information about birth control and dispenses contraceptives to more people than any other organization in the United States. My local affiliate does more sterilizations than any other Planned Parenthood affiliate in the nation, except one. Our counselors discuss adoption. Our education programs emphasize abstinence, but we believe in balanced and accurate sexuality education. We do not believe that young people should become sexually active. Yet, in the event that they are, we want to help protect them from disease and from becoming pregnant when they do not want to become parents.

I cannot understand why those opposed to abortion will not join Planned Parenthood in working to reduce the shockingly high rate of unintended pregnancy in our country and around the world, especially at a time when our planet is sorely stressed. By the year 2050 we could have between 8 and 11 billion people on this earth. We will soon have six billion, and 230 million, or roughly one in six women of reproductive age, do not have access to modern methods of family planning.I really think that we humans are a little too presumptuous and arrogant these days. We are not God's only creatures. Eco-systems and species are being eliminated because we have abdicated our responsibilities. We have ignored the commandment to be co-creators and stewards of the creation and its resources. In so doing, we have risked the kingdom of God and with it, creation that is in balance and whole. This, after all, is what salvation means.

Views about abortion and the whole range of reproductive health issues stem from our most cherished beliefs. To discuss and debate these issues requires caring hearts and open minds. This letter is my attempt to start the process. Let us keep at it, and thanks for challenging me.

More Than Prayer — Pro-Choice Religious Network (PCRN) In Action

Dan Maguire Has a Busy Week

Dr. Daniel C. Maguire, PPFA Clergy Advisory Board Member, president of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, and professor of moral theology at Marquette University, participated in the Milwaukee Pro-Choice Coalition celebration of reproductive choice on June 24. Not coincidentally, the celebration took place on the opening day of the National Right to Life (NRL) annual convention in Milwaukee. One week later, Dr. Maguire was off to New York City to take on the Vatican.
Together with other members of the Milwaukee Pro-Choice Coalition, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin decided to stage a royal "unwelcome" for the NRL. Things got underway when pickets arrived at the hotel convention site at 6 p.m. Later that evening, Dr. Maguire, along with representatives from NOW and NARAL, State Assemblyman Jon Richards, a co-sponsor of the Contraceptive Coverage Equity Act, and Rev. Alexander Jacobs, pastor for the Campus Lutheran Ministries at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, addressed a rally attended by 150 people.

Dr. Maguire asserted that in seeking to prevent women from making choices about childbearing, the NRL denies women their full humanity, which is founded on the distinctive capacity that all of us have to make decisions. "How can an organization claim to be 'pro-life,' he asked, "if it demands that women, and only women, surrender even a particle of what it is that makes all of us human?"

On July 1, Dr. Maguire traveled to New York to participate in a conference at the United Nations. There he attacked the Vatican for trying, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to block proposals on abortion, sex education, and contraceptive advice for young people that were designed to improve the program to slow world population growth that the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development adopted in 1994. Dr. Maguire reminded the Vatican that, "the Catholic Church has always held a pro-choice, as well as a no-choice position on abortion." He cited St. Antoninus who, as Archbishop of Florence in the 15th century, defended a woman's right to abortion to save her life — extraordinary latitude considering the medical conditions of the day. Two hundred years later, the Jesuit Father Sanchez could find no Catholic theologian who did not take a similar stand. "Such ambiguity," Dr. Maguire observed, "is not restricted to Catholicism. It characterizes other religions that claim to know something about the sanctity of life and also strongly support reproductive rights." Dr. Maguire accused the Vatican of deliberately ignoring the ambiguities that are embedded in religious life and challenged the Church to drop the doctrinaire opposition to reproductive freedom that offends not only Catholics, but most of the world's other religions as well.

Dr. Maguire should know. The Religious Consultation that he heads held a program in late July to inaugurate a project devoted to a study of the views of 10 world religions on reproductive issues.

Including religious leaders in any program undoubtedly helps to attract press attention. In Milwaukee, all four local television stations featured the rally on the late evening news. In New York, The New York Times covered the U.N. conference and specifically quoted Dr. Maguire's attack on the Vatican.

Standing Up for Choice

One Saturday a month, the Office of Family Ministry of the Diocese of Rockville Center in New York stages a protest at an abortion facility. Last April, Bishop James T. McHugh, who will become bishop of the diocese this December, led a march to the Smithtown, New York clinic of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic (PPHP). When he arrived, five members of the affiliate's clergy group, Clergy for Choice, were there to greet him and meet with the press. Known as an international leader in the fight against abortion rights, Bishop McHugh was formerly the director of the Family Life Bureau and the Pro-Life Office of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. He is credited with developing the church's political and legal opposition to Roe v. Wade in the 1970s.

Bishop McHugh claimed that merely saying "I'm for choice" is just "falling into the slogan of the day." Clearly he was not listening to the five clergy who came out to support PPHP. They included Rev. Katherine Lehman, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Stony Brook, New York, and a recent addition to the PPFA Clergy Advisory Board (see p. 6); Dr. Allen M. Fluent and Rev. Noelle Damico, both of the Mount Sinai Congregational United Church of Christ, Mount Sinai, New York; Brother Clark Berge, of the Episcopalian Society of St. Francis Little Portion Friary, also of Mount Sinai, New York; and Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary of the Setauket Presbyterian Church in New York.

Reverend Damico stated that she and her church came to the decision to support a woman's right to choose only after theological and prayerful reflection. She looks at abortion as a right that women must have, even as she hopes they can avoid exercising that right. Brother Berge urged that "moral decisions like when and whether to bear a child cannot be legislated," and he insisted that a woman's right to decide what happens to her body is sacred.

Clergy who are willing to speak out and stand up make a difference. The presence of just five pro-choice clergy in the face of 250 anti-choice marchers attracted attention from The New York Times and local press on Long Island. As a result, pro-choice clergy had the all-too-rare opportunity to make their views known.

Talking About Religion and Sex

Planned Parenthood of East Central Illinois (PPECI) in Champaign sponsored "Religion and Sexuality — A Workshop for the Faith Community."The program challenged the claims of religious political extremists that scripture supports their opposition to birth control and abortion and their insistence on abstinence-only sexuality education for our children.

Six local area ministers who provide sexuality education for their congregations discussed the programs they have instituted.Rev. Gene Mace, who chairs the Clergy Advisory Board of Planned Parenthood of Heart of Illinois in Peoria, was on hand to discuss the Statement on Sexual Ethics, which the board developed. (See Clergy Voices, May 1999.)

PPECI called on Debra Haffner, president and chief executive officer of SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) and a student at the Union Theological Seminary, to start things off with "The Really Good News: What the Bible Says about Sex." To an audience of clergy and officials from state and local health departments, she cited chapter and verse to show that the Bible teaches that sexual intimacy is not just for procreation but for pleasure, as well. She said, "Many of us grow up learning that the Bible thinks sex is bad." In fact, she continued, "The scriptures support a positive view of sexuality while cautioning people about its abuses."

The panel of six ministers, two of whom are members of the PPFA Pro-Choice Religious Network — Rev. Donald Coleman (United Church of Christ, Chicago) and Rev. James Montgomery (Presbyterian, Decatur) — discussed the specifics of their denominations' sexuality curricula and provided examples of components of these programs that have been successful in their congregations. Rev. Coleman has conducted a series on homosexuality in his church, another minister concentrates on improving communications between parents and children, while still another has held an intimacy workshop.

At a time when too few of our nation's schools provide an adequate program of responsible sexuality education and when too many of us are confused about our own sexual ethics, religious institutions are ideally positioned to provide counseling and instruction. As Karla Peterson, PPECI director of education and training, pointed out, many more people might turn to religious institutions for help with sexuality issues if they thought that they could find comfort as well as guidance. Planned Parenthood educators at your local affiliate are sensitive to the needs of clergy wrestling with these issues. We invite you to call on them for any assistance you might require if your congregation or community group would like to consider offering a course on sexuality.

Update — Responsible Choices^® Action Agenda

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America Responsible Choices Action Agenda is a forward-looking, proactive advocacy and service initiative to expand and secure reproductive health and rights into the next century. The agenda is designed to increase services that prevent unintended pregnancy, improve the quality of reproductive health care, and ensure access to abortion.

At the Clergy Advisory Board meeting in Washington (see p. 7), each of the assembled clergy agreed to join the network and to sign up 10 additional members. That would mean 140 new network members. If each of you would do the same, that would mean more than 17,000 new activists to carry the message that pro-choice clergy are willing to be counted in the fight to ensure that all Americans receive the reproductive health care to which they are entitled. If you would like to join your fellow clergy in this effort, please call 212-261-4721 for information and materials.

A Warm Welcome To New Clergy Advisory Board Members

Rev. Mark Bigelow (United Church of Christ) is pastor of the Congregational Church of Huntington in Centerport, NY. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary, New York City, he currently chairs the board of directors of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic. In addition, Reverend Bigelow teaches religion at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, NY. He is married and has two daughters.

Rev. Katherine Lehman has also served Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic — as a board member and chair of the Religious Affairs Committee. She has been active in Planned Parenthood and sexuality education for nearly 25 years. She is qualified by her denomination to teach its teen sexuality program, and for the past 11 years, she has been the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Stony Brook, New York. In addition, Rev. Lehman is a member of the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission and takes an active role in interfaith efforts to secure economic and racial justice. She has three daughters and is the grandmother of two toddlers.

Rev. Bethany McLemore (Baptist) is the coordinator of pastoral education and counseling at Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge (Roanoke, Virginia). In addition to counseling women who face unintended pregnancy, she provides counseling training for clergy and has developed a network of volunteer chaplains representing a variety of religious traditions to assist women of diverse faiths. Rev. McLemore is also a therapist with the Pastoral Counseling Center of Roanoke Valley, where she has worked since the fall of 1997. She was graduated from the Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth with two Master of Arts degrees: one in marriage and family counseling and the other in religious education. She lives in Roanoke with her husband.

Rev. Mark Pawlowski became the executive director/CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Central Michigan (PPCSM) in Kalamzoo and a member of the board of directors of the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan in 1997. He has devoted much of his career to young people. For nearly 10 years before joining PPCSM, he was with the American Youth Foundation, a religious and educational organization that encourages young people to develop leadership skills and serve others in order to make positive changes in their communities. Always active in community organizations, he now serves as a trustee of the St. Joseph County Intermediate School District. Rev. Pawlowski received a Master of Divinity, Ethics, and New Testament Studies at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is married and has a son.