Today Clergy of four local churches committed to help Wisconsin RCRC hold a news conference in response to the 40 Days for Life campaign in Wausau. Below is the front page story in the local Wausau Daily Herald.
Rev. Stephen Wright from First Presbyterian; Rev. Dee Weber from St. Paul's United Church of Christ; Rabbi Dan Danson from Mount Sinai Congregation and Rev. Paul Beckel of First Unitarian Universalist Church all agreed it would be helpful to have an ecumenical response to the Lenten Loiterers.
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20090305/WDH0101/903050534/1581/WDH01
The 40 Days for Life campaign is being observed in 130 communities in the US, Ireland, Austrailia and Canada.
Wausau and Milwaukee clinics are the only sites in Wisconsin.
As it turned out Rev. Wright was not able to be at the news conference. His very eloquent statement was read by a former UCC pastor, George Million.
Below is my personal statement:
Picketing vs. Privacy
Sometime ago I had the fascinating experience of witnessing firsthand a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on this very topic. The anti-choice group was picketing the home of a doctor. They were from my home town of Appleton.
After hearing the opening arguments the Justices began asking the lawyers questions. After about 20 minutes, in a very dramatic moment, Justice Scalia asked as I recall, "What is it about your message that cannot be conveyed by marching through the streets with your signs, or leafleting the town. What is it about your message that can only be conveyed by standing outside this man's home, if it isn't harassment?"
Through a legal lens the situation outside Family Planning Health Services is quite different. Or is it? The patients come in for a range of services: pap smears, vaginal exams, birth control supplies, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, breast exams, Gardasil vaccinations, infant formula, healthy food counseling for breast feeding mothers, healthy pregnancy counseling, etc.,p>
In this country we generally believe:
- We all have a right to access to quality health care;
- We all have a right to privacy; and
- We all have a right to act on our own conscience for the good of our own lives.
What is the true impact of the picketing of this group going to be? If you had to deal with walking through picketers to get to a dentist appointment, or a cancer screening, would you? Or would you wait 40 days until they were gone?
This picketing is not going to stop abortions. But what about the patients? These people are your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. What if a few decide they don't want to deal with picketers and reschedule their vaginal exam that would have revealed early stages of cancer?
The true underlying clash here is between differing beliefs about when life or personhood begins and the moral agency of women. There would be no picketing if those picketing respected the right of conscience and moral agency of the clinic patients.
It is a fundamental principle among ethicists and theologians that:
"An individual's conscience may guide his or her own behavior but may not control or restrict the exercise of conscience in others."
As we have learned from Justice Scalia, the picketers have a legal right to protest. But they don't have a legal right to harass. And for some, just having to walk by them will seem like harassment.
Ethically speaking the picketers have a moral right to act on their consciences for their own lives, but no moral right to interfere with the exercise of clinic patients' right of conscience for their own lives.
Rev. Stephen Wright's Statement:
The Presbyterian Church has a long tradition of freedom of conscience in matters of faith and worship. This doctrine was spelled out in the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647, and has been retained and emphasized ever since. We believe that all human actions and decisions have spiritual dimensions and should be decided in the light of faith, including decisions about human reproduction. Indeed, if we did not have faith in a Reality greater than our individual experience, there would be nothing to guide any of our choices.
Human sexuality is a holy gift that is to be used in positive ways, including responsible pleasure and procreation. Sexual activity does not always need to have the goal of conceiving children, but because the conception of children is an act that brings great responsibility, we must take precautions any time that is not the goal so that we do not face extreme moral choices. Our position about abortion has long been that it should be legal, safe, and extremely rare. For these and other reasons, we advocate the informed and careful use of proven contraceptive technologies and alternatives.
Other people of faith take a different approach, because they believe that sex is always for procreation, and therefore the possibility of conception should not be limited by any artificial means. We respect their right to this position, and their right to advocate publicly. We also disagree with that position, and therefore exercise our equal right to promote our position, so that faithful and conscientious people will be well aware that there is room for diversity in this matter.
Stephen Hamilton Wright
Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church
Wausau, Wisconsin
Rabbi Dan Danson's Statement:
Reform Judaism has been issuing policy statements in favor of family planning and legal birth control, since 1929. It recognizes that providing families with the means to plan the number of children they have enables them to have greater control over their economic life, their relationships, and even their health. This in turn, helps reduce poverty and domestic violence. Family Planning Health Services plays a critical role in providing birth control resources to the Wausau area. In an era when many people do not have access to health insurance, or have a physician whom they regard as "their" doctor, FPHS helps fill the gap.
Reform Judaism has always recognized that abortion should never be a substitute for birth control. But Judaism also has long standing perspectives concerning abortion. In Jewish tradition, the fetus is not considered to have the same standing as a person, and the physical and psychological health of a mother takes precedence over considerations affecting the fetus. This is why most branches of American Judaism believe abortion to be a decision that should left in the hands of the woman involved, her husband or partner, her physician, and her rabbi. That having been said, anything that helps reduce the number of abortions should be supported. The work of FPHS does just this, and deserves our support.
Rabbi Dan Danson
Rev. Paul Beckel's Statement is in a pdf file format that I didn't have the expertise to provide you within this article. If anyone would like to see it, email me at wi_rcrc@yahoo.com and I will send it to you.
