was codified into all social and legal institutions.Wives were subject to their husbands and their sexuality was truly not their own in any of the What Does ways we assume today.Furthermore, medical and legal authority con- verged with religious and familial authority to uphold men’s power over virtually all reproductive and procreative decisions.Women’s lack of PRO-CHOICE authority in the social realm left them without authority in the domestic sphere as well. Really Mean? By the end of the nineteenth cen- tury,women were actively working for increased control over their BY SYLVIA THORSON-SMITH reproductive lives. Margaret Sanger and others challenged the Comstock Pro-choice—for choice. So simple and yet so complex. laws that made it illegal to send information about contraception The most basic definition for pro- breath of God entered the fetus. Not (labeled as obscenity) through the choice, and the one offered by Web- until 1869 did the Roman Catholic United States mail. Little by little, ster’s dictionary, is “favoring the Church declare that ensoulment (or with the help of supportive men legalization of abortion,”which is personhood) begins at the moment (often clergy and doctors), women clearly what was meant when the of conception. gained more of a social right to term was first used in the mid-1970s. No Protestant clergy or theolo- make decisions about the health of Following the Roe v.Wade decision gian gave early support for proposed their bodies. by the Supreme Court in 1973, the nineteenth-century laws banning Although the organized Women’s legality of abortion was challenged abortion in the United States. It is Rights Movement became less visible and increasingly debated. Pro-choice likely that Protestant clergy,often after the passage of the Nineteenth became the common self-description married and poor, understood that Amendment to the United States of people who supported the Court’s decisions about abortion were set in Constitution in 1920 (giving women legalization. Since then, the term has very real life circumstances that the right to vote), women continued come to describe those who support involved suffering and difficult to assert well into the twentieth cen- the right of women to make deci- options.Those Protestants who tury that they were entitled to full sions about the full range of options finally did join the antiabortion regarding their reproductive lives. movement were often influenced by human standing and authority under racist and classist arguments that the law to make decisions about Historical Perspective America’s strength was threatened themselves.When a second wave of In order to understand how by white, middle-class women’s the movement developed in the important the language of choice lower birth rate.1 1960s, reproductive rights emerged as is for women, it helps to review The mid-nineteenth century was a major issue, intensifying the ques- some of the history of abortion marked by a significant change affect- tion,“Who has the authority to and reproductive rights.The ques- ing the lives of women—the first make decisions regarding procreation tion of abortion has not held much wave of the Women’s Rights Move- and fertility?” Prior to its ruling on interest in the history of Christian- ment. It is sometimes difficult for abortion, the Supreme Court estab- ity.When abortion was condemned people today to grasp how very little lished the principle of privacy and in earlier Christianity, it was under- choice women had, in every arena of applied it to matters of contracep- stood to refer to termination well their lives, prior to this organized tion.All people, the Court declared, into the process of pregnancy,after social movement for women’s rights. are entitled to a zone of privacy in ensoulment—the point at which the Patriarchy—the rule of the fathers— which to make procreative decisions 12 that are not the govern- and Society stating,“abor- ment’s business.Women tion should be taken out of were the ultimate benefi- the realm of the law alto- ciaries of the extension of gether and be made a matter this new reproductive of the careful ethical deci- authority.No longer could sion of a woman, her physi- husbands, partners, fathers cian and her pastor or other 3 and doctors legally prevent counselor.” women (both married and In the same year, the Pres- single) from obtaining and byterian Church in the U.S. using birth control meth- affirmed,“there is no consen- ods, although it wasn’t sus in the Christian commu- until 1965 that the Court AP Photo/Kevin Wolf nity about when human life declared a ban on the use begins” and “the willful ter- Thirty-six years after Roe v. Wade, the debate mination of pregnancy by of contraception unconsti- continues. tutional. medical means on the consid- national organization of nearly 1,400 ered decision of a pregnant The Religious Movement clergy.Their common statement of woman may on occasion be morally for Reproductive Choice purpose declared “that there are justifiable.”Circumstances regarded as Before Roe v.Wade, both Protestant higher laws and moral obligations justifiable included “medical indica- and Jewish faith communities were transcending legal codes” and “we tions of mental or physical deformity, active in ministering to women who agree that it is our pastoral responsi- conception is the result of rape or faced problem pregnancies. By the bility and religious duty to give aid incest, conditions under which the mid-1950s, most Protestants accepted and assistance to all women with physical or mental health of either therapeutic abortion to save the life problem pregnancies.”2 Functioning mother or child would be gravely of the mother and later, to prevent like the Underground Railroad, this threatened, or for the socio-economic fetal anomalies. Some will remember chain of religious counselors helped condition of the family.”4 the case of Sherry Finkbine, who in women obtain abortions in hospitals Following the 1973 Roe v.Wade 1962 was prescribed the drug and doctors’ offices for years prior to decision, a full-scale debate about thalidomide, soon to be known for 1973. My husband, Mike Smith, was the legalization of abortion ensued causing horrific birth defects. part of this network in his role as on many fronts.At least 20 religious Although abortion was prescribed by campus minister at the University of organizations regarded abortion as her doctor, she was refused by a hos- Arizona.At the time, states like New an issue of privacy and supported pital and, after working around the York,California and Colorado had the Supreme Court’s decision to denial of a visa by the United States legalized abortion, so Mike and other extend to women the legal—and government, finally managed to clergy helped women without suffi- moral—right to make abortion obtain an abortion in Sweden.The cient resources overcome unequal decisions free of governmental stark contrast between rich and poor access to safe, legal abortion services. interference.The two predecessor came into public view as Americans These ministers were not maver- denominations of the PC(USA) began to see that those with money icks. Both predecessor denomina- regarded women’s choice in abor- and resources had access to safe med- tions to the current PC(USA) called tion decisions as consistent with ical abortions—and choice—while for a change in abortion laws prior their overall repudiation of the his- other women did not. to Roe v.Wade. In 1970—three years toric oppression of women. As mas- By the mid-1960s, Protestant and before Roe v.Wade and with the sup- sive organizational efforts, led Jewish leaders joined the growing port of United Presbyterian primarily by Roman Catholic cler- movement to reform abortion laws. Women—the General Assembly of ics, sought to overturn the Court’s In 1967, 21 ministers and rabbis in the United Presbyterian Church in decision, representatives of mainline New York formed the Clergy Con- the U.S.A. adopted a report (Sexual- Protestant and Jewish faith commu- sultation Service on Abortion, ity and the Human Community) from nities, including Presbyterians, met which, within a year became a the Advisory Council on Church to form the Religious Coalition for May/June 2006 13 Abortion Rights (RCAR). Even though their specific positions about abortion varied, these religious bod- ies joined together for one purpose: “To encourage and coordinate sup- port for safeguarding the legal option of abortion, for ensuring the right of individuals to make r decisions in accordance with their e x o B conscience, and for opposing efforts a r a b to deny this right of conscience, r a B through constitutional amendment . n 5 e S or federal and state legislation.” f o y In 1993, RCAR became s e t r RCRC—the Religious Coalition u o c o for Reproductive Choice, indicating t o h that there are many other reproduc- P tive issues besides abortion rights, Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the PC(USA) Washington Office which deserve the protection of pri- and Carlton Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, deliver a box of petitions to Senator Barbara vacy and individual choice. Boxer (D-CA) in opposition to the Federal Refusal Clause that allows health care entities to refuse abortion services to women, The Meaning of Choice even during a medical emergency. In the past 30 years, Presbyterians have been deeply involved in the Presbyterian Church, I have offered of abortion and procreation. struggle over abortion rights and the testimony to many General Assembly Pro-choice advocates are committed meaning of language applied to this committees in the past 30 years.