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THE QUESTION
Should religion play a role in the abortion and family planning debate?
Father Joseph Tuscan, right, joins others in prayer in front of the Planned Parenthood building in York, Pa., Feb. 14, 2011. The group was part of a national protest to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. (AP Photo/York Daily Record, Jason Plotkin)
The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions, along with a variety of health care services for women. The Virginia General Assembly last week approved legislation that requires abortion clinics to be regulated as hospitals, and providers say the stricter regulations will force many of them out of business. Both measures were pushed by anti-abortion activists. Should personal and religious views be allowed to prevent women from having access to a legal medical procedure?
Posted by
On Faith on February 28, 2011 4:09 PM
FROM THE PANEL
Abortion is a tragedy
Should a Christian group ever seek having its own moral teachings enacted as secular law? Both Judaism and Christianity, if true to their holy scriptures, are communities established as "holy" communities. That is, they are "set apart" from the world though continuing in the world.
Posted by Gene Davenport, on March 7, 2011 11:48 AM
Abortion as tragic, legal, and good
Anti-abortion activists, with their single-issue politics, idolatrously overvalue the human fetus and undervalue human life today.
Posted by Willis E. Elliott, on March 6, 2011 10:57 PM
Abortion is a human rights issue, not a religious issue
To say that the state should protect the life of the unborn child is simply to acknowledge that the embryo is human life.
Posted by Thomas G. Bohlin, on March 4, 2011 5:30 PM
There is no right to be born
Birth is a gift. A coerced gift is no gift at all.
Posted by Valerie Elverton Dixon, on March 4, 2011 8:58 AM
Medical ethics vs. religious politics
My prayer is that more women use contraceptives so that they are not faced with the terrible moment of considering having an abortion.
Posted by Susan K. Smith, on March 3, 2011 6:43 PM
Which faith gets to decide our morality?
As Pagans, whether we personally agree with abortion or not, we do agree that no singular moral teaching should control us all.
Posted by Jason Pitzl-Waters, on March 3, 2011 6:03 PM
Abortion and thinking Americans
It is true that an unplanned pregnancy can be an embarrassment, create a severe financial strain, and cause parents (especially the mother) to drop out of school early. That does not justify, under any normal legal analysis, the taking of a life. We do not take it as a justification for homicide, for instance, if an elderly parent strains the finances or psychological balance of a household. In no situation other than abortion does an individual or group of individuals have a right to kill based upon status alone.
Posted by Ronald Rychlak, on March 3, 2011 3:45 PM
The right and wrong place for personal religious views
Personal religious views cannot and should not prevent a woman from having access to a legal, medical procedure. I trust that left, right, center, religious and secular all agree upon this fundamental principle of our constitution.
Posted by Janet Edwards, on March 3, 2011 3:38 PM
Abortion: pro-choice and pro-karma
As with any moral, ethical, personal or spiritual question, any injunctions or edicts are anathema to a Hindu. It is not that Hinduism is ambiguous in its abhorrence of abortion, but it is always put forth as a matter of choice.
Posted by Aseem Shukla, on March 3, 2011 3:33 PM
Common sense and common ground
To reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion, we know what works. And it is not simply moral outrage. Countries that have the lowest abortion rates in the world are those that have made contraception most easily available.
Posted by David Gushee, on March 3, 2011 3:20 PM
You don't have to be pro-life to be pro-medical-standards
Why wouldn't anyone be in favor of holding abortion clinics to the same medical standards as we do hospitals? We have a moral obligation to do so.
Posted by Jim Daly, on March 3, 2011 1:18 PM
Pro-life movement motivated to protect helpless children
If that "legal medical procedure" is the killing of a child, then yes, personal and religious views should be allowed to prevent such an act from taking place. The law's criterion for who receives protection should be the verifiable evidence of science, rather that the subjective criterion of religious belief.
Posted by Fr. Frank Pavone, on March 3, 2011 10:13 AM
Religion must enter this debate
All law is a result of people exercising the power they have to put in place the values they have. Of course personal and religious views enter into the picture; that is how peoples' values on both sides of any issue are formed.
Posted by Joel Hunter, on March 2, 2011 10:30 AM
Religion and abortion policy: The legislator's obligation
Of course religion has a role to play in the public conversation about reproductive health policy....More relevant than the question of what policy role religious institutions have is what standards policy makers should use in evaluating the positions taken by faith leaders and official denominations.
Posted by Frances Kissling, on March 2, 2011 10:26 AM
Pro-life community does not want to fund abortion provider
The greatest threat to Planned Parenthood is medical technology, not pro-life organizations, legislators, or religious views.
Posted by Jordan Sekulow, on March 1, 2011 6:20 PM
Why we need a national religious debate about abortion
No wonder the two sides can't hear each other; they're having different conversations. The first claims exclusive knowledge of God's desires; the latter sticks to the language of modernity and relinquishes God to the right wing.
Posted by Jill Jacobs, on March 1, 2011 4:07 PM
Keep doctors practicing medicine
Put simply: medical decisions sometimes involve ethical decisions. Ethical decisions cannot be left to amateur ethicists, such as most medical doctors. That doctors wish to do a thing, can do a thing, and even want to do a thing, does not mean they should do it.
Posted by John Mark Reynolds, on March 1, 2011 1:11 PM
Church, state and abortion: Don't let dogma dominate
This struggle is really nothing more than an attempt by some religious groups to use the power of the government to impose their dogma about reproduction, sexuality and the beginnings of life. It is way past time for judges and elected officials to start respecting the wall of separation between church and state.
Posted by Barry Lynn, on March 1, 2011 12:54 PM
Hope for middle ground
As our society continues to debate the abortion issue, we certainly don't need to wait until we reach consensus on the broader question of their morality to agree on some improvements to current practices.
Posted by Jason Poling, on March 1, 2011 12:35 PM
The right's war on poor women
Over the years I have come to believe that the real end game of the political and religious right is not to prevent abortion, but to control women's capacity to reproduce.
Posted by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, on March 1, 2011 10:20 AM
No place for religion in public policy
Too few voices argue that since the capacity for personhood does not exist until the infant brain begins some internal wiring well after birth, the only justifications for imagining that abortion is murder flow solely from personal metaphysics or religious doctrine.
Posted by Tom Flynn, on March 1, 2011 9:45 AM
Opposite games by politicians
We elect American politicians to uphold our secular Constitution and the laws of the land, including the legal right to abortion. Politicians have the right to worship the god of their choice, but they have no right to restrict the freedom of those who don't share their religious beliefs. That's the opposite of the religious freedom we are all guaranteed.
Posted by Herb Silverman, on March 1, 2011 9:25 AM
