David was confronted by the seminary student who told David how very uncomfortable he was with the seminary's position on being Pro-Choice. The student made it very clear that if he were ever ordained and a woman came in to him saying that she was going to have an abortion, he would counsel her not to have an abortion - and would give her reasons why she should not do that. David's response was absolutely to the point: "I hate to tell you this, but that makes you pro-choice. In the end, you have acknowledged her right to choose."

Now, my purpose here is less to argue the merits of the pro-choice movement - though that is somewhat germane to the topic, others are presenting that case much more diligently and ably than I on this web-site. I want to observe the manner in which the anti-choice movement distorts the issue to divide congregations on this matter.

In the Winter 2005 edition of the "Faith and Freedom: Reforming the Church's Social and Political Witness" publication of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (how ironic is that title?), this can be found in an article interpreting the meaning of the 2004 election cycle:

"The two moral issues most highly identified with Christian conservatives are their desire to protect unborn children and their desire to protect the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."

The following is a quote from Amy Pollick in a letter to the Editor of the IRD in March of 2006:

"I am seeing an unsettling trend in the IRD since Diane Knippers passed away. It seems that the IRD has started focusing its efforts almost exclusively on homosexual issues and abortion."

When I was invited to speak at Redeemer UCC (a church that in November of 2003 voted to leave the United Church of Christ), the second question I was asked by the angry membership was my position on abortion. I did not answer that question, because I believe my personal feelings about abortion are irrelevant. I did say that I respect the right of any woman to make up her own mind about that, and promised not to do anything to stand in the way of her right to choose. I also mentioned that I had been trained as an "All-options Counselor" years earlier by the Religious Coalition, and was prepared to speak with any woman who sought my counsel about all of the options that were available to her as a pregnant woman. My answer only made the angry crowd angrier yet.

In an article by John Brown, Jr. entitled "The Struggle for Life within the United Church of Christ" (http://www.nrlc.org/news/1999/NRL199/brown.html), he quotes Rev. John Neuhaus (on the Board of Directors of the IRD), who asks "how it is that considering their profound concern for the human rights of African-Americans and the poor, the leaders of that movement (which included many pastors and leaders of the UCC and other mainline churches) ended up opposing the human rights of the unborn."

John Brown, Jr. goes on to give his own guesses at why that happened. This is one of them:

"A fourth is the struggle pro-life pastors face. Such pastors know that they will get no support from conference or national leaders."

This has been a familiar refrain within the renewal movement, this claim that conservative pastors are banned access to pulpits or denied support from denominational leaders. While that will be tackled in a future article, suffice it to say here that I am one of those conference leaders to which he refers, and I have never in my tenure as a Conference staff person asked a pastor to tell me his or her position on choice. And even if I did know, could know, or would want to find out - I play no role whatsoever in encouraging, enticing, or prohibiting the call of any pastor with standing to any church in my Association: that decision is held solely by the local church. This argument of theirs is a canard with no basis in fact, and is meant only to enflame the passions of an already angry constituency bent on hearing some new sinister untruth about their denomination.

We honored some heroes last night at our banquet: men and women who risked their personal comfort to support a woman's right to choose. They will continue to be castigated from the right for their courageous and their faithful outspokenness on this crucial matter of our time. And the right will continue to employ this as a wedge issue. I just want to take this little bit of space to thank them again for the ways in which they bless and inspire many of us who, like them, believe that Faith and Freedom belong together.