Posted on 02/05/2006 10:34:42 AM PST by Incorrigible
BY CONNIE SCHULTZ
With the simplest of gestures, any woman in America can lay her hands on the battleground here at home.
It's beneath the soft flesh of her own body, the area nestled between her hips where babies are conceived or not, carried to term or not. By merely resting her hand across her abdomen, a woman can find the combustible intersection of politics and religion where the mighty turf war is being waged.
If you listen only to those who scream the loudest, you might think that most Americans of faith believe abortion is a sin against God. It's a common misperception, and one that deeply troubles the Rev. Dr. Carlton Veazey, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and founded its Black Church Initiative.
"The majority of religious people in this country support choice, but you wouldn't know it by the noise and ink in the media from the other side," says the 69-year-old Baptist minister. "People tend to identify religious people with anti-choice, but that is the opposite of reality."
Polling last summer by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed that while a majority of Americans want more restrictions on abortion, they overwhelmingly want to keep it legal. Even among evangelicals who were polled, fewer than half favored overturning Roe v. Wade. Only 15 percent said abortion should be eliminated.
None of these findings surprise Veazey, nor does he find them inconsistent with religious faith.
"I was raised by my father, who was also a minister, to believe in the moral agency of individuals, that they had a right to make moral choices. Choice is a God-given right. To have a child can be a sacred choice. By the same token, to not have a child can be a sacred choice.
"The woman may not be prepared to bring a new life into the world. She may not be able to provide for a child. She may decide, `My life is not where it should be."'
The willingness to empathize with a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy is what brings many of us to support the right to reproductive freedom. Even those who are certain they could never abort a fetus under any circumstances can understand why someone else would, if only they start to imagine a whole different set of circumstances in their lives.
What if I were a teenager? Or completely alone? In a violent or abusive relationship? What would I do if I knew there was something genetically wrong with the fetus inside me? What if I were pregnant from a rape? What would I do if I were pregnant and poor?
"I keep thinking of what Joycelyn Elders told me," Veazey said, referring to the former U.S. surgeon general. "That 70 percent of poverty in the black community can be traced to teen pregnancy."
So Veazey has taken his sermon to the road. On that, he had no choice, especially in light of Samuel Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court.
"We are going to become a theocracy if we aren't going to be more outspoken as religious progressives. One thing I have to give the opposition: They're very skillful in working the media."
Some of them are also emotional terrorists.
Earlier this week, I spoke with a 65-year-old grandmother who recently started escorting patients into an abortion clinic. A devoted member of the United Church of Christ, she told me that navigating women past screaming protesters has bolstered her faith and made her fiercely pro-choice.
"These people taunt and abuse these women. They scream, `You're murderers!' They don't even know why some of these women are there. They may be coming for counseling or diagnostic tests, but the protesters attack them anyway, as if they have all the answers for everyone in the world, as if they alone have the pipeline for God."
They frighten her, which is why she didn't want me to use her name. They will not, however, scare her away.
"I did not know the pain inflicted on these women," she said. "Women have the moral integrity to make these decisions for themselves. It's terrorism on their hearts."
It's also just another tactic in the war over who controls a woman's womb.
Feb. 3, 2006
(Connie Schultz is a columnist for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. She can be contacted at cschultz@plaind.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
I haven't hung out at abortion clinics but are there really protesters yelling at the women going in? or is this a myth like the coat hangers.
I only wonder how big a check this "reverend" gets each month from Planned Parenthood - or is he so stupid that he spouts this bull$h!t for free?
APOSTASY ALERT!
You misnderstand me i just don't trust snoops er snopes.
Well, not at the Planned Parenthood station where I live. Then again, I don't see ANYONE going in.
I doubt it's true. It's most likely a distortion of what is said, which is likely much less accusatory. However, I'm just guessing; others are more likely to know better than I.
The only way this can be said, is because the vast majority of folks believe that there should be an exception for the LIFE of the mother. Another large part of those believe there should be an exception for REPORTED rape and incest. The fact that these exceptions represent probably no more than 2% of the total number of abortions performed in this country, is NEVER mentioned.
So the minister is deceiving people when he makes it seem like the majority of Christians favor no restraints on abortion. He is also deceiving people with his comment that not having a child can be a 'sacred choice'. You might possibly say that about women who choose not to BECOME pregnant, but I doubt VERY seriously that most Christians would view abortion as a sacred choice.
No...this does not accurately reflect the situation. Let me edit it a bit:
By the same token, to not have a child have a child ripped limb from limb can be a sacred choice.
Hmmm.doesn't sound so glib now, does it?
Isn't Schultz the one who wrote the pro-American Girl column last year, where she was jumping up and down at how great they were for promoting abortion?
UCC is not a denomination anymore, it's a political special interest group that holds its meetings on Sunday mornings.
Oh, and I'm sure they were "screaming protesters" just like I was "screaming," according to a local peacenik's description (in a letter to the editor) when I raised my voice so I could communicate with her from about 100 feet away. The only other way to talk to her would have been to approach, and I'm sure that would have led to her charging me with assault. The clinic protesters were probably yelling "we can find a home for your baby" or something. The Left is desperate to make people who haven't seen a clinic protest think that there are a bunch of Church Lady clones screaming "Whore!" at every girl who goes near a clinic.
You make good points. And these people are Christians about as much as you are, FRiend. They are the people Paul talked about when he said that they would gather teachers around them to tell them what their itching ears wanted to hear.
Oh my, I so wish I had written that.
Guys, this is one of those where it really doesn't matter. Just look at that tiny hand. Let them deny it belongs to a human. Let them try to say that the owner of that hand should have his limbs ripped off if his mother finds him inconvenient.
"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
BlackGenocide.org
The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger's Genocidal Plan for Black America
Margaret Sanger aligned herself with the eugenicists whose ideology prevailed in the early 20th century. Eugenicists strongly espoused racial supremacy and "purtiy"," particularly of the "Aryan" race. Eugenicists hoped to purify the bloodlines and improve the race by encouraging the "fit" to reproduce and the "unfit" to restrict their reproduction. They sought to contain the "inferior" races through segregation, sterilization, birth control and abortion.
Thanks for the ping!
Not too many years ago, we had whole armies of ritually celibate priests standing between us and the likes of Baal and Moloch (or whatever those two are calling themselves these days.) What we've seen over the last thousand years is the gradual dismantling of humanity's defenses against creatures like those.
Defeating them is rather simple, really. You destroy a demonic false god by converting or slaughtering their worshipers, destroying their temples and statues, and exorcizing or killing whatever pitiful human they're using as a host. Repeat as needed (they come back.)
But of course, there's no such thing as evil- it's just a quaint superstition. Nothing to see here. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
And BTW- these critters are perfectly happy carrying bibles and claiming to speak for God. When some slick-talking preacher starts in with nonsense like "Kill them all in the name of Jesus"- take a real careful look at his eyes.
If Christians, Jews, Muslims and Pagans don't unite against our ancient common enemy- we're up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Abortion is no more about "women's rights" than Scott Peterson was about "male rights"...
But it *does* matter. If we aren't going to be factual about abortion, and if we're going to "finesse" photos and stories to "prove" our cause...we look foolish and uninformed. You have to be right and on target 100% of the time with issues such as this.
I don't disagree that the hand belongs to a human, etc. Good grief, I'm 33 weeks pregnant myself right now. But making up stories and facts about babies in-utero does no one any good.
That was the Sanger quote I was thinking of.
Amazing how compliant some ministers are even today.
This is unbelievable. However it does prove to some extent that those who think themselves wise, are indeed fools.
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