Ecumenical War over Abortion

Both sides believe that opponents threaten their basic rights

It has become a Washington fixture. Every January, tens of thousands of Roman Catholics and other foes of abortion gather in the capital for the March for Life. It protests the Supreme Court's 1973 decision guaranteeing the right of women to end pregnancy up to the point at which the fetus is "viable," or "potentially able to live outside the womb, albeit with artificial aid." But this week's marchers will have competition. On the same day, liberal Jewish and Protestant clergy in New York City plan to parade to St. Patrick's Roman Catholic cathedral.

There they will issue a declaration stating that a "spirit of intolerance" among Catholic leaders on abortion threatens "the civil amity and political tolerance that make our democracy work."

The two marches symbolize a deepening acrimony over abortion that has become a serious threat to ecumenical relations. Just about every U.S. denomination is involved. For years, the "prolife" (of the fetus) and "prochoice" (of the mother) religious forces squared off over proposed constitutional amendments that would overturn the 1973 ruling. Today the struggle is centered mainly on the issue of public funding of abortion, specifically the federal law that limits Medicaid payments for abortions to cases involving rape, incest or serious threats to the mother's life or health. Before the law was passed in 1977, 209 liberal Protestants and Jews issued a "Call to Concern" that not only urged Medicaid abortions for any reason but also charged that Catholic lobbying presented a "serious threat to religious liberty."

The pro-choice forces are now pressing their argument in McRae v. Califano, a lawsuit on the Medicaid abortion issue that is nearing decision in a Brooklyn federal court and will probably end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The class action suit is brought by the Women's Division of the big (9.9 million members) United Methodist Church in concert with Planned Parenthood and various doctors and poor women. The Methodists are backed by a friend-of-the-court brief filed by 15 other national religious interest groups, including the American Jewish Congress, the synagogue unions of Conservative and Reform Judaism, the Methodist Board of Church and Society, the United Presbyterian Church, and major agencies of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). All told, these groups represent up to 18 million Americans.

The extraordinary element of the McRae suit is the religious liberty argument raised by the pro-choice forces. The plaintiffs contend that the abortion-payment restrictions violate the religious freedom of poor women for whom abortion may be necessary in circumstances that the measure does not cover. For example, the McRae plaintiffs argue that it would be "mandatory" for some Protestants and Jews to seek an abortion if they already had as many children as they could support. The suit further argues that the law represents an unconstitutional "establishment of religion," because it implicitly accepts the particular view of pro-life religious groups on the value of the human fetus and lacks the "secular purpose" the Supreme Court has required in such laws.

The pro-choice lawyers argue that "for all practical purposes the normative interpretation of Catholic dogma" is aided by the law's provisions. (In fact, the federal law is considerably looser than official Catholic teaching.)

Paradoxically, the McRae denominations are among the most enthusiastic advocates of religious involvement in politics. Nonetheless, they believe that while the Constitution gives religious groups every right to lobby, they should not be allowed to push through legislation on certain kinds of issues like abortion or birth control. Plaintiffs' Lawyer Rhonda Copelon of the Center for Constitutional Rights defines these issues as ones where religious groups provide "major support" and policy is justified mainly by "reference to intrinsically religious concepts."

Political Scientist Virgil Blum, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, considers the suit "the most serious challenge to the constitutional rights of American Catholics since the Nativist campaign of the 1850s." Even some liberal Catholics who disagree with their church's teaching on abortion are enraged by McRae. The Christian Action Council, a Protestant antiabortion lobby, is also upset. Significantly, the McRae alliance does not include the National Council of Churches, which is often part of church-state suits. Indeed, the N.C.C.'s theology commission pointedly declared this month that political activity on abortion or other issues "which seeks to bring the social order into line with ethical convictions, based on religious commitment, does not violate the separation of church and state."

Americans generally agree that many laws with religious origins (like Sunday closing laws) are entirely proper, while the government ought not to legislate the sectarian views of, say, Christian Scientists on medicine. But the issues of abortion and its public funding would appear to fall between these poles. The brief filed by the 15 organizations in McRae contends that "the majority of Americans" do not consider abortion immoral. Yet poll data indicate that about half the population agrees with the Catholic belief that human life begins at conception, and that only a minority of Americans are as liberal as the Supreme Court regarding abortion on request.

Religious opposition to abortion, or at least to abortion on request, is more widespread than is sometimes apparent. Major groups that accept abortions only to save the mother's life include the various Eastern Orthodox churches, the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, most members of the Churches of Christ, "independent" Christian Churches, the American Baptist Association, the Baptist Bible Fellowship and other conservative Protestant groups. Orthodox Judaism is willing to consider abortion for serious health reasons, while the Mormons and the 35 smallish denominations in the National Association of Evangelicals are also open to it in cases of rape. Three of the four largest black Protestant denominations have issued antiabortion statements. This anti-abortion bloc encompasses not only 49 million Roman Catholics but also as many as 27 million non-Catholics.

Only three major denominations were totally pro-choice before 1973: the United Methodists, United Presbyterians and United Church of Christ. After the Supreme Court ruling, they were joined by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Episcopal Church, Reform Judaism, and Conservative Judaism's synagogue union (but not its Rabbinical Assembly). Other factors complicate the picture. Churches, like the Episcopal, that favor open abortion laws sometimes advocate more restrictive policies for their own members. One Lutheran body opposes abortion on request but does not demand laws against it or oppose Medicaid funding, and another is only now working out its official policy. Many individuals, of course, disagree with the official positions of their denominations.

On the final day of McRae hearings last month, Attorney Copelon stated that "the abortion issue, perhaps more than any other religious question to come before the courts in this century, threatens the foundations of our pluralistic constitutional system." On the bench, listening with head on hand, was Federal Judge John F. Dooling, a Catholic. Having absorbed two years of testimony that often turned his courtroom into a theology seminar, Dooling must now arbitrate these deep-seated religious claims.

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