PCUSA official says legislators ‘took the easy way out’ by banning partial-birth abortions
By Craig Kibler, The Layman Online, November 6, 2003
A Presbyterian Church (USA) leader has criticized U.S. legislators because they “took the easy way out” and approved a measure signed into law by President George W. Bush that bans partial-birth abortions in this country.
The new law places the denomination in the position of sanctioning partial-birth abortions – approved by commissioners to the 215th General Assembly – when they are banned in the United States.
“For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way,” Bush said. “Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child.”
“This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government – it comes from the creator of life,” the president said.
Elenora Giddings Ivory, the director of the denomination’s Washington Office, sent an “Action Alert” e-mail from the office’s Legislative Action Center before Bush signed the measure that said:
“As expected, both the Senate and the House have passed the so called ‘partial birth’ abortion bill regarding a particular late term procedure. Many in Washington believe that some legislators took the easy way out and voted for this knowing that the current Supreme Court will make the ultimate decision when a case is brought before it based on this bill.”
Giddings Ivory included in her e-mail a statement from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a lobbying group whose members include the PCUSA’s Washington Office and Women’s Ministries Division. The organization’s aggressive pro-abortion policies conflict with General Assembly positions and it favors, for example, no limit on women’s choice to have abortions, including partial-birth or late-term abortions.
It has been virulently critical of pro-life groups, whose concerns have been reflected in abortion policy statements by the General Assembly. For instance, the General Assembly has said that abortion should not be used as a birth-control method and has recognized the deeply held convictions of pro-life advocates. Nonetheless, the PCUSA is one of the denominations affiliated with the coalition.
The statement said the coalition “opposes the legislation because support for it has been built by deception and fear, it is so overbroad that it will unlawfully interfere with access to abortion generally, and it lacks the morally as well as legally required health exception.”
Shortly after the signing, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska questioned the law’s constitutionality and issued a limited temporary restraining order in the case of four doctors who brought suit against the law . The Associated Press reported that Kopf said he was concerned that the ban contains no exception if the woman’s health is at risk as he issued an injunction applied only to the four doctors who brought the suit.
“While it is also true that Congress found that a health exception is not needed, it is, at the very least, problematic whether I should defer to such a conclusion when the Supreme Court has found otherwise,” Kopf said.
Besides Nebraska, hearings also were being held in San Francisco and New York City on similar challenges.
In response to the impending court cases, Bush said, “The executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to overturn it in the courts.”
The law, approved by the House and Senate late last month, prohibits doctors from committing an “overt act” designed to kill a partially delivered fetus and allows no exception if the woman’s health is at risk, or if the child would be born with ailments. The procedure, which usually involves puncturing the fetus’ skull, is generally performed in the second or third trimester.
Numerous physicians, including Presbyterian Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, have said that late-term abortion, besides being morally wrong, poses greater risks to women than delivery.