Sadly, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church turned back an effort to pull it out of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights on a close vote. According to the United Methodist News Service:
The United Methodist Church will continue to “sit at the table” and retain its 35-year membership with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
In a May 2 vote of 416-384, the 2008 General Conference affirmed continued membership of the denomination’s Board of Church and Society and the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries in the organization.
“It is important to stay at the interfaith table so our Social Principles can inform other denominations,” said the Rev. Tracy Smith Malone, a delegate from Northern Illinois and member of the Board of Church and Society.
What does that mean? In what way are the UMC’s Social Principles “informing other denominations”? They certainly aren’t to the extent that they indicate opposition to any form of abortion. RCRC, on the other hand, has never seen an abortion it can’t justify.
“RCRC does in fact support and advocate for all types of abortion,” said Marget H. Sikes, vice chair of the committee bringing the legislation to the conference and a board of director’s member of Church and Society. “The fact that they advocate for all types of abortions is troubling if not offensive.”
Other delegates argued that the coalition does not support all forms of abortion. “Those claims are not accurate,” said Fredrick Brewington, chair of the committee and also a member of the Board of Church and Society.
“Because we are at the table, we are able to make a difference for people who are in real need,” he said.
Once again, I have no idea what that last statement means, but I defy Brewington or any other RCRC supporter to name a single legislative or judicial initiative that the organization has ever supported that would restrict abortion, or any that it has opposed that would not.
The United Methodist Church is on record as opposing partial-birth abortion, in favor of parental notification, in favor of live-birth protection, and opposing abortion for the purposes of sex selection, birth control, and preventing disabled children from being born. The RCRC, on the other hand, regardless of what it says about things like sex selection abortion, is in fact against any restrictions whatsoever, even to the point of lobbying against the prohibition against partial-birth abortion. In real, practical terms, RCRC is at extreme as any secular advocate for unfettered abortion, and as far out of touch with both Americans in general and United Methodists in particular as it is possible to be. As much as I applaud the GC’s action on homosexuality, it’s a pity that delegates couldn’t muster up the will to end the UMC’s scandalous support of this repulsive organization.
Posted by David Fischler 
