A report from tonight's Pastors for Immoral Choices meeting at Augustana College

Nineteen people showed up tonight at Sieverson Lounge on the Augustana College campus for a roundtable discussion on abortion sponsored by the Pastors for Immoral Choices and VOX: Voices for Choice (a Planned Parenthood anti-life reproductive rights group on campus). The breakdown was as follows: three invited clergy representing Pastors for Immoral Choices, ten Augie pro-abortion students (presumably), and six pro-life people (four of whom are pastors, including myself). Notably missing were any pro-choice pastors but we were told there were about 60 but that "many wouldn't come tonight for fear people would take their license plate numbers down" and because people back at their churches might find out they were there and it would jeopardize their positions in their churches. I know for a fact pastors who were against the ban in '06 are for this initiative this year because of the rape and incest exceptions. I suspect their numbers are down and pastors aren't as willing to stand with those who want abortion for any reason.

After a couple students welcomed people and introduced VOX and their mission statement, each of the three representatives of Pastors for Immoral Choices spoke briefly. Pastor Dick Pittenger (sp?) started things off with a story from the 1950's about a gal dying from a botched abortion and how the mother and doctor who tried to save her life both went to jail for murder. He said Roe v. Wade only permits abortion in "extreme cases" but when asked about that later said he didn't say it. Remarkably, he said "animal life exists in the womb" and "a baby is only a baby when it is born." He said he "always hated to hear Jerry Falwell say there have been 50 million murdered babies in America because the only murdered babies [he knows] about are those in religious homes that are abused and end up in trash heaps." He told of the time he once saw a dead fetus and how it grieved him but "in no sense did [he] think he was viewing a baby. A baby is one who is welcomed into a loving home." He talked about how there is coming a time when "we will have more population than we can support." I would have loved for him to develop that thought further and specifically what he thinks the solutions there are - I'm guessing he'd parrot the population control movements demonic agenda of forced sterilization, one-child per family policies and abortion, etc. Maybe I'll send him a copy of Demographic Winter and show him how low fertility rates globally are causing the depopulation of the planet. The world needs more babies not less! Pastor Dick also commented the "state has no right to use [a woman's] body as an incubator against her wishes." His parting thought was that the countries where abortion is illegal have the highest abortion rates. (That is so freakin' not the case. But, whatever.)

Next was a mainline denominational pastor named Marcia Sietstra. She was obviously hoping for some middle ground, asking us not to demonize each other, to talk in love and respect and find middle ground. She suggested we can all agree on 1) no late-term abortions 2) working to reduce unplanned pregnancy 3) helping women in crisis with shelter and support. Marsha was the only pastor of the three who mentioned the Bible adding "I don't know God's thoughts. If you view the Bible as God's thoughts, I don't. There are passages that contradict each other. The Bible is valuable but not divinely dictated." Several times she said there are no passages in the Bible that refer to abortion. The biggest surprise for me in that moment was that I was able to restrain myself from blurting out the 100 or so passages in the Bible that directly speak to the issue of abortion. Pastor Marcia made sure we all knew there were ten denominations that supported a women's right to choose and then this little comment came forth - "there will be denominations filing lawsuits if a ban is passed into law because this is a freedom of religion issue."

Last was Pastor Jean Murrow (UMC). She didn't speak long but introduced herself as "the rooms expert on rape and incest and the mentality of rapists." She rejects the notion that God has a plan for a rape baby because that would mean "God preordained someone to be raped - and that isn't God." When asked if we aren't giving rapists a free pass to go do it again when we don't involve law enforcement and instead abort the evidence, she spoke of not re-victimizing the victim and how we'd put girls in great danger by forcing them to report. I'm wondering why then we have mandatory reporting laws in every other legitimate profession. In fact, clergy are mandatory reporters in SD. We heard some comments about men taking responsibility for preganacy and that every sperm isn't meant to be a baby and that women are not baby-making machines.

It didn't get interesting until the Q&A. I learned that the Pastors for Immoral Choices aren't a unified bunch (meaning some of them are happy to have abortion whenever, and for whatever reason, and others don't believe an abortion should be available for women in any situation). They claim to be united on this though - "if 60 ministers can't come to any agreement on who can get an abortion, how can we expect the government to decide."

The craziest comment came from a young man in the back, again presumably a pro-abortion Augie student. He said "according to my understanding of the Bible, the fetus or all infants go straight to heaven and are saved anyway, so what's the difference? Let's worry about the mother more..."

One of the pro-life pastors brought his teenage daughter who, at the end, stood to read some verses from Exodus. When she got to the part about "thou shalt not kill" she broke down crying and pleaded with the panel… "Why did you say that it is up to a woman and her God if she should get an abortion or not? Her God?! Are you referring to the Almighty God of the Bible? How can this go on? How can you sit there and say its okay to kill babies? How can pastors say its okay to kill babies?"

Pastor Marcia tried to gently reply "I bet it is hard for you to sit and listen to us. But you believe its a baby and not everyone does. If you don't see this as a life it changes a lot." This was the theme of the night - these pastors aren't sure what is in the womb and they dodged the question about how come, if we are so unsure, we don't err on the side of life?

The young lady's dad then told how years ago his wife was pregnant and they were told it was a Down-Syndrome baby and they chose to keep the baby anyway. And this girl was that baby (and she doesn't have Downs Syndrome) and that is why she is so passionate about abortion being murder.

I didn't say a word all night. And here's why… any of the four pro-life pastors in the room could have debated these folks sentence by sentence but what we had to say wouldn't have touched anyones heart. God used a teenage girl with a LIFE testimony to put these folks in the hot seat and send them home thinking how they as representatives of God could promote killing unborn children. Thank God for this young teenage girl - she gave the message the ministers should be giving.

PS - I thought Augie was a Christian school. You couldn't tell by the music that was playing outside the Commons area. Interesting. If I was paying the big bucks for my child to go there I'd lean on the administration to work at cultivating an atmosphere where the presence of God was tangible.

PSS - You can read Planned Parenthood's take on the evening here.