The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church has approved the Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), an organization whose literature states its “primary role is educating the public to make clear that abortion can be a moral, ethical, and religiously responsible decision.”

The vote during the Jan. 9-12 meeting held in Des Moines, Iowa, came upon a recommendation from the Executive Council’s Committee on National Concerns. John Vanderstar, an Executive Council member from the Diocese of Washington who proposed the resolution, said it was intended to clarify the Church’s relationship to the organization.

In 1978, the Executive Council rejected a proposal from the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) of the Diocese of Washington to join the organization. (In 1994 the organization changed its name from the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.)

On May 19, 1978, Episcopal News Service reported the Executive Council "voted against participation in the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights on the grounds that the Coalition’s stand was inconsistent with that of General Convention.” However, the Episcopal Church Center joined the RCRC on behalf of the Episcopal Church in 1986.

At the 2003 General Convention, resolution D045 asked that the Church withdraw from the RCRC. The House of Deputies in Minneapolis voted to refer the resolution to the Standing Commission on National Concerns, but the House of Bishops did not act, effectively killing the proposal.

Georgette Forney, a member of the Standing Commission on National Concerns and president of NOEL, formerly known as the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life, brought the measure before the commission for consideration. However at its Sept. 22-24, 2005, meeting, Mrs. Forney withdrew her resolution and a vote was taken by the commission affirming the withdrawal.

Mrs. Forney told The Living Church she was displeased by the vote, saying she believed it is important that standards be created stating what types of organizations the Church can join. She sees RCRC membership as incompatible with the Church’s mission, and said it is impossible to see “children as a gift from God but celebrate the ‘right’ to kill them.”

Mr. Vanderstar noted the vote by Executive Council did not change the Church’s position on abortion, which has been an “unequivocal opposition to any federal or state legislation that would interfere with a woman's right to make a decision on terminating a pregnancy.” He said the vote to approve membership in the RCRC was taken “so as to lay to rest any suggestion that [Executive Council’s] 1978 action tainted that membership.”

To find more news, feature articles, and commentary not available online, we invite you to subscribe to The Living Church magazine. To learn more, click here.