ABORTION rights were the subject of four separate debates at the General Convention, including a request to site future Conventions only in states that promised women full access to reproductive health-care.
The 81st General Convention is currently planned for Louisville, Kentucky, in 2024, but Kentucky had passed a trigger law banning abortions except in cases of imminent danger to the mother’s life. A temporary legal order is currently blocking the implementation of the trigger ban in Kentucky and several other states after the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last month (News, 1 July).
Resolution D054 proposed that the Convention should be relocated, and the location of all future meetings should be determined by whether women had access to reproductive health-care.
A deputy from the diocese of Olympia, Maria Gonzalez, said that it was unfair to ask people who were pregnant to come to a convention where they lacked access to care that was “critical, and which can be lifesaving”.
Other deputies warned, however, that the resolution set a dangerous precedent of agreeing locations based only on how government policies aligned with the Church’s stance on issues.
The Revd Barbara Merrick, from the diocese of Kentucky, said: “We in the diocese of Kentucky are grieving beyond measure about our state legislature’s actions against the reproductive rights of women. We have an opportunity in the House of Deputies to shed light on the darkness of laws that are unjust.”
In Oklahoma, all abortions are banned, although the measure is being challenged in the state court.
The Revd Tim Baer, from the diocese of Oklahoma, said that he understood the desire to limit meetings to states where abortion was legal, but he spoke against drawing that line and turning the Church’s back on “the important witness of the people in these states”.
“We live in these states, not just for a ten-day convention, but every single day. You may be frustrated with Oklahoma or Kentucky or any of the other 20 states’ politics, but I assure you you’re not more frustrated than me. Our witness is so important as the Episcopal Church.”
The resolution was defeated. Another resolution was passed on setting the five finalists for the 82nd General Convention in 2027, however, which requires church leaders to “consider the physical and emotional well-being and safety” of those attending when picking a site.
The finalists for the 82nd General Convention are Phoenix, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Two other resolutions the referred to abortion law were debated by bishops, after passing through the House of Deputies without debate.
One called on the Convention to denounce the work of crisis-pregnancy centres, which, the text of the resolution said, were often “a wolf in sheep’s clothing, purporting to be Christian centres offering love and acceptance to the needed but instead engaging in duplicitous practices to force individuals to carry unplanned pregnancies to term”.
It called on the Church to “repent from our past support” for the centres.
The resolution failed after several bishops branded it unhelpful. The Bishop of North Carolina, the Rt Revd Anne Hodges-Copple, who had worked in a women’s refuge before ordination, said that the resolution would not help them to “help the women that we are trying to help”.
The final resolution had arisen in response to the Supreme Court ruling, and urged the Church to reaffirm its “stance in support of women who feel compelled to seek abortion”. Bishops passed the resolution on a show of hands.