Liberal pastors have taken to “blessing” abortion clinics to signal support for women who choose to abort their babies according to a Friday report from The New York Times.
At an abortion clinic in Maryland, a Presbyterian pastor, Baptist minister and Jewish cantor burned incense as part of a “ritual blessing” in order “to show that religion could be a source of support for abortion rights,” according to the New York Times. The women wanted to counter religious opposition to the procedure.
“For decades the Left has been downright hostile to expressions of religious faith — except apparently when it comes to celebrating abortion,” Josh Mercer, vice president of CatholicVote, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Suddenly incense, ritual, prayer, and reverence all have merit. How wicked that religious practice is being hijacked to promote the killing of children.”
“You all are blessings to those who come to you for care during some of their most vulnerable and sometimes painful moments,” Rev. Katey Zeh, an ordained Baptist minister, told the abortion clinic staff.
Zeh leads the “blessings” at abortion clinics through an organization she runs called the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), the NYT wrote. The organization aims “to end religious stigma around abortion.”
“RCRC is a multifaith, intersectional, and antiracist movement for reproductive freedom and dignity,” the group’s website states. “We reject the shame and stigma that religious conservatives have long attached to sex, sexuality and reproduction.”
Hundreds of abortions have already been performed in the year-old Women’s Health Center of Maryland clinic, which serves many residents from nearby West Virginia which outlawed abortion in 2022, according to the NYT.
“God will forgive me for my decision,” one woman reportedly wrote in a community notebook in the clinic’s recovery room. Several others mentioned God in similar writings after receiving an abortion, talking about the difficult choice they made to seek an abortion, according to the NYT.
Religious leaders often pose staunch opposition to abortion, frequently praying outside of abortion clinics and challenging laws that violate religious freedom, though some liberal faith groups have come out in support of the act and petitioned for a religious “right” to the procedure. After the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, several Jewish, Episcopalian, Unitarian and Satanist activists campaigned and even filed lawsuits in an attempt to keep abortion legal.
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