We're pro-choice religious leaders. It's cruel to deny women right to abortion. | Opinion – The Courier-Journal

In an April 21 op-ed in the Courier Journal, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate Anthony Langer shares opinions that are deeply troubling.
He states that in Kentucky, “Only abortion providers, not mothers, are prohibited from performing abortions.” The Kentucky legislature, he writes, could have passed a law this spring which “would have made the same homicide laws that protect the rest of us protect preborn children too.” He assures us that the Supreme Court will not allow women under the age of 18 to be put to death for murder. He then asks, “How about adult women? Would the bill have subjected them to the death penalty? Only as much as any other murderer. It would have applied the same standard of legal protection to the preborn as to the rest of us, which is only logical since they are as human as the rest of us.”
Mr. Langer is entitled to his opinion, of course, but readers should know that his views on abortion are not held by many ordained faith leaders in our community such as by ourselves, members of Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s Faith Leaders’ Advisory Committee.
As religious leaders, we understand that opinions on abortion are often religiously based and not all people of faith agree on the issue. There is simply not one sole religious position on abortion. We identify three primary ones here:
The moral absolute of religious freedom demands that all three of the above positions be respected and that the religious practice of adherents to each position be honored in both theory and practice.
While Mr. Langer may argue that abortion is murder, and while he is free to proclaim that opinion in his own life, he does not have the right to force that view on others, including on people of faith who see it otherwise. To do so is to deny others the freedom of religious belief and practice that we all deeply value. It’s also misogynistic, patriarchal in the worst sense, totally lacking in the compassion God’s people are called to exhibit, and downright cruel as a willingness to deny women their bodily autonomy, even to the point of putting them to death if they stray from one’s own misguided sense of righteousness.
Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s Faith Leaders’ Advisory Committee:
The Rev. Lee Beckhusen, Rev. Matt Bradley, Rev. Charles Brockwell, Rev. Kerry Clements, Rev. Cindy Cushman, Rev. Janet M. Ehrmantraut, Rev. Deborah Fortel, Rev. Douglas Fowler, Rabbi Ben Freed, Rev. Wayne A. Gnatuk, Cantor Sharon Hordes, Rev. Melissa Bane Sevier, Rabbi Robert B. Slosberg, Rev. Elwood Sturtevant, and Rev. Mienda Uriarte.

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