Overture 04-10. On Urging Churches to Affirm in Their Ministries the Protection of Babies in the Womb Who Are Viable—From the Presbytery of Charlotte.

The Presbytery of Charlotte overtures the 216th General Assembly (2004) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do the following:

1. Urge its churches to affirm in their ministries the protection of babies in the womb who are viable—that is, well-developed enough to survive outside the womb.

2. Urge that our churches support live delivery of the baby in the interest of protecting the life and health of both the mother and the baby in cases where problems of life or health of the mother arise late in a pregnancy.

3. Urge its churches to provide pastoral and tangible support to women in problem pregnancies, seeking ways that the church can intervene to mitigate the problems in a pregnancy.

4. Affirm adoption as a provision for women who deliver children they are not able to care for, and ask our churches to assist in seeking adoptive families within the household of faith.

Rationale

The church’s support for the protection of human life is based on the biblical teaching that human beings are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27), that we are charged to protect the lives of innocent human beings (Prov. 31:8–9; Jas. 1:27), and forbidden to shed innocent blood (Jer. 7:6; Prov. 6:17) and that God expects us as followers of Christ to minister to those who are needy as if we were serving the Savior himself (Matt. 25:40).

Our confessions affirm this teaching of Scripture (The Book of Confessions, 4:105–.107; 7:244–.246), in that both the Heidelberg and Larger Catechisms reiterate the Sixth Commandment’s prohibition against killing, and further add that it is our duty to “preserve life” and to eschew “practices … which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any” (Ibid., 7.245).

Our general assembly has affirmed as policy that:

. . . after a human life has begun, it is . . . cherished and protected as a precious gift of God, [and] The strong Christian presumption is that since all life is precious to God, we are to preserve and protect it. (Problem Pregnancies and Abortion, the General Assembly’s current policy, 1992, p. 11; see also Minutes, 1992, Part I, p. 369 and 368 respectively)

and

That the 209th General Assembly (1997) offer a word of counsel to the church and our culture that the procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (commonly called “partial birth” abortion) of a baby who could live outside the womb is of grave moral concern that should be considered only if the mother’s physical life is endangered by the pregnancy. (Minutes, 1997, Part I, p. 65)

The Scriptures, our confessions, and church policy all support the effort to avoid death as an outcome in situations of need, including abortion, and to seek ways to affirm and protect the lives of human beings, such that in late-term pregnancies, particularly, where babies could live if delivered live, the church is called to speak and act in ways that protect the lives and health of the unborn as well as their mothers.