In the 1920s, Margaret Sanger, with support from some of the most prominent Protestant and Jewish clergy of the time, led the birth-control movement that grew into Planned Parenthood. The 1960s saw the creation of the Clergy Consultation on Problem Pregnancies, a network of some 1400 ministers and rabbis around the country who counseled with and assisted women in need of access to abortion, before it became a legal option. With recent opposition to abortion rights, clergy are again called to support women and men in the exercise of their reproductive rights.

In his book, Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances, Dr. Tom Davis discusses the ways in which this mainstream organization and religious leaders have worked together to promote social justice, advance women’s rights, and maintain the legal option of abortion — and the need for both to continue in that vital role. His book will be sold at the luncheon and a book signing will follow at the luncheon and at the Cokesbury booth.

The Rev. Dr. Tom Davis holds his M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York (1960) and his Ph.D. from Duke University (1966). He was ordained to the ministry in the United Church of Christ in 1960, serving as a chaplain at the University of North Carolina from 1960-1963.  After earning his doctorate he was Associate Professor of Religion and College Chaplain at Skidmore College from 1966 until his retirement in 1996. Dr. Davis has served some fourteen Presbyterian churches in Albany Presbytery as stated supply or interim pastor. He is currently serving as stated supply pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Warrensburg, N.Y.

Dr. Davis has been active in the pro-choice movement for 39 years, beginning in 1967 when he became a member of the Clergy Consultation on Problem Pregnancies. In the mid-1980s, he organized the Adirondack Religious Coalition for Choice, an association of more than 120 pro-choice clergy in the capital district of New York. He served on the national board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) from 1992 to 1998 and organized the Clergy Advisory Board of PPFA in 1993, serving as its Chair from that date to the present. Dr. Davis served on the Board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, as well as on the Religion and Culture Task Force of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, from 1996 to the present.

From both a faith perspective and a conviction that access to abortion is a bedrock justice issue, Dr. Davis charges clergy to proclaim both the religious foundation and the justice of reproductive rights and to pledge themselves anew to be advocates for women in the exercise of those rights.