The United Methodist Church supports the right for men and women worldwide to have the ability to choose when, or if, to have children. Affirming the right of women to access comprehensive health care services, including reproductive health, has always been a cornerstone of the UMC.
And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.
Luke 1, NRSV
Access to family planning and reproductive health services prevents maternal and child deaths and enhances the delivery of healthy babies. Additionally, family planning and reproductive health prevents the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, human papillomavirus (HPV) and gonorrhea.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, every year nearly 80,000,000 unintended pregnancies occur worldwide. More than half of these pregnancies end in abortion. Access to information, education and services on voluntary family planning and contraception is essential in reducing unintended pregnancies and rates of abortion. There is a significant unmet need for women and girls around the world for contraception. According to the World Health Organization, despite the increase in contraceptive prevalence, some 137,000,000 women still have an unmet need for contraception.
Voluntary family planning programs like those carried out by U.S. Agency for International Development are critical to improving health care, empowering women and protecting the global environment. Such programs enable individuals and couples to decide the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, free from violence, coercion and discrimination.
Teen mothers face twice the risk of dying from childbirth than do women in their twenties, and their children are more vulnerable to health risks as well. Every year, almost half of all new HIV infections and at least one-third of all new sexually transmitted infections occur to people younger than 25.
Biblical and Theological Context
“People have the duty to consider the impact on the total world community of their decisions regarding childbearing and should have access to information and appropriate means to limit their fertility, including voluntary sterilization.” (Social Principles, ¶162 I)
Scripture references: Genesis 1:27-28, 34:1-2; 2 Samuel 13:1-20; Psalm 127:3, Luke 1:36
What GBCS is Doing
Supporting legislation that would provide resources for the expansion of family planning services and health personnel training around the world; assist countries in sub-Saharan Africa achieve goals in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases and the reduction of maternal and child mortality by improving human health care capacity and improving retention of medical health professionals in sub-Saharan Africa; funding the United Nations Population Fund, which works worldwide providing family planning information and services as well as HIV/AIDS prevention.
In the United States, GBCS is pushing for grants to states for family life education, including education on abstinence and contraception; expanded access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce abortions, and improve access to women’s health care and programs that reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, help women bear healthy children, and support new parents.
GBCS Seminar programs focus on issues of reproductive health and family planning especially when groups focus on HIV/AIDS prevention.
GBCS is working with Religious Advocates Working Group, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and International Family Planning Coalition.
Parents and religious leaders have a responsibility to go beyond the ‘big talk’ to help young people achieve moral, spiritual and sexual health.
Downloadable Resources
Spiritual Discernment: A Guide for Genetic and Reproductive Technologies is a resource offered to the church as a gift for persons who want to study these issues more deeply and also for persons who are personally considering making a decision to undergo these procedures. The guide does not provide answers but provides spiritual reflections for discernment, case studies, factual information about these technologies and questions for dialogue. A study guide is at the back of the booklet for use in small groups or for individuals. The guide provides two options for study: a one time, 2 hour session or four 2-hour sessions. We commend this to you for your use hoping it will bring both education and insight.
This resource was produced by the GBCS Bioethics Task Force. Publishing date: 2008
Family Planning Fact Sheet
The Healthy Families, Healthy Planet Project is funded by the United Nations Foundation. Through education and advocacy, the goal of the project is to raise awareness among United Methodists about the importance of international family planning and reproductive health.
"Family Planning Saves Lives"
April 2006 statement on family planning by Linda Bales. This statement presents the United Methodist Church's official position on family planning.
Links
Center for Health and Gender Equity
The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a U.S.-based non-governmental organization focused on the effects of U.S. international policies on the health and rights of women, girls, and other vulnerable populations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. CHANGE thinks that every individual has the right to the basic information, technologies, and services needed to enjoy a healthy and safe sexual and reproductive life free from coercion and preventable illness.
Centre for Development and Population Activities
Founded in 1975, the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) is an internationally recognized non-profit organization that works to improve the lives of women and girls in developing countries
Guttmacher Institute
The Guttmacher Institute advances sexual and reproductive health through an interrelated program of social science research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate, promote sound policy and program development and, ultimately, inform individual decision making. The institute produces a wide range of resources on topics pertaining to sexual and reproductive health, including International Family Planning Perspectives, The Guttmacher Policy Review and Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
International Center for Research on Women
Since its founding in 1976, ICRW has worked with partner organizations and governments throughout the world to promote gender equitable development, reduce poverty, and change the lives of millions of women and girls and their communities - undertaking focused, evidence-based, action-oriented research; providing technical assistance to partner organizations, donors and governments; and advocating for new or improved policies and programs. Several resources are provided on child marriage.
Population Action International
Population Action International works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.
Population Connections
Population Connection provides education programs and advocacy for progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources.
Population Institute
The Population Institute is an international, educational, non-profit organization that seeks to voluntarily reduce excessive population growth, through universal access to family planning information, education and services. The institute strives to achieve a world population in balance with a healthy global environment and resource base.
Population Reference Bureau
The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations.
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice RCRC is a national organization committed to preserve reproductive choice as a basic part of religious liberty. RCRC looks beyond the bitter abortion debate to seek solutions to pressing problems such as unintended pregnancy, the spread of HIV/AIDS, inadequate health care and health insurance, and the severe reduction in reproductive health care services. The coalition supports access to sex education, family planning and contraception, affordable child care and health care, and adoption services as well as safe, legal, abortion services, regardless of income. We work for public policies that ensure the medical, economic, and educational resources necessary for healthy families and communities that are equipped to nurture children in peace and love.
The Thoughtful Christian The Presbyterian Church USA, through Westminster John Knox Press, has launched a Web site that contains downloadable documents on a wide variety of subjects including some of the more contentious ones in church and society. One of the study documents is called “Pro-Life, Pro-Choice: Any Common Ground?” Various areas of disagreement are outlined along with discussion starter questions. Participants are encouraged to find a place to at least talk about this issue through respectful listening and compassion. Scripture passages are included as are case studies for reflection. A study guide and leader’s guide are available for $5 with permission to photo copy for study groups or other settings. Other categories for study include: Bible and Theology, Pop Culture, Spirituality, Christian Living and Contemporary Issue.
United Nations Population Fund
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programs to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
The community provides the potential for nurturing human beings into the fullness of their humanity. We believe we have a responsibility to innovate, sponsor, and evaluate new forms of community that will encourage development of the fullest potential in individuals. Primary for us is the gospel understanding that all persons are important—because they are human beings created by God and loved through and by Jesus Christ and not because they have merited significance. We therefore support social climates in which human communities are maintained and strengthened for the sake of all persons and their growth. We also encourage all individuals to be sensitive to others by using appropriate language when referring to all persons. Language of a derogatory nature (with regard to race, nationality, ethnic background, gender, sexuality, and physical differences) does not reflect value for one another and contradicts the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. While individuals have always had some degree of control over when they would die, they now have the awesome power to determine when and even whether new individuals will be born. Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion.
But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child.
We recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures. We support parental, guardian, or other responsible adult notification and consent before abortions can be performed on girls who have not yet reached the age of legal adulthood. We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection.
We oppose the use of late-term abortion known as dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion) and call for the end of this practice except when the physical life of the mother is in danger and no other medical procedure is available, or in the case of severe fetal anomalies incompatible with life. Before providing their services, abortion providers should be required to offer women the option of anesthesia.
We call all Christians to a searching and prayerful inquiry into the sorts of conditions that may cause them to consider abortion.
The Church shall offer ministries to reduce unintended pregnancies. We commit our Church to continue to provide nurturing ministries to those who terminate a pregnancy, to those in the midst of a crisis pregnancy, and to those who give birth.
We particularly encourage the Church, the government, and social service agencies to support and facilitate the option of adoption. (See ¶ 161.L.) We affirm and encourage the Church to assist the ministry of crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers that compassionately help women find feasible alternatives to abortion.
Governmental laws and regulations do not provide all the guidance required by the informed Christian conscience. Therefore, a decision concerning abortion should be made only after thoughtful and prayerful consideration by the parties involved, with medical, family, pastoral, and other appropriate counsel.
L. Adoption
Children are a gift from God to be welcomed and received. We recognize that some circumstances of birth make the rearing of a child difficult. We affirm and support the birth parent(s) whose choice it is to allow the child to be adopted. We recognize the agony, strength, and courage of the birth parent(s) who choose(s) in hope, love, and prayer to offer the child for adoption. In addition, we also recognize the anxiety, strength, and courage of those who choose in hope, love, and prayer to be able to care for a child. We affirm and support the adoptive parent(s)’ desire to rear an adopted child as they would a biological child. When circumstances warrant adoption, we support the use of proper legal procedures. When appropriate and possible, we encourage open adoption so that a child may know all information and people related to them, both medically and relationally. We support and encourage greater awareness and education to promote adoption of a wide variety of children through foster care, international adoption, and domestic adoption. We commend the birth parent(s), the receiving parent(s), and the child to the care of the Church, that grief might be shared, joy might be celebrated, and the child might be nurtured in a community of Christian love.
162 III. The Social Community
The rights and privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from those who comprise it indicate the relative esteem in which that society holds particular persons and groups of persons. We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God. We therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened. We support the basic rights of all persons to equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress for grievances, and physical protection. We deplore acts of hate or violence against groups or persons based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or economic status. Our respect for the inherent dignity of all persons leads us to call for the recognition, protection, and implementation of the principles of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights so that communities and individuals may claim and enjoy their universal, indivisible, and inalienable rights.
Since the growing worldwide population is increasingly straining the world’s supply of food, minerals, and water and sharpening international tensions, the reduction of the rate of consumption of resources by the affluent and the reduction of current world population growth rates have become imperative. People have the duty to consider the impact on the total world community of their decisions regarding childbearing and should have access to information and appropriate means to limit their fertility, including voluntary sterilization. We affirm that programs to achieve a stabilized population should be placed in a context of total economic and social development, including an equitable use and control of resources; improvement in the status of women in all cultures; a human level of economic security, health care, and literacy for all. We oppose any policy of forced abortion or forced sterilization.
V. Right to Health Care
Health is a condition of physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being. John 10:10b says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Stewardship of health is the responsibility of each person to whom health has been entrusted. Creating the personal, environmental, and social conditions in which health can thrive is a joint responsibility—public and private. We encourage individuals to pursue a healthy lifestyle and affirm the importance of preventive health care, health education, environmental and occupational safety, good nutrition,and secure housing in achieving health. Health care is a basic human right.
Providing the care needed to maintain health, prevent disease, and restore health after injury or illness is a responsibility each person owes others and government owes to all, a responsibility government ignores at its peril. In Ezekiel 34:4a, God points out the failures of the leadership of Israel to care for the weak: “You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured.” As a result all suffer. Like police and fire protection, health care is best funded through the government’s ability to tax each person equitably and directly fund the provider entities. Countries facing a public health crisis such as HIV/AIDS must have access to generic medicines and to patented medicines. We affirm the right of men and women to have access to comprehensive reproductive health/family planning information and services that will serve as a means to prevent unplanned pregnancies, reduce abortions, and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The right to health care includes care for persons with brain diseases, neurological conditions, or physical disabilities, who must be afforded the same access to health care as all other persons in our communities. It is unjust to construct or perpetuate barriers to physical or mental wholeness or full participation in community.
We believe it is a governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care.
Spiritual Discernment: A Guide for Genetic and Reproductive Technologies is a resource offered to the church as a gift for persons who want to study these issues more deeply and also for persons who are personally considering making a decision to undergo these procedures. The guide does not provide answers but provides spiritual reflections for discernment, case studies, factual information about these technologies and questions for dialogue. A study guide is at the back of the booklet for use in small groups or for individuals. The guide provides two options for study: a one time, 2 hour session or four 2-hour sessions. We commend this to you for your use hoping it will bring both education and insight.
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