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MNRCRC’s Executive Director in the News

From Minneapolis Star Tribune’s November 15, 2007 Netlets:

Respectful dialogue about abortion can be a reality

Thank you for your Oct. 31 editorial “A reconciling way to talk about abortion.” At the Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, we believe that women should be free to make decisions about having children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs. As spiritual people, we are called into deeper reflection about this issue, based on people’s real lived experiences. We believe that decisions about when or whether to have children are some of the most important decisions that people make. Our reproductive decisions are affected by our access to quality sexuality education, affordable health care (including reproductive health care), living wage job, affordable child care, housing, and supportive friends and family.

Shouting one-line slogans at one another will not help us come to a better understanding about reproductive decisions, but neither will silence.

A colleague and I traveled to South Dakota in August 2006, before the abortion ban vote. We were invited to facilitate a training with clergy and lay people in both Rapid City and Sioux Falls. The training empowered religious people to return to their congregations and have open, respectful dialogue about the morality of abortion. These conversations brought together 85 people with vastly different views about the morality of abortion. Some people were long-time prochoice activists. Many people had mixed feelings or were unsure how to articulate their opinions. And a few people were adamantly opposed to abortion. However, very few people had ever talked about abortion in their religious communities.

At the beginning of the training, we established a covenant for the day, an agreement that we would return to again and again as conversations became heated. The covenant allowed us to respect every person in the room, despite our different opinions. The covenant also ensured that each person speak for herself or himself, starting each statement with “I” rather than “you” or “they.”

At times, the conversation was difficult and heated as we struggled to find the right language to communicate with one another.

At the end of the day, one of pastors who called himself prolife stood up and said, “I am against abortion. I will always be against abortion. However, this process has helped me to think that maybe legally banning abortion is not the best way to prevent it from happening. And I think there are some ways that we can all work together to help prevent abortion from being necessary.”

The pastor’s statement is a testament to the power of respectful dialogue. Let’s start the conversation.

Kiely Todd Roska, Executive Director
Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Minneapolis