DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Rev. Bonnie A. Perry, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, wrote an opinion piece about abortion published in The Detroit News on Sunday, August 7. She writes about her support of abortion rights, and asks other Christians to do the same.
Perry wrote that the recent Dobbs case which reversed Roe v Wade puts “Michigan women at risk of losing their reproductive freedoms” and “flies against the deeply compassionate beliefs of the Episcopal Church.”
She went on to say, “I call on Christians of compassion to act now to protect reproductive freedoms in Michigan.”
Perry argues that since 1967, “the teachings of the Episcopal Church have supported a woman’s right to determine if and when she will have a child” and the church “recognizes that access to abortion is a key element in preserving the health, independence and autonomy of those who can bear children and that access to abortion services and birth control should be available with no restriction on movement, autonomy, type or timing.”
After hearing about Perry’s editorial in the Detroit News, Governor Gretchen Whitmer applauded Perry’s editorial by thanking her and tweeting that “abortion is healthcare.”
Perry was elected into her position in 2019 and was the first woman and first openly lesbian priest elected as an Episcopal Bishop in Michigan. Born in San Diego and raised in a Roman Catholic family, she originally attended the College of the Holy Cross but converted to the Episcopal faith after learning that they allow women clergy.
This new Christian feminism that Perry espouses supports bodily autonomy and reproductive rights of women over the life of an unborn child and Perry says that restricting abortion access denies women the “dignity due human beings.”
On their website, the Episcopal Church says that they believe in a “loving, liberating and life-giving God.”
Their life-giving statement contradicts their support of abortion rights – and these rights that they embrace don’t line up with the words in the Bible.
There are many life-giving words in the Bible but perhaps the most direct ones that deal with this issue are in Jeremiah 1:5 that say, “God knew him as fully human before his birth. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born…”
It could appear that the mood of the congregations has driven churches to accept what is popular instead of teaching what is in the Bible.
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A Pew Research Center study reveals that many churchgoers support abortion to be legal in most or all cases. That includes 82% of Buddists, 48% of Catholics, 83% of Jewish people, 60% of Mainline Protestants, 53% of Orthodox Christians and 74% of unaffiliated church members.
A Pew Research Center study in 2016 also showed that many religions support abortions with some or no limits including the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Conservative Judaism, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalist, and the United Church of Christ.
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