{"id":296063,"date":"2023-08-09T06:29:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T11:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=296063"},"modified":"2023-08-07T17:30:31","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T22:30:31","slug":"planned-parenthood-clergy-gods-presence-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/planned-parenthood-clergy-gods-presence-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Parenthood clergy board member: I felt ‘God’s presence’ during my two abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The remarks made by a Presbyterian minister earlier this summer are gaining attention after she spoke about feeling God’s presence as she killed two of her preborn children in abortions.<\/p>\n

Rev. Rebecca Todd Peters, a member of the Planned Parenthood’s clergy advocacy board<\/a>, spoke at The Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist on July 9th, during which she spoke heatedly about abortion and wore a bright pink stole around her shoulders emblazoned with the Planned Parenthood logo. According to the Washington Post<\/a>, in addition to being an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she is a professor of religious studies at Elon University, where she heads the Abortion and Religion project, and is “known as one of the country\u2019s leading ethicists on abortion rights.”<\/p>\n

Peters began her sermon by laughing about a trip to Texas, in which a mother was uncomfortable with Peters openly discussing abortion while children were present. “She turned to her other son, whispering in a stricken tone, ‘They’re talking about abortion! Make them stop!'” she said, laughing. “Talking about abortion makes many people profoundly uncomfortable… at dinner parties, in polite conversation with friends and family, and too often, in church.”<\/p>\n

Yet, she complained, pro-life imagery can be more easily found. “Despite many people’s profound discomfort with abortion, images, messaging, and moralizing about abortion are ubiquitous in our culture,” she continued. “Talking fetuses! Aggressive bumper stickers, and saccharine billboards quoting scripture and invoking God’s wrath pave our streets and plaster our highways.”<\/p>\n

The overturning of Roe v. Wade<\/em> was “our” failure, she said, complaining that pro-life Catholics and evangelicals are the ones who talk most about abortion, therefore defining the terms of the debate. “Anti-choice Christians have so effectively shaped the abortion narrative in the U.S., that it often impacts how people think and feel about abortion, even among people who don’t go to their churches,” she said. “I call this, the ‘abortion imaginary.'”<\/p>\n