Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth
Lifewatch Editor
111 Hodges Street
Morehead
City, NC 28557
252-726-2175 paulstallsworth@nccumc.org
(05/15/12) “At the end of this year, Nancy Keenan will step down
from her post as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the
country’s oldest abortion-rights advocacy group. …. In recent
years, Keenan has worried about an ‘intensity gap’ on abortion
rights among millennials, which the group considers to be the
generation of Americans born between 1980 and 1991. While most
young, antiabortion voters see abortion as a crucial political
issue, NARAL’s own internal research does not find similar
passion among abortion-rights supporters.”
(05/08/12) 2012 General Conference
Report: For the first time ever, legislation to sever United
Methodist ties to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice (RCRC) passed out of the Church & Society committee by a
majority vote of 42 – 32 on Saturday, April 28, the last day of
committee meetings. With a full week of plenary sessions ahead,
odds appeared good for passage. Unfortunately, the May 4
adjournment arrived without consideration of the RCRC
legislation. A last-minute attempt by a young female delegate to
have the legislation brought to the floor for debate at 10:15 pm
on Friday evening failed when only 48% of delegates voted for
the motion. (A motion to change the agenda required a 2/3
majority.) The vote likely reflected a desire to go home rather
than a rejection of the petition. Therefore, the General Board
of Church & Society and the Women’s Division/UMW will remain
members of RCRC for another four years, and we will need to
repeat the entire process at the 2016 General Conference in
Portland, Oregon.
Source: Cindy Evans, Lifewatch Administrator and observer of the
entire 2012 General Conference.
(04/17/12) The Lifewatch office will
be closed from April 21 through May 7 while we travel to and
attend the 2012 General Conference in Tampa , FL. To follow the
GC proceedings, go to UMC
website or Good News website).
Our office will reopen on May 8.
Please keep General Conference in your prayers.
“Many pregnancies end in spontaneous
miscarriage. …. Common themes for women after miscarriage are
anger and frustration, guilt, feeling alone or that no one can
really comprehend the depth of the sorrow, and feeling numb with
grief. …. After an induced abortion, many women suffer these
same feelings with even greater intensity and over a much longer
time – ten, twenty, thirty, forty years or even an entire
lifetime. After all, unlike women who have miscarried, women who
have had abortions feel guilty because what happened to them was
due to choice.”
Source: “The Psychological Aftermath
of Three Decades of Abortion,” by E. Joanne Angelo,MD, The Cost
of ‘Choice:’ Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion, edited by
Erika Bachiochi, Encounter Books, San Francisco, c. 2004,
p.88-89.
(04/03/12) “If you are currently
facing an unintended pregnancy, know that God chooses to make
every single baby inside each pregnant womb and He makes no
mistakes. All conceived children have meaning and purpose,
regardless if the timing is right for you or not. …. I don’t
know how many of you will remember my story, but if I can
positively impact the life of only one person, then it was not
written in vain. Remember that it is never too late to start
over. It is never too late to turn around and decide to make the
right choices going forward. It is never too late to come to God
and decide to walk the right path, even if the one you’ve been
on isn’t the best.”
Press
Release:
Lifewatch Objects to
UMC's Lack of Action on RCRC
Contact: Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth, President/Editor,
Lifewatch
TAMPA, May 14, 2012 /Christian
Newswire/ -- The United Methodist Church's General
Conference, the policy-making body for the 12-million-member global
denomination, ended May 4 in Tampa, FL without considering important
proposals related to the denomination's ongoing affiliation with the
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). General
Conference meets only every four years.
The Reverend Paul T. Stallsworth, pastor of St. Peter's United
Methodist Church (Morehead City, NC) and president/editor of
Lifewatch (www.lifewatch.org),
commented:
"It was a real disappointment to see our denomination's General
Conference managed in such a way that delegates were not given the
opportunity to deliberate and decide on proposals related to life
and death. MANAGED is the word. For it seems that decisions were
made, by a few, that prevented the conference from dealing with
RCRC and some other life issues. Remember that before anti-RCRC
legislation was ignored by the entire conference, it had passed a
legislative sub-committee and a legislative committee.
"It is especially disturbing that the clock was run out on
these matters -- when there seemed to be plenty of time for the
conference to grapple with the important matters of restructuring
The United Methodist Church and the church's teaching on
homosexuality. Greater justice and mercy, to the unborn child and
mother, is delayed and denied for another four years.
"Yes, we will have to wait another four years. During that
time, church members and friends will be harmed by the practice of
abortion, and others will leave our denomination out of the
discouragement that affiliation with RCRC brings many United
Methodists. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice will
continue to use and abuse our church's name to advance its
pro-choice political agenda. And our denomination's blank-check
endorsement of RCRC's false and harmful teaching -- that the
abortion of unborn children, who are created in God's image, is
'God's work' and 'holy work' -- will remain.
"But over the next four years, Lifewatch will not be silent.
For we trust, we know, that '[t]ruth is most powerful, and will
ultimately prevail.' That is especially true when we identify
Jesus Christ, the Lord of Life, as the truth."
Out of obedience to Jesus Christ, the
Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS) will
work to create in church and society esteem for human life at its most
vulnerable, specifically for the unborn child and for the Woman who
contemplates abortion. Therefore, TUMAS's first goal is to win the
hearts and minds of United Methodists, to engage in abortion-prevention
through theological, pastoral and social emphases that support human
life."
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