Rev. Paul Stallsworth, along with his wife Marsha, went to Washington, DC on March 11, 2010 to hand-deliver the following
attached letter to all 435 US
House of Representative members.
The Honorable
Ben Nelson
United States Senate
720 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
18 January 2010
Dear Senator Nelson:
New Year's greetings to your staff and to you.
As fellow United Methodists and as leaders of the Taskforce
of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS), we
write to you. Also known as Lifewatch , this pro-life
witness within The United Methodist Church has, for over 22
years, advanced and defended the God-given dignity of each
human person. From the beginnings of Lifewatch until the
present, our Advisory Board has included prominent bishops
and distinguished seminary professors.
We have been very proud of your public association with
Democrats for Life of America, your principled pro-life
positions, and, until recently, your courageous attempts to
remove taxpayer funding of abortion from the proposed reform
of health care, against intense pressure from the White
House and from other Democratic Party leaders. Also, we
applaud your success in attaching to the US Senate's health
care bill additional support for pregnancy, adoption, and
parenting.
However, we are disappointed by your final negotiations on
abortion, in the Senate's health care bill, late last month.
The new abortion provisions fall short of offering strong,
permanent guarantees that no taxpayer funds will be used to
directly or indirectly subsidize medically unnecessary
abortions. The abortion provisions now in the Senate's bill
include circuitous accounting procedures that can be used to
(falsely) claim that taxpayers will not be forced to
directly pay for other people's abortions.
The Senate's health care bill is unacceptable -- to us, to
many if not most United Methodists, and to the clear
majority of Americans -- since it would have the effect of
facilitating, and thus increasing, the incidence of abortion
in our society. Furthermore, we are very concerned about the
Senate bill's failure to include the House bill's conscience
protections for health care providers who do not want to be
coerced into participation in abortion. Finally, we are
disturbed to read reports that your office "shut out" input
from pro-life leaders during final negotiations on the final
abortion language.
We understand that, in recent weeks, you have been the
target of lobbying efforts by some United Methodist clergy
and laity urging you to support the health care reform bill
even if it means compromising your pro-life principles.
While these individuals are certainly free to express their
opinions to you, you should know that they do not speak for
all United Methodists. Through our extensive experience in
United Methodist congregations and organizations, we can
assure you that many, if not most, United Methodists in
Nebraska and in the United States share our concerns.
We understand the need to address the problem of the
deplorably high number of people in our nation without
health insurance. However, the first principle of the
General Rules of The United Methodist Church, given by John
W esley to the early Methodists, is "Do no harm."
With this principle in mind, as negotiations and votes on
health care reform continue, we strongly urge you to
reconsider your position and to work with pro-life leaders,
including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), to ensure that the health
care bill that is passed will: (1) exclude any direct or
indirect federal support for elective abortions; (2) exclude
any provisions that may otherwise encourage or facilitate
abortions; and (3) include strong conscience protections.
We respectfully urge you to apply this principle, "Do no
harm," to your pivotal work in the shaping of health care
reform. If you do, we are ready, willing, and eager to offer
whatever moral, prayerful, or other support we can.
In Christ,
Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth
Lifewatch President, and Pastor
St. Peter's United Methodist Church
111 Hodges Street
Morehead City, NC 28557
252.726.2175
paulstallsworth@nccumc.org
Mr. John Lomperis
Lifewatch Advisory Board
Harvard Divinity School
28 Forest Street
Somerville , MA 02143
202.494.2565
johnlomperis@yahoo.com
“Theology of the Body”
Paul J. Griffiths,
Warren Chair of
Catholic Theology,
Duke Divinity School
Thank you for the invitation to address you, the Study
Committee on the Worldwide Nature of The United Methodist
Church. It is a privilege, an honor, and a rare opportunity
to be with you and to work with you.
My name is Paul Stallsworth. An elder in the North Carolina
Conference, I pastor St. Peter's United Methodist Church in
Morehead City on the coast, serve as the president of the
Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality,
and edit the quarterly newsletter Lifewatch, which many of
you receive.
The task before us, this afternoon, is great -- especially
so soon after lunch. I trust that this presentation will not
facilitate any early afternoon naps...
As you know well, the summer of 2008 placed a
denominational- reorganizational plan -- in the form of
twenty-three (23) constitutional amendments, pertaining to
the worldwide nature of The United Methodist Church --
before all the Annual Conferences across the church. Based
on the reported votes to date, that plan will apparently not
be ratified.
It is important for you, the Study Committee, to step back,
consider why the Annual Conferences voted as they apparently
voted, gather additional information, and set out on a new
course for denominational reorganization. In other words,
this committee should not simply rewrite the constitutional
amendments that were placed before the Annual Conferences in
2008. To simply edit the presumably rejected amendments, and
return them to the 2012 General Conference and perhaps the
Annual Conferences, would squander the attention, time, and
money of The United Methodist Church. Something more
faithful to God and the Gospel, more thoughtful, and more
courageous is required of this Study Committee.
In what follows, I will: (I) place my proposal for this
Study Committee on the table; (II) explain what, in The
United Methodist Church, makes this proposal necessary; and
(III) revisit the proposal ....Read
more>>
DYK
“Extra” “Mr. Obama has promised for
months that the health care overhaul would not provide
federal money to pay for elective abortions, but White House
officials have declined to spell out what he means. …. At
least 31 House Democrats have signed various recent letters
to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, urging her to allow a
vote on a measure to restrict use of the subsidies to pay
for abortion, including 25 who joined more than 100
Republicans on a letter delivered Monday.”
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."
Rev. Paul
T. Stallsworth* Lifewatch Editor 111 Hodges Street Morehead City, NC 28557
Phone 252-726-2175 * Paul is also President of the TUMAS Board of Directors.
Advisory Board of the Taskforce of United Methodists on
Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS)
(07/27/10) “The heart begins to beat
on about the 22nd day after conception, circulating blood
throughout the child. The arms begin to form on about day 26,
followed by the beginnings of the legs on day 28, the same day
that the mouth opens for the first time.”
Source: “Science Sheds Light on
Unborn Human Life,” by John F. Cogan, c. 2002, page 5.
www.sfuhl.org.
(07/20/10) “… despite media hype and
sweeping promises of hope, ESCR [Embryonic Stem Cell Research]
has yielded no therapies; it is only the field of adult stem
cell research that has been on the cutting edge of developing
the “miracle cures” demanded by the public. Even better, the
adult stem cells derived from patients are completely compatible
with the body, and do not carry the risk of rejection or need
drugs to prevent rejection, as is the case with therapies using
embryonic stem cells.”
(07/13/10) “Human life is sacred
because, from its beginning until its natural end, it involves
the creative action of God. The Fifth Commandment forbids direct
and intentional killing as gravely sinful. God alone is the Lord
of life. No one has the right to end arbitrarily what God has
begun, and sustained, through the gift of His love. …. People
who are casual about the sin of abortion and who choose to view
it as a political issue rather than the serious moral issue that
it is are guilty of violating the Fifth Commandment.”
(07/06/10) “If I had my way, the
Church would stop feeding the illusion that a wedding is the
boundary between moral and immoral sex, between good sex and
bad.”
(06/22/10) “Blood vessels begin to
form about 13-18 days after fertilization. On about the 20th
day, the foundation of the brain, the spinal cord, and the
entire nervous system is established.”
Source: “Science Sheds Light on
Unborn Human Life,” by John F. Cogan.
www.sfuhl.org.
(06/15/10) “ … a recent study from
the Barna Group examines a major fault line in American social
life: abortion. …. The Barna study revealed five insights about
abortion-related public opinion.
(06/08/10) “Undercover pro-life
journalists have released another hard-hitting expose showing an
abortion facility not only hiding child sexual abuse, but
offering to circumvent parental consent laws in order to keep a
minor’s abortion secret from her parents. …. A nationwide
undercover investigation into abortion clinics’ cover-up of
statutory rape … revealed that ninety-one percent of abortion
facilities agreed to hide the age of the minor victim. The group
recorded over 800 calls to abortion clinics in which female
callers posed as a 13-year-old girl pregnant by an adult and
trying to hide the relationship.”
(06/01/10) “One significant, and enduring, effect of The Pill on
female sexual attitudes during the 60's, was: "Now we can have
sex anytime we want, without the consequences. Hallelujah, let's
party!"
…. Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts
waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have
plummeted, you know it's gotta be pretty bad. In fact, it's
precisely because of the sexy image I've had that it's important
for me to speak up and say: Come on girls! Time to pull up our
socks! We're capable of so much better.”
(05/25/10) “Far from an empowering option … the abortion seemed
forced upon her by her budding career – and that it was a choice
she didn’t really want to make.”
“Slightly more Americans call themselves ‘pro-life’
than ‘pro-choice,’ 47% vs. 45%, according to a May 3-6 Gallup
poll. …. All age groups have become more attached to the
pro-life label since 2005…. Both genders have also become more
likely to identify as pro-life, with the increase among women
coming mainly since 2008, whereas the increase in men started
after 2006. …. Results are based on telephone interviews with
1,029 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 3-6,
2010.”
(05/11/10) “The phrase ‘legalized abortion’ could easily lead
respondents to believe that the effect of overturning Roe would
be to make abortion illegal, when it would in fact be to restore
abortion policy to the democratic processes.”
(05/04/10) On April 22, 2010 Rep. Joe Pitts
(R-PA) introduced H.R. 5111, the “Protect Life Act” in response
to concerns about the recently-passed health care bill. The
bill, which was introduced with 50 Republican and Democrat
co-sponsors, incorporates permanent, bill-wide statutory
language to prevent federal funding for abortion or abortion
coverage through government-related exchanges, community health
centers, or any other program authorized or appropriated by the
health-care bill.
video
below
