A handful of religious leaders, including rogue Jews and Christians, have banded together to promote the expansion of elective abortion in Texas. Their initiative, Just Texas: Faith Voices for Reproductive Justice, includes the usual suspects: Unitarian Universalists, the Texas Freedom Network, a group of liberal Jews, the self-proclaimed “Catholics” for Choice, and the Religious Institute.
Willie Parker, the notorious “Christian” abortionist, is an unsurprising advocate of the Just Texas initiative. Parker calls his ability to kill as many as 45 babies in one day an “abortion ministry” inspired by his faith in God.
The group’s philosophy relies on relativist interpretations of Judeo-Christian values, replacing the actual teachings of the Torah and Bible with what “your faith tells you.” “If your faith tells you,” for example, that “women… should be the decision makers about their reproductive health care, including abortion,” or that abortion is a “moral and social good,” then Just Texas is for you.
This relativist, anti-Life crusade for expanded abortion policies makes sense for members of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), who do not follow the Judeo-Christian tradition and have included an anti-Life platform among their beliefs for decades. The UUA strongly supported abortion in a 1987 resolution, which includes the statement that Pro-Life “legislation is an infringement of the principle of separation of church and state in that it tries to enact private morality into public law.” Therefore, there is no surprise at seeing the UUA behind such an undertaking as Just Texas.
Jews and Christians, however, are intrinsically bound to the teachings of Scripture as their foundation, which unequivocally affirm not only the dignity of Life, but the immorality of infringing on that right to Life. Consequently, the involvement of self-proclaimed Jews and Christians in the Just Texas initiative is fundamentally contradictory.
Among Protestant Christians, the right to Life is generally protected, and any genuine adherence to Scripture provides some degree of accountability to Pro-Life tenants. Catholic Christians, along with some Protestant sects, explicitly condemn elective abortion as a moral evil in every circumstance. Therefore, Christians have no logical or ethical grounds on which to support abortion. Groups like Catholics for Choice and the Religious Institute have chosen to approach faith like a cafeteria, picking and choosing among God’s teachings to embrace some and to reject others. This “cafeteria Christianity” may be a convenient approach for individuals who personally support elective abortion, but nevertheless the idea of selectively adhering to Scripture is fundamentally at odds with any notion of integral Judeo-Christian values.
The campaign launched last week at Temple Beth Shalom in Austin. Read the Texas Freedom Network’s press release here.