c. 2004 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ People of faith who support reproductive rights for women gathered Friday (April 23) for an interfaith prayer breakfast, timed as a preview to the March for Women’s Lives that is expected to draw crowds to the nation’s capital Sunday.

More than 300 clergy and other supporters of Planned Parenthood Federation of America gathered at the Renaissance Washington Hotel and made a point of distancing themselves from the opposing views on abortion held by more conservative religious leaders.

“The people who will be organizing against choice hold this book real close,” said the Rev. James Forbes of New York’s Riverside Church, holding up a large red Bible. “I got a Bible, too.”

He drew cheers when he preached that those preparing to march need to move the national debate beyond whether someone should have an abortion or stem cells should be taken from embryos for research purposes.

“Heaven’s sake, that’s not the issue,” he said. “Somebody talks about trying to create a culture of life. What about creating a culture of choice for quality and responsible life?”

The breakfast, sponsored by Planned Parenthood’s Clergy Advisory Board, is one of a number of faith-related events planned in relation to Sunday’s march. For example, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is sponsoring a “Prayerfully Pro-Choice Interfaith Service” just before the march kicks off on Sunday. Catholics for a Free Choice plans a protest in front of the Vatican Embassy on Saturday, and groups ranging from Unitarians to Reform Jews will be sponsoring other activities.

“One of the things that we know is that faith and choice have always been very compatible,” Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt told the breakfast crowd. “Clergy and other religious leaders have been at the forefront of our movement historically. … You know that like the stationmasters of the Underground Railroad, it was members of the clergy who counseled women and directed them to safe abortions when abortion was still illegal in this country.”

Although leaders within the movement may be aware of the history, Feldt said her organization recently hired its first chaplain to serve as the public “face of faith” for Planned Parenthood.

The Rev. Ignacio Castuera, the new chaplain and a United Methodist pastor in the Los Angeles community of Watts, said he plans to address denominational conventions and help Planned Parenthood’s affiliates link with local clergy. He also looks forward to the publication of a forthcoming book by the Clergy Advisory Board’s chairman about the organization’s alliances with the clergy.

“We will disabuse our opponents from their belief that we’re merely a veneer on top of the choice movement,” he said at the breakfast. “We are the fiber of the choice movement from the beginning.”

In an interview after the breakfast, Forbes said he has not spoken much about his pro-abortion rights stand, but would like to foster dialogue with those who do not agree with him on the subject.

“Now is not the time for drawing lines in the sand so much as trying to get people to come to that line and engage meaningfully in what they believe,” he said.

“I would like to find the common ground by which we may advance toward the policy that uplifts the quality of life in our nation.”

But groups on the opposite side of the debate said the two sides remain polarized.

“The most frequent question we hear today is `Who decides?’ The real question is, `Is abortion the best we can offer?’ Women deserve better than abortion,” said Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life. “Women need housing, child care, maternity leave, the ability to telecommute, a living wage. … Addressing these unmet needs should be the priority of this march. Abortion just masks the problem.”

Foster joined other representatives of a wide range of anti-abortion activists _ including African-Americans, Latinos and Catholics _ at a news conference at the National Press Club on Friday to counter the plans of the march.

(Correspondent Amanda Mantone contributed to this report.)

DEA/PH END BANKS