Editor’s Note: Outlook editors recently interviewed two young Presbyterian members of “Pro-Seed”, named after the biblical mustard seed and aimed at spreading the Kingdom of God and creating a new culture within the church. Each represents a different perspective on the issue of abortion. Fairlight Collins Jones is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament and co-pastor, with her husband, Scott, of Woodland Church in West Philadelphia, Pa. She graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2002. Nancy Neal is an elder ordained at Lafayette Avenue Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. She has an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York and is a candidate for ministry. She works at The Crossroad Publishing Company in New York. The questions and answers have been edited for length.
Q. The PC(USA) has long recognized that it is a divided house on matters of abortion, some urging us to defend a woman’s right to choose and others urging us to defend a pre-born child’s right to life or right to live. In your own terms, which side of that equation (do) you most closely identify and why.
A. Fairlight: I probably fall on the side of defending the pre-born child’s right to live, except I would probably phrase it in a different way and say that I would think of solutions to bring the child into the world, hopefully giving the mother a woman’s right to choose to give birth. … The way our denomination says, it is that one side focuses so much on women and the other focuses so much on the child almost to the exclusion of the other. And I would like to see both sides talking about both parties and even the larger parties involved. I understand that most women choose abortion because they feel that they lack support in their communities, whether it be the father of the child, his parents or her parents or a faith community, so if both sides could begin talking about the one left out and give more support to mother and child.
A. Nancy: If I had to choose a side, I would name myself on the choice side. However, I also don’t like the language that has been set up because it forces us to choose between the rights of the women and … if I call myself “pro choice”, that means I am pro- abortion which I am adamantly not. So I would echo a lot of what Fairlight says in that I would like to see us support women, and what I really would like to see is that we equip women better to make good decisions so that they have all of the options available. The “choice” debate comes so much out of the experience of women being or having very limited choices, not just in their reproductive health but also in other areas of their lives … which is in some ways really foreign to me. … I come at it from a really different place from having a lot of choices in my life and coming from an economic background where I had a lot of choices in terms of what I can and cannot do. Obviously there are limits to my choices with my gender, but I have a lot more choices.
Q. The PC(USA) published two major policy papers on the subject the first in 1983 the second in 1992 and since then the Church has weighed in specifically on late-term abortions. How would each of you summarize those policy statements, specifically, do those later policy positions improve or take away from the former?
A. Nancy: I would say the ’83 statement focuses more on the sort of medical, legal aspects of the woman’s right, a woman’s position of the issue whereas I see the ’92 policy more sort of theologically and ethically grounded, so there’s much more conversation it seems in the ’92 policy about the difficulty of making the choices and the different aspects involved in making the choice. … I think being Presbyterian means that our policy statements come collectively, so you can’t just say ‘well this is the PC(USA) policy.’ All the policies together tell the story of our church policy and I really like that about being Presbyterian. And so I think that while I could focus on the ’92 policy as our most current policy, I think that together they tell the story of our church’s life and work and I think in some ways that mimics Scripture and it mimics the Book of Confessions in that you see the people’s relationship with God in the Bible and you see how it changes through the different writings and the different people and the different times. And in the Book of Confessions you also see different people at different times addressing, and trying to say, you know ‘this is what we believe at this time and here are the circumstances that affect what we believe and here is what we respond to.’ If you look at the background of the statements you get a sense of why people wrote what they wrote at the time that they wrote it and I think that the policy does that as well. If we look at our policy we see that its addressing different things in a way and the ’92 policy really addresses the division and I personally think it does a really good job of giving a lot of room to a lot of people to help make their own decisions about when life starts and how to make decisions.
A. Fairlight: I would summarize the policy statements as “stewardship responsibility” to “grave moral concern”. I think we have definitely improved from ’83 to ’92. I think, yes, that late term abortions are a grave moral concern. … More recent suggestions, pastoral care, and attempts to define “health” and what “health” means, (are) helpful in this debate. I agree with Nancy in that I do feel like the conversation has opened up in certainly recognizing there are a variety of viewpoints on this and that we are able to come to GA or “the table” together. But I do think, at some level, it has become a very typical PC(USA) debate where one group hammers the Bible and the other group hammers policy, so it can be divisive. But I’ve appreciated, at least my current participation in General Assemblies and seen things improve.
Q. The criticism gets voiced often that the earlier policy paper seems to dominate the denominational policy voice on speaking to national issues. Do you think that’s a fair criticism?
A. Fairlight: I have to be honest. … I’m concerned that whether or not it’s fair, my concern is does our voice matter? Does the denominational policy’s voice even matter when it comes to national issues? And so the reality that I’m working out is the witness of the church in the world, knowing that Church has always been called to care for the parentless and the widowed and the early church in the midst of a violent empire rescued the marginalized, such as discarded babies. And now it’s tough because we live in another violent empire that kills its children. … The Church has gone with the empire. So again, I look towards our denominational policy and people in our denomination–the Church as a whole–to be more of a public witness to rescue the parentless and the widowed.
A. Nancy: I was actually pretty surprised by this question, because this is not something I have heard personally before. I understand the perception; I can see that in my experience at General Assembly, having sat through endless abortion debates in different committees. … I think we don’t listen to each other when we are there. And my sense is that there might be some generational issues and experience that come into this debate and I think that the generation issues that come in are sort of a sense that there are parts of the policy that some people really like and some parts that other people really like and that because of the division in the main culture, people get pulled in those directions and so there are these assumptions on either side, I think about people from the other side. I was really surprised at Fairlight’s answer to the first question, and how much I agreed with what she said because I know we find ourselves on either side of the debate in some ways. Even in some of my talking to people on the “other side” I found that they’re not as rigid in their position and being in the community on the pro-choice side there are expectations about what the “other side” is like and I think the same is probably true with the “other side.” So it takes some sitting down and really having good conversations.
Q. As young women in the ministry can you envision yourselves serving side by side in a denomination that is in two minds, or three, about these issues?
A. Nancy: I would say absolutely and it’s very exciting to me to go into ministry with so many different minds. Fairlight and I have both talked about the work we have done together with ‘Pro-Seed’, and are very excited with going forward with building bridges and I just think that the diversity of opinion is so valuable in terms of holding each other accountable and learning from each other and being able to advocate in different places and following different parts of God’s ministry. … My husband is a Muslim from Yemen and I come from a perspective of really valuing diversity and everything that comes with it down to the very core of my life and living.
A. Fairlight: Yes, because we already do. (Nancy and I have) been in conversation with each other for at least three years now, we respect and love one another, we talk about more than our views on issues and theology, we talk about music and the joys and struggles of marriage. … This kind of goes back to my answer to the first question, but we’ve agreed and covenanted to be in a community that’s able to talk about issues from the platform of friendship and a willingness to listen and to admit that we can learn from the other and I know that Nancy doesn’t love abortion and I know that Nancy doesn’t think that I’m blowing up abortion clinics. … Figuring out how we can move forward, not in a combative manner, but in one that knows each of us is trying to seek truth, that each of us is trying to do what’s best for “the other” who ever “the other” might be, and that we’re doing it together and not alone in some room outside of community. We’re in this together.
Q. What are some pro-active things that could be done or ways that the community and the openness that you have with each other or in this group, Pro-Seed, to help that become a more or a larger part of the denominational expression on this?
A. Fairlight: We’ve taken some cues from folks who have tried this and, pro-actively, we’ve decided that we’re just going to be different together at General Assembly. This sounds so simply pro-active, but I remember at my first GA, my husband and I were working with the Youth Advisory Delegates and we went and sat in the back where they make the observers and the YAD caucus sit and literally every one from the right was sitting on the right and everyone from the left was sitting on the left. Most of the people in Pro-Seed say ‘Don’t box us in.’ Yes, we come as an affinity group, yes we have strong conviction–no doubt about it–but that doesn’t mean that we buy everything in the affinity group hook, line and sinker. We’re people who are diverse in our thoughts as well. I hope that that will happen again this GA whether it’s with YAD caucuses or at the back of committees or sitting in the observer section together.
A. Nancy: It really does start with a personal decision to change one’s heart because I think there is a lot of resentment and hurt passed down from generation to generation. I know I felt it from my mentors on my ‘side’ of this debate. I don’t have the baggage that I think some people have of really feeling like they’ve been fighting in the trenches about this. And I think there is a learning to trust again that is happening and, having been instilled with some of that, having to get over that on my own wasn’t easy but I think I have less of it than some folks. It really takes an internal personal decision to change this kind of culture and to try to stop hurting each other.
Q. Once you start listening to each other and talking to each other and not demonizing either side … are there some practical things you could come together and do in addition to the trust building?
A. Nancy: Well I think education is really important and pregnancy prevention I think is really important, which is a hot topic I suppose. Do we distribute condoms or do we not, do we teach abstinence or do we teach prevention methods? If we can figure out how to prevent pregnancy and support women who are in pregnancy and support our young people on how to make decisions. And just trying to teach women to be more assertive about the ownership of their bodies and what they do and don’t want to do and having more confidence and more education and more economic choices and choices in general in their lives I think will prevent pregnancy. So I think working upon improving the status of young women in this country and women in this country in general is something that I think we can all support.
A. Fairlight: I think in a variety of ministries we need to start using rumors of grace. … There have got to be some among us who have experienced this (abortion, miscarriage.) Once a woman has had an abortion they have so little follow up, especially from ones who cared more about the baby than they did about the mother. It’s like, not only were you alone in the decision but you might be alone in the consequences and anything that comes from any decision made, to keep, to give up, to abort; to say, “Look, as a church, no matter what side of the aisle, we’re here, we’re present and we’re ready.” We believe in a triune God, a relational God who is about redemption, so we can talk about this.
