National Faith Groups Condemn Roe Decision, Share Impact on Their Communities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

MEDIA CONTACT

Austin Schuler, aschuler@faithinpubliclife.org, 540-280-3393

National Faith Groups Condemn Roe Decision, Share Impact on Their Communities

Washington, D.C.– On Tuesday, June 28, faith leaders from multiple faith traditions came together for a moment of lamentation and prayer. As clergy and faith leaders, they shared how the end of Roe will impact their communities and discuss stopping the criminalization of abortion, expanding access of reproductive care, and creating safe, sustainable and healthy communities where everyone can live and thrive with the dignity that God desires.  

For the full video of the event, click here.

• Rev. Jen Butler, Founder in Residence, Faith in Public Life:
  “Together, we lament as a diverse and united community of faith, at a moment of injustice and inequity. We’re here to cry out together, to learn how the overturn of Roe is harming our neighbors, and to build communities where everyone can safely raise a healthy family, and every one of God’s children thrives.”
  
• Senator and Rev. Kim Jackson, Georgia Senate District 41:
  “This day we recognize that God is with us in our tears…while we lament and grieve, we also look toward those who came before us and walk with us to freedom.”
  
• Rabbi Barry Silver, Esq., Founder of Cosmic Judaism:
  “The law that we have now in Florida criminalizes Jewish law…If people want to be pro-life, let them join us in fighting for universal health care.”
  
• Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at the Middle Collegiate Church:
  “I want to ground us in the fiercest kind of love of all. Every world religion follows a version of the precept, love your neighbor as yourself.”
  
• Rev. Katey Zeh, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:
  “In the years prior to Roe v. Wade, clergy and lay people formed the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, a grassroots network to help nearly half a million people access to safe abortion care. Today, this moment is asking us what we are prepared to do to care for our communities and to disrupt the white Christian nationalist political agenda that for far too long has distorted Christianity and turned these sacred texts into tools of oppression—when in reality, they are rooted in our collective liberation.”
  
• Min. Shavonne Williams, Georgia Organizing Ambassador, Faith in Public Life:
  “As a Minister of the Gospel, a retired Physician’s Assistant and a Black mother, the decision to start or expand your family is one that is very sacred and personal that should be made by an individual and their healthcare provider.”
  
• Bishop Tonyia Rawls, Freedom Center for Social Justice:
  “We must stand and fight, we must lament, but we must lament in ways that put action to the tears.”
  
• Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Religions for Peace USA:
  “As a multifaith society, it’s important for no religion to impose its values on people of different faiths. I call upon Congress to enshrine in the law the right of a woman to make her own reproductive decisions.”
  
• Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, Chair of Wisconsin Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:
  “As a Jew, I live by the words of the Torah, which teaches us ‘do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds’. This means it is my responsibility, and that of all who live by this precept, to do what I can to provide what help I can to people whose lives will be at risk because of these destructive policies.”
  
• Rev. Alba Onofrio, Co-Executive Director of Soul Force:
  “We may feel so alone in this moment, and it is the work of white Christian supremacy that tells us we are alone, and yet this couldn’t be further from the truth…know that you are not alone.”
  
• Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, Interfaith Alliance:
  “The Supreme Court’s decision to deny the basic rights given by the constitution and by God grieves my heart. Every pregnant person deserves to exercise the same rights and the same decision I was able to make for myself.”
  
• Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, National Council of Jewish Women:
  “We know that abortion care saves lives, and white supremacy, queer liberation, trans liberation, access to contraception are all connected. It’s all about whose body, whose rights, whose safety matters. It’s all about whose dignity counts, whose life counts.”
   
• Angela Williams, Co-Director for Movement Building for SACRed:
  “I follow my movement lineage back to the trans women of color who started that riot and to the people of faith who have struggled for inclusion in and out of faith spaces for five decades.

“Now is the time when we must come together across movements. There is too much at stake. We need each other because these attacks from the state are targeting all of us.”

Co-Sponsors include: Interfaith Alliance, Soulforce, National Council of Jewish Women, and the Wisconsin Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

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Faith in Public Life is a national movement of clergy and faith leaders united in the prophetic pursuit of justice, equality and the common good. Together, with a network of over 50,000 leaders, they are leading the fight to advance just policies at the state and federal level that affirm our values and the human dignity of all.