SILVER SPRING — Several Maryland faith leaders voiced their support for reproductive rights and the ballot measure known as “Question 1” this week, with just days to go before voters will decide whether to change the state constitution to protect abortion.
Leaders from Jewish, Unitarian, Christian, Episcopalian and Methodist parishes spoke on the intersectionality of faith, personal beliefs and reproductive health during a Tuesday panel at Silver Spring United Methodist Church.
“One of the things that has allowed reproductive health care and abortion to be politicized is the stigma and assumptions about how religious leaders feel,” said Erin Bradley, chairperson for Freedom in Reproduction Maryland, the group that hosted the panel.
She said the event grew from the organization’s desire “to get a religious perspective” on the matter and hear directly from faith leaders about the referendum.
“Whenever we can take the opportunity to chip away at some of those assumptions, then we chip away at stigma … because this is healthcare,” said Bradley.
Tuesday’s panel comes one week before voters will decide to add abortion rights to the state constitution. If approved, the ballot measure would enshrine a right already protected by Maryland state law.
Many religious people vigorously oppose the measure, as Capital News previously reported.
“Maryland already has extraordinarily permissive access to abortion in the state already, that doesn’t change whether this amendment passes or not,” Jenny Kraska, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, told CNS this fall. “If it passes, it disallows the ability to ever put safeguards [or] regulations in place that may protect women and children.”
But the religious leaders who gathered Tuesday expressed a different way of thinking about the proposed change, and urged for minority religions to be considered further in the conversation of reproductive health.
The panelists discussed the perspectives of reproductive health among different denominations, and opened up about their own experiences with healthcare and freedom of religion.
“Judaism believes in choice. We believe that life begins at birth, that abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life and is permitted to protect her physical and mental health,” said Rabbi in Residence of the Jewish Community Relations Council Abbi Sharofsky.
“Not having some measure like question one within the Maryland constitution erodes religious freedom,” she said.
Holly Jackson, Pastor of United Church of Christ in Silver Spring, shared her journey with reproductive healthcare — stating that it matters for religious leaders to open up about personal experiences, if they can, to help destigmatize the topic.
Paige Getty, a retired minister from Unitarian Universalist UU Congregation of Columbia, echoed the sentiment.
“I mentioned abortion and access to abortion sort of as a throwaway comment [during a sermon], and a woman came up to me afterwards to say that’s the first time [she’d] ever been in a religious context, and heard a clergy person talk about abortion without saying it’s bad.”