c. 2000 Religion News Service

Methodists Edge Toward Statement on “Partial-Birth” Abortions

(RNS) The United Methodist Church is poised to stake out a position on so-called “partial-birth” abortions later this week after a legislative committee approved a statement that denounced the practice but allowed for exceptions.

The church is meeting in Cleveland this week for its quadrennial General Conference, the church’s policy-making body and the only official voice for the denomination. The church’s Faith and Order Committee, which is hearing proposed legislation on abortion and homosexuality, debated the issue on Tuesday (May 9).

After several hours of agonizing debate and a moment of prayer, committee members voted to approve an addition to the Book of Discipline, which outlines the church’s theology and social policy.

The proposed policy states, “We oppose the use of late-term abortions known as dilatation and extraction (partial-birth abortions) and call for the end of this practice, except when the physical life of the mother is in danger, or no other medical procedure is available, or in the case of severe fetal anomalies incompatible with life.”

Steve Furr, a church member and a doctor from Alabama, offered the change to the Book of Discipline. “Taking away this procedure does not take away the option of a woman to have an abortion,” he said. “There’s not a medical diagnosis that justifies this particular procedure. There is no situation where this is the only choice.”

In Washington, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, called the vote part of “explicit political strategy” by abortion foes to undermine legal abortion. It said legislation banning the controversialprocedure is broadly written “that it outlaws safe and common procedures used throughout pregnancy, including before viability.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a challenge to a Nebraska law seeking to ban the procedure. President Clinton has twice vetoed efforts by Congress to enact a ban on the procedure.

The Methodist denomination last spoke out on abortion in 1996, and delegates approved a middle-of-the-road position saying the “belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion” but acknowledged there are “tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures.”

This would be the first time the church has taken a position on the controversial and rarely used D&X procedure in which a late-term fetus is partially delivered into the birth canal and then its skull is compressed and the cranial contents removed to allow for the fetus’ removal.

In other business, the committee defeated three proposed bills that would have kept divorced people from remarrying within the United Methodist Church if the ex-spouse is still alive.

Both the abortion and the divorce measures will come before all 992 voting delegates later this week.

Commission Director Tells Congress To Withhold Trade Benefits From China

(RNS) Warning against sending a message that Americans are indifferent to religious freedom, the head of a federal commission on religious freedom abroad urged a congressional committee to vote against a proposal to grant China permanent trade benefits.

“A grant of permanent normal trade relations status at this juncture could be seen by Chinese people struggling for religious freedom as an abandonment of their cause at a moment of great difficulty,” Steven T. McFarland _ executive director of the 10-member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom _ told the House Committee on International Relations during a hearing Wednesday (May 10) on whether Congress should give China permanent normal trade relations status.

Citing the commission’s first annual report released earlier this month which highlighted reports of religious abuse in China, McFarland cautioned against extending China’s trade privileges because of the country’s “egregious, systematic persecution of religious people of practically every faith.”

He said Congress should consider granting permanent normal trade relations status to China only after the country “makes substantial improvements in respect for religious freedom,” such as releasing all prisoners detained because of their religious beliefs, or ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1997.

The House is expected to vote the week of May 22 on whether to extend permanent trade privileges to China, which would grant China permanent access to U.S. markets. Without the benefits, China has had to renew its trade status each year.

Faith Groups Support Passage of Anti-Sexual Slavery Bill

(RNS) Some faith-based groups are applauding the House’s passage Tuesday (May 9) of legislation aimed at protecting children and women forced into sexual slavery in the United States and crack down on those who hold them hostage.

“By passing legislation that appropriately addresses the core problems and perpetrators of human trafficking, the House of Representatives has sent a clear signal that America _ this land of freedom _ will not stand idly by while innocent women and children are forced into an existence of sexual or sweatshop slavery,” read a statement issued by Jeff Mandell, legislative director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the public policy and social action arm of the Reform Jewish Movement.

An estimated 50,000 people _ mostly children and women _ are illegally brought into the United States each year and forced to submit to sexual abuse. They are among approximately 2 million women and children who are bought and sold around the world each year for such purposes.

Under the bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Sam Gejdenson, D-Conn., and Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., those who hold women or children captive in the United States could face as much as 20 years in prison, and could receive a life sentence if involved in kidnapping, sexual abuse or a victim’s death.

The bill also allows victims to participate in the federal Witness Protection Plan, and permits as many as 5,000 victims each year to apply to become permanent U.S. residents after three years in the country.

In addition, the legislation would require the U.S. State Department to monitor efforts to end sexual slavery aboard and report those findings in the department’s annual report on human rights abroad.

The legislation also would permit the president _ beginning in 2002 _ to enforce sanctions against nations that do not meet minimum standards in abolishing the sex industry, though this power could be waived.

Similar legislation is being considered by the Senate, and the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission urged senators to follow the House’s lead.

“We urge the U.S. Senate to follow the House of Representatives’ lead at once, in speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves and helping end the selling of women and children into sexual slavery around the world,” said Richard Land.

Wake Forest Divinity School Dean Defends Admitting Lesbian

(RNS) Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C., has defended his school’s decision to admit a lesbian when it opened last fall.

“I’ll die on this floor of non-discriminatory admissions,” Leonard told a group of self-described “mainstream” Baptists during a late April meeting in Atlanta, Baptist news services reported.

During a question-and-answer session at that meeting, Leonard stated his belief that a seminary should be a place where difficult topics such as homosexuality can be addressed.

“There need to be some oases where we can talk about this, and the seminary needs to be one of those,” said Leonard, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.

He added that it would be unfair to all students to avoid the issue.

“Our graduates are going to have to confront this issue in churches,” he said.

The university has been involved in a controversy over homosexuality with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Last fall, the university said it would let a local church that meets in the campus chapel decide whether to hold a same-sex union ceremony. In response, North Carolina Baptists authorized officials to begin steps to sever its fraternal relationship with the university.

One of the women who requested the church blessing is a member of the divinity school’s inaugural class.

Responding to a question from Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service, Leonard said: “Is homosexuality a sin? That’s for everyone to sort out individually.”

He also said that permitting gays and lesbians to attend a divinity school is a matter of giving people a voice.

“I think that underneath this is a debate about whether we can speak as Baptists about these issues,” Leonard said. “I’m not going to tell a church where they should stand on this issue. But there should be a place where they can discuss these issues.”

iBelieve.com Loses Bid to Air Ads during “Jesus” Miniseries

(RNS) The Christian Web site http://www.iBelieve.com has lost a bid to air commercials during the CBS miniseries “Jesus.”

But the site is being pursued by http://www.CBS.com to sponsor online sites for the movie and the “Touched by an Angel television series.

CBS rejected the ads during the miniseries, saying the content was too similar to the program and might cause confusion among viewers, the Associated Press reported. The two-part series airs Sunday (May 14) and Wednesday.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said there is nothing inconsistent about one division of the network rejecting advertising while another sought it.

“This is a very big company with many different types of guidelines,” McClintock said. “There are distinct differences between broadcast television and Internet.”

Citing Nike ads that aired on the network during the college basketball tournament, executives at iBelieve.com wondered if they were being held to a double standard.

McClintock said such comparisons are unfair and advertising is rejected or accepted on a case-by-case basis.

Officials of the Web site remain hopeful about a possible compromise and are considering placing ads during the CBS programs that lead into the miniseries.

“We feel like the Internet start-up David standing up to the media conglomerate Goliath,” said John Nardini, head of iBelieve’s marketing.

Mossad Rescues Jewish Torahs from Iraq

(RNS) Dozens of Jewish Torah scrolls slated for destruction by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein were recently smuggled out of Iraq in an operation masterminded by the Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

Some 50 scrolls, containing the first five books of the Bible, had been discovered in a warehouse in Baghdad after apparently being hidden by Iraqi Jews who left for Israel in the 1950s. The Mossad retrieved 30 of the manuscripts after bribing members of the Iraqi army, the London Times reported Sunday (May 5).

One of the scrolls, thought to have been handwritten 70 years ago, was put on display last week in a synagogue in Afula, northern Israel. Another, 200 years old, has been exhibited in New York.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had reportedly ordered the books to be burned by the army after they were recently uncovered at a site in Baghdad’s Battawein district, home to Baghdad’s once thriving and influential Jewish community.

Quote of the Day: Jeremiah Thompson, delegate to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church.

(RNS) “If we’re truly the disciples of the Prince of Peace, shouldn’t we speak against guns? Guns are destroying our society. They’re destroying my generation. They’re destroying future generations.”

_ Jeremiah Thompson, a student from Illinois and delegate to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in a speech supporting retaining handguns in a list of weapons the church wants to ban. The resolution passed 724-205.

DEA END RNS