'Get beyond labels'

...Kemp-Hatch would have banned all counseling or referrals (whether done with public or private funds) and any organizational or contractual links between family planning agencies which receive public funds and institutions providing abortions...

...That law makes adults financially liable for babies born to their minor sons and daughters, imposes criminal penalties for late-term abortions, and provides funds for sex education for teenagers...

...It's not that pro-life and pro-choice forces have come to a complete agreement on family planning...

...For Durbin, his efforts have meant being vilified as a baby killer, being made an enemy "pin-up" in a right-to-life newsletter, and having a right-to-life opponent in the fall...

...He thinks demands for opposition to family planning may defeat the purposes of those who oppose abortion...

...it also does not involve an invocation of the authority of office...

...Initially he acted out of a concern that Kemp-Hatch might bring down malpractice suits on health professionals who withheld information about abortion from certain family planning clients...

...The history of religion provides progressive churchpeople with an embarrassing number of reasons to distrust traditional Christianity...

...Knowing the mind of the church does not involve a poll of the majority, including the majority of theologians...

...Washington report II II 'GET BEYOND LABELS' PRO-LIFE & PRO-FAMILY PLANNING I T ISN'T ALWAYS deliberate, and it isn't necessarily friendly, but within the political arena there are several recent instances when pro-life and pro-choice forces have found themselves on common ground...

...Among the controversies is one which has yet to surface as clearly as it must, but which permeates the debate: it is the question of what we mean by religious tradition in the first place...

...The best known instance occurred late last year when a new set of legislative restrictions proposed by Congressman Jack Kemp (R.-N.Y...

...The orthodoxy I have in mind is one which has everything to do with attention to tradition as a living language informed by prayer...

...progressive" debate has come down to a quarrel between those who are in favor of a strong hierarchical structure and those who are not, who favor instead a diversity of opinion and a more democratic church structure...

...With regard to this debate (in general it doesn't interest me much) I can say only that the purpose of any hierarchy is to represent the mind of the church, and that cannot be equated with the hierarchy talking to itself...

...To many family planning supportaers, 1985 was a particularly difficult year, and 1986 begins on shaky ground for their funding...

...In the ages when officially sanctioned views of Christianity were the only kind allowed, Jews and heretics (who had often become heretical because of the self-satisfaction I I A lot of the recent "traditionalist" vs...

...It would be solid nutrition for thought and action in the new year...

...There is a real difficulty involved in distinguishing between tradition and traditions, between those things which are essential to Christian belief and those which can and should be discarded as irrelevant or even harmful...

...It is "what is handed on to us," as Paul said in telling his listeners about the Eucharist, and our faith is that the Holy Spirit is part of the process, even part of what happens during the disagreements between Augustine and Pelagius in the West, and the disagreements between those Orthodox monks who believed that monasteries should not own great estates and that heretics should not be persecuted, and those monks who opposed them...

...It's time they asked themselves, he says, to assess their impact on the abortion issue since Roe v. Wade became the law, given the fact that a generation has now grown up with abortion legal...

...Tradition has been abused and is still frequently invoked as a way of ending all thought and discussion...

...As clarified in Committee Report language, under the Durbin amendment a family planning agency would not be in violation of the law if "'non-directive" counseling were given, on referral or request, for any legally available procedure, including abortion...

...But the reaction Representative Durbin got from his colleagues may be instructive...

...not an orthodoxy which relies upon official pronouncements, which at best are reinforcements of something generally understood and should never be considered the source of truth...

...and corruption of those who were officially Christian) were persecuted in the name of Christ...

...And so, for very different reasons some among the pro-life and prochoice forces found themselves voting the same way...

...That single act is credited with saving the lives of a quarter million children...

...On his own, he drafted an amendment to protect the family planning agencies...

...NANCY AMIDEI (Nancy Amidei frequently reports on human-services issues from Washington...

...For some pro-life groups, support for any form of contraception is anathema, while some of the pro-choice groups are equally adamant about anyone who is against abortion...

...In their reply to the attacks, the Maryland legislators warned: "If you attempt to limit the anti-abortion movement to those who also oppose contraception, then you will only be bringing serious Ill I I Of several minds: John Garvey II I harm to the pro-life cause...

...For two of the Maryland legislature's "most fervent opponents of abortion," support of family planning resulted in attacks from the Family Protection Lobby, which accused them of the "wholesale sellout of our families and children...

...Politically, he says, "we've failed...

...Much later in the process Durbin agreed to drop his language, when Kemp agreed not to attach his original amendment to any other bill...

...It could reveal what is wrong both with fundamentalism and a certain sort of liberal Christianity...

...And at home, 450,000 more women and children have been covered by WIC, the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children, thanks in part to the tenacity of BFW and its members...

...found the notion of gutting family planning too extreme, Kemp-Hatch never came to a vote...

...But it seems to me essential...

...and Senator (h'in Hatch (R.-Utah) threatened virtually all publicly funded family planning activities...

...Paul confronted Peter and called him wrong, and there were many disagreements between saints...

...It has been forced to cut back its staff and to ask friends for more generous assistance...

...Over in the Senate, where even members of the "pro-life caucus" like Williams Proxmire (D.-Wis...

...they haven't...

...This battle, between the "possessors" and the "non-possessors," ended in a short-term .victory for those who favored what most of us would regard as the wrong side, and as a result the church suffered in the next century...

...In 1984, BFW's efforts helped prompt Congress to create a special Child Survival Fund as well, financing $25 million in basic health improvements for infants and children in developing countries...

...Which, at least in part, may be another way of saying, "common ground...

...and Dick Durbin (D.-III...

...Chalk one up for the long haul.., but not before noting some of the important issues raised in the debate, such as the ability of monasteries which Commonweal: 38...

...In 1984-85, for example, BFW led a successful nationwide campaign which culminated in the Africa Relief and Recovery Act, appropriating $800 milliofi for famine relief (enough food aid to feed ten million hungry people nearly a year), funds which last year surpassed all contributions to private relief organizations for African aid...

...The idea that tradition involves something harmonious and complex, something which demands a special attention more than a reaction, is not a recent part of our ordinary way of reading Christian history...

...That proposal energized a large and vocal opposition, but even so, many of those lobbying the issue thought the first vote -- in the House Appropriations Committee -- might go either way...

...and Mark Hatfield (R.-Oreg...

...Committee members, including several that he barely knows, thanked him warmly for taking a stand that had to be taken, while giving them an intellectually defensible alternative to vote for...

...They are part of a growing breed of legislators, nationally and in state legislatures, who are both pro-life and profamily planning...

...Now BFW, in spite of its remarkable achievements and faithfulness, is facing lean times itself...

...Equally willing to urge the other side to get "out of the abortion business," his desire is a simple one: "to get beyond labels, and down to something reasonable...

...pope...

...Many have responded, but the loaves still need multiplying...

...A basic membership in Bread for the World (802 Rhode Island Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C...

...Christian truth is harmonious, and may become clear only over the long haul...

...This absolute wall of separation between family planning and abortion could have paralyzed the family planning services of public health departments and clinics as well as private agencies like Planned Parenthood...

...Durbin took another tack...

...On the other side of the line are "progressive" religious people -- that is to say, churchpeople who take a view of the world which looks very much like the one held by the editorialists who draw the line...

...Politically, however, Durbin has found that "it doesn't buy 31 January 1986:37you much to take a less-than-one-hundred percent stand on this issue...

...ATTENDING TO TRADITION IS EVERYTHING MERELY ACCIDENTAL...

...20018) is $25...

...And there is a danger in easy discarding...

...That it proved to be a major, 37-16, defeat for the eight-term Kemp, is credited to two Catholics with solid prolife voting records who are also strongly pro-family planning: Silvio Conte (R.-Mass...

...R ELIGIOUS TRADITION is controversial these days...

...Durbin makes a similar argument...

...The issue bringing (some might say "forcing") them together is family planning...

...Not long after the national vote, 133 Maryland state legislators on both sides of the abortion debate asked their governor to increase funding for family planning, family support, and adoption services...

...At present, federal regulations prohibit such public funding to be used for abortions, and the regulations allow only "nondirective" counseling or referrals to those seeking abortions...

...To members like Durbin, who are opposed to abortion but troubled by issues like teenage pregnancy, it's fundamentally irresponsible not to recognize the role that family planning can play...

...It also included language from the original Kemp amendment, permitting abortion when the life of the mother was endangered...

...Thus, the Durbin amendment presented an alternative for pro-life members who also support family planning...

...We cannot let our divergent views [on abortion] obscure the other serious health and societal issues affecting young poor women of childbearing age," they said...

...It might begin to refresh our appreciation of orthodoxy...

...In Wisconsin, observers commented on the "unprecedented discovery by pro- and anti-abortion forces of common ground" in their recently passed Abortion Prevention and Family Responsibility Act of 1985...

...Conte made an extremely eloquent and effective speech on behalf of family planning...

...People use words like "'fundamentalist" and "orthodox" interchangeably, though they are far from equivalent, and there is a vague formula in some liberal minds which places on one side of a line (one drawn by editorialists who know almost nothing about religion of any sort) Jerry Falwell, Hindu traditionalism, Islamic fundamentalism, Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Anglo-Catholicism, and the...