RCRC Publications

Resources that may be of particular interest to Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom (SYRF) participants appear in bold. Feel free to read and/or download any resources you think look interesting and useful, and be on the lookout for new ones! We are in the process of adding new and updated resources so check back soon..

SYRF would love to send you printed versions of any of the following resources for you to distribute in your community at our expenses. If you are interested in receiving materials from SYRF please e-mail us at info@syrf.org and indicate which publications you would like and how many you think you will need. Don’t forget to include your mailing address! SYRF is also happy to send various promotional materials, such as pens, buttons, and stickers, based on availability.

Speak Outs – Issue Briefings

• Barriers to Abortion Are Barriers to Justice for Women
  • Barriers to abortion force women to make this most personal decision according to beliefs they may not hold.
• Believe It: Religious Americans Are Pro-Choice
  • This one page overview of religious support for choice in the United States is a great addition to a letter to your representative or local newspaper editor.
• Broken Treaties, Empty Promises
  • An introduction to Native American women's reproductive health issues.
• Called to Compassion: Religions Active in HIV/AIDS Education and Care
  • Mainstream religions respond to HIV/AIDS with care and compassion. ]
• Emergency Contraception: A Sound Moral Choice
  • Most faith groups consider using birth control and bringing children into the world with planning and preparation to be morally responsible.
• Family Planning: A Moral Good, A Human Right
  • Family planning is embraced by religions across the spectrum as a moral good, responsible
• For Justice and Dignity, End the Hyde Amendment
  • For thirty years, lack of Medicaid funding for abortion has discriminated against poor women
• Global Gag Rule Puts Women's Lives at Risk
  • Religions support aid for family planning.
• Hospital Mergers: The Hidden Crisis
  • The merger of religious and community hospitals has created a hidden crisis in reproductive health care.
• It's Time to Correct Coercive Welfare Policies
  • Congress must correct coercive policies that promote marriage as a "cure for poverty."
• Just Say Know!
  • Abstinence only education deprives young people of accurate information, choice, and a basic human right.
• Religious Support for Sexuality Education
  • Major faith traditions representing millions of Americans support comprehensive sexuality education. In keeping with our nation’s constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, they oppose civil laws that would impose specific religious views about sexuality education on all Americans.
• The Role of Religious Congregations in Fostering Adolescent Sexual Health
  • A sexuality education leader details how communities of faith can help guide adolescents into a sexually healthy adulthood.
• We Affirm
  • National Religious Organizations' Statements on Reproductive Choice
• We Remember
  • This strong statement affirming the necessity of reproductive freedom is signed by African American women who are leaders in churches, the political arena, and the reproductive choice movement.

Other publications

• Between a Woman and Her God" Clergy and Women Tell Their Stories."
  • A booklet of inspiring accounts demonstrating why reproductive choice must remain legal.
• Words of Choice: Countering Anti-Choice Rhetoric
  • A 24-page glossary debunking politically motivated terms such as "unborn life" and "pro-abortion."
• Hannah" by Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale

Educational Series – Theological Papers

Abortion: A Christian Ethical Perspective
by Dr. John M. Swomley
Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines differ in, among other things, the degree to which they are legalistic. The Catholic Church would have us obey the rules formulated by the Vatican, but Protestants believe that we are free by grace and justified by faith. The phrase "the sacredness of life" means one thing to Catholic bishops-that the life of the fetus is all-important-but to most people of other Christian denominations it means that there is a presumptive right to life that is not absolute but is conditioned by the claims of others. For us the right to life and the sacredness of life mean that there should be no absolute or unbreakable rules that take precedence over the lives of existing human persons.

Abortion: Perspectives from Jewish Traditions by Rabbi Raymond A. Zwerin and Rabbi Richard J. Shapiro
Whatever their opinions on abortion in any given situation, a vast majority of Jewish thinkers agree that decision-making with respect to abortion must be left in the hands of the woman involved, who may consult her husband, her physician, and her rabbi.

Considering Abortion? Clarifying What You Believe
by The Rev. George Luthringer
My church begins its public statements on the choices you face with the simple pronouncement that "all human life is sacred." In doing so it hopes, I think, to promote respect for the newly conceived lives within pregnant women. But those words in fact proclaim something much more important-the sacredness of the lives of women, of your life.

The Continuum of Choice in Sanatana Dharma
by Swami Abhipadananda and Swami Jyotir Vakyananda
Two practitioners of Kriya Yoga elucidate the meanings of reproductive choice in the Sanatana Dharma tradition, as Hinduism was originally known. The tradition holds that life is without beginning or end. Consequently life does not begin at conception or end with the death of the body. In the oldest texts of Hindu philosophy, the Vedas , this cycle is called re-death, emphasizing the idea that human beings acquire experiences through living and then die in order to manifest a new body more suited to the fulfillment of their new dreams and desires.

Freedom, Responsibility, and Reproductive Choice: A Pagan View
by Judy Harrow, M.S.
The only law that truly binds Pagans is the law that binds all, the adamantine law of cause and effect, which condones nothing and condemns nothing. This is "law" in the same sense as the law of gravity: descriptive rather than prescriptive. Descriptive law cannot be circumvented or evaded, because what it describes is real-impartial and implacable as Nature herself. Every action we take necessarily affects the whole system.

From Infertility to Spiritual Abundance
by Reverend Dr. Linda Mercadante
Infertility, while not sent of chosen by God, can nevertheless become something that divine creativity can use for good. There is a way that infertility can open us up to a more radical hospitality than we have ever known. It helps to realize that biological reproduction does not hold supreme value in the Bible. Instead, we are called to a deeper and wider bond.

How Good Women Make Wise Choices by Rev. Nancy Rockwell
Praise for the goodness of women who wisely manage their situation pervades the Bible. It is present in the widow who saves the prophet Elijah from starvation and shelters him in her house. We find it in Miriam, Moses' sister, who was a leader among women (Exod.15:20-21). Rebekah, who schemed for her son Jacob's survival, was a wise woman (Gen. 27). So were Deborah, a judge who saved the nation by arranging the murder of an enemy leader (Judg. 4), and Abigail, the wife of a drunkard, who saved her household by skilled diplomacy with David's guerrilla army (1 Sam. 25). None of the choices made long ago by those biblical women were easy. Their moral and their sexual decisions were not clearly right or wrong, but they are remembered in the religious record as women who wisely handled difficult situations.

Human Stem Cells: Research and Respect
by Betty B. Hoskins, Ph.D.
The question of human embryo research is often presented as an "either/or" dilemma-either human tissue in any form or stage of development is sacred and therefore cannot be destroyed for any purpose; or the potential for life-saving cures overrides all other ethical considerations. The author, a professor of biology, suggests that embryos from which we derive human stem cells are both worthy of respect AND can be useful tools toward potential cures for serious human diseases. She offers a framework for people of faith to understand these seeming contradictions.

Is the Fetus a Person? The Bible's View
by Dr. Roy Bowen Ward
In the media as well as in countless churches, Americans are being told that the Bible condemns abortion. This invocation of the Bible tends to simplify a very complex issue. Before embarking on a crusade under the banner of God's will according to the Bible, one ought to know just what the Bible does and does not say about God's will in the matter. One thing the Bible does not say is, "Thou shalt not abort."

Islamic Tradition and Reproductive Choice
by Khaleel Mohammed, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, San Diego State University
One of the main considerations in the Islamic discourse on abortion has to do with the concept of ensoulment. Strangely, the Qur'an has no concept of the neo-Platonic soul-body dualism that has come to be almost unanimously accepted as the Islamic weltanschaaung.

The Really Good News: What the Bible Says About Sex
by The Reverend Debra W. Haffner, MPH, M.Div.
Both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament directly address sexuality issues and send messages that are quite different from what most people are taught in their religious groups and denominations. In fact, many of the stories and many of the laws contain information to help people understand the important role that sexuality plays in their lives. By studying the Bible, readers can see how the people who created scripture understood sexuality. And, in the process, they can also gain personal insights into the Bible's ability to speak to all of us today on these moral issues.

Religious Liberty: A Heritage at Stake
by Dr. Paul D. Simmons
Americans take justifiable pride in celebrating the religious liberties assured by the First Amendment. Such freedoms should not be taken for granted. They were a long time in being fashioned but are under constant assault from ideological opponents and opportunists.

Respecting the Moral Agency of Women
by Dr. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
According to Scripture, God knew that Adam and Eve would misuse their power to choose. Yet God chose to give them that power, creating them "sufficient to have stood, though free to fall." We human beings should follow our Creator's example by giving one another moral elbow room.

Personhood, The Bible, and The Abortion Debate
by Dr. Paul Simmons
Efforts to ban abortion in America have been given considerable momentum by the powerful alliance of militant fundamentalists and conservative political groups. Abortion is obviously only one among many items on their social agenda, but it is the one that is pursued with the greatest zeal. Of particular theological interest is their claim that the Bible is the source of authority and guidance behind the effort to outlaw abortion.

Sexuality as a Locus of Spirituality
by Kee Boem So
Christian understanding of sexuality has a long history. Based on a deep spirit-body dualism, Christianity identified human sexuality with sin. This association of sexuality with sin became an oppressive tool and was also a rationale for condemning those outside the heterosexual norm. This paper deals with this issue and at the same time constructs a healthy view of human sexuality in relationship to spirituality.


RCRC Research Reports

Law, Religion, and Fetal Personhood
by Professor Jean Schroedel, Associate Dean, School of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University. The question of when a fetus is endowed with “personhood” is fundamentally religious and theological. This paper explores the legal basis of fetal personhood and how recent laws may affect access to abortion.

In Good Conscience
Guidelines for the Ethical Provision of Health Care in a Pluralistic Society

The Medical Right: Remaking Medicine in their Image
The smallest possible handful of extremist medical organizations is tenaciously attempting to deny reproductive rights based on radical medical opinion. These “medical” organizations want to determine your healthcare rights, based on their interpretation of scripture. We call this group the “Medical Right” and their aggressive anti-choice campaign is dangerous and fanatical.