Clergy and Abortions

The minister glanced at the car that had pulled up in front of his Detroit office and wondered whether, in police parlance, he had been "set up." As one of the 75 members of Michigan Clergy for Problem Pregnancy Counseling, he had been called earlier by a man who urgently wanted an appointment. But the car outside carried the "EU 1" license-tag prefix that, the minister knew from his work around the city, is allotted to the Detroit police department. Was this a raid by policemen seeking to smash an "abortion ring"?

Not quite, relates the Rev. Carl Bielby, director of social services for the Detroit Council of Churches, who organized the counseling service 20 months ago. The driver of the car was indeed a police officer. But he was bringing his own unmarried, pregnant daughter for counseling. The minister sat down with the two and outlined the procedure for going outside Michigan for an abortion that would have been impossible at home.

Prosperous Clientele. The Michigan service is similar to one originated in 1967 by the Rev. Howard R. Moody of New York's Judson Memorial Church that has been copied--with modifications--by more than 100 community or state groups. Wherever new units are formed, the response is surprisingly strong. Four months ago, the Michigan ministers installed a telephone-answering service that was publicized in newspapers and through the highly efficient grapevine that connects women who have or have had unwanted pregnancies.

The service has since received 1,100 inquiries, and ministers have met with 500 women for serious counseling. Most of them seek abortions. The majority by a narrow margin--55% to 45% --are single. About 65% are between 19 years and 30; 14% are 18 or younger. The latter group must bring parents. Explains Bielby: "A girl in that situation at that age ought to have the help of her family."

The high cost of abortions--from $500 up--has limited the clientele of the counseling service; most callers are relatively prosperous suburban whites. Prospective clients who dial the M.C.P.P.C.'s Detroit number--964-0838--hear a recorded female voice that gives names and telephone numbers of participating ministers. The roster, whose members represent almost all Protestant denominations, changes regularly. Each woman caller is told to bring a doctor's certificate indicating a positive pregnancy and the date of conception. During the counseling session, however, she has to undergo neither sermonizing nor inquiries into her sexual conduct.

Instead the counselor reviews five alternatives that undoubtedly she has pondered herself--marriage, offering the child for adoption, keeping the baby, abortion and suicide--and checks her moral reaction to each alternative. Admits Bielby: "By the time a woman has decided to call us, her mind is pretty well made up that an abortion is what she wants. What we do is try to make her aware of her feelings and moral convictions. This is a moral decision, not a medical one."

The medical decision, however, quickly follows. Michigan's only ground for therapeutic abortion is saving the life of the mother. As a result, most women must leave the state. Usually they are advised to go to nearby Cleveland or to Chicago, where abortions are still illegal but can be performed safely and discreetly--and sometimes they travel as far as London.* The Michigan ministers refer them to doctors on a list that has been checked out by Bielby himself or by a cooperating physician. "In this way," says Bielby, "we're not recommending people to quacks or butchers in the back rooms of drugstores."

The Michigan clergy operates with what Bielby calls the "silent acceptance" of the state. When their service was being organized, a committee met quietly with state officials and agreed to the ground rules. Although a minister who suggested abortion could possibly be accused of criminal conspiracy, he can presume that he is relatively safe from prosecution unless a complaint is lodged against him by one of the women he has counseled. Bielby makes certain that ministers agree to a stringent code that makes the final decision the woman's rather than the minister's. "Our real hope," says Bielby, "is that the abortion laws in the state will be changed so that this kind of service will no longer be necessary."

* Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and most recently, Delaware have adopted liberalized abortion laws. But generally hospitals refuse out-of-state patients to avoid becoming abortion meccas for the U.S.

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