At its Annual Conference the Methodist Church of Great Britain voted in favour of a new briefing to clarify its position regarding abortion.
This decision comes barely a week after the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published their latest findings in that fetuses in the womb cannot feel pain before 24 weeks, thus ensuring it is unnecessary to decrease the time limit for abortions.
The updated briefing, to be created by the Methodist Joint Public Issues Team will attempt to explain the Methodist position on abortion “in modern language” and “place this in the context of modern law and science.”
The new briefing is not intended to change the church’s official position on abortion but instead to keep the complexity of this issue under constant evaluation and to assist churches in their own thinking.
Thus, the British Methodist Church’s original 1976 statement on abortion will remain unchanged. This statement rejected calls for abortion on demand and stated that abortion should not occur after the life is viable outside of the womb. A report in 2008 expanded the Methodist Church’s official position on abortion to include mention of the fact that fetuses are created in the image of God.
Ruth Gee, chair of the Abortion Statement Working Group, stated that the updated briefing would attempt to make the church’s position on abortion “more accessible and useful” to churches as they seek to thoughtfully react to medical, scientific and technological developments.
Conference representative, the Rev. Martin H. Turner, said a briefing would allow new research on fetal pain as well as recent findings on the mental health implications of abortion to be taken into consideration.
The decision to draw up the briefing also received the strong support of Methodist youths.
Simon Pillinger, of the Methodist Youth Assembly said: “There is an increasing rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion [and] as medical technology advances the time life is viable comes closer and closer to conception. I would implore Conference to re-evaluate this situation – issues like this plague young people.”
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