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Book

To offer compassion : a history of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

Call Number

  • 261.83219 D599 (CEN)

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Publication Information

Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2017]

Physical Description

xii, 226 pages ; 24 cm

Summary

In 1967, when abortion was either illegal or highly restricted in every U.S. state, a group of ministers and rabbis formed to counsel women with unwanted pregnancies -- including referral to licensed physicians willing to perform the procedure. By 1973, when the Roe v. Wade court decision made abortion legal nationwide, the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS) had spread from coast to coast, referred hundreds of thousands of women for safe abortions without a single fatality, become a medical consumer advocacy group, and opened its own clinic in New York City. As religious leaders spoke out on issues of civil rights, peace, or poverty, CCS members were also called to action by the suffering of women who had approached them for help. Overwhelmingly male, white, affluent, and middle-aged, these mainline Protestant and Jewish clergy were nonetheless outspoken advocates for the rights of women, particularly poor women. To Offer Compassion is a detailed history of this unique and largely forgotten movement, drawing on extensive interviews with original participants and on primary documents from the CCS's operations.

Contents

  • How can it not be legal?
  • The push for change
  • To offer compassion
  • The network grows
  • The women
  • Brushes with the law
  • A different kind of radical group
  • Available and affordable
  • Roe v. Wade and beyond
  • Appendix A: Clergy statement on abortion law reform and Consultation Service on Abortion, spring 1967
  • Appendix B: Questionnaire completed by Chicago CCS counselors for each counselee, February 1970
  • Appendix C: Referral guidelines for Clergy Consultation Service chapters
  • Appendix D: Statistics sampling of 6,455 women seen by New York Clergy Consultation Service.

Subjects

Added Authors

Patricia Relf