June 2019
Our Unitarian Universalist living tradition is built on a foundation of principles that affirm and promote dignity, justice, fairness, and the right of conscience, among other values.
This means that everyone has an inalienable right of individual conscience in making the choices that affect their lives. Each person has the right to make their own moral decisions regarding their bodies, their reproductive choices, and their own lives.
These principles are not only embodied within our faith, they are embedded in our federal and state constitutions.
The freedom of conscience guaranteed by our Constitution is a shield against religious laws being imposed on free citizens. It is not a sword with which those in power may impose religious laws that are repugnant to the conscience of free thinkers.
It was in furtherance of such freedoms that the Bill of Rights to our Constitution was conceived and written over 200 years ago. Now, reactionary conservative legislators across the country are indeed working to use their beliefs as a sword.
They seek to impose their inflexible beliefs, religious and paternalistic, in violation of the very freedoms which our nation has claimed as its birthright from the beginning. If they succeed, freedom of conscience with respect to reproductive health decisions will have been cut to pieces. And, there is no telling where the attacks on personal liberty and freedom will go from there.
Moral decision-making regarding pregnancy and abortion must be guided by individual conscience, not prescribed by state law, federal regulation, or any other person’s religious beliefs.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Buddhist and people of other faiths, all agreeing that no one set of religious beliefs should be imposed on all people. The movements from current legislators to deny women their birthright of full reproductive decision-making is biased toward a minority, conservative, Christian understanding that is based on questionable, patriarchal, motives and beliefs.
We are concerned that these recent attempts to limit access to abortion will disproportionately affect women of color, who are impacted by a centuries-long legacy of racist reproductive healthcare practices that persists today. This legacy manifests in unequal access to quality healthcare.
Accordingly, the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation condemns the recent attempts to:
- deny individual right of conscience;
- limit access to full reproductive health care for all;
- legislate morality; and
- elevate one religious sector’s point of view over others.
The Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation also affirms the right of each individual to make decisions about their health, their family, and their life with dignity and equality, free from governmental restrictions or interference.