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*From The Indianapolis Star

Faith, family, choice
Dan Carpenter
March 12, 2006

It is astounding to Kaye McSpadden that so many Hoosiers believe a person cannot be religious and support a woman's right to end her pregnancy.

Knowing better, the Lafayette resident sought out a national organization called the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice for help in fighting what she saw as the politicization of individual moral choices.

The coalition had chapters in every state bordering Indiana back in 2004. But not in Indiana. So McSpadden and a handful of fellow believers started one. She remains president of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Experience recommended her. Therein lies a story.

Kaye and Bruce McSpadden have reared three children -- Nadine, 29; Sally, 25, and Leland, who died in 2000 at age 22.

Leland was born with Lowe Syndrome, a rare chromosomal abnormality that brings a plague of suffering, including blindness and mental retardation.

When he was 2 years old, his parents went in search of a support group. There was none. They started one.

In 25 years of work with the Lowe Syndrome Association, Kaye McSpadden has learned something about abortion. She has learned that the politicians really don't know.

"Having had a child with a rare and devastating genetic disorder, and having met many, many families who have faced very difficult decisions in family planning, I know these are all different decisions. Some decide they will never have another child. Some choose adoption. Some may have several abortions until they have a healthy child. It has always been stressed that families support each other.

"We realize it is impossible to walk in another couple's shoes. We understand how complicated, how difficult, and how private this is."

Because the Indiana General Assembly can't let religion be private, the coalition has found itself lobbying against arbitrary impediments to abortion.

As Rabbi Dennis Sasso of Congregation Beth-el Zedeck told the Senate Health Committee in rare testimony by a faith-based proponent of choice, current proposals declaring that life begins at conception and fetuses feel pain do not conform with Jewish tradition -- or with all Christian teachings -- and have no basis in science. If passed, the measures could impose an official religion on doctors.

He joined the coalition, Sasso said in an interview, out of a need to combat the "false dichotomy" of pro-life religionism. "The people who are the most vociferous are also against sex education and indifferent to all issues that would truly create a culture of life."

Many faiths and many clergy, including Jewish, Baptist and Episcopalian, are active in the coalition. Kaye McSpadden, 55, is a Unitarian and the daughter of a United Methodist minister in Kentucky who has championed women's right to choose since long before Roe vs. Wade.

Her organization wants to stop abortion by stopping unwanted pregnancies. Besides promoting comprehensive sex education in the schools, where Indiana ranks near the bottom of the nation, the coalition is training clergy to do "all-options" counseling for women.

Much more is hoped for within the fledgling fellowship. Right now, the president says, it lives as an affirmation.

"We have people now speaking out, 'I am a person of faith and I am pro-choice.' We have people contacting their legislators for the first time. I hope they're paying attention."