Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options

Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO) is one of the ten networks of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA). PHEWA was created by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1956.

Personnel

• Colleen Bowers
• Dr. Gloria Albrecht, PARO leadership team
• Duane Sweep, writer
• Danny Bolin, photographer

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options is a member organization of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Events

2004 March for Women's Lives

Members of PARO at the 2004 March for Women's Lives

On April 25, 2004, Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options was represented at the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C.

July 2010 Luncheon

Leroy Carhart addresses Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options

On July 5, 2010, during the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly, Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options held a luncheon. Leroy Carhart, member of the board of directors of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice was keynote speaker at the luncheon. Carhart is a late-term abortionist who works at Germantown Reproductive Health Services in Germantown, Maryland. Below is a selection the comments he made at the event:

"We need an army to destroy the American Taliban! Before Roe [v. Wade] - women died in the streets every day!"

"I know I’m a cynic, but I firmly believe [the Pro-Life Movement's] final goal is to take away a woman’s right to vote. It’s really about control of women.”

"We need to wake up our senators to the fact that the people of America are pro-choice... [Only] seventeen percent of Americans are anti-choice, as we know."

"Over the last twenty years, hundreds of thousands of abortions have been prevented by better birth control... We’re really trying to make abortion not needed."

"“We’re trying to prevent the need for abortion, but that’s utopia.”

"Most women that have abortions are emotionally recovered by the time they leave the clinic."

Statement on Death of George Tiller

The Leadership Team of Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options released a statement on the death of George Tiller. It reads in part,

"For almost two decades, Dr. Tiller and those individuals who helped provide care to his patients have lived under intense harassment tinged with persistent threats of violence. Even under these adverse circumstances, Dr. Tiller never wavered in his commitment to providing abortion services and other reproductive health care to women and their families, often in the most difficult and heartbreaking circumstances...

...Dr. Tiller, being a man of deep faith, reflected in his life such grace with his patients. He cared deeply for and about women, and had a very real grasp of and compassion for the realities of women's lives and the struggles they faced.

Many of us knew that a sign at Dr Tiller's clinic read: "Abortion is not a cerebral or a reproductive issue. Abortion is an issue of the heart. Until one understands the heart of a woman, nothing else about abortion makes any sense at all." With thanksgiving, we celebrate the life of Dr. Tiller and his commitment to the heart of a woman."