Religious leaders rally support in Florida
Florida Interfaith Coalition for Reproductive Health and Justice began in 2016
Church leaders in Florida have lobbied lawmakers to protect abortion access when several bills have come up for a vote this year. They also emailed their supporters to rally support for the pro-abortion side. That’s only increased in frequency since they first heard of the proposed ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Since 2016, the Florida Interfaith Coalition for Reproductive Health and Justice has worked with other reproductive rights groups. They have 300 supporters and two Unitarian Universalist Congregations. Katharine Lannamann, its president had been a founding board member of the Connecticut chapter of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, answered some questions that Repro Rights Now sent to her.
“With the intense focus on taking away this critical reproductive health care right, both at the federal level and the state level, I think people of faith, including their churches and synagogues, have a greatly heightened sense of awareness of how dangerous this situation, from a moral and theological perspective as well as from a basic health care perspective,” Lannamann said.
In addition to the Unitarian Universalist members, the other clergy and supporters are Jewish, as well as members of the United Church of Christ, Quaker, Metropolitan Community Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, American Humanist Society, Episcopal, Universal Sufism, and American Baptist Church areas of faith. They don’t have Catholic clergy but do have Catholic supporters.
This year they will visit Tallahassee with Catholics for Choice, the National Council of Jewish Women, Faith in Public Life and Florida RAC (Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism) UU Justice Florida and the Miami Conference of Christians and Jews.
They wrote letters to the editors of various Florida newspapers to speak against forced parenthood. They also created a letter to protest the Trump administration’s ban on the use of fetal tissue to develop COVID vaccines.
The group has also had meetings where they’ve blessed some clinics in southwest and central Florida.
“Religion has caused great harm in the area of reproductive rights,” Lannamann said. “We want to promote healing from a religious perspective and let the health care providers know they are greatly appreciated and supported by communities of faith.”
Other faith-based organizations can reach out to Lannamann by emailing flfaithforchoice@gmail.com and signing their letter of support, which will subscribe them to the group’s email list.