To Offer Compassion: A History of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

By Patricia A Relf and Doris Andrea Dirks

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0299311341
• ISBN13: 9780299311346
• Release Date: July 2019
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Am Important American History of Heroic Compassion

"To Offer Compassion" describes how clergymen and their wives throughout the United States stepped forward in the late 1960s to help women when abortion was illegal everywhere in America. They ignored personal danger and legal jeopardy to do the right thing, with the support and protection of their communities. I worked with Rev Howard Moody in New York and Marilou Theunissen in Pennsylvania and their legacy of courage and compassion can be seen today in the church sanctuary movement to protect immigrant refugees. I also believe their movement encouraged more women to become ordained as ministers.