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Church prayer chain item:

Also, please remember to pray for the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church as it meets in Sioux Center, Iowa. The synod is considering important statements on biological technology as it affects human life. They also have some difficult pastoral and church discipline issues to contend with. If you would like to get an update on the doings of synod, you can go to the denomiational website at www.crcna.org and go to the links on synod.

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Synod Affirms Life, Questions Status of Frozen Embryos


Sioux Center, Iowa— In a long, impassioned debate about conception and abortion, synod today affirmed life, but refused to say that the destruction of frozen human embryos is murder.

Despite concerns expressed by many delegates, synod passed most of the study report on Life Issues raised by Bioscience and Genetic Engineering, reaffirming many of the decisions made about bioscience and life in a report from Synod 1972.

Some delegates said the report is too narrow in its definition of when life begins and contains language that may be too judgmental of those who use invitro fertilization or who endorse abortion for any reason outside of risk to the life of the mother.

The advisory committee reporting on the synodical study wrote that the report "offers Reformed ethical precepts to equip us to think biblically, ethically, and pastorally about these important life issues."

Synod disagreed with the report's conclusion that all human embryos must be "given an opportunity to implant and develop into a child." George Vander Weit of Classis Grand Rapids East told delegates of a couple that buried three children, all from a genetic disease. "According to this report, I, as their pastor, need to tell them that the remaining, frozen embryos, all with the same genetic disease, must be implanted and brought to term. Then watch that couple walk to the cemetery again and again until all the embryos are used up."

Rev. Bruce Persenaire from Classis Central California, reporter for the majority report, referred to a fertilized egg in a Petri dish: "What is it before implantation in the womb? It's not a cow. It's not dead. It's human life."

Rev. John Keizer, delegate from Classis Hudson, spoke for many delegates when he said, "life begins at conception, but the difference is where conception takes place. When in a human being, it can grow and become what it is intended to be. But outside of the womb, that does not automatically make it the same. There's an obvious difference and we need to take the difference into account."

In case of rape, the report says a woman is "not necessarily morally culpable" if she takes a 'morning after pill.' It says in that circumstance, the focus of ministry should be the compassionate care of the woman.

Birth Control: Private Disputable Matter
In a related matter, synod declared that birth control is a private, disputable matter, contrary to a denominational stance taken in 1936. While the 1936 report conceded that birth control is "a personal matter, which husband and wife must settle in the presence of their God," it also stated that it is the "duty as well as the privilege of normally endowed married people to produce as large a number of children as is compatible with the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the wife and mother on the one hand, and of the children on the other."

Today's decision urges married couples to "prayerfully before God consider the size of their families."



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Copyright © 2003, Christian Reformed Church in North America.

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http://www.crcna.org/crnw/crnw_synod03_061903_2.htm