Abortion

ELCA Church Council Action CC95.11.79

Passed by the 1995 ELCA Church Council.

Resolved
To express gratitude to the members of the Work Group on Abortion and the Medical Plan for their study of proposed amendments in relation to the content of the 1991 "Social Statement on Abortion" of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America;

To receive with concurrence the recommendation of the work group, acknowledging especially that abortion ought to be an option only of last resort because of the basic moral presumption of preserving and protecting life, and underscoring the complex difficulties involved in moral decision-making; and

To request the Division for Church in Society to include concerns related to abortion in the proposed volume on ethics and companion document for congregational study as part of an educational process to assist ELCA medical plan members and all members of this church in moral deliberation on such concerns.