Prayers for "choice" from RCRC

After my original post a few days ago, I began further exploaring the RCRC. I stumbled upon these prayers for choice and I thought the pro-life community may find them of interest. I included only the ones dealing directly with abortion, though there are several others dealing with subjects ranging from adoption to imigration. I'm not going to comment on these prayers, but rather post them only to show what the prayers of a "pro-choice Christian" look like. Feel free to comment on your observations. I plan to compile comments from people of faith from either side of the spectrum regarding the abortion debate.


Gracious Provider of Care and Protection, we remember and stand with health care professionals who furnish health care for women. We give thanks for their commitment to protect the privacy of their patients and to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve.

We give thanks especially for the doctors and nurses and other health care workers who serve the reproductive health care needs of women. Who train women to use contraception safely and responsibly, who educate teenagers about intercourse and its consequences, who counsel women at risk to conceive children with genetic and hereditary problems, who explore options with women who have problem pregnancies, who refer women to responsible adoption agencies, who support women through abortion services, who recognize the rights of women to make reproductive choices.

We pray for an end to the rhetoric and violent acts that target health care providers, and pray for the day when health care providers, women and their families, can exercise their rights to reproductive choice in security and peace. Let us pause now for a moment of silence to remember all who have lost their lives, and for those who have been injured in attacks all across our country

(Silence)

Help us, Gracious God, to stand together with these courageous and caring people who continue to do your holy work.

Amen.

Creator God, we pray for men; those whom you have created to share in the conception of life, and share in the responsibility of raising children.

We ask that you would help them be all that you have created them to be. Help them to see themselves as whole persons, so that they can help their partners and their children be themselves as well. Help them to be present to their families if they've been too long absent. Help them to speak out against injustice where they've been silent; help them to be understanding and supportive of the pro-choice decisions of their sisters, mothers, wives, and female friends.

But most of all God, give them the love and tenderness they need to be loving and faithful partners. May they welcome the opportunity to be supportive of the children they help bring into this world. Give them courage and strength to live according to your guidance and wisdom always.

Amen.



We pray for women who know that life is beginning within them, who face the agony of wondering what to do when they do not know if they can cope.

Some of them are women we know already. Some are women we have yet to meet. Some are in our own places of worship. Some are in our families, workplace, neighborhoods, and other places of worship.

The reasons for their dilemmas are as varied as the women themselves. None of us can actually walk in their shoes, nor can we know all the background and circumstances involved. Each will struggle with how best to decide what to do when no remaining choice will be a good one.

Help them, Gracious God, to find wise counsel, if they choose to seek it; understanding friends if they choose to tell their story; caring clergy if they want to explore the morality of their choices.

But most of all, give them strength to meet what they must face.

Amen.

God of our lives, help us to find ways to break the silence that perpetuates the cycles of sexual abuse and violence in our families and in our communities and religious institutions. Help us break that silence when we see the evidence of the abuse of the beautiful gift of sexuality you have given us. Help us break that silence when we see this abuse throughout the world—forced sterilizations and forced abortions.

Give us the courage to speak out and break the silence that surrounds the abuse of your gift of sexuality in the name of culture—genital mutilation, rape and incest.

Help us find the voice of our outrage and denounce the violence against women and girls in the name of war and ethnic cleansing.

God, we know that you do not want us to misuse this beautiful gift of sexuality you have given us. Let us be loving and faithful to one another. We know that you would have us speak the truth to ourselves and to one another. Let us speak that truth lovingly and faithfully so that the secrets will no longer have power over generation after generation.

But most of all, God, let us be loving and faithful and supportive of the children we bring into this world.

Amen.