Religions for Peace-USA Executive Director’s Statement on US Supreme Court Ruling
20220624Statement by Executive Director of Religions for Peace-USA
June 24, 2022
As the Executive Director of Religions for Peace-USA, I am deeply disappointed with the US Supreme Court’s ruling about mandating reproductive decisions for women. This decision will negatively impact all women, especially women of color and those from marginalized communities.
If this ruling stands and US Congress does not enshrine the right to abortion in the law, state legislatures may further penalize women for their reproductive decisions – which are best made by a woman in consultation with her physician, family and friends, in line with her own religious and moral values – and not pre-determined by law. The state should not be mandating how to govern the bodies of women. Such patriarchal systems of governance have no place in modern society.
As a multi-religious society, it is important that no religious tradition impose its moral or ethical values on those of other religious beliefs but are free to practice the values of their own faith without mandating it for others.
Religions for Peace-USA, as the largest and most broadly-based representative multi-religious forum in the United States with participants from about 50 religious communities, calls upon the US Congress to work expeditiously to enshrine in the law the right of a women to make her own reproductive decisions based on medical advice, input from her own family and friends, as well as her religious and moral values.