Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
EILEEN SCHULTEBay area residents will join hundreds of thousands of other women in Washington, D.C., to support abortion.
At 44, Becky DeLay has never marched on the National Mall.
She and her husband of 19 years, Bob, a retired Marine, live a quiet life in a cozy house with blue shutters on a Palm Harbor street called Honeybear Court.
Most days, she watches the construction of her pool deck and goes to classes at the University of South Florida. She attends worship services regularly at Faith United Church of Christ in Clearwater.
But this Sunday morning, instead of listening to her pastor's sermon, she will leave her hotel room at the Ritz and march with hundreds of thousands of other women down Pennsylvania Avenue in support of abortion rights.
"I firmly believe in the gift of free will God gave us," said DeLay, who said she has never had an abortion. "The Christian Coalition doesn't speak for all (Christians). We are beginning to recognize churches can have a huge impact on social justice."
As many as a million people of all faiths and religions - including many from the Tampa Bay area - are expected to descend on the Capitol this weekend for the March for Women's Lives. They plan to voice their disapproval of recent measures limiting reproductive rights, including the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Although the march is not religion-based, many of the attendees are people of faith. Some are Christians who are angry that abortion rights opponents such as Operation Rescue appear to speak for all people of faith.
"I resent it," said Alex Sink of Hillsborough County, a Presbyterian and the wife of former gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride, who will march Sunday with her 15-year-old daughter, Lexi. "They are extremists. To hide behind some religion is wrong. I resent that they may question the faith of some women who just believe government should stay out of reproductive issues."
According to the National Abortion Federation, an abortion rights advocacy group, 1.3-million abortions take place every year. The women who get them come from every religious affiliation, including 13 percent who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, and 27 percent who are Catholic.
"There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about abortion," said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, based in Washington, D.C. The organization plans to have about 10,000 supporters at the march.
"Jesus never spoke about abortion," Kissling said. "He was silent on the subject. And there has always been abortion."
To those who say the Fifth Commandment states Thou Shalt Not Kill, Kissling said she doesn't believe the commandment is unequivocal.
"If we as Catholics believe in the Fifth Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill, absolutely everybody would be a vegetarian and a pacifist," she said.
The issue has spilled over from the personal to the political.
As women gathered Friday in Washington, D.C., Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic, addressed the group, saying that if he is elected, he will protect the right to choose.
His remarks came on the heels of a speech by Cardinal Francis Arinze at the Vatican saying priests should not offer Communion to politicians who support a woman's right to choose.
For supporters who can't make the Washington rally, a rally will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Bayfront Park in Sarasota.
Julia Aires, a Quaker and a member of the Green Party, a sponsor of the Sarasota rally, will be there.
"If you believe in the Bible, you must believe in pro-choice," she said. "God gave Adam and Eve a choice between good and evil in the garden. They chose evil and were cast out. But he gave them that choice."
Opponents of abortion rights are expected to counter the march with their own protest.
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said marchers "are going to walk through an ocean of pro-life signs" Sunday.
"This is a death march," he said in a phone interview Thursday. "Life begins at conception. It's not a carrot or a frog (in the womb). It's a human being. And being human is enough to have the protection of the law."
Jennifer Packing-Ebuen, a Methodist and research coordinator for Planned Parenthood who lives in Tampa, is ready to face the opponents.
"The autonomous being is the woman. She is made in God's image and deserves respect (and the right) to make autonomous decisions," said Packing-Ebuen.
Florence Minkow, a nurse practitioner for Planned Parenthood in Tampa and president of the National Council of Jewish Women, is meeting her young niece, who is flying to Washington from Alaska to march.
"From the Jewish philosophy, life begins at birth," she said.