ABORTION

My best UMW Friend and I agree to diasgree on the issue of Abortion Rights. Both of us feel very passionately about what we believe to be the "right" thing. While both of us know that abortion is legal, one of us feels that it is a fundamental right of a woman to choose what happens to her own body. That no government should force a woman to carry and birth a child that she does not want. The other friend believes that abortion is fundamentally wrong. She feels that no "person" should be aborted, for whatever reason.
We know that we are never going to agree on this issue. We discuss the issue. We argue, but, we remain friends.
Recently, I had to deal with a woman who had told her Unit that she had read that United Methodist Women funded abortions. I don't know what group is spreading this kind of misinformation, but I can make an intelligent guess.
United Methodist Women DO NOT fund abortions. United Methodist Women follow the Discipline in all matters pertaining to the Social Issues of the UMC. UMW, however, does belong, through the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church, to the Coalition for Reproduction Choice. This is not a group that funds abortions. This is an education group, dealing with information ONLY. This group has never told a United Methodisst Woman to have an abortion.
Neither my good friend nor I have any intention of leaving United Methodist Women over this issue. We feel fortunate to belong to an thinking woman's organization and to a thinking person's denomination. We have room to disagree.