Liberal Christian Denomination Slams Dobbs Ruling

The United Church of Christ, a liberal mainline Christian denomination, recently condemned the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.

The measure, which particularly takes shots at Justice Clarence Thomas, passed earlier this month at their 34th General Synod with 611 delegates voting in favor, 24 against, and 13 abstaining.

Included in its contents were pledges from the denomination to financially support abortion access, references to women as “pregnant people,” and fixing supposed “unequal access” to the procedure for minorities.

The resolution additionally calls for peaceful resistance against pro-life legislation and for the board to provide “out-of-pocket costs and travel costs” for individuals seeking abortion procedures out of state.

Rev. Dakota Roberts, associate pastor at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Carmel, Indiana, said in a press release that they are “a denomination founded on the principles of covenant and autonomy.”

“As sanctuary churches house refugees and immigrants from deportation, so now, too, the United Church of Christ encourages churches to love, support, and exist as a sanctuary for individuals seeking access to safe abortions,” Roberts said.

Thomas was singled out in the measure, as well. It claimed his “concurring opinion in Dobbs threatens constitutional protection for access to contraception, as well as protection for same-sex sexual relations and marriage.”

The UCC was founded in 1957 by a group of Reformed and Evangelical churches organized under congregational government. In the years since, the denomination has drifted left on a number of different social issues.

In 2005, the denomination became the first major Christian deliberative body in the United States to endorse “equal marriage rights for all people, regardless of gender.”

Many other mainline Protestant groups have followed suit in subsequent years.