On abortion issue and Roe, beliefs of LI Christians mirror U.S.

Frank Russo carries a model of an 11-week-old fetus with him that he sometimes pulls out when he gets into a discussion about abortion.

“It shocks people when they see it,” said Russo, a lifelong Catholic from Port Washington. “They don’t realize in the middle of the third month the baby in the mother’s womb looks so much like a little baby.”

“I’m still shocked that so many people that believe in God and yet are in favor of the right to kill this unborn life,” he said. “It blows my mind.”

Russo is at one end of the spectrum in the abortion debate among Christians on Long Island as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal. A leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito suggesting Roe will be overturned has set off a firestorm.

At the other end of the spectrum is Zuleima Diaz, a Christian from Bay Shore. She thinks overturning Roe would be a major step backward, potentially bringing back the days when women performed abortions with coat hangers in back alleys.

“I think it would definitely be a sad moment in history,” Diaz said. “This is about basic human rights. We can’t let some government or strangers be controlling a decision that should be personal, especially to women.”

She says she understands the argument that a fetus is a living being, but thinks women face difficult choices.

“What if I can’t afford that living human being? I’m going to bring it into the world to suffer?” she said. “What if I am going to be traumatized because of a rape or something like that and I can’t take it? I’m going to be traumatized the rest of my life?”

Christian Long Islanders are as divided on the hot-button abortion issue as most of the country. Although there are people on both extremes — no abortion under any conditions, or the right to abortion under all conditions — there also is nuance.

Catholics favor legal abortion

People who identify as Roman Catholics make up nearly half of Long Island’s population, and Catholics reflect the general trend of all people in the United States — they favor abortion rights, in contrast to the official church stance opposing it, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst at Religion News Service.

“Catholics aren’t that much different than Americans as a whole,” he said. “For the most part they want abortion legal, at least in most cases.”

“The bishops have failed to convince their flock on this issue,” he added.

A Pew Research Center survey found that 56% of Catholics in the United States generally favor legal abortion, while 43% generally oppose abortion.

Mark Hussey, a longtime parishioner and a member of the finance committee at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic Church in Wyandanch, is one of the Catholics who believes in abortion rights.

“I feel my first loyalty is to my nation and my fellow Americans,” as opposed to the church’s stance, he said. “Regardless of what the Vatican says and what the Catholic Church says about when life begins and whether abortion is acceptable or not, my feeling is that it is up to each person to decide.”

“I think Roe v. Wade was the right standard for the country,” he added.

Connell Friel, a Catholic who worships at both St. Patrick’s in Smithtown and Infant Jesus in Port Jefferson, takes the opposite stance.

Roe v. Wade “was a terrible piece of law,” he said. “The Supreme Court 49 years ago made it up out of whole cloth. There is no constitutional right for abortion.”

“Life will be protected and life will be defended again” if the court overturns Roe, he said.

Catholic Church opposes abortion

Bishop John Barres, head of the Catholic Church on Long Island, recently signed on to a letter with other bishops in New York State that noted that since Roe was adopted in 1973 “an estimated 63 million unborn babies across the country have been killed in the womb before they could even draw their first breath of air.”

“Through the years, advocates for legal abortion have skillfully framed the narrative as one of ‘choice,’ and ‘reproductive freedom,’ completely ignoring the biological reality of what abortion is: the intentional killing of an innocent child in the womb,” they wrote.

“The abortion industry has been so successful in its messaging that the right to abortion has become inextricably linked to the notion of women’s rights and equality … Millions of our fellow Americans — even, it must be said, many of our fellow Catholics — have succumbed to this false notion.”

The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island takes a different approach, generally supporting abortion rights, though there may be some dissenters among local Episcopalians, Bishop Lawrence Provenzano said.

While “the idea of ending a potential life is a pretty grave decision for any woman to have to make,” he said in an interview, it “would be a devastating blow if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. It is yet again another assault on women’s rights.”

“We do not agree with using abortion as a form of birth control or the decisions around gender choice or any of those kinds of realities,” Provenzano said. “But it really has to be a woman’s choice. If it were to be overturned we are going to be putting people’s lives at risk” through unsafe illegal abortions.

While most Episcopalians on Long Island probably agree with the church’s official position, Provenzano said, “I suspect there are some pockets that would be adamantly anti-abortion on nonreligious grounds.”

Nuances also exist among people on both sides of the issue. Diaz, for instance, said that while she supports abortion rights, she also believes there should be time limits, such as generally prohibiting abortions after 24 weeks.

And Russo, who opposes abortion, said it could be considered in rare cases where the mother’s life clearly was at risk.

Nuances among Christian women

Some liberal Catholics say they oppose abortion personally or have grave reservations about it, but are reluctant to say so publicly because it would offend colleagues in the social justice movement.

Gloria Schreiber, a Catholic who runs a center in Massapequa that encourages pregnant women to keep their babies, says she has seen firsthand the terrible pain women go through in deciding to have an abortion.

She is glad Roe may be overturned.

“Babies are a gift of life,” she said. “Science has proven that life begins at conception. It is a life, it is a separate set of DNA for the baby, from the mom.”

“When a baby is conceived, is there a right to kill that baby?”

Vanessa Leggard, a Christian and a marketing director from Sag Harbor, says if Roe is overturned it will be “a sad day for women, for families, for just anyone.”

“The simple fact is women should have the right to make the decision regarding their body. Period,” she said. “And it should be no one else’s business.”

Leggard said she believes overturning Roe will be the first step by a conservative Supreme Court majority to take away other rights, including gay people marrying, adopting children, putting their spouses on their insurance policies and not being forced to conceal their sexual orientation in the military.

“Where does it end?” she said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the size of the Catholic population on Long Island.