Local Faith Leaders Contemplate Their Roles in a Post-Roe World

In 1970, Eda Lorello sat at a very precarious crossroads.

She was pregnant, with five children already at home. Her fourth pregnancy — her fourth son — was so complicated that her doctor advised her against having any more children. But she wanted a girl, so she became pregnant again and ultimately delivered a healthy daughter.

But when this sixth pregnancy followed — and Lorello’s doctor discovered she was pregnant with twins — he offered a sobering perspective.

“He never used the word ‘abortion,’ but he said, ‘If you go through with this, you’re contributing to your own demise,’” Lorello recalled. “And I had to think about that. I had five kids to be concerned about. With prayer, I went ahead with it.”

Lorello, a devout Catholic and now retired minister, eventually delivered healthy twins, a boy and a girl.

More than 50 years removed from that moment, she often goes back to it when discussing the topic of abortion and reproductive rights, particularly through the lens of her lifelong faith.

If Lorello had opted for an abortion at that time, it would have been illegal — Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a right to abortion, did not become the law of the land until 1973. Then, on June 24, 2022, in a 6-3 decision that sent shock waves throughout the country, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court determined that the U.S. Constitution does not, in actuality, guarantee a right to abortion, upending nearly five decades of precedent and turning regulation of abortion over to individual states.

Access to abortion is now banned or severely restricted in more than half the country, with more than a dozen states enacting trigger laws designed to take effect if Roe were to fall. In Utah alone, the law on abortion changed three times in five days, leaving providers and patients in flux, as lawsuits against abortion bans flooded state courts.

New York State has among the nation’s strongest protections of a woman’s right to an abortion, and in July state legislators approved a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the New York State Constitution, though it will have to be approved a second time, and voters will have the final say.

In the ongoing national debate over recent weeks, new voices have risen from the cacophony of opinionated outcry: clergy.

Since the decision, religious leaders across the country have spoken out on the landmark ruling and, in some instances, actively engaged in both sides of the political and legal tussles that have followed.

Earlier this month, clergy members in Florida from different religions — two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and one Buddhist — argued in separate lawsuits that the state’s new law, which prohibits abortion after just 15 weeks with no exception for rape or incest, violates their religious freedom. It is among the strictest in the country.

The Florida law exemplifies the entanglement of religion and the politics of abortion. Rabbi Jan Uhrbach of the Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons in Bridgehampton argues that politics has no place in a decision based in faith — one protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the Free Exercise Clause, which she fears may erode following the overturning of Roe.

“This is the kind of decision that eventually really interferes with the free exercise of the Jewish religion, and it remains to be seen what the court would do if presented with that challenge,” she said. “So I’m worried about it. I’m worried about what it means for our democracy and whether we really are a pluralistic society — or how far along we are in a slide toward a Christian theocracy.”

It is not lost on faith leaders across the East End that they serve in a Democratic-controlled state, where access to abortion has remained unchanged since the Supreme Court decision and, for the time being, does not seem under threat.

But in conversations with The Express News Group, for the clergy who agreed to speak — several priests from local Catholic churches declined to weigh in on the issue, as did faith leaders at Southampton Full Gospel Church and St. Rosalie Roman Catholic Church in Hampton Bays — the issue still animates them, as it remains so intimately intertwined with larger moral and philosophical principals.

“What I see in this ruling is a decision that is grounded not in science but in a particular religious understanding of what life is,” said the Reverend Kimberly Quinn Johnson, who leads the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork in Bridgehampton. “This is not a decision that allows people with many different perspectives to move from their own personal and religious perspective. It takes one and expects all of us to be bound by it.”

Lorello is quite comfortable with breaking the law — when she feels morally compelled to do so. Her most recent count is 12 times, with her most notable willful breaking of the rules being when she was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

The church promptly ex-communicated her, having never allowed women to enter the priesthood.

Lorello has always loved the Catholic faith, she said, even when the hierarchy of the institution has not loved her back. The Noyac resident ministered to countless people within the Catholic community throughout Long Island before she became ordained and continued to share her faith with a small congregation at a home church she created after leaving the formal structure of the church.

While she is now retired, Lorello is just one of many spiritual leaders, across a spectrum of religions — from Catholicism and Judaism to the Unitarian Universalist faith, and more — who have spent increased time contemplating the fraught interweaving of religion and abortion, particularly in light of the Dobbs decision.

Some lament the fact that abortion has become such a hot-button political issue.

“It shouldn’t be in the political realm — it doesn’t belong there,” Lorello said. “It belongs in the medical and psychological realm.”

Rabbi Joshua Franklin of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton agrees, and also spoke about how his faith and Judaism have naturally led him to a firm stance on the issue.

“There are certain issues that happen to fall on a political spectrum, but they’re issues of morality, not issues of politics,” he said. “So it’s unfortunate that the abortion debate happens to be entrenched along the political lines. But at the heart of it, there’s really a moral debate that’s going on here.

“And, look, some of it, you might say that religion gives a sense of moral direction in this regard, and I think Judaism certainly does,” he continued. “My Jewish faith and my Jewish beliefs do lead me toward coming up with the stance that women do have a bodily right, and I’d also say that Judaism really does distinguish between when life starts and what potential life is.”

Life, according to Judaism, begins at birth — but potential life, “which still has a tremendous amount of value,” Franklin said, develops at various points during the gestation period.

“Now, having said that, the question becomes, does a woman still have the right to have bodily autonomy and make the decisions about a potential life?” he asked. “And the answer for me is yes — and most Jewish authorities, I would say, actually share the same view, though it’s not completely universal.”

In many circumstances, abortion is not only permitted, but it’s also required when the pregnancy threatens the life of a mother, he explained. The Talmud also insists a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, and that God grants her ownership and agency over the fetus.

However, over the years, Jewish authorities have used these texts to form “radically different opinions as to the permissibility of abortion in Jewish law,” Franklin said.

“I don’t think, even in our congregation, there are staunch pro-life advocates in the way that you would see in the Catholic Church,” he said. “We have very conservative members of our community — we’re by no means a blue community. We’re very much a purple community. Having said that, I think Judaism does direct people more toward a line of a woman’s right to choose.”

There is never a single answer to any question in Judaism, Uhrbach said, and the exact analysis in any given abortion case may vary depending on not just movement — such as reform, conservative or orthodox practice — but also the reasoning that various rabbis follow.

“Those primary principles are, I think, widely shared: that Judaism values life, that Judaism values childbirth, that Judaism, on all things, embraces moral complexity,” she explained. “I think that we resist the fantasy that one can always do the right thing and do no harm, that sometimes doing what may be the right thing is harmful in other ways, and the goal is to embrace that complexity and balance and make the best possible decision. I think that’s what’s shared.”

While room exists in the Jewish faith for varied and nuanced views on abortion, some leaders within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, as well as some other Christian denominations, have been outspoken and unequivocal in taking and adhering to a strong anti-abortion stance, positing that it is backed by the specific teachings of their religions.

But even within the frameworks of those understandings, there are detractors, and those who find room for opposing interpretations of the faith.

Marion Boden, a Eucharistic minister and lector at St. Rosalie’s Roman Catholic Church in Hampton Bays, pointed out that the Catholic Church and many adherents to the Catholic faith frequently invoke a right to religious freedom to justify certain choices. Those can range from a bakery owner refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple or a small-business owner refusing to provide contraception as part of its employee health benefits plan.

After the Dobbs decision was handed down, Boden said she couldn’t help but think of other religious views surrounding abortion.

“It’s my understanding that while the issue of abortion is not treated lightly in Judaism, the teaching is that the life of the born always takes precedence over the life of the unborn,” she said. “So how can we disregard the teaching of a major religion? It seems to me that banning abortion could violate the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Maybe the government should just stay out of it.”

While the prevailing view of Catholics, and particularly of men in positions of leadership within the church — from the pope down to bishops and the head of a local diocese — is that abortion is wrong, Boden said she believes there is room for nuanced interpretations of the faith that could support a pro-choice viewpoint.

Among those who are pro-choice, or at least acknowledge that the issue of abortion is a gray area for them from a moral standpoint and have decided to leave the Catholic Church as a result, there are plenty who not only remain dedicated to the faith but have looked to Catholic teachings to organize their thoughts around the issue.

“I take my Catholicism very seriously,” Boden said. “Going back at least as far as St. Augustine, through Vatican II and up until today, the church has taught us about ‘primacy of conscience.’ While I am not a trained theologian, the teaching seems pretty clear to me. It means using our well-formed conscience to navigate difficult moral questions, bearing in mind that the words ‘well-formed’ are to be taken very seriously.

“This is not making decisions because they are easy or convenient,” she continued. “‘Informed conscience’ includes knowing and considering church teaching on the matter being discerned. If, after serious education, prayer and reflection, our answer differs from church teaching, we are then obligated to follow our conscience. In fact, St. Augustine said not to do so would be a sin.”

In contrast to faith leaders in other denominations, several priests from local Catholic churches declined to weigh in on the issue.

Father Mike Bartholomew of Church of the Immaculate Conception in Westhampton Beach responded to a request for comment by saying that questions on the issue of abortion and the church’s stance on it are typically dealt with through the diocese.

A statement from John O. Barres, the bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, released on June 24, praised the Dobbs ruling, stating that it “rectifies a grave injustice that has resulted in the taking of more than 60 million preborn, innocent lives and caused an avalanche of devastation to families, the dignity of women, and our culture.”

In the statement, Barres went on to call the reasoning behind the original Roe ruling “flawed,” and drew a comparison to another famous court decision: Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial segregation in schools.

“We should applaud the courage, wisdom, and fortitude of the Supreme Court in correcting this injustice. Just as we look back now with approval at Brown v. Board of Education, which reversed the wrongly decided, longstanding precedent on racial segregation, we pray that one day the good sense behind overturning Roe v. Wade will be acknowledged with the same universal respect,” the statement read.

It comes as no surprise to Johnson that some clergy members do not want to discuss the issue of abortion. “It does feel political,” she said. “I can’t imagine that it is an easy conversation to have, if what you say is that you care for a fetus — because it does not seem to be a caring thing.”

For Unitarian Universalists, who do not follow a religious doctrine, their beliefs are grounded in what is “right and loving and just,” she said — including the right of individuals to control their own bodies, which extends beyond the right to terminate a pregnancy.

It also includes reproductive health care, trans-affirming mental and physical health care, and bodily autonomy, she said.

“I know that there are people who will disagree with me and who will disagree with me in a way that they believe is grounded in their own faith,” she said. “And I do think there is a way forward for us to remain in conversation and to remain in relationship even when we disagree about this.”

The debate over the appropriateness of religious involvement in the abortion issue extends beyond the congregations themselves.

At a rally for reproductive rights held outside the State Supreme Court building in Riverhead earlier this summer, it was clear that many object vociferously to the insistence of religious institutions to be involved in what, for them, is a conversation about bodily autonomy and self-determination.

One attendee carried a sign that expressed that sentiment in six simple words: “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries.”

Of course, for any religious leader, looking at a complex moral issue like abortion through the lens of faith is unavoidable, particularly in light of the radical shift in abortion access and the precarious medical predicaments it will create for women around the country.

“It’s hard for me to imagine how a person for whom God is really very present in their lives could look at the cruelty of some of the laws and the policies that are now being pursued in some states and say, ‘That’s what God wants,’” Uhrbach said. “I find it hard to imagine that God could ever want a situation where medical care is withheld because the doctor is afraid of criminal liability for treating someone according to the medical standard of care.

“So if that’s where this leads then I hope that presents a really profound conflict of faith for anybody who supports that,” she added.

Earlier this month, Kansas was the first state to vote on abortion rights since the Dobbs decision was handed down, resulting in the resounding rejection — 59 percent against — of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have blocked the right to abortion.

The lopsidedness of that vote may signal the general public’s support of abortion access, experts have said, and that the Supreme Court decision does not reflect the will of the majority, but rather the narrower interests of specific religious sections — or political leaders aligned with those religious views.

“I think there are politicians in this country who, and this is not a new phenomenon — this is probably as long as America has been existing and certainly in the last many, many decades — are intentionally playing on people’s faith and using it for political gain, which I find abhorrent,” Uhrbach said. “And I also think that there are ways in which people in our society relate to political figures, or a political party, that has slid into idolatry. And I find that abhorrent, as well.”

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, some local faith leaders felt compelled to counteract that phenomenon, though how they went about it varied. Uhrbach’s approach was to email educational resources to her congregants. “That’s very much the Jewish way,” she said. “We study.”

Franklin, on the other hand, addressed the issue in a strongly worded e-blast to his congregation. Co-signed by Rabbi Debra Stein, the email described the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “seismic shift in the medical and social landscape of America that rocked our country” and said they refused to take a “position of ambivalence.”

“In being rooted in both our tradition as well as our modern sense of justice, we are outraged by the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” the email read. “We believe that the decision revokes our fundamental right to bodily autonomy, and what’s more, will have disastrous consequences for our country as millions of people in states where abortion is now illegal will be forced to travel across state lines to seek the care they need.”

They expressed concerns about the negative impacts the decision will have on women across the country — those who seek abortions but cannot travel due to a lack of adequate financial resources, inability to take time off from work, and childcare considerations. They addressed the pressure the decision will exert on millions of mothers to carry their pregnancies to term against their will, putting their mental and physical health at risk, and pointed out that many women may resort to choosing unsafe options to terminate their pregnancies, adding that they fear those strains will be felt hardest in minority communities.

When asked whether there was any hesitation before sending the email, Franklin very simply and matter-of-factly said, “No.”

“I mean, there are some people who want to live within the echo chamber, and they want their rabbi to espouse their beliefs and just be able to articulate it even better than they can, no matter what side of the aisle, no matter what their opinions are,” he said. “And there are certainly people whose beliefs I don’t share and who were a little upset that I didn’t say the things that they wanted me to say — but they wanted me to say something. And I’d much rather be a rabbi who says the things that I believe with conviction than a rabbi who says things that are agreeable that makes everybody feel completely comfortable.”

A common refrain heard from pro-choice advocates is frustration over male political leaders and male-dominated institutions, like the Supreme Court, having the power to enact laws that strip away a woman’s bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. That’s a particularly animating issue for Catholic women like Lorello, who describes herself as “prayerfully pro-choice.”

“I object to men making decisions about it,” she said, “in particular bishops who have no clue as to what it means to be pregnant or to have children.”

Both before and after her decision to become ordained as a priest, Lorello was sought out by Catholic women considering abortion. She spent a long time leading adult classes called “midlife direction” through St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in Huntington, where issues of family planning and decisions surrounding abortion came up a frequently.

“I never told them not to do it,” she said of counseling women who confided in her. “I just listened to them, and we discussed together what it would mean in their lives.”

Ultimately, there is no simple answer, Uhrbach said. She encouraged advisors and advisees to look at the full picture “and not be seduced by the simplicity of slogans.”

“It’s complicated,” she said, “and compassion and humility are very high values in approaching how to make these decisions — and harsh judgment of someone in this circumstance has no place.”

According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of adults in the United States say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37 percent think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Considering that these views have remained relatively unchanged over the past few years, it is puzzling to understand how, after 50 years as a nationwide constitutional right, abortion is now inaccessible to women in half the country.

When pondering that new reality, many religious leaders come to a similar and unsettling conclusion: The country has been shifting away from pluralism and toward the terrain of Christian theocracy — and that the assault on reproductive justice is only the beginning of that shift.

For someone like Lorello, carrying through with a risky pregnancy was the path she ultimately felt compelled to take. But in reality, the only other “choice” she had more than 50 years ago was to pursue an illegal abortion that represented a potentially even greater risk, making it hard to argue there was any justice available to her at that time.

For the retired minister, the term “pro-life” has become problematic, precisely because the people who identify with that label do not seem to be concerned with seeking any kind of justice or support for women who give birth.

“I have an issue with the pro-life label,” she said. “Pro-life means following through on helping women who choose to give birth, but might be poor or lack support. You can’t just be pro-life without following through.”

Lorello said she spent much of her time ministering to women in the aftermath of whatever choice they had made — which looked like supporting them as they navigated caring for their new children, or helping them process the complex emotions they faced after having an abortion.

The idea of reproductive justice — what it is and how it can carry different meaning for different people — is an important part of the conversation around the intersection of abortion and religion, and race as well, a point made by Johnson.

“Reproductive justice also includes the right to carry a pregnancy to term and to know that that will be safe,” she said. “I’m a Black woman. I have long had concern for the very high maternal mortality rate for Black women in this country. It’s ridiculous in a country like this. And this is not about money because there are famous Black women who are very wealthy who have this same story. I think about a right to raise a child in a community that is safe. It’s so hard for me to separate these out. I have nieces and nephews, and I still think about Tamir Rice, who was 12 years old and killed by police in his park.

“Maybe that doesn’t seem like reproductive justice,” she said, adding, “but I do hope that this gives us an occasion to really think about what justice means for all of us, and what liberation means for all of us.”

Ultimately, these decisions should not rest with the Supreme Court, or any court for that matter, Uhrbach argued. Making a choice that determines whether a mother lives or dies, or forcing a fetus to be born that will become a “baby who’s tortured by pain,” falls within the realm of doctors, religious advisors and loved ones, or anyone the parents turn to for moral advice — not politicians, she said.

“This isn’t just about the political language of a woman’s right to choose, or a pregnant person’s right to choose and control over one’s body,” Uhrbach said. “It’s also about making moral decisions that go to the heart of who one is in times of deep pain and stress without the government looking over your shoulder.”