Rev. Walter Baer, priest-in-charge at the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation New Orleans, wrote a letter to New Orleans Advocate about a recently installed Planned Parenthood in his neighboorhood which might surprise you.
The letter was published this week and is meant as a welcome to his Louisiana neighborhood and makes it clear that he joins other local faith leaders in welcoming the facility.
"As priest-in-charge at the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, which is across South Claiborne Avenue from the new Planned Parenthood clinic, I am pleased that the clinic is moving to the area," wrote Baer in the letter.
"I write to express my support for the right of the clinic to be there and to serve the reproductive needs of our community."
Baer said that the Episcopal Church supports a woman's right to make her own choices about contraception, though he stressed that abortion is rejected as a form of birth control or for "mere convenience."
"The official position of our church is that all human life is sacred from its inception until death," Baer wrote. "The church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness. We regard all abortion as having a tragic dimension, calling for the concern and compassion of all the Christian community."
Baer also took a stab at the religious groups who have been anti-abortion and boycotted similar clinics from their areas.
"I am very disappointed with some fellow Christian people and churches who have made threats of exclusion and boycotts to congregants who wish to work with the clinic," Baer wrote.
He said the recent disruption of a worship service at First Unitarian-Universalist Church in New Orleans by anti-abortion protesters "was a highly disrespectful and sacrilegious act."
