Thank you for your interest in signing on to the Thrive NJ Interfaith Council support letter. We appreciate all of your support as a faith leader and as a leader in your community.
Your signature on this letter is an individual endorsement - not a congregational one. We ask you submit your Title, Name, Denomination, Municipality, and Email so that we are able to contact you in the future. This letter will be used as an advocacy tool with legislators and we will make sure that we reach out for consent when sharing further.
Please reach out to Sarah Best at
sarah.best@ppgnnj.org if you have any questions, and visit
www.thrive-nj.org for more information on the Thrive NJ coalition. The letter is below:
As New Jersey faith leaders from many religious traditions, we affirm our faith-informed support of policies that ensure equitable access to comprehensive reproductive health care, with a particular focus on dispelling the atrocities in Black maternal health, literally killing Black mothers and black babies at an alarming rate. We affirm our faith-informed support of policies that ensure medically-accurate, age-appropriate, LGBTQ-inclusive sex education in our state. Our alliance stands firmly to denounce the systemic racism plaguing this Country, that has infiltrated every aspect of healthcare, primarily, adversely affecting Black people. We affirm that Black lives matter.
People of all faiths need and support reproductive health care services, including abortion. Attempts to restrict access to reproductive health care and other social services are pervasive attempts to oppress women, as a wedge issue attempting to garner political support, especially for racists and xenophobes who fear the “browning” of America. It is an attempt to deem sovereignty, of a particular faith and moral stance on others who may not share that same belief system. It is out of respect for our various religious teachings and moral choices that we encourage community values that take our scriptures and traditions seriously--and allow us to make health care choices for ourselves based on our conscience and access to the most up-to-date medical and ethical information.
We recognize that no single religious leader speaks for all people of faith, and we protest the enshrinement of any faith strictures as public policy. We recognize there are a diversity of views in the New Jersey faith community. Indeed, not everyone in our own congregations or denominations agrees. But as leaders, in part because of this wide range of opinion and theological discussion, we are called to declare our support for access to abortion and other reproductive health care services as a basic issue of health, safety, and moral agency. We support everyone’s right to make a decision consistent with their own personal religious and ethical beliefs.
Our religious principles are grounded in a love and acceptance of all people. We believe deeply that means free of racism and discrimination, ending the shame and stigma associated with reproductive health care, including abortion, and increasing access for all people to a full range of reproductive healthcare options and sexual health information.
We join our clergy predecessors in advocacy for laws and policies that safeguard and strengthen access to reproductive health care, and we stand by the work of reproductive health providers who are providing quality and affordable care, and comprehensive sex education that is so vital to the well-being of our communities.
Therefore it follows that, as faith leaders, we believe it is our duty to include our voices among the many being raised in New Jersey advocating for comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically-informed sex education and reproductive health care access regardless of income, race, sexual orientation or zip-code.
