What is the UM position on abortion?

The United Methodist Church affirms the sanctity of life in these two statements in the Social Principles:

Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to condone. abortion.

We recognize that ... tragic conflicts of life with life may justify decisions to terminate the life of a fetus. In these limited circumstances, we support the legal option of abortion and insist that such procedures be performed by trained medical providers in clean and safe settings

These statements, and others, place the United Methodist position on abortion firmly on the spectrum of life-based ethics rather than choice-based ethics. 

Life-based ethics place life at the center of guidance regarding situations where there may be conflicts. Life-based ethics call for as much life as possible to be honored and preserved in such situations. Choice-based ethics place the sovereignty of a person's right to choose at the center of such arguments.  

United Methodists affirm the sanctity of unborn human life. We similarly understand that the pregnant woman is also a life of sacred worth, and that there are circumstances in which there may be "tragic conflicts of life versus life." This may happen to any pregnant woman, anywhere, at any time during her pregnancy. 

Critical to preserving life is ready access to proper medical care. This includes access to medical care that may include abortion when that is the way to preserve the most life possible. That is why the Social Principles affirm that "in such cases we support the legal option of abortion and insist such procedures be performed by trained medical providers in clean and safe settings."  

Additional official statements of The United Methodist Church express the denomination's life-centered ethics. 

• The United Methodist Church does NOT affirm abortion as a means of birth control.
• We also “unconditionally reject” abortion “as a an acceptable means of birth control or a mechanism means for gender selection and other forms of eugenics.
• And we "opposed late-term or partial-birth abortion..., except where the mother's life is in danger, no other medical treatments are feasible, or when severe fetal abnormalities threaten the viability of the fetus."

All Christians faced with such decisions are called to enter them with prayer, searching the Scriptures, and all other means of seeking God’s will, guidance, and wisdom. We also strongly encourage such persons to seek the counsel of parents, other family members, clergy, and professionals in both medicine and counseling. 

United Methodists understand abortion as a subset of the larger set of concerns for women's reproductive health in all its forms, and support all efforts to extend necessary reproductive health care to women everywhere as a means of improving the lives of women and girls and reducing the dangers and risks involved in childbearing.