On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at its regularly scheduled meeting, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to acknowledge, embrace and promote the following:

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland believes that all bodies are sacred. Every person has the right to determine if, when, and how they want to have children. As people of faith, this commitment is part of our sincerest religious values: Unitarian Universalism proclaims that all individuals and communities have the right to self-determination, safety, and the resources that are necessary for health and sustainability.

As a faith tradition, we are committed to Reproductive Justice, and espouse the human right to have children, not to have children, to parent the children one has in healthy environments to safeguard bodily autonomy, and to express one’s sexuality freely. In 2015, The Unitarian Universalist Society issued a Statement of Conscience embracing this framework. This was created by women of color in the 1990s. We remain aligned with and dedicated to this work.

Comprehensive reproductive care, including access to abortion, is essential to the health and well-being of women and pregnant people. We will continue to work with those most impacted by this harmful decision to fight for permanent state and federal legislation that codifies and enshrines the right to access abortion care. Our faith still urgently calls us to advocate on behalf of all people to be able to readily access safe, legal abortion care whenever and wherever they need it. We will not rest until that reality is true across the country.

The Board of Trustees at UUCC has issued a press release regarding this statement, as one action step in living out our values.

Finally, in light of the recently leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision regarding the challenge to Roe v Wade, the UUA published the following statement on May 3, 2022:

https://www.uua.org/pressroom/press-releases/fight-abortion-access