Mennonite Church USA

Official website: http://www.mennoniteusa.org/

Beginning of Life

Abortion

Official Statement: from "Statement on Abortion" based on former Mennonite Church (1975) and General Conference Mennonite Church (1980))

Healthcare & Medicine

Access to Healthcare

Official Statement: from the "Resolution on National Healthcare Policy" 2009, expanded the 2003 "Resolution on Healthcare Access", the 2005 "Healthcare Access Statement: Our Theology"</ref> and 2007 "Healthcare Policy Principles" and is based on former Mennonite Church documents the "Resolution on Health Care in the United States (1993)

"Our Healthcare Access Statement also affirms that a biblically-compatible healthcare system would:

• Celebrate God’s generous provision of resources, assuring enough for everyone when shared equitably by all;
• Promote the flourishing (shalom) of the whole community, including each of its members;
• Protect the well-being of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society; and
• Cultivate stewardship of God’s resources."

"We will ask our members and congregations to urge their congressional representatives to support legislation that would extend access to healthcare to all Americans, particularly the poor and disadvantaged, while we engage local healthcare needs. We will work together with others to bring about this result. We will pray for healthcare access for Americans across our land, as well as those working on behalf of this issue." ("Resolution on National Healthcare Policy" 2009,)

"Resolved that Mennonite Church USA authorize the Access Initiative, a project to demonstrate our commitment, as a community of faith, to universal access to health care by developing models that focus on helping congregations deal with problems of access to health care. These models will incorporate the following principles:

• Access to health care for all persons
• Emphasis on health promotion and prevention of illness
• An emphasis on healing and caring rather than focusing only on curing
• Recognition of our mortality and the limits required by stewardship of scarce resources" ("Resolution on Healthcare Access", 2003)

"We commit ourselves to work for a just health care system that will assist poor families in caring for their children. Because we are concerned about just health care for all, we will:

• Recognize that protests against abortion have greater integrity when they are combined with concern for all human life.
• Commit ourselves to work for a just health care system that will assist poor families in caring for their children, thus eliminating conditions that help create a culture of abortion.
• Urge our members to consider becoming adoptive or foster parents to care for abused and unwanted children.
• Become persistent advocates for a national health care policy which controls costs while emphasizing quality care. (From MC and GC Delegate Assembly Resolutions on Health Care, 1992 and 1993)
• We believe that the use of abortion among the poor is driven at times by the inequities and gaps in the present health care system. An informed woman with financial resources has always been able to get a safe abortion while a poor woman who is less informed has resorted to abortions under expensive, dangerous, and clandestine conditions." ("Statement on Abortion", 2003)

Conscience Issues

Official Statement:

"We commit ourselves to support professional caregivers. We know that the church has often left the difficult task of dealing with persons facing abortion to the professionals in medicine, law, mental health, or social work. We commit ourselves to support our professionals whose ministry includes dealing with moral dilemmas of abortion and reproductive issues. When a person for reasons of conscience chooses not to perform or participate in performing abortions, we will advocate on their behalf." ("Statement on Abortion", 2003)

End of Life

Physician-Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia

No Official Statement though the strong affirmation of life and condemnation of murder in the various documents of the Mennonite Church USA suggest an implicit opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.