The Lutheran Church in North America on Abortion and Euthanasia
According to 1994 statistics available from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (Nafzger, 1994), more than 33 percent of the world's population consider themselves "Christian" and the third largest group of these Christians identify themselves with the Lutheran church, numbering nearly 59 million. In North American, there are 8.7 million Lutherans belonging to 21 different Lutheran bodies, of which the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) is the largest with 5.2 million members and the Lutheran Church รป Missouri Synod (LCMS) is the second largest with more than 2.6 million baptized members. The ELCA is considered "moderate" in its beliefs and doctrine, while the LCMS remains a conservative body in its doctrine and interpretation of the Bible. It is from these two largest North American Lutheran bodies that Lutheran statements about social issues regarding life, including abortion and euthanasia, can be derived.
According to an official social statement by the ELCA, the following is true regarding their position on abortion:
The position of this church is that, in cases where the life of the mother is threatened, where pregnancy results from rape or incest, or where the embryo or fetus has lethal abnormalities incompatible with life, abortion prior to viability should not be prohibited by law or by lack of public funding of abortions for low income women. On the other hand, this church supports legislation that prohibits abortions that are performed after the fetus is determined to be viable, except when the mother's life is threatened or when lethal abnormalities indicate the prospective newborn will die very soon (ELCA, 1991, http://www.elca.org/socialstatements/
On the issue of euthanasia, the ELCA social statement (1992) is similarly diverse. As with abortion, the ELCA does not take a position of "absolute life or absolute death." Instead,
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