Pro-Life Charity Watchlist Warns About Some Christian Ministries
Evangelical pro-lifers may need to evaluate the difference in positions
The American Life League (ALL) has renewed and revamped its Charity Watchlist over the last year to provide potential pro-life donors with information about the pro-life positions and/or values of well-known charitable organizations.
Currently, the list evaluates over 150 organizations on their pro-life positions through their websites, confirmed news reports, and correspondence. ALL chooses the charities it evaluates based on inquiries and requests it receives, and it updates the watchlist regularly. Nearly 125,000 users have viewed the Charity Watchlist so far this year, Katie Brown, ALL’s national director told MinistryWatch.
The groups are categorized as green, yellow, or red based on their views about issues varying from contraception to abortion to embryonic stem cell research. ALL is a Catholic organization, and its positions support “Catholic moral teaching,” Brown said.
Brown recognizes that some evangelical Christians may take different positions on issues like contraception, but she believes the guide is still useful to them because “it presents the facts and leaves it up to the individual to determine how to use those facts.”
Each entry includes a pull-down list with additional information about the positions and contact information.
ALL considers green-rated groups to be worthy of support from all pro-life donors, yellow means ALL believes donors should exercise caution and fully understand the group’s positions before giving to it, and red means ALL does not believe pro-life donors should support the group in any way.
Of the groups listed, 27 are rated green, 18 are yellow, and 106 are red.
Several Christian ministries are listed in the Charity Watchlist, and because MinistryWatch serves primarily evangelical readers, we asked ALL and pro-life leader Scott Klusendorf about ALL’s list and some of the ratings.
“Generally speaking, any pro-life group that does not follow ALL’s Catholic teachings is not going to get a favorable rating from them. My own opinion is that ALL is more of a Catholic watchdog group than a pro-life one,” Klusendorf said.
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One difference between Catholics and many evangelicals surrounds the issue of contraception.
“I think it’s damaging to make contraceptive policy an acid test for pro-life advocacy,” Klusendorf said, distinguishing between contraception that prevents pregnancy and abortion that intentionally kills another human being.
“[F]or a ‘pro-life’ organization to flag a ministry that opposes abortion because of a difference in contraceptive policy strikes me as unwarranted and unfair,” he said.
He believes that if ALL wants to present itself as a “pro-life group evaluating pro-life organizations, [it] should judge those organizations based on one question: Do they genuinely oppose the intentional killing of innocent human beings in the womb? If so, they should not be attacked for their contraception policy.”
Some of the Christian ministries in the MinistryWatch database that are rated green by ALL are American Heritage Girls, Barnabas Aid, Food for the Poor, and Mercy Chefs.
A few evangelical ministries are rated yellow, including American Bible Society, Convoy of Hope, Cure International, Habitat for Humanity, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, MAP International, and Samaritan’s Purse.
According to ALL, MAP International is given a yellow caution rating because, while it does not support abortion or contraception nor supply contraceptives, it supplies medical supplies to groups that are not pro-life.
Klusendorf questioned the yellow rating of MAP International.
“[E]ven if some groups receiving these supplies use them for abortion, MAP’s proximity to the evil of abortion in this case is very remote, as suppliers cannot easily control how their products are used,” he told MinistryWatch.
Sometimes groups are given a yellow rating because there is not enough information about their pro-life position. American Bible Society is one of those. Brown said ALL reaches out to clarify a group’s unknown position, but until it receives a reply, the group is rated yellow.
She encourages potential donors to reach out and get a response about any unclear issue.
Groups rated red include ChildFund, Christian Appalachian Project, Compassion International, Heifer International, Mercy Ships, Salvation Army, and YMCA.
According to ALL, ChildFund educates children about contraception, abortion, and LGBTQ rights.
Compassion International does not support abortion nor supply contraception, but ALL says it still “promotes contraception” and educates women about “natural contraception” as a form of family planning. ALL says Compassion has “also been members of CCIH, which has dabbled with other pro-contraceptive Christian ministries.”
Mercy Ships gets a red rating from ALL because it will perform tubal ligations on women “if a patient’s doctor thinks that pregnancy would be dangerous to the health of the mother and only in accordance with the fistula repair surgeries they perform.”
“Regarding Mercy Ships, they do great work and unless I am missing something, there is no reason to question the organization’s pro-life credentials,” Klusendorf said.
In the MinistryWatch database, ALL receives the highest financial efficiency rating of five stars, a D transparency grade, and a donor confidence score of 63 out of 100, meaning donors should give with caution.
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