To Offer Compassion: A History of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

In 1967, when abortion was either illegal or highly restricted in every U.S. state, a group of ministers and rabbis founded the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CSS) to counsel women with unwanted pregnancies--including referral to licensed physicians willing to perform the procedure. By the time Roe v. Wade made abortion legal nationwide in 1973, CCS had grown into a surprisingly outspoken national medical consumer and women’s rights advocacy group. To Offer Compassion offers a detailed history of this unique and largely forgotten movement, drawing on extensive interviews with original participants and on primary documents from the CCS’s operations.