THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Rev. Peg Beissert

August 1, 1914 – October 15, 2013

“It was while I was in seminary that I gained two new insights: I became a radical feminist, and I knew ‘something had to be done’ on the gay/lesbian issue. The day after I was ordained my pastor-colleague introduced me as the first woman abortion counselor to more than a hundred male clergy. This was prior to Roe vs. Wade. They had been sending women to Puerto Rico, then to New York when abortion was legalized there. This was a very thoughtful, deliberate step I was taking, but the experience convinced me women had the right to decide about their own bodies.”

Advocate for gay, civil and abortion rights. Ordained in 1971. Director of Religious Education at Christ Church, Summit, NJ, and was the first woman on the NJ Clergy Association focussed on Abortion Counseling. Assistant Pastor at Neighborhood Church, Rolling Hills Estates, and then at Covenant Church, Los Angeles, 1973. As a member of the Presbytery’s Candidates Committee, led several battles to allow the ordination of gay ministerial candidates.