Over the years, we’ve lost many of the great figures of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion–Rev. Howard Moody, Arlene Carmen, Rev. Spencer Parsons, and others. And, just since the 50th anniversary of the group, we’ve received word of the passing of three more of the mightiest activists.
Rev. Marvin Lutz was a Presbyterian minister and co-chair of the Jacksonville, Florida, CCS. He headed that group’s successful efforts to open a nonprofit outpatient abortion clinic there–a clinic that became a model for others. It became known as the Max Suter Women’s Center for Reproductive Health, and he continued as its executive director for 20 years. He passed away on April 23, 2017, at the age of 83.
Rev. Allen J. Hinand, courtesy of his family
Rev. Allen J. Hinand was an American Baptist minister, one of the first friends Rev. Howard Moody called on to expand the CCS outside of New York. A civil rights and anti-war activist, Rev. Hinand founded and chaired the Pennsylvania CCS, which, by patiently educating local physicians, successfully persuaded Philadelphia hospitals to provide abortion care. He took special care to devolve power to women–including laywomen–who ultimately led the CCS in Pennsylvania. He died on June 18, 2017, in Claremont, California.
Liz Canfield, via Legacy.com
Elizabeth Kanitz Canfield was an Austrian immigrant–a refugee from Hitler’s invasion in 1938. She provided contraceptive education and–in those days–contraceptive foam to Hispanic farmworkers in the 1950s in Southern California. In the 1960s, she helped to found the Los Angeles Free Clinic, helped to liberalize the California abortion law, and was the co-founder of the Los Angeles CCS. She continued her activism in Albuquerque, advocating for and working with people with HIV/AIDS. She died on June 25, 2017.
We are grateful to have had the opportunity to meet all three of these great justice warriors, if only through telephone conversations. Their work lives on in the thousands of people they helped, the amazing organizations they led, and their own inspiring stories.
To Offer Compassion 
I knew Marvin to be a very kind and gentle being. I miss him and feel I should have spent more time with him. May you keep smiling and giving your warm hugs in heaven. You were such a kindred spirit.
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As a young woman on the Planned Parenthhod board in Jacksonville in the 70s, I knew and valued the contributions of CCS. It seems all of our karmas were bound together and I shouldn’t have been surprised when years later running the PP in Gainesville, my sister confidant and local ab clinic director, married Marvin. We sought and always received support from one another. There was, still is, no finer calling. How blessed so many have been to know and work with Marvin and Nelle…
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