1. South Carolina House advances near-total ban on abortion with new limited exceptions for rape and incest, By Dianne Gallagher and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN, August 31, 2022, 7:14 AM
The South Carolina House of Representatives on Tuesday advanced legislation that would ban nearly all abortion at every stage of pregnancy, after adding a last-minute amendment that includes exceptions for some cases of rape and incest.
The amendment, which adds an exception for rape and incest up to 12 weeks after conception and requires reporting to law enforcement, was adopted by voice vote in a hasty reconsideration of the original bill, which had just been rejected by the House.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/30/politics/south-carolina-house-near-total-ban-exceptions/index.html
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2. The Next Step in the Anti-Abortion Playbook Is Becoming Clear, By Mary Ziegler, The New York Times, August 31, 2022, 5:00 AM, Opinion
Two months after the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion has been banned or severely restricted in at least 14 states, energizing leaders of the anti-abortion movement but also activating voters who are opposed to many of these measures. With so much at stake in the next few election cycles — and women’s lives hanging in the balance — both sides of this fight are strategizing their next moves.
For the anti-abortion movement, the emerging plan is an all-out fight for fetal personhood. In many ways this is no surprise — since the 1960s, the movement’s ultimate goal has been to secure legal protections for fetuses and embryos, despite the harm that could be done to the health and livelihoods of pregnant women. The recognition of fetal personhood nationwide could mean a total ban on abortion for everyone in the United States, and if an increasingly sophisticated minority of anti-abortion extremists have their way, many more women would face criminal charges for ending their pregnancies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/opinion/abortion-fetal-personhood.html
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3. Conservative cardinal calls for conclaves to be limited to Rome-based cardinals, By Elise Ann Allen, Crux, August 31, 2022
German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, a once influential conservative prelate known to be at odds with several aspects of the Francis papacy, has asked that the right to vote in a conclave be limited to only those residing in Rome.
The reason for this, according to Brandmüller, is that there are too many cardinals who come from faraway places, so they lack experience with the Roman Curia and do not know one another, making them vulnerable to lobbies attempting to push a specific candidate forward.
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/08/conservative-cardinal-calls-for-conclaves-to-be-limited-to-rome-based-cardinals
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4. Pregnant at a D.C. abortion clinic, My first hand experience, By Monica Synder, The Washington Times, August 31, 2022, Pg. B3, Opinion
I was 28 weeks pregnant when I entered the small, windowless waiting room of the Washington Surgi-Clinic for my abortion appointment. I filled out paperwork and gave the front desk nurse $11,400 in cash. I asked if it was weird that I was paying in cash. She said it wasn’t. I took a seat alongside several other women.
I was nervous. But not because I was there for an abortion. I was undercover. It was January 2022, and I had agreed to partner with Live Action to secretly record my visit to this Washington clinic in hopes of showing people the true nature of late-term abortion. Live Action has investigated the Washington-Surgi clinic before and uncovered some horrifying truths. But the public remains largely unaware of the realities of late-term abortion clinics. I was hoping to help change that. There is a wide chasm between the rhetoric of pro-choice activists – who argue women choose abortion with full knowledge and autonomy – and what I experienced that day.
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Before Ruby, I’d birthed three children. With each pregnancy, a medical professional asked me questions to screen for domestic violence and mental health issues as a safety protocol. In stark contrast, although I wept intermittently during a multi-hour appointment to abort my healthy 28-week child, not one person screened me for coercion or psychological issues.
No one asked about Ruby’s medical history or health status, either. This uninterest makes sense; after all, the Washington-Surgi clinic performs abortions through the third trimester for any reason. It is legal and readily accepted. In fact, the nurses repeatedly reassured me that there was nothing wrong with or even unusual about me, a healthy woman, seeking an abortion of my healthy child at seven months.
After another hour of sitting in the waiting room, a second nurse called me back. She discussed some potential complications. She warned of early labor, calling it a “spontaneous abortion.” I asked what I would do if that happened in my hotel room that night. “It doesn’t happen very often. But if it does, don’t panic. [The doctor] could come and help you take care of it, or we could just tell you what to do with the remains,” she said.
The nurse began to hand me medications in advance of the first dilation. The list included acetaminophen, an antibiotic, and Xanax. “Those guys are just there to relax you,” she said with a smile.
I asked if it would be possible to speak to the doctor performing the abortion before taking the medications, but she said that wasn’t how it worked. According to her, the doctor wouldn’t see me until it was time to begin dilation, and by then the medications would need to already be in my system.
Considering my options, I asked whether or not Xanax would affect my clarity of thinking, to which she replied “No, it shouldn’t.” I reiterated that I would prefer to speak to the doctor first, but she didn’t budge. So, I told the staff that I had changed my mind. They returned the cash I paid (minus ultrasound fees), and I left.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/30/pregnant-at-a-dc-abortion-clinic/
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5. Vatican: Pope clearly condemns Russia’s ‘repugnant’ war, By Frances D’Emilio, Associated Press, August 30, 2022, 1:30 PM
The Vatican on Tuesday moved to defend Pope Francis from allegations he hasn’t come down hard enough on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, saying the pontiff clearly views the war launched by Moscow as “senseless, repugnant and sacrilegious.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vatican-pope-clearly-condemns-russias-repugnant-war/2022/08/30/7d03cb4a-2889-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html
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6. Pope meets with cardinals on future direction of church, By Frances D’Emilio, Associated Press, August 30, 2022, 1:44 PM
Pope Francis on Tuesday wrapped up two days of closed-door meetings with about 180 cardinals, many of them young enough to elect a future pontiff, including discussions about how the Catholic Church’s governance could be made more inclusive.
The sessions focused on a new Apostolic constitution that, among other things, allows lay people to head important Vatican offices, envisioning greater decision-making roles for them, including women.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-meets-with-cardinals-on-future-direction-of-church/2022/08/30/8a3e55ec-2883-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html
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7. Indiana abortion clinics sue to block ban set to take effect, By Tom Davies and Arleigh Rodgers, Associated Press, August 30, 2022, 7:09 PM
Indiana abortion clinic operators filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the state’s ban on abortions before it takes effect in about two weeks.
The lawsuit filed in a Monroe County court claims the ban, which includes limited exceptions, “strips away the fundamental rights of people seeking abortion care” in violation of the Indiana Constitution. It asks for a judge to block the law from going into effect on Sept. 15, arguing the ban “will infringe on Hoosiers’ right to privacy, violate Indiana’s guarantee of equal privileges and immunities, and includes unconstitutionally vague language.”
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The Indiana law includes exceptions, allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/indiana-abortion-clinics-sue-to-block-states-near-total-ban/2022/08/30/82d6fcda-288f-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html
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8. Erasing pro-life Christians of color, A post-Dobbs narrative breezily associates all anti-abortion activism and policies with racism., By Charles C. Camosy, Religion News Service, August 30, 2022
A few days ago, a good friend wrote me to share an experience that pro-lifers on college campuses have become very familiar with over the last few years. Her colleague was presenting on examples of structural racism and claimed as a matter of fact — with no need for argument — that anti-abortion laws were examples of structural racism.
Of course, pro-lifers know the truth is precisely the opposite. For more than a century, abortion has been embedded in U.S. culture explicitly as a tool of racist eugenics. Structural racism has long landed abortion clinics disproportionately in communities of color, devastating their populations, and the legacy of the Roe era for women of color has been to coerce many of them into having abortions they don’t want.
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Many of us have learned about these facts from pro-life Christians of color — especially pro-life women of color. I’ve been particularly influenced by Harvard University’s Jacqueline Rivers; Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst, an OB-GYN, global health expert and senior public policy fellow at Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture; Gloria Purvis, a podcaster with America Media; and Louisiana state Sen. Katrina Jackson.
These and other pro-life voices of color have been ignored, however, and even intentionally erased, by a narrative that breezily associates anti-abortion activism and policies with racism.
Elaine Riddick, a longtime pro-life Christian activist of color, started her fight for human rights after she became pregnant as a result of a rape when she was 13 years old. Realizing years later that doctors at a state hospital delivering the child sterilized her without her knowledge, she made the connection between the racist eugenics that ended her ability to have children and the killing of Black children via abortion.
She has worked against abortion for decades and vigorously celebrated with friends the recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe. Yet a July 24 Washington Post feature story on her twisted her statement that “women should have control of their reproductive health” to paint her as a supporter of legal abortion.
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Those of us who identify as being on the side of social justice regularly talk about amplifying “the missing voices.” When it comes to the abortion debate, the voices that are most obviously missing increasingly belong to pro-life Christians of color. We should be amplifying those voices, no matter our stand on abortion.
https://religionnews.com/2022/08/30/erasing-pro-life-christians-of-color/
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9. Religious schools shun state funding despite Maine victory, By David Sharp, Associated Press, August 30, 2022
Parents of children enrolled in Maine religious schools fought for years — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — for the state to treat tuition reimbursements the same as other private schools.
But only one of the religious high schools that stood to benefit has signed up to participate this fall, after Maine’s attorney general warned that the schools would have to abide by state antidiscrimination laws, including those that protect LGBTQ students and faculty. That development has frustrated the families who sued.
“Their hands are tied. The state said you can take the money, but we’ll tie your hands,” said David Carson, whose daughter was a sophomore at Bangor Christian Schools when his family and two other plaintiffs sued in 2018.
https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-religion-education-discrimination-maine-9e9df3e08a28f63da37f72344b923f9c
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10. UN experts warn of impact of abortion bans on US minorities, By Jamey Keaten, Associated Press, August 30, 2022
Independent U.N. human rights experts expressed concerns Tuesday about the adverse impact on the rights of racial and ethnic minorities from the U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for abortion in the United States.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also called on the Biden administration and state governments to do more to buttress those rights.
The committee, a group of independent experts who work with the U.N. human rights office, said it was concerned about higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity — among many concerns about the rights of Blacks, Latinos, Indigenous peoples, foreign-born migrants and others in the United States.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-geneva-united-states-72cad07ff6393e22bcd73d31b0abc3b8
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11. Nancy Pelosi says it’s ‘sinful’ to restrict abortion for women, By Katie Yoder, Catholic News Agency, August 30, 2022, 11:00 AM
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called restricting abortion “sinful” on Women’s Equality Day, in contradiction to her Catholic faith.
“The fact that this is such an assault on women of color and women — lower income families is just sinful. It’s sinful,” the Democrat from California said during a “reproductive health” panel on Aug. 26. “It’s wrong that they would be able to say to women what they think women should be doing with their lives and their bodies. But it’s sinful, the injustice of it all.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252159/nancy-pelosi-sinful-to-restrict-abortion-for-women
__________________________________________________________TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association. |
