1. A wave of violence as the court prepares to rule, By Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post, June 15, 2022, Pg. A21, Opinion
The biblical teaching that violence only begets violence has long been proved true but rarely more poignantly than in the recent attacks on pregnancy counseling centers in Oregon and New York, disruption of church services, and the alleged plot on the life of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Maybe America was too busy burying its slain children from the most-recent mass shooting at a school to connect the dots among the many efforts to intimidate, and thus influence, conservative justices as they consider reversing Roe v. Wade. Given that these acts of violence were all aimed at pro-life people, they should be investigated as terrorist acts.
It is a terrible irony that the people who want to protect life must put their own lives at risk. Maybe violence is what we should expect when abortion, one of the most-violent acts conceived by humankind, is Ground Zero. Whatever one’s argument for abortion, there’s no debating the utterly inhumane violence inflicted upon a gestating human being.
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If you go looking for stories about this or that bombing, you’re likely to find them only in religious news outlets, such as the Catholic News Agency or Get Religion. The pregnancy centers that were destroyed or damaged do nothing worse than help vulnerable pregnant women through counseling and resources, as well as provide diapers and other baby supplies. So much for pro-lifers caring for babies only until they’re born.
Despite these attacks — and the alleged attempted assassination of Kavanaugh — President Biden hasn’t been moved to condemn them.
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Biden should have used a bullhorn to condemn all the above, presuming he was apprised of them. He surely would have done so had the justice in question been any liberal. Can you imagine the outcry from the media? He surely would have strongly condemned the firebombings had the targets been abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood, which, through its advocacy arm, pledged to spend $45 million on Biden’s behalf in 2020 (three times what it spent in 2016).
My best guess is that the justices won’t deliver their abortion opinions until later this month. This means Biden still has time to be very clear that federal penalties for acts of terrorism can include life imprisonment and, in certain circumstances, death.
Violence, after all, begets violence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/14/bombings-churches-brett-kavanaugh-abortion/
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2. U.S. Abortion Rate Ends Decades long Decline, Rate and number of abortions performed increased between 2017 and 2020, new data show, By Jennifer Calfas, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2022, 12:01 AM
Abortions performed in the U.S. increased between 2017 and 2020, ending a decades long declining trend, according to a study released ahead of a pivotal Supreme Court decision that could alter abortion access nationwide.
Both the number of abortions performed and the rate of them increased between 2017 and 2020, according to new research from the Guttmacher Institute, a policy group that supports abortion rights and tracks national and state statistics.
There were 930,160 abortions performed in the U.S. in 2020—an 8% jump from 862,320 in 2017. The abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 increased to 14.4 in 2020 from 13.5 in 2017, the report said. The data measure the number of abortions provided in clinical settings.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-abortion-rate-ends-decadeslong-decline-11655262729?
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3. 27 Democrats vs. Supreme Court Protection, The House finally adds security, but not without dissenters., By The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2022, Pg. A16, Editorial
The House on Tuesday finally passed a bipartisan bill to step up security for Supreme Court Justices and their families, and the embarrassment is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the measure for weeks, even after a man with a gun showed up at Brett Kavanaugh’s house in the middle of the night. More than two dozen Democrats apparently don’t think the Justices deserve additional protection.
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The next few weeks could be especially volatile as the public awaits a decision in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson. Yet House Democrats ignored the security bill for more than a month.
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But wait: 27 nays? Yes, more than two dozen Democrats voted against sensible protections. The dishonor roll includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.); Pramila Jayapal (Wash.); and Josh Gottheimer, Tom Malinowski and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey. That’ll show Justice Kavanaugh and his wife.
President Biden would be wise to sign the bill immediately, and tell members of his own party to call off the intimidation campaign against the High Court. The rancor of American politics today will look quaint if political violence harms a Justice and changes the makeup of the Court.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/27-democrats-vs-supreme-court-security-house-congress-nancy-pelosi-brett-kavanaugh-11655242635?
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4. Another pro-life clinic attacked, this one in Philadelphia, By Joe Bukuras, Catholic News Agency, June 15, 2022, 3:41 AM
A pro-life pregnancy center in Philadelphia was vandalized last weekend with smashed windows and graffiti.
Latrice Booker, director of Hope Pregnancy Center in Philadelphia, told CNA that when she drove by her clinic Saturday, June 11, she found four windows smashed, with one written on with graffiti. It is unclear what the graffiti says.
Three glass doors were smashed as well, she said. She estimated the damages to be around $15,000. As of Tuesday afternoon, the windows were boarded up and the clinic is in the process of repairs. They are still open for business, she said.
Booker said that the clinic offers all its services to help women and families in need at no cost. She said that the clinic is not dissuaded in its mission by the vandalism and called on people of faith to “stand tall” despite the vitriol against pro-lifers.
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Since the leak, pro-life pregnancy centers in Washington D.C., Washington state, Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon, Alaska, Florida, and Texas have been vandalized.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251546/philadelphia-pro-life-clinic-vandalized
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5. Abortion foes, accustomed to small wins, ready for a big one, By Matt Sedensky, Associated Press, June 14, 2022, 5:25 PM
The first of them arrived outside the clinic past 4 a.m., before a steady rain fell and a scalding sun rose, and all along, they had prayed for a moment like this.
It’s abortion day at Planned Parenthood and, try as they might, those who lined the street hadn’t had much luck changing any minds.
Now, a patient pushes out of the center’s doors, limply drags her feet across the parking lot, and heads straight into the arms of an anti-abortion counselor who, a short while earlier, asked her not to do what she came here for.
One of the clinic’s rainbow-vested workers, Allison Terracio, sees what’s unfolding and cries, “They got one!”
A majority of Americans backs abortion rights, and Terracio believes the anti-abortion group’s sidewalk coterie uses trickery, empty promises and manipulation in the guise of kindness to sway women from something they’ve already carefully thought through.
She is as alarmed as her opponents are hopeful.
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For tens of millions of Americans who see abortion as wrong, it’s gone this way for a half-century: One woman swayed to reconsider as dozens of others follow through. One clinic’s doors closed only to see desperate patients go elsewhere. One law passed, another overturned.
A movement built of tiny steps and endless setbacks, though, now seems poised for a massive leap.
The possibility of looming success, perhaps undoing the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, isn’t talked about much here, though. That’s left to others entrenched in this fight. Those here on the front lines of the battle are focused on the task at hand: To change a single mind and, in their eyes, save a single life.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abortion-foes-accustomed-to-small-wins-ready-for-a-big-one/2022/06/14/09896c86-ebeb-11ec-9f90-79df1fb28296_story.html
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6. Kentucky AG sues over abortion law blocked by federal court, By Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press, June 14, 2022, 6:20 PM
Kentucky’s Republican attorney general went to court Tuesday claiming the Democratic governor’s administration missed a deadline to set up a regulatory process for a sweeping new abortion law currently blocked by a federal court order.
In a maneuver loaded with political and legal implications, Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in his lawsuit against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration that state officials are still obligated to craft regulations and create forms associated with the new law’s restrictions, even though a federal judge temporarily halted its enforcement while the case is litigated. Cameron, who has filed paperwork to run for governor himself next year, said that order didn’t relieve the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services from fulfilling its “statutory responsibilities.”
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The state’s GOP-dominated legislature this spring overrode Beshear’s veto to pass the new measure. It would ban abortions after 15 weeks and set up new oversight of medication abortion.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kentucky-ag-sues-over-abortion-law-blocked-by-federal-court/2022/06/14/3355234e-ec30-11ec-9f90-79df1fb28296_story.html
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7. Abortion amendment moving quickly in California legislature, By Adam Beam, Associated Press, June 14, 2022, 8:15 PM
Fearing the U.S. Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, California Democrats on Tuesday moved quickly to ensure the state’s progressive voters have a chance this fall to make abortion a constitutional right in the nation’s most populous state.
A proposed amendment to the California Constitution that would explicitly ban the state from denying or interfering with abortions or contraceptives cleared two legislative committees in a single day on Tuesday, an unusually fast pace for a Legislature that many times takes two years to move a bill through its arduous process.
Lawmakers are moving so fast because they need voters to approve the amendment before it can become law. The soonest voters could do that is November, but for that to happen the amendment must clear the state Legislature by a two-thirds vote before the end of the month.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abortion-amendment-moving-quickly-in-california-legislature/2022/06/14/380260e0-ec40-11ec-9f90-79df1fb28296_story.html
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8. Father Mark Lewis named rector of Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, By Hannah Brockhaus, Catholic News Agency, June 14, 2022, 10:45 AM
Pope Francis has appointed Father Mark Lewis, a Florida-born Jesuit priest, to lead Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University as rector, it was announced on Tuesday.
Lewis, 62, has served as academic vice rector of the Gregorian, a Jesuit-run ecclesiastical university, since 2019. His term as rector will begin on Sept. 1.
He joined the university’s faculty as a Church History and Cultural Heritage professor in 2017, after six years as provincial superior of the New Orleans Province of the Society of Jesus. He also taught at Spring Hill College in Alabama.
Lewis’ appointment follows that of another American, Father Thomas Joseph White, to lead the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in 2021.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251540/father-mark-lewis-named-rector-of-pontifical-gregorian-university-in-rome
___________________________________________________________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.
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