1. Correcting a miscarriage of the Constitution, Abortion is now a matter for the states and the conscience, By The Washington Times, June 27, 2022, Pg. B2, Editorial The irony underlying the eruption of angst is that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling does nothing to restrict abortion. Rather, it corrects Roe’s vain attempt to find a legal basis for the practice in the U.S. Constitution. A majority of Americans favor limits on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but few support a total ban on the practice. “Progressive” regions, mostly on the East and West Coasts, are destined to remain abortion-friendly; the more traditional midlands portend a future as havens for life. In so mobile a society as modern America, it is unlikely that an individual will fail to obtain the abortion she seeks. When passions subside over Roe’s demise, the 50 states will be at liberty to enact abortion laws in accordance with the consciences of the women and men who reside there. This is, after all, still a free country. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/24/editorial-supreme-courts-abortion-ruling-corrects-/__________________________________________________________ 2. The Justices Didn’t Lie to the Senate, No one in the Supreme Court’s Dobbs majority promised to uphold Roe v. Wade., By The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2022, Pg. A16, Editorial The reaction to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health has been predictably vitriolic and often full of distortions. The Justices didn’t ban abortion; they said there is no constitutional right to abortion and left it to the states to decide. The majority also did not set up other rights to disappear; they explicitly said abortion is unique. Perhaps the most unfortunate claim is that the Justices in the Dobbs majority lied during confirmation hearings. The charge is that they suggested that Roe v. Wade was a precedent that couldn’t be overturned. Coaxed on the point on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this is grounds for impeachment, and don’t be surprised if other Democrats pick up that cudgel. … The claims of deceit are especially unfortunate because they suggest that the Court is no different from the political branches. This is damaging to the Court’s credibility, whether the majority leans to the left or the right. The current majority won’t last forever, perhaps not even many more years, and Democrats deriding the current Court as political won’t be pleased if Republicans make the same claim when their appointees are back in the majority. The fury of the left’s reaction isn’t merely about guns and abortion. It reflects their grief at having lost the Court as the vehicle for achieving policy goals they can’t get through legislatures. The cultural victories they achieved by judicial fiat will now have to be won by persuading voters. We understand their frustration, but they ought to try democracy for a change. They might even win the debate over abortion. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lie-senate-justice-gorsuch-kavanaugh-collins-manchin-aoc-meet-the-press-abortion-dobbs-roe-casey-ginsburg-11656277455?__________________________________________________________ 3. Churches Move Cautiously on Abortion and Call for Calm Post-Roe, Sunday sermons address Supreme Court ruling; ‘It’s not a time to spike the football,’ said one priest ahead of celebrating Mass, By Theo Francis, Kate King and Teresa Mettela, The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2022, Pg. A6 Members of the clergy treaded carefully in discussing abortion on the first Sunday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and they called for respectful discussions over an issue that divides many congregations. … “It’s not a time to spike the football,” said the Rev. Christopher Walsh of St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Philadelphia in an interview ahead of celebrating Mass on Sunday. He said he wanted to emphasize the need to help unexpectedly pregnant women as well as those in financial hardship. A similar message came from one of the nation’s most prominent Roman Catholic churches, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan. Father Enrique Salvo avoided direct reference to the Supreme Court’s ruling and called for forgiveness toward those who make mistakes, which he said includes those who terminate a pregnancy. https://www.wsj.com/articles/churches-move-cautiously-on-abortion-and-call-for-calm-post-roe-11656268174?__________________________________________________________ 4. Roe’s End Just The Beginning, By Ross Douthat, The New York Times, June 26, 2022, Pg. SR9 By any reasonable political science theory, any normal supposition about how power works in our republic, this day should not have come. The pro-life movement has spent half a century trying to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that was presumed to reflect the enlightened consensus of the modern age. It has worked against the public’s status quo bias, which made Roe v. Wade itself popular, even if the country remained conflicted about the underlying issue. Against the near-universal consensus of the media, academic and expert class. Against the desires of politicians who were nominally supportive of its cause, the preferences of substantial portions of American conservatism’s donor class. Across all those years the pro-life cause also swam against the sociological and religious currents of American life, which have favored social liberalism and secularization. It found little vocal support among Hollywood’s culture-shapers and crusaders for social justice, or the corporate entities that have lately embraced so many progressive causes. It was hampered by the hiddenness of the injustice it opposed, the voicelessness of the constituency on whose behalf it tried to speak. … The pro-life impulse could control and improve conservative governance rather than being undermined by it, making the G.O.P. more serious about family policy and public health. Well-governed conservative states like Utah could model new approaches to family policy; states in the Deep South could be prodded into more generous policy by pro-life activists; big red states like Texas could remain magnets for internal migration even with restrictive abortion laws. And it is not only the pro-life movement that could alienate the conflicted middle in the post-Roe world. The pro-choice side is presently in danger of jettisoning its time-tested rhetorical moves in the name of progressive political correctness and refusing to compromise its maximalist policy demands. … All of which is to say that any confident prediction about this ruling’s consequences is probably a foolish one. There can be no certainty about the future of abortion politics because for almost 50 years all policy debates have been overshadowed by judicial controversy, and only now are we about to find out what the contest really looks like. It’s merely the end of the beginning; the true end, in whatever settlement or victory, lies ahead. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/opinion/roe-abortion-politics.html__________________________________________________________ 5. Pro-Lifers Should Hold Off on Seeking National Abortion Ban, Making a federal law a priority would divert conservatives’ attention from pressing political battles in the states. It would also divide them., By Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg, June 26, 2022, 8:00 AM, Opinion Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade gets one thing right: The ruling doesn’t just open the door to states to ban abortion. It removes the key legal obstacle to a federal ban on abortion, too. Whether and how to take advantage of that opening will now become a strategic choice, and debate, for pro-lifers. For opponents of abortion, there are weighty considerations on both sides. … So even though the legal door may be open for a federal ban on abortion, the political door is, for now, shut. How hard to push on it raises a series of prudential judgments. Let’s say a senator who has been a longtime ally of pro-lifers says that, in her view, the federal government should leave abortion to the states — but that she will keep voting for conservative judicial nominees and against federal funding for abortion, and in other ways continue to be an ally. Should pro-lifers attack her and try to get her replaced in a primary? I think the answer is no. But unless pro-lifers apply that kind of stringent test to politicians, they will not be able to get federal legislation. A real campaign for federal anti-abortion legislation would mire pro-lifers in one internal battle after another. The upshot is that pro-lifers should not rule out federal action in principle. Laws restricting abortion throughout the country should be our goal. But for the foreseeable future, the main place to fight for such laws should be individual states. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-26/federal-abortion-ban-why-conservatives-should-hold-off__________________________________________________________ 6. Abortion Goes Back to the People, By The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2022, Pg. A12, Editorial Can America still settle its political conflicts democratically, and peacefully? We’re about to find out after the Supreme Court Friday overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the profound moral issue of abortion to the states and democratic assent, where it has always belonged. … A national ban may also be an unconstitutional intrusion on state police powers and federalism. Imposing the abortion values of Mississippi or Texas on all 50 states could prove to be as unpopular as New York or California trying to do the same for abortion rights. One tragedy of Roe is that it pre-empted an abortion debate that was moving in the states a half century ago. That debate can now resume. Some states will ban it in most cases, while others like California may seek to pay for the abortions of women from other states. It will take awhile, and more than one election, but we hope that eventually the public through its legislators will find a tolerable consensus, if not exactly common ground. That’s the best we can ask for in our imperfect republic, if we can keep it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/abortion-goes-back-to-the-people-supreme-court-roe-v-wade-dobbs-v-jackson-samuel-alito-11656107148?__________________________________________________________ 7. TCA’s Maureen Ferguson Discusses Impact Of Supreme Court Ruling On Roe V Wade on ABC News, By The Catholic Association, June 25, 2022, Video ABC News interviews Maureen to discuss the historical impact of the Supreme Court’s Overruling of Roe versus Wade. https://thecatholicassociation.org/ferguson-abc-supreme-court-roe-v-wade/__________________________________________________________ 8. 18 Ways the Supreme Court Just Changed America, By Politico, June 25, 2022, 2:23 PM [O. Carter Snead:] What will the American legal and political landscape look like in 10 years, now that Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and related precedents have been overturned and the issue of abortion has been returned to the democratic process? Likely Americans will be accustomed to governing themselves on this vexed matter through the deliberative work of the political branches as our friends and neighbors in nations around the world have always done, rather than by submission to the fiat of unelected judges. This will mostly take place at the state level, creating a patchwork approach to regulating abortion, with some states enacting strong restrictions and others adopting permissive regimes, or even promoting access to the procedure. This patchwork landscape will be complex but ultimately more democratic, easing polarization and bringing on more civic peace to U.S. politics. O. Carter Snead is professor of law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and author of What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press 2020). https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/25/post-roe-america-roundup-00042377__________________________________________________________ 9. Religious schools may face another hurdle to state tuition, By David Sharp, Associated Press, June 25, 2022, 11:44 AM Religious schools got what they wanted when the Supreme Court allowed them to participate in a state tuition program. But the state attorney general said the ruling will be for naught unless the schools are willing to abide by the same antidiscrimination law as other private schools that participate in the program. … The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Maine can’t exclude religious schools from a program that offers tuition for private education in towns that don’t have public schools. But religious schools didn’t have long to savor their victory before learning of a new hurdle.Attorney General Aaron Frey said both Christian schools involved in the lawsuit have policies that discriminate against students and staff on a basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, preventing their participation in the tuition program despite the hard-fought litigation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/religious-schools-may-steer-clear-of-tuition-despite-ruling/2022/06/25/abbf3288-f48d-11ec-ac16-8fbf7194cd78_story.html__________________________________________________________ 10. Pope hails families, blasts ‘culture of waste’ after Roe, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, June 25, 2022, 2:23 PM Pope Francis celebrated families Saturday and urged them to shun “selfish” decisions that are indifferent to life as he closed out a big Vatican rally a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion. Francis didn’t refer to the ruling or explicitly mention abortion in his homily. But he used the buzzwords he has throughout his papacy about the need to defend families and to condemn a “culture of waste” that he believes is behind the societal acceptance of abortion. “Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference and waste, and as a result lose its very DNA, which is the spirit of welcoming and service,” he said. The pope, noting that some couples allow their fears and anxieties to “thwart the desire to bring new lives in the world,” called for them not to cling to selfish desires. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pope-hails-families-blasts-culture-of-waste-after-roe/2022/06/25/ef49ba5c-f4b3-11ec-ac16-8fbf7194cd78_story.html__________________________________________________________ 11. US bishops react to overturning Roe v. Wade: ‘The work has just begun’, By John Lavenburg, Crux, June 25, 2022 In response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore stated his appreciation but kept an eye towards the future and the need to redouble church efforts supporting women and couples who face unexpected pregnancies, as well as opening the hearts and minds of those with a different perspective. “My first reaction was to give thanks to the Lord for bringing about this day,” Lori, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference Pro-Life Committee chair told Crux. “It’s a day that many people have worked and prayed very hard for, and it is a day in which I think we can engage in the debate anew in our country, but hopefully also a day in which we will redouble our efforts to create a just and compassionate society where no mother has to choose between her child and her future,” he said. The sentiment was shared by prelates nationwide. Most of their reactions were along the same lines of appreciation for the long awaited decision, combined with an emphasis on the long road and important work ahead in terms of support, advocacy, and dialogue with abortion supporters. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2022/06/us-bishops-react-to-overturning-roe-v-wade-the-work-has-just-begun__________________________________________________________ 12. Vatican official says ‘Roe’ ruling should open ‘great debate’ on protecting life at every stage, By Elise Ann Allen, Crux, June 25, 2022 After the Unites States Supreme Court’s historic decision Friday overruling Roe v. Wade, the Vatican’s top official on life issues has said the decision is an opportunity to both strengthen societal support for mothers and to launch a deeper reflection on human life.Speaking to Crux about the decision, Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said, “The killing of an innocent human being can never be considered a ‘right.’” … The Pontifical Academy for Life joins the U.S. bishops’ statement on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Archbishop H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the conference, and Archbishop William Lori, head of the bishops’ pro-life committee, said that “the Court’s opinion shows how the issue of abortion continues to arouse heated debate.” “The fact that a large country with a long democratic tradition has changed its position on this issue also challenges the whole world,” the pontifical academy said. “The protection and defense of human life is not an issue that can remain confined to the exercise of individual rights but instead is a matter of broad social significance,” they said, stressing the need, nearly 50 years after Roe v. Wade first went into effect, “to reopen a non-ideological debate” on the place that protection of life issues have in civil society. https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/06/vatican-official-says-roe-ruling-should-open-great-debate-on-protecting-life-at-every-stage__________________________________________________________ 13. Title IX and the Rise and Fall of Women’s Sports, The law was never meant to let boys and men compete directly against female athletes., By Ashley McGuire, The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2022, 6:36 PM, Opinion When schools, athletic associations and courts began reading Title IX as sex-blind, discriminating on the basis of sex came to mean that it was impermissible to note any distinction between the sexes. … So-called gender neutrality paved a path for gender ideology to take this principle to the extreme. The Supreme Court threw gasoline on the fire with its 2020 rulings in Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Bostock v. Clayton County that diluted the legal meaning of sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity. What a sweeping—and therefore meaningless—definition of “sex” looks like in reality is the fate of women’s sports in free fall. As of late 2021, 37 states have tried to enact protections to preserve distinct spaces for women’s sports, and polling has found that a majority of Americans believe women’s sports should be restricted to biological women. But for the moment, girls with dreams of athletic greatness are in limbo, left to wonder if a lifetime of hard work will be obliterated by a boy at the finish line. … Of Title IX’s extraordinary impact on women’s sports, Sandler said, “We had no idea how bad the situation really was—we didn’t even use the word sex discrimination back then—and we certainly had no sense of the revolution we were about to start.” Sadly, the revolution seems to have taken female athletes back to where they started. Ms. McGuire is author of “Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/title-ix-womnen-s-sports-biden-administration-50th-anniversary-lia-thomas-sex-and-gender-discrimination-equal-access-bernice-sandler-11656100244?__________________________________________________________ 14. Poll: Americans’ belief in God is dropping, By Yonat Shimron, The Washington Post, June 24, 2022, 2:17 PM Belief in God has been one of the strongest, most reliable markers of the persistence of American religiosity over the years. But a new Gallup Poll suggests that may be changing. In the latest Gallup Poll, belief in God dipped to 81 percent, down six percentage points from 2017, the lowest since Gallup first asked the question in 1944. Even at 81 percent, Americans’ belief in God remains robust, at least in comparison with Europe, where only 26 percent said they believed in the God of the Bible, and 36 percent said they believed in a higher power, according to a 2018 Pew poll. Throughout the post-World War II era, an overwhelming 98 percent of U.S. adults said they believed in God. The proportion began to fall in 2011, when 92 percent of Americans said they believed in God and, in 2013, went down to 87 percent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/06/24/poll-americans-belief-god-is-dropping/__________________________________________________________ 15. Abortion in the States After Roe v. Wade, The Guttmacher Institute has some surprising findings on the number and availability of abortions., By The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2022, 6:42 PM, Editorial Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion could soon become illegal in half of the country. Or so Democrats warn. But it’s impossible to know how the debate will play out in many states. And a study this month by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, suggests that the practical consequences for abortion could be far less severe. … States that are more likely to ban abortion already regulate it more strictly, so the Court’s decision may have a smaller effect in those states. The Guttmacher report notes that because restrictions in recent years “were adopted in states generally considered hostile to abortion rights already, they may not have played as much of a role as the measures expanding access” in other states. This evidence from an abortion-rights group suggests that abortion will still be widely available in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade. States will respond to the Court’s decision in different ways, and that’s the beauty of the U.S. federalist system. https://www.wsj.com/articles/abortion-in-the-states-after-roe-guttmacher-institute-supreme-court-dobbs-v-jackson-11656109885?__________________________________________________________ 16. Why Not Prosecute Intimidation Of Supreme Court Justices?, The Justice Department hasn’t ensured peace at the homes of the Justices., By The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2022, 6:41 PM, Editorial Protests erupted Friday in Washington after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and bigger disruptions are possible. Yet so far the Justice Department has refused to enforce federal law to keep the peace at the personal homes of the Justices. That’s despite a request by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. … We’ve obtained the Justice Department’s reply, which is about as responsive as a wet blanket. “Your letter,” it says, “suggests that some individuals may have violated federal criminal law. We appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter. Longstanding policy and practice of the Department prevent us from discussing this information with you further or confirming or denying the initiation or existence of any investigation.” … Mr. Garland could help maintain tranquility by enforcing the law against people who rage outside the Justices’ homes, and especially those who threaten rioting or violence. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-not-prosecute-judicial-intimidation-department-of-justice-supreme-court-justices-glenn-youngkin-larry-hogan-11656108679?__________________________________________________________ 17. The Supreme Court Reclaims Its Legitimacy, In the 1973 abortion case, not today, the justices overstepped their boundaries and made their institution political., By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Jennifer L. Mascott, The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2022, 1:54 PM, Opinion The most anxiously awaited Supreme Court decision in decades is also the least surprising. An act of institutional sabotage leaked Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization nearly eight weeks in advance. On Friday a five-justice majority definitively overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), affirming states’ authority to regulate abortion. In so doing, the court reclaimed its legitimate constitutional role and signaled a willingness to re-examine precedents that strayed across the line between law and policy or misconstrued important constitutional provisions. … The decision in Dobbs suggests a majority committed to the court’s proper role, which is to decide cases independent of political and popular winds. Mr. Rivkin practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington. Ms. Mascott is an assistant professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former clerk for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Clarence Thomas. https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-reclaims-legitimacy-abortion-roe-v-wade-dobbs-v-jackson-women-health-reproductive-rights-life-originalism-justice-alito-11656084197?___________________________________________________________ 18. Biden calls Dobbs decision a ‘tragic error’, calls on Congress to codify abortion rights, By Jonah McKeown, Catholic News Agency, June 24, 2022, 1:55 PM In a Friday press conference, U.S. President Joe Biden called on Congress to codify abortion access into federal law, following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that morning. The court’s decision returned the question of abortion policy to the states, which Biden labeled a “tragic error.”  He also said he had that day directed the Department of Health and Human Services to make abortion pills more widely available, and that he would do “everything in my power” to protect women traveling to obtain abortions.   “It’s a sad day for the court and for the country,” Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, said June 24. Calling abortion an “intensely personal decision,” Biden went on to lament that the decision had taken away women’s “right to choose” and the “power to control their own destiny.” He claimed that with Roe gone, the “life and health” of women in the United States is now “at risk.”  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251630/biden-calls-dobbs-decision-a-tragic-error-calls-on-congress-to-codify-abortion-rights__________________________________________________________ 19. A Stain Erased, By National Review, June 24, 2022, 1:59 PM, Editorial At last. It has taken 49 years and five months, but the Supreme Court has finally reversed the monstrous injustice it worked in 1973. In Roe v. Wade, seven justices cast aside the laws of every state protecting unborn children from the violence of abortion, even though nothing in the text, original understanding, or history of the Constitution authorized them to do so. It was an act of “raw judicial power,” as a Democratic justice wrote in dissent, and even law professors who approved the abortion license Roe created assailed the decision for lacking any constitutional base. Decades of work, the efforts of tens of millions of Americans, and persistence through many disappointments were necessary to bring us to this day of correction. Overturning Roe does not guarantee justice for the unborn: Pro-lifers know the work must continue. What the Court has done is give pro-lifers the chance to make their case and prevail in democratic fora. Our fundamental law will no longer effectively treat unborn children as categorically excluded from the most basic protection that law can provide. It is a mighty step forward for the rule of law, self-government, and justice. … Let us rejoice that this sad episode in our nation’s history has ended, and work to extend the blessings of life. https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/a-stain-erased/__________________________________________________________ 20. A momentous win for pro-life, a devastating loss for pro-choice: reactions to Dobbs pour in, By Joseph Clark, The Washington Times, June 24, 2022 Grazie Pozo Christie, a senior fellow with the Catholic Association: “The pro-life movement has been fighting for this moment for 50 years. The Court’s unambiguous reversal of Roe and Casey is what the American people wanted and what the Constitution demanded. The people once more have a say in this issue of great moral consequence.” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/24/momentous-win-pro-life-devastating-loss-pro-choice/__________________________________________________________

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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