1. Overseas Abortion Pills Blunt the Effect of Bans, By Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times, November 2, 2022, Pg. A22 As states banned or restricted abortion this summer, the number of American women ordering abortion pills from overseas jumped significantly — enough to offset most of the drop in legal abortions. Overall, abortion in the United States declined about 2 percent in the first two full months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, accounting for women who traveled to states where it remained legal or ordered pills from overseas, according to a New York Times analysis of data from two studies released this week.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/upshot/abortion-pills-mail-overseas.html__________________________________________________________ 2. State abortion bans prove easy to evade, Aid Access, a Netherlands nonprofit, is prescribing more abortion medication in the U.S. than ever, in defiance of state laws., By Ruth Reader, Politico, November 1, 2022, 2:24 PM People in states with abortion bans are risking legal repercussions to end their pregnancies. Orders for abortion pills to telemedicine nonprofit Aid Access have increased in states that have imposed restrictions since the Supreme Court gave states permission to do so in June, according to data provided by Rebecca Gomperts, the Dutch physician who runs the group. Gomperts, along with colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin and Mathematica Policy Research, detailed the increase in a research letter published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. They say average daily orders for abortion medication received by Aid Access from 30 states increased to 213.7 from June 24, the day of the high court’s decision, to the end of August. That’s up from a daily average of 82.6 from Sept. 1, 2021, to May 1. The data comes mainly from states that have either banned abortion, restricted access to it or where restrictions are under consideration by state lawmakers.  https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/01/state-abortion-bans-medication-00064407__________________________________________________________ 3. Travel time to abortion facilities grew significantly after Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, By Deidre McPhillips, CNN, November 1, 2022, 11:08 AM The average travel time to an abortion facility increased significantly for women in the United States after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and revoked the federal right to an abortion, according to a new study published Tuesday in JAMA. More than a dozen states enacted complete or partial bans on abortion after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, and researchers considered abortion facilities in those states to be inactive – cutting the number of active facilities by a tenth. This drop in active facilities means a third of women of reproductive age in the US live more than an hour from the closest abortion facility – more than double the share before the bans were enacted. And the average travel time to get an abortion more than tripled, from less than half an hour to more than an hour and a half.  https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/health/abortion-access-travel-time__________________________________________________________ 4. Pope Francis accepts resignation of German archbishop, By AC Wimmer, Catholic News Agency, November 1, 2022, 7:52 AM Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a German archbishop on Tuesday. Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg had been in charge of the Bavarian archdiocese since 2002. Schick recently came under pressure for the handling of sexual abuse cases in his diocese. The archbishop of the diocese in Southern Germany said in a statement published Nov. 1 that he had conveyed this request “to the pope verbally and in writing during a private audience in April of this year, explaining it thus: I have fulfilled and completed my duties in the archdiocese.”   https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252702/pope-francis-accepts-resignation-of-german-archbishop__________________________________________________________ 5. Catholic doctors confront groups’ call for investigation of ‘gender-affirming care’ critics, By Edie Heipel, Catholic News Agency, November 1, 2022, 4:40 PM A coalition of thousands of Catholic and religious medical professionals sent a letter Tuesday confronting three top medical groups that had urged the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute critics of “gender-affirming medicine.” “We write this open letter in response to your correspondence dated October 3, 2022, to Attorney General [Merrick] Garland,” the letter, led by the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), begins. The CMA is a national organization of more than 2,000 health care professionals that uphold the principles of the Catholic faith in the science and practice of medicine.“Expression of concern over the ability of youth to understand and consent to irreversible surgical interventions that result in loss of fertility and adult sexual function does not constitute harassment or intimidation,” CMA argued.  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252708/catholic-doctors-confront-groups-call-for-investigation-of-gender-affirming-care-critics__________________________________________________________ 6. ADF calls on human rights commission to defend religious freedom in Mexico and Nicaragua, By Catholic News Agency, November 1, 2022, 5:15 PM Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF) demanded that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) defend religious freedom in the region, with a special emphasis on Mexico and Nicaragua. “Latin America is currently experiencing a surge of human rights abuses in the area of religious freedom. What we are seeing is indicative of an alarming disregard for this foundational human right, with severe consequences not just for people of faith, but also for the future of democracy in the region as a whole,” stated Tomás Henriquez, ADF International’s director of advocacy for Latin America. At an Oct. 29 hearing held in Costa Rica, Henriquez demanded that the commission take concrete action against the violations of religious freedom in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Argentina, among other countries in the region. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252704/adf-calls-on-human-rights-commission-to-defend-religious-freedom-in-mexico-and-nicaragua__________________________________________________________

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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