Washington D.C., Oct 7, 2019 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- The Archbishop of Washington, D.C. exhorted Supreme Court justices to “rejoice” in the Holy Spirit at the annual Red Mass on Sunday in D.C.
In his homily, celebrant Archbishop Wilton Gre… […]
Paris, France, Oct 7, 2019 / 12:23 pm (CNA).- At least 42,000 people protested in Paris Sunday against a bill that would allow single women and lesbian couples access to IVF. Many French bishops have spoken against the bill.
Police said there were 42,000 at the Oct. 6 protests, while a media-funded researchers estimated 74,000, and organizers 600,000.
Speaking at the protest, former legislator Marion Maréchal said the French government is seeking “to voluntarily deprive a child of a father or to transform him and the mother who carries him into a consumer product.”
Organizers of the protests said the move would weaken the family and thus society, and that it is unjust “to authorize the manufacture of children voluntarily deprived of a father.”
Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris has said that the bill “touches on the most essential foundations on which our human societies are built: filiation, the non-commercialization of the human body, respect of all life from its conception until its natural death, the best interest of the child, a philanthropic and non-commercial medicine, a human ecology where the body is not an instrument but the place of the edification of the personality.”
And Archbishop Eric de Moulins d’Amieu de Beaufort of Reims, president of the French bishops’ conference, commented: “I’m afraid we are going down a very dangerous path.”
The bill passed the National Assembly last month, and will soon be considered by the Senate.
In France, IVF is now restricted to men and women who are married or have cohabited at least two years.
The bill would make women under 43 eligible for artificial insemination and four rounds of IVF treatment fully covered by French health care. According to the Washington Post “women in their mid-30s would also get coverage for egg freezing.”
It would also allow all children conceived through IVF to discover the identity of their biological father.
Last month, the National Academy of Medicine said in a report on the effort to revise bioethics law that while a woman’s desire for maternity is legitimate, “the deliberate conception of a child deprived of a father is a major anthropological break that is not without risks for the psychological development of the child.”
President Emmanuel Macron included the expansion of IVF provision in his 2017 campaign.
Introducing the bill, health minister Agnès Buzyn said, “the criterion that defines a family is the love that unites a parent and child.”
Jackson, Miss., Oct 7, 2019 / 11:06 am (CNA).- A federal appeals court is considering a Mississippi law ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law was signed in 2018 but is not currently in effect.
The law allows abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy only when the mother’s life or a major bodily function is in danger, or when the unborn child has a severe abnormality and is not expected to be able to live outside the womb at full term. Exceptions are not granted for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
Under the law, physicians knowingly in violation can lose their state medical licenses, and receive a civil penalty of up to $500 if they falsify records about the circumstances of the procedure.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the legislation March 19, 2018, saying, “I am committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child, and this bill will help us achieve that goal.”
The law was immediately challenged by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which argued that the Supreme Court has held that states may not restrict abortion before the unborn baby is viable – around 23 or 24 weeks.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued a temporary injunction against the law one day after it was passed. He issued a ruling against the law in November 2018.
Mississippi state attorneys are appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Arguments in the case are being heard Oct. 7.
In defending the law, the state argued that it has an interest in protecting the life of the unborn, as well as maternal health. State attorneys have pointed to an increased risk of complications for the mother when abortion is performed further into the pregnancy. They have also made a case that unborn babies are capable of feeling pain prior to viability.
“We are saving more of the unborn than any state in America, and what better thing we could do?” Bryant said upon signing the law, noting that he anticipated lawsuits, but that “It’ll be worth fighting over.”
The legislation was also applauded by the bishops of Mississippi for protecting unborn human life.
Prior to the passage of the 2018 law, Mississippi barred abortion at 20 weeks into pregnancy. It also requires that those performing abortions be board-certified or -eligible obstetrician-gynecologists, and that a woman receive in-person counseling and wait 24 hours before receiving an abortion.
Only one abortion clinic remains in Mississippi. Jackson Women’s Health Organization performs abortions up to 16 weeks, the Associated Press reports.
Vatican City, Oct 7, 2019 / 10:31 am (CNA).- A religious sister from Colombia taking part in the Amazon synod said Monday her congregation and other women’s religious congregations play a big role in the life of the Catholic Church in the Amazon…. […]
Vatican City, Oct 7, 2019 / 03:39 am (CNA).- In his opening remarks for the Amazon synod Monday, Pope Francis said the assembly’s working document is meant to be “destroyed” as the starting point of the work of the Holy Spirit, who he… […]
With the explosion of the sexual revolution and its attendant harms, the precipitous collapse of priestly vocations, and the various scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church, many Catholics have asked whether it is not […]
Rochester, N.Y., Oct 6, 2019 / 04:06 pm (CNA).- A newly-formed group of Catholic mothers in Rochester, New York has committed to praying regularly for the flourishing of vocations from within their own families.
“We have to pray for our kids, fo… […]
After dozens of superhero movies in the past 14 years since Batman Begins kicked off the blockbuster hero craze worldwide, all of the flashy costumes and over-the-top effects extravaganzas were starting to blend together. It […]
Vatican City, Oct 6, 2019 / 04:06 am (CNA).- At the opening Mass for the Amazon synod Sunday, Pope Francis prayed that the Holy Spirit would give the bishops prudence, wisdom, and discernment to help the Church in the Pan-Amazonian region be renewed by… […]
Chicago, Ill., Oct 5, 2019 / 04:46 pm (CNA).- Concerns over parental rights violations are being raised as a group of families in Chicago files a lawsuit saying their newborns were wrongly taken from them when they declined a voluntary Vitamin K shot.
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