Chicago, Ill., Jan 5, 2021 / 08:55 pm (CNA).- The outspoken activist Chicago priest Father Michael Pfleger faces an allegation that he sexually abused a minor over 40 years ago, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 5, 2021 / 06:19 pm (CNA).- An 18-month-long investigation into child sexual abuse in North Dakota’s two dioceses has concluded, the state’s attorney general announced Monday.
The investigation focused on a li… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- Looking ahead at 2021, abortion advocates are hoping the incoming presidential administration will bring policy changes and new personnel who are sympathetic to their goals.
“Planned Parenthood is committed to partnering with the Biden-Harris administration to ensure sexual and reproductive health doesn’t take a backseat in health policy and when making appointments,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a December 31 essay in Elle.
“On day one, we want Biden to issue an executive order that demonstrates the administration’s commitment to advancing health care access and rolling back harmful policies like the Title X gag rule, which has blocked patients from accessing care at Planned Parenthood health centers,” said Johnson.
The Title X “gag rule” is a Trump administration policy which prohibits the distribution of Title X funds to facilities which refer for abortion services or who provide abortion services.
Johnson called for the Biden-Harris administration to “make critical updates” to Title X, in order for more people to benefit from its funds. She did not elaborate in the essay as to what these “updates” would be.
“Finally, Planned Parenthood will continue to advocate for the appointment of diverse reproductive health champions to executive and judiciary vacancies,” said Johnson.
Johnson is hopeful that the Biden administration will repeal the Hyde Amendment “for good.” She called the Hyde Amendment, a 1977 law which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services, “a discriminatory policy that blocks people who get their health insurance through Medicaid or other government-funded programs from accessing coverage for safe, legal abortion.”
President-elect Biden had previously supported the Hyde Amendment and voted for it numerous times throughout his time in the Senate. Over the course of a 24-hour period in June 2019, Biden changed course, following five decades of support for the policy, and announced that he was now in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment.
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris took credit for Biden’s abrupt about-face on the Hyde Amendment. In 2021, said Johnson, abortion advocates “must fight for policies that ensure every single person, regardless of their income or zip code, can actually access sexual and reproductive health care.”
Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL, had similar sentiment as Johnson. Speaking on a podcast, Hogue was concerned that the makeup of the Supreme Court could result in Roe v. Wade being overturned.
“We’re certainly preparing with our partners in the movement for [the overturning of Roe],” said Hogue. She said that much of her organization’s work recently “has been about making sure that we have what we call ‘islands of access’–blue states that are codifying the right to abortion, making sure that we have like practice in place where women can go.”
Many states, including New York, have moved to codify a right to have an abortion into state law. Should the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision be overturned, it would be up for states to decide their own abortion policies.
Hogue stated that she would support the creation of a “women’s health czar” in the upcoming administration. “It would send such a clear message that the terrible era that Trump ushered in is over,” said Hogue.
Biden, a Catholic, has previously pledged to codify the right to abortion into federal law.
“Number one, we don’t know exactly what [Justice Amy Coney Barrett] will do, although the expectation is that she may very well move to overrule Roe, and what the only thing–the only responsible response to that would be to pass legislation making Roe the law of the land,” said Biden in October.
“That’s what I would do.”
CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 / 04:36 pm (CNA).- Catholic and human rights groups have condemned the killing of nine indigenous group leaders, who were shot as authorities arrested protesters late last month.
On Dec. 30, government authorities attempted to a… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 / 03:31 pm (CNA).- The number of babies with Down syndrome who were born in Europe fell by half between 2011 and 2015— confirming the fears of pro-life campaigners in the UK, who have long argued that increased prenatal testing for Down syndrome has led many women to abort their children.
A study published during December 2020 in the European Journal of Human Genetics examined the years 2011-2015 to determine the number of babies born with Down syndrome across all countries in Europe, and compared those numbers to estimates of how many babies would have been born with Down syndrome had they not been aborted.
The study found that 54% fewer babies with Down syndrome were born during that period in the United Kingdom than estimates would have expected— a figure roughly in line with the European average.
Notably, in the UK, non-invasive prenatal testing for Down syndrome has been available since 2012 to any woman willing to pay the £500 bill, the BBC reports.
In Spain and Italy, the percentage of reduction was 83% and 71%, respectively.
Abortion is legal in the United Kingdom until the 24th week of pregnancy, except when continuing the pregnancy is dangerous to the physical or mental health of the mother, as well as in cases where the baby will “suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.”
For these disabilities, which can include Down syndrome, cleft lip, and club foot, abortion is legal up to birth. Most of the country’s 200,000 or so annual abortions take place before 13 weeks.
Right to Life UK, a pro-life group active in the country, has documented several instances of women being pressured to abort their children as a result of the prenatal test, with one mother reporting that she had been “offered about 15 terminations,” including when she was 38 weeks pregnant. By some estimates, nine out of ten women in the UK who receive a diagnosis of Down syndrome abort their child.
Increased use of NIPT have prompted several medical professional organizations in the UK, including The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, to issue guidelines urging doctors not apply pressure for abortion based on the results of the tests.
An investigation last summer found that the number of births of Down syndrome babies has fallen by 30% in National Health Service hospitals that offer NIPT.
The “Don’t Screen Us Out” campaign in the United Kingdom has, for the past four years, been drawing awareness to and seeking to change the UK’s abortion laws, seeking to amend the Abortion Act 1967 so that abortions for non-fatal disabilities are outlawed in the third trimester, which starts around 28 weeks of pregnancy.
Lynn Murray, a spokesperson for the group, told CNA in an interview last year that the campaign began in response to the government’s proposal of a relatively new screening method for Down syndrome— known as “cell-free DNA” tests— that, according to the government, would find an additional 102 cases of Down syndrome a year.
Given the high rate of termination for babies in the UK found to have Down syndrome, the campaign formed in order to try to get the government to assess the impact that the non-invasive prenatal testing technique— which is already being offered at NHS hospitals— would have on the Down syndrome community. The campaign attracted attention among Britons with similar concerns, she said.
Early last year, a 25-year-old British woman with Down syndrome, Heidi Crowter, launched a lawsuit against the UK government seeking to change the laws.
Crowter is joined in the lawsuit by Cheryl Bilsborrow, the mother of a two-year-old with Down syndrome, who has said that she was strongly encouraged to have an abortion after doctors performed the screening test on her unborn child. Máire Lea-Wilson, mother of nearly two-year-old son Aiden, who has Down syndrome, also has joined the lawsuit.
In October, the High Court of England and Wales agreed to hear the legal challenge.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has consistently criticized countries which provide for abortion on the basis of disability. In some countries, such as Iceland, the abortion rate for babies believed to have Down syndrome is close to 100%.
Servant of God Jerome Lejeune discovered the genetic cause for Down syndrome— an extra copy of chromosome 21— in 1958. He spent the rest of his life researching treatments and cures for the condition, advocating against the use of prenatal testing and the abortion of unborn children who were found to have Down syndrome.
Berthe Lejeune, Dr. Lejeune’s widow, has said her husband was heartbroken that many doctors and governments have since used his discovery to “screen out” babies with Down syndrome, targeting them for abortion.
“He thought that all doctors would be happy to find research to cure them,” Lejeune told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in 2017.
“But sadly, all government[s], not only in France, said: oh, it’s a wonderful discovery. You can detect these little sick children before they are born, and so take them away with an abortion.”
A crucially important feature of Catholic social teaching, but one frequently underemphasized or misunderstood, is a clear animus against the concentration of power within a society. This perilous agglomeration can happen economically, politically, or culturally. […]
Bangassou, Central African Republic, Jan 5, 2021 / 02:56 pm (CNA).- The Central African Republic city of Bangassou has been captured by rebels aligned with an ex-president, Bishop Juan José Aguirre Muñoz of Bangassou has reported as he ap… […]
Nigerian biomedical scientist and pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha first made headlines when she penned an open letter to Melinda Gates, cautioning her not to impose her markedly Western understanding of women’s liberation onto African countries. […]
Rome Newsroom, Jan 5, 2021 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch has said that the country could be facing “the risk of total collapse” amid a deepening economic and political crisis.
In his homily on Jan. 3, Cardinal … […]
CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The Scottish Catholic bishops have protested the closing of churches as part of Scotland’s newest coronavirus lockdown.
Scotland’s government announced the latest closure Jan. 4. The month-long loc… […]
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