Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2021 / 04:48 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision Tuesday reversed a federal judge’s injunction that had blocked FDA rules requiring women to obtain an abortion pill from a doctor in person.
“The que… […]
For the past few years the best Latin lessons in the world were being offered in the unlikely setting of a nursing home basement in Milwaukee. After working in the Vatican for 40 years as […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the state of New York over its 2019 law legalizing some abortions throughout pregnancy.
Among the plaintiffs are victims of domestic violence, alleging that New York’s Reproductive Health Act helped enable domestic abuse by removing penalties for the death of unborn children resulting from abuse.
The women are represented by attorneys serving as special counsel to Women’s Alliance Against Violence, a new initiative of the Thomas More Society to challenge laws that enable violence against women and children.
The Reproductive Health Act, enacted in 2019, legalized abortion in some cases up until the point of birth. It also excluded unborn babies from the definition of “persons” with legal rights and removed protections for babies who could survive abortion attempts.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that the law is unconstitutional for allowing late-term abortions when the life of the mother is not at stake, and is “void for vagueness.”
Furthermore, the lawsuit says, the law puts pregnant women in greater danger from domestic abusers; by removing legal rights of unborn children, it effectively removes criminal penalties for domestic abuse that results in the death of the child.
“New York has stripped women and their families of their ability to pursue justice for those deaths,” said Christen Civiletto, one of the attorneys filing the federal action. “That’s outrageous. In fact, it is contrary to the stated policy of the RHA itself: to affirm the “fundamental right [of women] to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child.”
Counsel for the group allege that by deregulating abortion and expanding the number of staff who can perform abortions, the law also resulted in lower safety standards for women and put them at greater risk.
“There are numerous cases where women have died or been injured during abortions performed by unqualified and untrained clinic staff,” stated Catherine Glenn Foster, counsel to Women’s Alliance Against Violence.
When the Reproductive Health Act was passed and signed into law, critics of the law said it was extraordinarily permissive of abortion.
The law expanded those who could legally perform abortions to include nurse practitioners and physicians assistants; it allowed for abortions at any point in a pregnancy in the case of fetal inviability or “when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.” The law also decriminalized illegal abortions.
In February 2019, the Queens County district attorney reportedly cited the law in dropping an unlawful abortion charge, in the case of a man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend. While the man was still charged of second-degree murder for the killing of his girlfriend, he reportedly was not charged with unlawful abortion for the death of the baby.
Another lawsuit was filed in 2019 against a separate abortion bill enacted that year. Pregnancy care centers and a Baptist church sued over another law that barred employers from discriminating against “reproductive rights” in the workplace.
Faith-based groups claimed that the law did not include religious exemptions, thus possibly violating the rights of churches and pregnancy centers to uphold their pro-life beliefs in the workplace.
Vatican City, Jan 12, 2021 / 11:57 am (CNA).- A letter by Cardinal Pietro Parolin leaked to an Italian outlet shows that the Secretariat of State was aware, and approved at its highest ranks, of […]
CNA Staff, Jan 12, 2021 / 02:17 pm (CNA).- Bioethicists expressed alarm Tuesday at a U.K. court ruling allowing the withdrawal of food and water from a practicing Catholic patient.In a statement Jan. 12, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, England… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2021 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- As three federal executions were scheduled for this week, multiple bills have been introduced in Congress to end use of the federal death penalty.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced Jan. 11 the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2021, which would end federal use of the death penalty, bar the imposition of the death penalty for violation of federal law, and mandate that federal inmates on death row be re-sentenced.
“Ending the federal death penalty— which is as cruel as it is ineffective in deterring crime—is a racial justice issue and must come to an end,” said Pressley.
“The death penalty is deeply flawed and disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown and low-income people in America,” Durbin, a Catholic, said.
More than 70 members of Congress sponsored or co-sponsored the legislation. The effort comes after Rep. Adriano Espillat (D-N.Y.), a Dominican-American and Catholic, introduced H.R. 97 Jan. 4, “To abolish the death penalty under Federal law.”
The Trump administration has resumed federal use of the death penalty after nearly a two-decade moratorium on its utilization. Former Attorney General William Barr—a Catholic—had announced the resumption of the federal use of the death penalty in 2019.
In 2020, 10 federal inmates were executed by the U.S., and three more on death row were scheduled to be executed this week before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20.
However, a district court judge granted Lisa Montgomery—one of the three federal death row inmates—a stay of execution Jan. 11, “to allow the Court to conduct a hearing” regarding “Ms. Montgomery’s competence to be executed.”
According to Montgomery’s attorneys and expert testimonies, she is suffering from mental illnesses and brain impairments.
The D.C. Circuit Court also granted Montgomery a stay of execution Jan. 11. The Trump administration has appealed the case to the Supreme Court; Montgomery had originally been scheduled to be executed Jan. 12 at 6 p.m. EST.
In December, Pressley led a letter by more than 40 House members to Biden asking him to end use of the death penalty once he takes office.
U.S. bishops have been outspoken about ending the death penalty, and have repeatedly implored the Trump administration to stop the federal executions. Leading bishops also asked Biden to declare a moratorium on the federal use of executions and commute federal death sentences to life imprisonment.
Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, the next chair of the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee, said the death penalty was part of the “throwaway culture” in remarks at an online forum Jan. 8.
Rome Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A Rome court has ruled that the search and seizure of money and other valuables from the home of a suspended Vatican official last November was “illegitimate” and ordered the cash to be re… […]
The Saturday morning following the Capitol riot, I participated in our parish’s (now virtual) monthly 7:00 a.m. meeting of Men of St. Joseph. Our young associate pastor, a friend and very talented priest, reminded the […]
Rome Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- For Catholic judge Rosario Livatino, to “render justice” was an act of prayerful self-dedication to God.
“To render justice is a fulfillment of oneself, it is a prayer, it is a dedication of oneself to God,” Livatino said in a lecture on faith and law on the southern Italian island of Sicily in 1986.
Livatino, whose first name means “rosary” in Italian, worked as a prosecutor in Agrigento dealing with the criminal activity of the mafia in the 1980s. He was murdered on his commute to work on Sept. 21, 1990, when he was 37 years old and serving as a magistrate. He was recently declared a martyr by Pope Francis and is expected to be beatified in Sicily this year.
In an interview published Jan. 12, Fr. Giuseppe Livatino, postulator of the cause for Livatino’s beatification, said that the young Catholic judge provided a “credible witness” of coherence in his life of faith and his daily work.
“More than just ‘holy cards,’ Christians today urgently need credible witnesses. And that [is what] Rosario is,” his postulator said in an interview with ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner.
“Rosario knew well, thanks to his formative experience in Catholic Action, that the Christian is called to be ‘light of the world and salt of the earth,’ who must sanctify the world through one’s family and daily work,” Fr. Livatino said.
As postulator and cousin of the martyred judge, Fr. Livatino has spent years collecting testimonies, examining witnesses, and reading the judge’s personal writings to promote his cause for beatification and potentially canonization.
He said: “Among the testimonies collected, I was positively struck by the episode [recalled] by his former teacher, a priest, who asked him for a ‘small recommendation.’ Rosario felt deep respect and replied firmly: ‘When you offer confession, do you accept recommendations?’”
“Livatino drew directly from the experience of the saints, and in every dimension of his life he rejected any mediocrity … What he has to do, Rosario likes to do it right. He pursues that ‘perfection’ indicated by Jesus in the Gospel, to build the Kingdom of God.”
“Rosario had drawn his profound wisdom from the Gospel and the Magisterium of the Church. He knows and lives the Gospel, knows and applies the reflections of the [Second Vatican] Council Fathers on the role of the lay faithful in today’s world,” he said.
While promoting Livatino’s cause, his cousin has received thousands of emails from all over Italy, other European countries, Latin America, and the Philippines.
“Many asked for the text of the prayer to ask for the glorification on earth of the Servant of God. Many others asked for information on his life,” he said. “But all showed great interest in this splendid figure of ‘credible witness.’ Many said that they had received spiritual graces through Rosario’s intercession.”
“This man, unknown to most when he was alive, has spoken and continues to speak effectively since Sept. 21, 1990.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 09:47 am (CNA).- A district court judge has stayed the execution of Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, on the eve of her execution.
“Ms. Montgomery’s motion to stay execution, is granted to allow the Court to conduct a hearing to determine Ms. Montgomery’s competence to be executed,” said an order from Judge James Patrick Hanlon of the Southern District of Indiana.
“The Court will set a time and date for the hearing in a separate order in due course,” he said.
According to Montgomery’s attorneys, her mental state has deteriorated since the date of her execution was announced. She has reportedly begun hearing voices, and at one point said that “God spoke with her through connect-the-dot puzzles.”
“Based on reported observations, review of past materials, review of BOP medical records, and, in Dr. Kempke’s case, her past observation of Ms. Montgomery experiencing psychosis, all three experts opine that Ms. Montgomery is presently unable to rationally understand the government’s rationale for her execution,” said Hanlon.
Montgomery was diagnosed with various mental illnesses and experienced brain damage due to physical and sexual abuse she endured as a child.
Hanlon noted that while there are often “frivolous” filings prior to a condemned prisoner’s scheduled execution, “counsel’s filing is not frivolous.”
“As discussed elsewhere in this order, Ms. Montgomery has been diagnosed with physical brain impairments and multiple mental illnesses, and three experts are of the opinion that, based on conduct and symptoms reported to them by counsel, Ms. Montgomery’s perception of reality is currently distorted and impaired,” he said.
Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old woman who was 8 months pregnant. Montgomery cut Stinnett’s unborn daughter out of her womb, and kidnapped her across state lines. The girl survived and is now a teenager.
Multiple Catholic figures have spoken out against Montgomery’s planned execution, arguing that she is mentally unwell and that the death penalty itself is unjust.
In 2019, the Trump administration announced that federal executions would resume after a nearly two-decade moratorium.
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