abortion

No Picture
News Briefs

For pro-life college students, being targeted by rage over leaked abortion opinion poses major test

May 6, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Co-chairs of Harvard Right to Life, Olivia Glunz (right) and Ava Swanson (left) led a pro-life demonstration on Harvard University’s campus on May 4, 2022, in response to a pro-abortion rally on campus. / Joe Bukuras/CNA

Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 6, 2022 / 17:03 pm (CNA).

Being a pro-life student on most secular campuses was never easy, but it has taken a dramatically more intense turn now that a May 2 draft ruling of the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which suggested that the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, has been leaked to the public.

In response, angry students have been shown in videos posted online shouting profanities and insults at their pro-life schoolmates.

Those same, raw emotions were on display May 4 at Harvard University, one of the world’s premiere academic institutions. That afternoon, about three dozen members of the school’s pro-life group, Harvard Right to Life, were subjected to a slew of insults and obscenities when they staged a counter-demonstration in response to a rally of about 70 students protesting the possible overturning of the Roe decision.

One passerby called the group the “Harvard Virgins Club.” In response to another verbal attack, a member of the pro-life group responded, “We love you so much!”

“No you don’t!” the passerby shouted back. “You don’t love me at all! You want me to be a Jesus freak like the rest of you!”

A pro-lifer responded back, “God bless you sir!” An additional pro-lifer said, “We love you guys! We love you!”

Students from Harvard University's pro-life group, Harvard Right to Life, gathered in Harvard Yard May 4, 2022, in order to show the university that there are pro-life voices on campus. Joe Bukuras/CNA
Students from Harvard University’s pro-life group, Harvard Right to Life, gathered in Harvard Yard May 4, 2022, in order to show the university that there are pro-life voices on campus. Joe Bukuras/CNA

Despite the rough treatment, pro-life students told CNA they won’t be intimidated.

Olivia Glunz, a 19-year-old freshman and co-chair of Harvard Right to Life, told CNA that now that the Dobbs’ draft decision has been leaked, she thinks there will be significant pushback directed at pro-life voices on campus.

“But at the same time,” she added, “I think it’s more important to speak out now.”

Glunz said that the leaked decision will give the pro-life movement motivation. Those who may have been too afraid to speak up about their pro-life beliefs may now be more inclined to speak up, she added.

That motivation is exactly what pushed Glunz to lead the Harvard Right to Life’s May 4 demonstration, which she says is the student pro-life group’s first “public facing” event on campus since before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Glunz, of Yardley, Pennsylvania, told CNA that she felt uncomfortable being screamed at and insulted, but added that she wasn’t surprised, either. 

Glunz said that the visceral reactions from pro-choice students towards their signs and chants “cemented” her pro-life convictions. She added, “I think comparing the anger of the other side to our joy and cheer was really telling.”

The “joy and cheer” that Glunz was referring to consisted of positive chants such as “Love them both,” and the singing of Civil War hymns like “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Ava Swanson, a 20-year-old sophomore and co-president of Harvard Right to Life, told CNA that being pro-life at the Ivy League school entails “tip-toeing around a lot” because many pro-life students are “really worried” about what their friends will think if they discover their pro-life views.

Some students have told Swanson they could never be friends with a pro-lifer, but she noted that in some cases they have been open to discussing the issue once they’ve learned she is opposed to abortion.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Pro-life leaders, hopes raised, react cautiously to leaked abortion decision draft

May 2, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Students from Liberty University pray in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case on Dec. 1, 2021. / Katie Yoder/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2022 / 21:25 pm (CNA).

Pro-life leaders had mixed reactions Monday night to the news of a purported U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion signaling that justices will overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. While many declined to comment on the reported leak, all of them condemned Roe.

Politico on Monday night published a purported 98-page draft majority opinion allegedly written by conservative Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in the closely watched Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The document states, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Court experts reacting to the news emphasized that, if authentic, the draft may still be subject to changes before any final decision is announced.

The March for Life “will not be providing comment on an official decision of #scotus possible leak until a decision is officially announced,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life, responded on Twitter after Politico published its exclusive report. 

“We also believe that given the leak the court should issue a ruling as soon as possible,” she added. “This leak was meant to corrupt the process. It is heartbreaking that some abortion advocates will stoop to any level to intimidate the court no matter what the consequences.”

Back in December, Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in the Dobbs case, which centers on a 2018 Mississippi law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks and directly challenges Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe in 1992. 

“It is commonly known that Roe was erroneously decided,” Mancini said. “#SCOTUS needs to correct the wrong and give people the ability to decide abortion policy.”

Pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List similarly declined initially to comment on the alleged leak, tweeting, “Regarding the SCOTUS leak on Dobbs, SBA List will not be commenting until an official decision is announced by the Court.”

Later, however, SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser issued a fuller statement. “If the draft opinion made public tonight is the final opinion of the court, we wholeheartedly applaud the decision. The American people have the right to act through their elected officials to debate and enact laws that protect unborn children and honor women. If Roe is indeed overturned, our job will be to build consensus for the strongest protections possible for unborn children and women in every legislature,” Dannenfelser said.

“We also recognize the need for the pro-life movement to continue its existing work to support pregnant women and children in need. There are thousands of pro-life pregnancy centers and maternity homes nationwide and an ever-growing pro-life safety net,” the statement continued. “The pro-life movement will continue to grow to meet the needs of these women and their families, walking and planning with them to love and serve both mother and child.”

In response to the Politico report, Lila Rose, the president and founder of Live Action, responded with a slew of tweets, beginning with, “Roe Must Go! The right to kill a child doesn’t exist. But the right to life is a basic human right.” 

She commented on the “Unprecedented leak of a draft SCOTUS decision.”

“Roe has been wrongly decided since the day it was issued. It’s illogical and gravely unjust. Overruling Roe would be an important step in the right direction of protecting our fundamental right to life. But if this decision is issued, true justice has not yet been achieved,” she stressed in a Twitter thread. 

“It’s not enough to send abortion back to the states,” she said, indicating what would happen if Roe is overturned. “Democracies shouldn’t have the ability to vote on if a genocide can be committed against an entire group of people. Human rights are not decided by majority vote. They are inalienable.”

“Pray for the Justices tonight and every night until the decision comes out,” she concluded. “I fear there will be unprecedented threats against them.”

As president and CEO of Americans United for Life, Catherine Glenn Foster responded, “We stand alongside all Americans who have waited so hopefully and for so long for the Supreme Court to reverse Roe, to set American on the path to abortion abolition, and to restore justice to our nation. Today is a day for courage and hope.”

In the same statement, Steven H. Aden, chief legal officer and general counsel at AUL, condemned the leak. 

“The Supreme Court wishes to return the issue of abortion to the American people, and for that reason this draft opinion language is to be applauded,” he said. “It is outrageous that this draft language was leaked, presumably by pro-abortion staffers within the Court. It is a cynical and naked attempt to pressure justices to alter course in Dobbs and to perpetuate abortion violence. The Court should maintain the moral high ground, stick to the clear and courageous language this draft opinion, and not allow itself to be ruled by the expectations of pro-abortion activists or proxy media allies.”

AUL took the position that the “implicit intent of this leak is to pressure and manipulate members of the Court to alter their votes or otherwise water down the language of the final opinion — if the Court is truly the nonpolitical body that Chief Justice John Roberts has said that it is, the Court cannot now bow to partisan pressure to change course for the sake of an illusory detente.”

Another pro-life leader, Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, said, “We don’t know whether rumors of the end of Roe are accurate yet, but we know that ending Roe is the right decision, returning the issue to ‘we the people’ from a few judges with an agenda.”

“You won’t find ‘abortion’ written in invisible ink in the Constitution undiscovered until 7 men saw it in 1973,” she added, referring to the Roe decision. “Ending preborn human life is and has always been a judicial error. The court cannot allow the bullying tactics of the left combined with the threat of chaos caused by an unprecedented leak to change the right course — the end of Roe.”

[…]

The Dispatch

Pope Francis: God is weeping for the victims of the Ukraine war

April 23, 2022 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 20, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Apr 23, 2022 / 09:40 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said on Saturday that “we must ask for the grace to cry” with Our Lady for the lives destroyed by the Ukraine war and the other miseries of our time, like “the children discarded before they are even born.”

In a meeting on April 23 with the Catholic community affiliated with the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Tears in northern Italy, the pope said that Mary’s tears are “a sign of God’s weeping for the victims of the war” in Ukraine.

Pope Francis underlined that the war is “destroying not only Ukraine,” but it is destroying “all the nations involved in the war.”

“Because war not only destroys the people who are defeated, no, it also destroys the victor … War destroys everyone,” he said in Paul VI Hall.

“We have entrusted our prayer to the Immaculate Heart, and we are certain that our Mother has accepted it and intercedes for peace, for she is the Queen of Peace,” the pope added.

In a speech to 2,800 pilgrims from Italian parishes close to the 16th century shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Treviglio, Italy, the pope said that “our civilization, our times, have lost the [Biblical] sense of weeping.”

Pope Francis speaks to 2,800 pilgrims from Italian parishes affiliated with the shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Treviglio, Italy on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media
Pope Francis speaks to 2,800 pilgrims from Italian parishes affiliated with the shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Treviglio, Italy on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media

He said: “We must ask for the grace to cry in front of the things we see … not only wars … but the discarded, the elderly who are discarded, the children discarded before they are even born.”

“The miseries of our time should make us cry and we need to cry. …We must allow ourselves to be moved,” he added.

Pope Francis said that “Mary’s tears” intercede and help those with hearts of stone who have forgotten how to cry.

“Mary’s tears were transformed by the grace of Christ, as her whole life, her whole being, everything in Mary is transfigured in perfect union with the Son, with his mystery of salvation. Therefore when Mary cries, her tears are a sign of God’s compassion,” the pope said.

“And for this reason Our Lady’s tears are a sign of the compassion of God, who always forgives us with this compassion; they are a sign of Christ’s pain for our sins, for the evil that afflicts humanity, especially the little ones and the innocent, who are those who suffer,” he said.

Pope Francis meets with members of the FIAT Association on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media
Pope Francis meets with members of the FIAT Association on April 23, 2022. Vatican Media

The pope also spoke about the war in Ukraine in a meeting with the FIAT Association on Saturday. The FIAT Association was founded by Belgian Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens in 1987.

“The tragedies we are experiencing at the moment, particularly the war in the territory of Ukraine so close to us, remind us of the urgency of a civilization of love. In the eyes of our brothers and sisters, victims of the horrors of war, we read the profound and pressing need for a life marked by dignity, peace and love,” Pope Francis told the group.

“Like the Virgin Mary, we must continually cultivate the missionary spirit to make ourselves close to those who suffer, opening our hearts to them. We must walk with them, fight with them for their human dignity and spread the perfume of God’s love everywhere.”

[…]