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CNA Staff, Jul 4, 2020 / 03:58 pm (CNA).-  

The Bishop of Brownsville, Texas has criticized Planned Parenthood and pro-choice political organizations in the state for use of anti-Mexican ethnic slur in its campaign against the reelection of pro-life state Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr.

“While not surprised that Planned Parenthood would attack State Senator Eddie Lucio’s pro-life record, I am deeply discouraged that Texas Freedom Network and others would join in this malicious kind of attack, using such derogatory language to disparage him and his family,” Bishop Daniel Flores said in a July 3 statement.

The statement came after the Planned Parenthood Texas Votes PAC and the Texas Freedom Network reportedly used the term “Sucio Lucio” to describe the state senator in a direct mailing campaign.

“‘Sucio’ is an unacceptable word when associated with a Mexican American family name. Maybe they know not what such words mean in South Texas. Now more than ever it is imperative that words be used with care, with an awareness of their impact,” Flores added.

Lucio’s campaign issued a press release July 2, in response “to a recent direct-mail piece issued by Planned Parenthood & Texas Freedom Network attacking Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. using the term ‘Sucio Lucio,’ to describe the Hispanic senator and his traditional Catholic values of support for life.”

The release included a statement from state Sen. Lucio’s son, Texas state Representative Eddie Lucio III.

“I’m truly disheartened, given all that’s happening in the world today, that Planned Parenthood, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Rising, and others continue to disparage our family name with derogatory and racial slurs. These big special-interests groups from outside our border community should comprehend the deeper connotations behind the word ‘sucio’ (‘dirty Mexican’) and the association with a person of Hispanic descent,” the younger Lucio said.

“Mexican-Americans are hard-working, family-oriented individuals, never should the word dirty or its Spanish-language equivalent be used to describe one of us. Given current events and the social awareness on being accepting of all races and cultures, the continued use of this term is insensitive and in poor taste. We can respectfully disagree on issues without being offensive to an entire culture,” Lucio III added.

In his statement, Bishop Flores said that “Representative Eddie Lucio III’s statement accurately reflects my sentiments.”

The senior Lucio, a pro-life Democrat, has been a member of the Texas Senate since 1991. The senator faces attorney Sara Stapleton Barrera in a July 14 runoff election. Stapleton Barrera has campaigned to the left of Lucio, calling herself a “true Democrat,” and has been endorsed by gay rights and pro-choice groups in the state.

“Dirty Mexican” has been an anti-Mexican slur in use in the United States since at least the 1950s, as have derivatives which target particular Hispanic names. By some accounts, the word “sucio” is sometimes, but not always, used as slang to refer to a person who is either sexually immoral or homosexual.

Planned Parenthood has used the slur in the past against Lucio. In January, it tweeted the hashtag #SucioLucio while advertising a candidate’s forum.

Some defenders of the the hashtag, said on Friday it was meant only to denote the senator’s apparently “dirty political tactics.”

But the younger Lucio, who identifies his politics as “progressive” and has disagreed with his father on issues related to sexuality and gender identity, has insisted in recent days that the term is “derogatory.” Several Latino state legislators have agreed with him, and denounced Planned Parenthood’s use of the phrase.

On Friday, the Mexican American Legislative Council said that political campaigns should “steer clear of political name calling that plays on racial, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and every form of discrimination when our country is working for social justice.”

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CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2020 / 11:20 am (CNA).- Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis each made apostolic visitations to the United States during the course of their pontificates. As the United States celebrates Independence Day, CNA remembe… […]

CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2020 / 03:12 am (CNA).- The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a provision that intended to cut Planned Parenthood off from Medicaid funding in the state.

The 6-1 ruling found the provision to be unconstitutional, according to an Associated Press report. The ruling mandates that Missouri tax dollars will fund contraception and some abortions in the state’s 11 Planned Parenthood clinics.

The ruling states that the provision is a “clear and unmistakable violation” of the Constitution, which does not allow the budget to determine matters of policy.

The decision was a blow to pro-life advocates in the state, who have consistently turned out pro-life legislation and court decisions in recent years.

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed a comprehensive abortion ban into law in 2019, which set up a multi-tier ban on abortions after eight weeks, 14 weeks, 18 weeks and 20 weeks. In August of that year a federal judge struck down the bans, but retained a ban on abortions conducted solely because of the baby’s race, sex, or Down syndrome diagnosis.

Under Missouri law, abortion providers must distribute a booklet from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services which includes the statement: “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

State law also includes a “trigger law” that immediately bans all abortions except for medical emergencies if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

In June of this year, a federal appellate court dismissed a lawsuit filed by a member of the Satanic Temple against Missouri’s informed consent abortion law. The court rejected the group’s claim that the law established Catholic religious belief by stating that life begins at conception.

Later that month, the Missouri health department issued a license to the state’s only abortion clinic, a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Louis.

The license had been previously revoked due to health and safety concerns, including violating multiple state standards of sterilization and storing of equipment, and the proper documentation of medication and procedures.

However, the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission ruled that the department of health was wrong to deny the license, saying that Planned Parenthood had “substantially complied” with Missouri law. As a result, the clinic may remain operational.

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Denver Newsroom, Jul 2, 2020 / 03:04 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of San Francisco is pledging to comply with the city and county public health orders barring indoor public Masses and limiting outdoor services, including funerals, to 12 people.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter June 29 to the archdiocese’ lawyer, ordering the archdiocese to cease-and-desist indoor public Masses and giving it one day to comply.

“Upon reviewing the reports of multiple San Francisco parishes holding indoor Mass over the last few weeks, the Health Officer has concluded that the Archdiocese is putting not only its parishioners but the larger community at risk of serious illness and death,” the letter said.

The archdiocese told CNA today that it has made a good-faith effort to comply with the city’s public health guidelines, despite some occasional confusion and last-minute changes to the city’s public health orders.

“Our intention has always been to conform to what we understand to be the City orders and timelines,” the archdiocese said, noting that the city’s orders have been constantly changing throughout the pandemic, sometimes on short notice, the archdiocese said July 2.

Indoor gatherings are not currently permitted in San Francisco, but outside religious services and funerals are allowed with a 12-person limit, ABC7 reports.

The San Francisco archdiocese covers the city and county of San Francisco, as well as San Mateo and Marin counties.

The letter laid out several complaints the city had received about parishes around San Francisco holding indoor Masses.

According to the letter, Archbishop Cordileone had informed all parishes that they could resume public Mass June 14.

Dr. Tomas Aragón, the county public health officer, subsequently informed the archbishop that “he planned to issue a revised order that would allow for larger outdoor services and general indoor services…limited to 12 attendees, subject to safety and social distancing protocols, which would be effective June 29.”

Aragón later informed the archdiocese, on June 26, that such a revised order would be delayed.

A lawyer for the archdiocese sent a letter to the City Attorney’s Office June 30 saying that Archbishop Cordileone has now notified his priests “that the order limiting religious services to outdoors with no more than 12 people remains in force with appropriate social distancing and face coverings.”

One of the examples the City Attorney’s letter cited as a supposed example of a congregation flaunting the public health rules was a complaint that alleged that a priest from Star of the Sea parish “led a procession on June 8 without wearing a face covering.”

The letter cited the blog of Father Joseph Illo, Star of the Sea’s pastor, and a picture he posted June 13 of a Eucharistic procession in San Francisco.

In a July 2 email to parishioners, Father Illo disputed the letter’s characterization of the procession, which he said actually took place several years ago. The image first appeared on his blog during May 2016.

Illo said his parish will comply with the city’s orders, in obedience to the archbishop. But he lamented what he sees as an unjust application of the city’s orders.

“Dozens of people eat at restaurants on the streets around my church, without masks. The mayor addresses hundreds of people in a protest at City Hall, many of whom wear no masks. And the city is telling my church that we cannot have a gathering of more than 12 people, outside, for an activity that is specifically protected by the Constitution?” Illo wrote in his July 2 email to parishioners.

For its part, an archdiocesan spokesperson told CNA that they were surprised by the City Attorney’s letter.

“We have initiated contact to help decision-makers understand the nature of our religious services, the sizes of our churches and the care with which the California bishops have taken to plan very safe reopening of our churches for public Masses – when Public Health officials permit,” a statement from the archdiocese to CNA reads.

Archbishop Cordileone is currently seeking a meeting with “a senior city official” to discuss further “the nature of our religious services and how to fairly apply City policies to religious services,” the archdiocese concluded.

[…]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 2, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The city of Somerville, Massachusetts, has broadened its definition of domestic partnership to give polyamorous relationships the same rights as a married couple. 

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 1, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Ethicists and disability rights activists have expressed grave concerns over reports of the recent death of Michael Hickson, a black man with quadriplegia and a brain injury who was denied medical treatment due to his disabilities. 

Hickson, 46, died on June 11, six days after a doctor at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center told Hickson’s wife, Melissa, that he did not think that Michael had a quality of life due to his disabilities and would therefore not receive medical treatment, he was subsequently transferred to hospice care. Melissa recorded the conversation, and the video was posted on YouTube. 

Michael was admitted to the medical center after he contracted COVID-19 and pneumonia at the nursing home where he lived. 

Dr. John Di Camillo, and ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center told CNA that denying care based solely on a disability or presumptions about a patient’s quality of life is an “affront to the dignity of the human person and a tragedy of medical ethics.”

“A patient or surrogate decision-maker has the moral option to decline treatments that are extraordinarily burdensome or minimally beneficial,” Di Camillo said, “and clinicians have the duty to convey facts, expectations, and recommendations, but a refusal of care based on quality of life alone simply should not happen.” 

Dr. Harold Braswell, an bioethicist at St. Louis University, told CNA that while he cannot be sure what the doctor in the video was thinking, “given the objections of the family […] and a general tendency among health care professionals to underestimate quality of life among disabled people, it’s grounds for concern.” 

“Disability rights advocates have almost universally opposed ‘quality of life’ as a criteria for making triage decisions during COVID-19,” said Braswell, and that the preferred metric for triage is “survivability.” “Survivability” refers to the chance that a person will survive the medical interventions. 

“But survivability doesn’t seem to be an issue in this case–hence Mrs. Hickson’s surprise that her husband was being put on ‘hospice,’” said Braswell. He called the citation of “quality of life” a “big red flag.” 

At least one disability activist views Mr. Hickson’s death as a homicide. 

“The murder of Michael Hickson by a hospital system that doesn’t care is a tragic example of how our priorities have shifted,” Steven Spohn, a public speaker and disability activist, told CNA. 

“We used to be a nation that cared about Christian values and taking care of one another. Now people who need our support go unheard,” he said. 

Spohn told CNA that he believes there are “thousands of cases just like Michael’s” who do not receive media attention. 

“I wish that the media would pay attention to the injustice being done to people with disabilities on many fronts,” he said. 

Dr. Charles Camosy, a professor of bioethics at Fordham University, also told CNA that he was confused by the relative lack of major media attention given to Hickson’s death, especially in light of the increased attention to racial justice. 

“Given what we know about how rightly distrustful African Americans are of contemporary U.S. medicine, especially at the end of life, it is absolutely shocking that this clear issue of racial justice and medicalized violence is not being picked up broadly by major media outlets,” Camosy said first on Twitter and then to CNA. 

Since the death of George Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 in the custody of the Minneapolis Police, there have been a series of protests and increased attention given to the mistreatment of ethnic minorities in American society, something Camosy said is “helpfully exposing examples of both personal and structural racism.” 

“And yet, at least for now, all we hear are crickets [regarding Hickson’s death] except in the pro-life and disabilitiy communities,” said Camosy. 

Camosy acknowledged that while there may be times that require medical rationing, “there is no evidence that this was the case, and the doctor made it clear on the recording that he was aiming at his patient’s death on the basis of his disability.” 

In the video, when Melissa asked to clarify that the doctor was referring to Michael’s disabilities when he claimed that her husband “didn’t have much” of a quality of life, the doctor replied “correct.”

In the recorded video, the doctor explained to Melissa that the patients who were treated successfully with the drug he was refusing to administer to Michael were “walking and talking,” unlike her husband. 

In a second video Melissa posted to YouTube, she describes how she was not informed of her husband’s death for over 12 hours, and states that she was not allowed to visit him in hospice or have a FaceTime call with him before his death. She called for people to contact her husband’s doctors and medical guardians, who she says failed him in his final days. 

“Michael’s widow is pleading for us to hold the people who did this to account, and that we must do,” said Camosy. “Because black lives matter.”

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CNA Staff, Jul 1, 2020 / 01:37 pm (CNA).- After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law requiring parental consent for a minor’s abortion, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops praised the effort for reducing the “grave harm” of abort… […]