Kamala Harris proposes federal restrictions on state abortion laws

May 30, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

Washington D.C., May 30, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Sen. Kamala Harris, one of the two dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls, announced Tuesday a plan that would bar some states from changing their abortion laws without federal approval.

“As President, I will stop dangerous state laws restricting reproductive rights before they go into effect,” Harris, California’s junior Senator, wrote May 28 on Twitter.

Harris announced her proposal during a town-hall on MSNBC.

Her plan would require that states and municipalities that have restricted abortion rights in the past to get permission from the Department of Justice before any new laws regarding abortion can take effect.

Under Harris’ proposal, the Justice Department would have to determine that a law complies with the standards of Roe v. Wade and the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill she is co-sponsoring which would bar any government from imposing a wide variety of limitations on abortion, and which is stalled.

The senator’s plan would require 60 votes in the Senate.

It is modeled on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which disallowed nine states and many counties and municipalities from modifying their electoral laws without federal sanction. Major parts of the law, which mainly affected southern states, were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2013.

Her proposal is in response to legislation in states such as Alabama, Missouri, and Georgia. Earlier this month Alabama adopted the Human Life Protection Act, making the the attempt or performance of an abortion a felony.

On MSNBC Harris, who was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017, said, “I got a real problem with that.”

“We cannot tolerate a perspective that is about going backward and not understanding … women have authority to make decisions about their own lives and their own bodies,” she stated.

Harris’ proposal was welcomed by NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Along with Sen. Mazie Hirono, Harris raised concerns in December about membership in the Knights of Columbus while the Senate Judiciary Committee reviewed the candidacy of Brian Buescher, who has been nominated by President Trump to sit on the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska.

Harris described the Knights as “an all-male society” which is “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and against “marriage equality.” In the light of his Catholic faith and membership of the Knights, both senators questioned Buescher’s ability to apply the law fairly and objectively as judge.

Democratic presidential candidates are vying to codify protections for abortion amid the wave of pro-life laws being passed across the US.

Joe Biden’s campaign said May 21 he would support federal laws protecting abortion rights “should it become necessary,” and he called recent state pro-life laws “pernicious” and “wrong.”

And Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said May 29 she disputes Church teaching on the priesthood, sexuality, and abortion: “I think [the Church] is wrong on those three issues. And I don’t think they’re supported by the Gospel or the Bible in any way. I just – I don’t see it, and I go to two Bible studies a week. I take my faith really seriously.”

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Vatican, US bishops face class-action lawsuit from victims of clergy sex abuse

November 15, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Nov 15, 2018 / 02:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops’ conference and the Holy See face a class action lawsuit filed by six men who claim they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy during their childhoods. They are seeking financial damages as well as public contrition and reparation from the Church.

The 80-page suit filed Nov. 13 claims that the Vatican and the bishops knew about – and covered up for – the “endemic, systemic, rampant, and pervasive rape and sexual abuse” of the plaintiffs and others at the hands of active members of the clergy, religious orders, and other Church representatives.

The suit opens by invoking two passages of Scripture: “(B)ut people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed,” and: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather, expose them.”

Rather than protect the plaintiffs, the lawsuit says Church leaders protected and – “incredibly” – promoted the offenders.

These kinds of “wrongful actions, inaction, omissions, cover-up, deception, and concealment” create a “conspiracy of silence to their financial and reputational benefit and to Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ personal, mental, psychological, and financial detriment.” These actions are “ongoing and continuous” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. by four attorneys representing six individuals who lived in six different states at the time the abuse occurred – Iowa, California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. It does not specifically detail the cases of abuse reportedly suffered by the individuals.

The attorneys who filed the suit are Mitchell Toups, Richard Coffman, Joe Whatley Jr., and Henry Quillen, who have previous experience with similar lawsuits on behalf of victims of clerical sex abuse.

Coffman, one of two attorneys on the case from Beaumont, Texas, told the Beaumont Enterprise that he has been watching the unfolding of the recent sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and felt the “time was right” to file this lawsuit.

“(S)omething needs to be done about this problem,” he told the Enterprise.

“There’s just a louder and louder outcry going on across the United States for the Catholic church to do something about this situation,” Coffman added.

The lawsuit was filed during the autumn plenary assembly of the USCCB in Baltimore, during which the bishops voted down a proposal that would have “encouraged” the Vatican to “release soon” all documents related to the allegations of misconduct against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, whose case has been at the center of the abuse scandals in the Church in the U.S. that have unfolded over the past five months.

At the beginning of the meeting, president of the conference Cardinal Daniel DiNardo also announced a Vatican order that the bishops not vote on any proposed solutions to the abuse crisis until a meeting in Rome in February with other bishops’ conferences, a move that the lawsuit said was merely “kicking the can down the road again.”

Several U.S. bishops expressed their disappointment with the order, and the sex abuse crisis still featured as a prominent point of discussion at the meeting, though no action was taken.

The suit also claims that the bishops and the Vatican violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, aimed at organized crime, because the bishops engaged in federal mail fraud and wire fraud in the cover-up of abuse. The Catholic Church in the U.S. is an “unincorporated association” and therefore qualifies as an organization that can be held to RICO standards, it states.

The plaintiffs are seek “compensatory damages, economic damages, punitive damages, RICO treble damages, medical monitoring, pre- and post-judgment interest, and attorneys’ fees, litigation expenses, and court costs.”

They also seek relief that would compel the Vatican and the bishops to “comply with various state statutes requiring them to report the abusive Clergy to law enforcement or other responsible authorities, terminate the abusive Clergy, identify the abusive Clergy to the general public so that parents may protect their children going forward, release documents evidencing such Clergy abuse to achieve transparency, and such other relief the Court deems just and proper.”

Spokespersons for the USCCB have told several media outlets that the conference will not comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Roe v Wade was a judicial nightmare aside from morality. A bulldozer over states’ rights that had no precedent and a made-up ‘right’ by judicial fiat.

    Harris is pathetic.

    Reply

  2. It is sad that our Bishops are silent complicit or encouraging Parishoners….in parishoners acceptance as belonging to Democratic Party I see it here in Pittsburgh where last week’s Homily focussed upon the inevitability of change and how congregants should accept healthy psychology of accepting change..???? This in response…to last week’s reading of not needing circumcision to be follower of Christ by early Church. A better Homily would have discussed upon…why circumcision was unnecessary…and to emphasize to our Democratic (Father posted in Church that nearly 60 percent of Parish is Democratic?)…Parish the absolute MORAL necessity to accept Church teachings…if one is to be Truly Catholic. It is irreconcilable to be supporting Abortion, redefinition of Marriage, and numerous Democratic Positions…and to call oneself Catholic. Otherwise we get Cardinal Dolans..and other liberal religious…ho ho har har…come over hear Obama Hillary…let me tell you another one…hate to be in line to heaven behind such that do not shepherd TRUTH…to thier flock.

    Reply

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