CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 09:47 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has granted a plenary indulgence for those who take part in this year’s March for Life, an annual peaceful protest against abortion, which is set to take place virtually Jan. 29. An indulgenc… […]
Rome Newsroom, Jan 28, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis will meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during his trip to Iraq, a cardinal said on Thursday.
Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, told … […]
Washington D.C., Jan 28, 2021 / 06:50 am (CNA).- Members of Congress announced on Thursday they would be re-introducing a ban on discrimination abortion, or abortion based on a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.
Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) and S… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 28, 2021 / 06:43 am (CNA).- President Joe Biden announced Thursday morning that he will be reversing the Mexico City Policy.
The policy prohibits U.S. funding of foreign NGOs that perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning. The White House announced that Biden would be issuing a Presidential Memorandum later on Thursday that “immediately rescinds the global gag rule, also referred to as the Mexico City Policy.”
The policy, first instituted by President Reagan in 1984, is traditionally rescinded or reinstated by new presidents upon entering office. Republican presidents have enacted the policy, while Democratic presidents have all rescinded it.
In 2017, the Trump administration reinstated it and subsequently expanded upon it. While the policy traditionally applied to a limited amount of international family planning funding—ensuring it did not go to groups promoting abortion as a method of family planning—the administration expanded it to include billions of dollars in global health assistance.
Rep.Chris Smith (R-NJ) stated on Wednesday evening that the Trump administration’s expanded policy—Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance—was critical to ensuring U.S. taxpayers were not complicit in promoting abortions abroad, especially in countries with pro-life laws.
“Many countries throughout the world have been besieged by aggressive and well-funded campaigns to overturn their pro-life laws and policies,” Smith said. “The Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy was designed to mitigate U.S. taxpayer complicity in global abortion.”
Smith pointed to a new Marist poll showing that more than three-quarters of Americans oppose their tax dollars funding abortions in foreign countries.
“Americans overwhelmingly oppose using U.S. foreign aid to subsidize abortion,” he stated.
In addition, Biden will direct the Department of Health and Human Services to review and consider rescinding another pro-life policy, the Trump administration’s Protect Life Rule.
That policy required recipients of Title X family planning funds to not refer for abortions, nor be co-located with abortion clinics. As a result of the rule, Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X program in 2019 and forfeited around $60 million per year in grants.
The White House on Thursday said the memorandum to be signed by Biden “reflects the policy of the Biden-Harris Administration to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States, as well as globally.”
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci—White House chief medical advisor on COVID-19—promised board members of the World Health Organization that the administration would rescind the Mexico City Policy and uphold
“And it will be our policy to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in the United States, as well as globally,” Fauci said. The term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” is commonly used in international diplomacy to refer to a number of procedures and issues including abortion and contraception.
CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 06:30 am (CNA).- A Vatican cardinal has expressed “astonishment” at a statement by a group of Protestant and Catholic theologians in Germany.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promo… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Poland’s constitutional court published on Wednesday the rationale for its declaration that abortion for fetal abnormalities is unconstitutional three months after it made the ruling.
In the highly anticipated ruling on Oct. 22, the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw said that the law introduced in 1993 was incompatible with Poland’s constitution.
But the law did not come into effect until the ruling was published in the country’s Journal of Laws on Jan. 27.
The 154-page ruling said: “In the opinion of the Tribunal, an unborn child is, as a human being — a person who enjoys innate and inalienable dignity, a subject who has the right to life; and the legal system must, according to Article 38 of the Constitution, must guarantee due protection for this central good, without which this subjectivity would be deleted.”
The court’s verdict prompted a wave of demonstrations across Poland. Protesters directed their anger at the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), but also at the Catholic Church, which welcomed the decision.
Demonstrators disrupted Masses while holding signs supporting abortion, left graffiti on Church property, vandalized statues of St. John Paul II, and chanted slogans at clergy.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed, could lead to a significant reduction in the number of abortions in the country.
Until now, Polish law permitted abortion only in cases of rape or incest, a risk to the mother’s life, or fetal abnormality.
Approximately 1,000 legal abortions take place in Poland each year. The majority are carried out in cases where the unborn child has a severe and irreversible disability or a life-threatening incurable disease.
Polish pro-life campaigners describe the legal provision as “eugenic.” Data from the Ministry of Health shows that in 2019, the likelihood of Down syndrome accounted for 40% of abortions.
Jerzy Kwasniewski, president of the Ordo Iuris Institute, said: “The justification of the judgment strongly emphasizes that, if the mother’s life and health are not endangered, the legal protection of the child’s life is complete. This is a step forward, firmly removing purely eugenic abortion from Polish law.”
Bartłomiej Wróblewski, a Law and Justice MP who was among those who asked the tribunal to review the law, wrote on Twitter: “Selecting people based on illness and disability is unconstitutional. I am glad that the justification for the court’s judgment in this case has been published.”
The constitutional court was asked to examine the law in 2019 by a group of 119 MPs belonging to the Law and Justice party, as well the smaller parties Konfederacja and PSL-Kukiz’15.
Oct. 22 — the day the court made the ruling — is the feast day of the Polish pope St. John Paul II, who led the Church from 1978 to 2005 and galvanized the pro-life movement in Poland and around the world.
CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 12:42 am (CNA).- The bishops of Virginia lamented the House of Delegates’ “tragic decision” to pass legislation that would permit abortion coverage for any reason in taxpayer health insurance plans on the state’s taxpayer-fund… […]
Denver Newsroom, Jan 27, 2021 / 03:25 pm (CNA).- Despite pandemic restrictions, thousands of pro-life advocates showed their support at the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco on Saturday. Eva Muntean, co-chair of […]
Dublin, Ireland, Jan 27, 2021 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court of Ireland ruled Friday that a hospital may withhold medical treatment contrary to the wishes of the parents of a child with severe injuries.
“The withholding of treatment to a c… […]
Originally published in Japanese in 1982, the novel Sachiko by Shūsaku Endō, perhaps Asia’s best-known Catholic author of fiction, has been recently translated into English by Van C. Gessel. In part a conventional love story […]
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