Kentucky priest “on cloud nine” after priestly faculties reinstated

Nashville, Tenn., Jan 15, 2020 / 08:34 pm (CNA).- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Jan. 15 that he intends to sign into law a bill to protect adoption organizations which place children based on the belief in marriage as a union between a man and … […]

Washington D.C., Sep 7, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has progressed closer towards eventual confirmation to the Supreme Court. The hearings, which began Sept. 4, included several disruptions by protestors, seemingly political lines of questioning by senators, and even a cameo appearance by the youth basketball team he coaches.

As was widely expected, the issue of abortion loomed large during parts of the questioning, despite Kavanaugh’s relative lack of a judicial track record, or even public statements, on the issue. The only recent case in which Kavanaugh ruled on abortion came last year, when he argued that an undocumented minor teenager in federal custody should not be permitted to have an abortion immediately.

Kavanaugh was questioned by both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate about his thoughts on the issue, and he offered no indication that he thought the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the legal existence of abortion rights, should be overturned,.

Kavanaugh was questioned about a 15-year-old email, in which he questioned the statement that abortion was “settled law.” The judge explained that he was actually questioning the claim that legal scholars generally agreed that abortion was “settled law.”

“I’m always concerned with accuracy,” he said, “I thought that was not quite an accurate description of all legal scholars because it referred to ‘all.’”

The judge then stated that he believed that Roe is “important precedent” which has repeatedly been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

This statement, however, did not do much to reassure those in favor of abortion rights, as activists continually, and loudly, protested Kavanaugh’s nomination throughout the four days of hearings.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) questioned Kavanaugh Sept. 6 “is there anything in the Constitution about a right to abortion? Is anything written in the document?”

Kavanaugh replied: “Senator, the Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, has reaffirmed it many times.”

Graham pressed the issue, and Kavanaugh responded that the Supreme Court applied the liberty clause in its decisions regarding abortion: “The Supreme Court has found it under the liberty clause but you’re right.”

“The liberty clause talks about liberty,” Kavanaugh stated.

“Last time I checked, liberty didn’t equate to abortion,” Graham said. “The Supreme Court said it did, but here’s the point. What are the limits on this concept? You had five, six, seven, eight or nine judges. What are the limits on the ability of the court to find a penumbra of rights that apply to a particular situation? What are the checks and balances on people in your business, if you can find five people who agree with you to confer a right whether the public likes it or not, based on this concept of a penumbra of rights. What are the outer limits to this?”

Kavanaugh responded: “The test the Supreme Court uses to find unenumerated rights under the liberty clause of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, and that refers to rights rooted in the history and tradition of the country.”

The first day of the hearings saw several of women outside the hearing room protest his nomination by dressing in costumes from the book The Handmaid’s Tale, while several more individuals were removed from the hearing room after attempting to disrupt proceedings.

These interventions continued throughout the week, with the Women’s March even creating a “funeral procession” of women in funeral attire who marched towards the hearing.

Kavanaugh also came under fire for his comments regarding birth control.

In a summary of the argument presented by the pro-life Catholic group Priests for Life in the case Priests for Life v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which was brought over the HHS contraception mandate, Kavanaugh stated that the priests “said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.”

While Kavanaugh did not say that he himself thought this about birth control, those opposed to his nomination sent out mass emails decrying Kavanaugh’s presence potential confirmation to the court as “dangerous” for women. The Women’s March went as far as to say that his nomination constituted  “an emergency, all-hands-on-deck moment for women across America.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on a recommendation to confirm Kavanaugh in the near future. Assuming his nomination clears this hurdle, it would then be put to a vote before the entire Senate.

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Washington D.C., Jan 19, 2021 / 10:25 am (CNA).- President-elect Joe Biden will nominate a supporter of the contraceptive mandate to a top position at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he announced on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Biden announced that he would nominate Dr. Rachel Levine, a biological man identifying as a transgender woman who has served as Pennsylvania’s health secretary since 2017, to be HHS Assistant Secretary for Health. Before serving as Pennsylvania’s health secretary, Levine served as the state’s physician general.

Levine has been outspoken on social issues, supporting gender-transition surgery and the contraceptive mandate while opposing a proposed 20-week abortion ban.

Levine’s nomination to HHS, along with that of Health Secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, signals that social issues could be priorities at the agency for the next several years. These might include pro-LGBTQ policies, funding of abortion providers, and religious freedom conflicts with Catholic organizations.

Regarding the Obama-era HHS contraceptive mandate, Levine in 2017 called it “immoral and unethical” to allow for religious exemptions to the mandate. Hundreds of non-profits and businesses—including the Little Sisters of the Poor—had objected to the mandate and the Obama administration’s opt-out process for objecting non-profits.

After the Trump administration announced in 2017 that religious employers and other organizations morally opposed to the contraceptive mandate could receive exemptions from it, Levine issued a sharp statement in opposition.

“It is immoral and unethical to give any employer the ability to take away access to health care from an entire gender,” Levine said as Pennsylvania’s acting health secretary, in 2017. “We cannot allow women’s health to be reduced to one issue or be jeopardized in any way.”

Levine also wrote an op-ed against the Trump administration’s reversal of Obama-era rules on transgender accommodation.

In Feb., 2017, the Trump administration said it would stop defending the Obama administration’s transgender bathroom policy in court; the policy had directed schools to allow students to use gender-specific bathrooms according to their gender identity, and not their biological sex.

In an op-ed for the Patriot-News, Levine wrote that “[t]he decision by the Trump administration to roll back the most basic protections for transgender and gender expansive youth is heartbreaking.”

“To Pennsylvania’s transgender and gender expansive youth and their families who are worried or concerned, I want you to know that Governor Wolf’s administration has your back,” Pennsylvania’s then-physician general wrote.

In 2016, Levine spoke out against a 20-week abortion ban that criminalized abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger. The bill also banned the “dilation and evacuation” abortion procedure.

Levine said at the time that the bill “punishes women whose pregnancies have complications.”

“Women and their families, when faced with a devastating diagnosis of a significant fetal anomaly, have the right to make the decision which is appropriate for them, in consultation with their doctors,” Levine said.

Levine’s family moved their mother out of a personal care home early in the COVID-19 pandemic, because of the high spread of the virus; the decision invited some media scrutiny.

Levine was also questioned for the state’s policy of requiring nursing homes to accept recovering COVID patients from hospitals, although the state health secretary responded that asymptomatic staff at the homes—not patients discharged from hospitals—were the primary spreaders of the virus there.

If Levine is confirmed to HHS, along with Becerra, they together could craft policy to influence a number of issues including abortion, gender-transition surgery, and the contraceptive mandate.  

While California’s attorney general, Becerra fought aggressively in favor of an abortion coverage mandate that religious employers were not exempt from, and continued the prosecution of pro-life activist David Daleiden.

If confirmed as Health Secretary, Becerra—a Catholic—could reignite a number of Obama-era policies that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other Catholic groups were opposed to.

These might include resurrecting court battles with the Little Sisters of the Poor and other Catholic groups that opposed the Obama administration’s procedure by which to “opt out” of the contraceptive mandate. The groups said that the policy still required them to provide coverage for contraceptives through their employee health plans, which they morally objected to.

Other HHS policies could include re-imposing the full transgender mandate—a requirement that doctors perform gender-transition surgery upon the referral of a mental health professional—and various requirements of religious groups that receive HHS grants, such as adoption agencies having to match children with same-sex couples.

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