Men’s Catholic order gave secret millions to ‘deceptive’ anti-abortion centres

Revealed: Tax filings show Knights of Columbus ploughed at least $10.8m into ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ in six years

Open Democracy – by Diana Cariboni, Angelina De Los Santos, Mónica Cordero
14 February 2024

A multi-billion-dollar all-male Catholic order in the US has handed at least $10.8m to hundreds of anti-abortion centres in six years, openDemocracy can reveal – several times what was previously known.

Founded in the 19th century to assist Irish widows and orphans in the US, the Knights of Columbus – named after Christopher Columbus – funded at least 485 of the 2,500 so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ in America between 2017 and 2022, our analysis of hundreds of documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found. The order claims to have two million members.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/knights-of-columbus-crisis-pregnancy-centres-anti-abortion-us-daf/

USA – The Forgotten Father of the Abortion Rights Movement

The Forgotten Father of the Abortion Rights Movement
What Bill Baird's aggressive, often illegal form of activism can teach a new generation about combating anti-abortion forces.

By Myra MacPherson
October 7, 2019

I first met Bill Baird in Hempstead, Long Island, on a freezing December night in 1968. This was 18 months after he was arrested and jailed for handing a can of contraceptive foam to an unmarried coed at Boston University. And it was some four years before the Supreme Court would hand down its decision in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the case that grew out of Baird’s illegal action and established the right of unmarried people to possess contraceptive products. Eisenstadt, in turn, was a crucial privacy precedent that the Court cited in 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman’s right to an abortion. But on that night in 1968, Baird was attending to more immediate matters: a clinic packed with desperate women.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/155240/forgotten-father-abortion-rights-movement

USA – Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wishes This Case Had Legalized Abortion Instead of Roe v. Wade

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wishes This Case Had Legalized Abortion Instead of Roe v. Wade

By Olivia B. Waxman
August 2, 2018

When the U.S. Senate confirmed President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court by a 96-3 vote on Aug. 3, 1993 — precisely 25 years ago Friday — that decision set Ginsburg on the path to legal (and viral) history. That process was also noteworthy for her decision to take “the unprecedented step of strongly endorsing abortion rights” in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, as TIME reported back then.

“It is essential to woman’s equality with man that she be the decisionmaker, that her choice be controlling,” Ginsburg told Senators during her four days of questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex.”

Continued: http://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/