The Catholic Church Has No Moral Argument on Abortions

The Catholic Church Has No Moral Argument on Abortions
After the pope revealed nuns were forced to get abortions while being held as sex slaves, the Church doesn’t seem well positioned to lecture on what women should or should not do with their bodies.

By Jennifer Wright
Feb 11 2019

If you are going to get your information regarding abortion from anyone, perhaps it is best not to get it from an institution that has no women in its higher orders, and is keeping women as sex slaves.

Like, for instance, the Catholic Church. This week Pope Francis admitted there has been clerical abuse of nuns, including sexual slavery. The BBC reports, "He said the Church was attempting to address the problem but said it was 'still going on.'"

Holy shit.
Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a26236433/nuns-sex-slaves-abused-catholic-church-abortion/

Ireland’s Path to Legalizing Abortion

Ireland’s Path to Legalizing Abortion
At a time when the United States may render it illegal

Shirley Graham
July 5, 2018

On May 25, 2018, I traveled from Washington, D.C., to Dublin to vote in a referendum that would decide whether women in Ireland would have full access to their reproductive healthcare and rights. I was one of the 40,000 diaspora Irish who returned from different corners of the globe (only recent emigres were eligible) to be part of a feminist movement that would make history. When the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution was passed the next day with 66 percent voting in favor, the country heaved a collective sigh of relief.

In the lead-up to the referendum, women were forced to share previously untold stories of private ordeals and personal tragedies in order to persuade the Irish population that it could no longer export this problem to the United Kingdom.

Continued: http://prospect.org/article/ireland%E2%80%99s-path-legalizing-abortion

Where Did Ireland Go? Abortion Vote Stuns Those on Both Sides

Where Did Ireland Go? Abortion Vote Stuns Those on Both Sides

By Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura
May 27, 2018

DUBLIN — Some were joyous. Others were devastated. But most of all, in the hours after Irish voters swept away a ban on abortion, many were simply astonished.

However they felt about the result of the referendum, they were witnessing, they knew, the culmination of a fundamental shift in Irish society — and one that has come about with stunning speed.

Continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/europe/ireland-abortion-refendum.html

Liam Neeson: ‘To respect a woman’s right to decide, I’m backing Yes’

Liam Neeson: 'To respect a woman's right to decide, I'm backing Yes'
It's time for men to stand with women and make this once-in-a-generation opportunity count, writes Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson

May 6 2018 9:00 PM

There are times when we must stand for what is right. When the obvious injustice of a situation demands that we do so. For me, the upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment is one of those times. A time to stand up and be counted. A moment when men must stand with women.

Men owe a debt to women in Ireland. For too long, we have at best stood by and at worst participated in a system that has stripped women of their human rights. Ireland has inflicted indignity and abuse on women for generations, and on a grand scale. In recent decades we have demonstrated the capacity to face the truth of such abuse, to own it and to do whatever we can to respond to it. And that is to our great credit.

Continued: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/abortion-referendum/liam-neeson-to-respect-a-womans-right-to-decide-im-backing-yes-36878032.html

Lenny Abrahamson says Eighth Amendment is ‘national disgrace’

Lenny Abrahamson says Eighth Amendment is ‘national disgrace’
Oscar-nominated film maker says amendment is a symptom of the ‘old darkness’

Sat, Apr 14, 2018
Mark Hilliard

Oscar-nominated film maker Lenny Abrahamson has described the Eighth Amendment as a “national disgrace”, allowing for policy by an “impulse to control” rather than compassion.

Mr Abrahamson, who was speaking at a rally in support of the Repeal campaign in Dublin on Saturday, said the legal framework was indicative of the attempt of “old Ireland” to cling on and to deny a movement of change.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/lenny-abrahamson-says-eighth-amendment-is-national-disgrace-1.3462272

Will the Tuam Babies Scandal Ignite an Investigation into Church-State Relations in Ireland?

Will the Tuam Babies Scandal Ignite an Investigation into Church-State Relations in Ireland?
by Julia Canney • 17 March 2017

In 2012 amateur historian Catherine Corless began investigating the abandoned Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. Disconcerted by the lack of media attention given to her finding that 796 babies had died there in the span of thirty-six years, Corless began the painstaking journey to discover the truth of what happened under the eyes of the Bon Secours nuns. Her work led to the creation of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, which has come under increased scrutiny in the past weeks with the discovery of what’s been reported as “significant quantities of human remains” buried in septic tanks on the grounds of the home for unwed mothers and their children operated by Catholic nuns from 1922 to 1961. Despite the fact that the Irish government has held the outrageously high death registers of the home since 2011, the excavation process was only begun by the Commission of Investigation in November of last year, leaving many stakeholders wondering: Why this inhumane delay in justice?

Continued at source: The Humanist: https://thehumanist.com/commentary/will-tuam-babies-scandal-ignite-investigation-church-state-relations-ireland