USA – Abortion concerns once delayed a major religious freedom law. Now, they’re back in the spotlight

Do religious exercise rights protect access to abortion? Courts have been asked to decide

By Kelsey Dallask
Nov 25, 2023

On Sept. 18, 1992, the Senate Judiciary Committee and dozens of invited guests gathered to consider, among other things, the link between religious freedom and abortion.

The focus of the hearing was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill designed to restore religious exercise protections that recently had been severely limited by the Supreme Court.

Continued: https://www.deseret.com/2023/11/25/23960097/abortion-religious-freedom-restoration-act

USA – The Catholic Church Is Bankrolling a Nationwide Assault on Women’s Rights

A majority of Catholics support a woman's right to choose, but dioceses are funding campaigns for state-level abortion bans across the country

BY TESSA STUART
SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

THERE WAS NO winner in last month’s vote on abortion rights in Kansas. Technically, nothing changed after voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure intended to strip abortion protections out of the state’s constitution. When the race was called on the evening of August 2, every Kansan retained the same set of rights they’d woken up with that morning. But there was a loser: the ballot initiative’s largest financial backer by a long shot, the Catholic Church, whose dioceses squandered millions of dollars on the failed effort.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City contributed $3.18 million, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, $652,355; $175,000 came from the Diocese of Salina; tens of thousands more from smaller churches scattered around the state. The Kansas Catholic Conference threw in $275,000. Together, the donations amounted to well over half of the Value Them Both Association’s total haul — an “absolutely stunning” amount of money, says Jamie Manson, the president of the advocacy group Catholics for Choice.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/catholic-church-roe-wade-abortion-kansas-michigan-1234589927/

12.09.2022

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Decrying ‘evil’ of abortion, L.A. archbishop became public face of plan that could deny Biden Communion

BY MARISA GERBER
Los Angeles Times

AUG. 9, 2021

“Brothers,” Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez addressed his colleagues,
“before we come to the end of our meeting, I have an announcement to make.”

It was the middle of November, two weeks after Joseph R. Biden Jr. was elected
president, marking only the second time that a Roman Catholic was headed to the
White House. And the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops had gathered virtually
for a meeting amid a growing push by conservative bishops to withhold one of
Christianity’s holiest rites from the man about to occupy the Oval Office.

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-09/how-la-archbishops-efforts-affect-biden-communion

“Religious leaders should be asking for your forgiveness” on abortion – not the other way around

Church leaders are challenging Biden's stance on abortion, but people of faith say his views jibe with religion

By Kylie Cheung, Salon
June 30, 2021

CoWanda Rusk was weeks away from graduating from her Texas high school, and preparing for college, when she learned she was pregnant. "I immediately knew I didn't want to be pregnant," she recounted to Salon.

Rusk had grown up a part of the church where her father was a youth pastor, and she remains a person of faith to this day. "I always rely on my faith for everything, even small decisions — what colors to wear today, what will align with the universe today," she said.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/30/religion-abortion-biden-catholic-church/

U.S. Catholic bishops OK steps toward possible rebuke of Biden over abortion stance

Decision comes despite appeals from Vatican for more collegial approach on issue

The Associated Press
Posted: Jun 18, 2021

U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved the drafting of a "teaching document" that many of them hope will rebuke Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden, who continue to receive Communion despite their support for abortion rights.

The decision, vehemently opposed by a minority of bishops, came despite appeals from the Vatican for a more cautious and collegial approach to the divisive issue. And it raises questions about how closely the bishops will be able to co-operate with the Biden administration on issues such as immigration and racial injustice.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/teaching-document-catholics-bishops-biden-1.6071845

Reproductive Rights Advocates Call for Biden to Curb Foreign Abortion Restrictions

5/5/2021
by MICHELLE ONELLO, Ms. Magazine

A coalition of over 140 reproductive rights and health care advocates is calling on President Biden to mitigate the harm caused by the over-implementation of U.S. foreign aid restrictions, especially the 50-year-old Helms Amendment, which has limited access to and information about abortion overseas.

In the April 29 letter, advocates highlighted
the direct harm these restrictions cause women, especially victims of
conflict-related sexual violence, and their violation of the U.S.’s human
rights obligations to ensure gender equality and non-discriminatory,
comprehensive health care. While these restrictions were enacted by Congress,
the coalition is advocating for the Biden administration to curb their impact
and support efforts currently underway to repeal them—both to fulfill his
stated policy of support for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
and to provide the same bold leadership on abortion that he has shown in other
areas such as climate change, jobs and infrastructure.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/05/05/reproductive-rights-biden-foreign-abortion-restrictions-helms-hyde/

US Catholics funded Malawi opponents of legal abortion in cases of rape

After condemning abortion reform as an imposition of “foreign cultures”, a religious group in Malawi took thousands of dollars in foreign cash

Josephine Chinele
30 March 2021

A Catholic group in Malawi used money from the US to support its campaign against a bill to allow legal abortion in cases of rape – after condemning proposed reforms as an imposition of “foreign cultures”.

The Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), a local assembly of Catholic bishops, received a $30,000 grant from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 2019 for “pastoral animation and advocacy of members of parliament and the laity in political leadership”.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/us-catholics-funded-malawi-opponents-legal-abortion-cases-rape/

Abortion opponents protest COVID-19 vaccines’ use of fetal cells

Abortion opponents protest COVID-19 vaccines’ use of fetal cells

By Meredith Wadman, ScienceMag.org
Jun. 5, 2020

Senior Catholic leaders in the United States and Canada, along with other antiabortion groups, are raising ethical objections to promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are manufactured using cells derived from human fetuses electively aborted decades ago. They have not sought to block government funding for the vaccines, which include two candidate vaccines that the Trump administration plans to support with an investment of up to $1.7 billion, as well as a third candidate made by a Chinese company in collaboration with Canada’s National Research Council (NRC). But they are urging funders and policymakers to ensure that companies develop other vaccines that do not rely on such human fetal cell lines and, in the United States, asking the government to “incentivize” firms to only make vaccines that don’t rely on fetal cells.

Continued: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/abortion-opponents-protest-covid-19-vaccines-use-fetal-cells

USA – How the debate over the ERA became a fight over abortion

How the debate over the ERA became a fight over abortion
Because only women can have abortions, conservatives argue restrictions on the procedure could be found unconstitutional under the Equal Rights Amendment.

By ELEANOR MUELLER and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
02/11/2020

Conservative activists waged a successful campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment decades ago by warning it would force women into combat, legalize gay marriage and erode gender roles.

But in 2020, opponents are zeroing in on one line of attack: a claim that ERA would require taxpayer-funded abortions.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/11/abortion-equal-rights-amendment-113505

Trump Administration Gives Family Planning Grant to Anti-Abortion Group

Trump Administration Gives Family Planning Grant to Anti-Abortion Group

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Robert Pear
March 29, 2019

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration took an important step on Friday in its push to restrict access to abortion and contraception, announcing that it would give as much as $5.1 million in family planning funds to a nonprofit organization funded by allies of the Catholic Church.

The grant from the Department of Health and Human Services went to the Obria Group, a Southern California-based nonprofit that describes itself as being “led by God” and that aims to siphon patients — and money — away from Planned Parenthood.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/trump-grant-abortion.html