Pro-choice Catholics protest at Vatican after abortion left off summit agenda

Quilt featuring stories of Catholic women who have had terminations unfurled outside event hosted by the Pope

Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Thu 3 Oct 2024

A vibrantly coloured, 15-metre-long quilt woven with stories of Catholic women who have had abortions has been unrolled outside the Vatican in protest against the topic being left off the agenda of a major summit hosted by Pope Francis.

Thursday’s demonstration by Catholics for Choice, a US-based abortion rights group, comes days after the pontiff emphasised his traditional views of women while reiterating that abortion was “murder” and that doctors who terminate pregnancies were “hitmen”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/pro-choice-catholics-stage-protest-after-abortion-left-off-summit-agenda


Biden says pope said to keep receiving communion amid abortion row

President coy when asked if abortion came up in Vatican meeting, as US Catholic bishops weigh whether to deny him the sacrament

Joanna Walters in New York and agencies

Fri 29 Oct 2021

Joe Biden said on Friday that Pope Francis told him he should keep receiving
communion, after holding an unusually long meeting with him at the Vatican.

Asked if abortion came up in the talks, Biden said cryptically the pope told
him he was happy he was a good Catholic.

Continued:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/biden-meets-pope-francis-urges-radical-decisions-cop26


The Catholic Church’s Reproductive Fight Is About Controlling Women’s Freedom

May 27, 2021
By Jamie Manson

Last summer, after years of excruciating menstrual pain and anemia caused by excessive bleeding, I saw a gynecological specialist. He ordered an M.R.I., suspecting the cause was endometriosis. I instinctively grab my rosary when I’m anxious. For days after the test, I moved bead to bead, praying that the radiologist would find signs of disease so that I could find appropriate treatment. But the test showed a perfectly healthy uterus.

Normal or not, my symptoms continued to worsen, to the point that the doctor agreed that the answer to ending my pain was a hysterectomy. I was 43 years old. As a longtime advocate for women’s equality and reproductive freedom, I was surprised not to encounter the resistance so many women face from the medical community and society when I made this choice. Women are often told that they will regret losing their ability to have children. My doctor understood I knew what was right for my life, my body and my health. It felt like a miracle.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/opinion/catholic-church-abortion.html


Abortion and the Covid-19 vaccine

There is a false moral controversy that is only of interest to the Vatican in its global crusade against legal pregnancy terminations

DEBORA DINIZ, GISELLE CARINO
04 JAN 2021

Even when addressing a global emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic, the Catholic Church clings to its usual fanaticism by couching abortion as a more pressing moral concern than the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

The trouble this time are cell lines drawn from a kidney and a cornea which have been grown in laboratories since the 1970s and 1980s. During this time they have served to produce drug treatments for such grueling disorders as hemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis, as well as vaccines against chicken pox, hepatitis A, rubella, and shingles. But what is it about these cell lines that bothers the Catholic Church’s male leadership so much, especially US and Canadian bishops?   The origin of the lines: samples from the kidney and cornea of two aborted fetuses.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2021-01-04/abortion-and-the-covid-19-vaccine.html


Vatican: OK to get virus vaccines using abortion cell lines

Frances D'Emilio, The Associated Press
Published Monday, December 21, 2020

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Monday declared that it is "morally acceptable" for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses, guidance that came after some churchmen in the United States argued that such products were immoral.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, said it had received several requests for "guidance" during recent months. The doctrinal office pointed out that bishops, Catholic groups and experts have offered "diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements" on the matter.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/vatican-ok-to-get-virus-vaccines-using-abortion-cell-lines-1.5239911


Austria – Vatican women’s team refuses to play after anti-abortion protest

Vatican women’s team refuses to play after anti-abortion protest

Published June 23, 2019

The newly formed Vatican women’s team called off a friendly football match in Vienna after several Austrian players protested the church’s anti-abortion stance, an Austrian football official said Sunday.

The Vatican side, which was founded this year, refused to play Saturday after three Austrians lifted their shirts to reveal pro-choice messages painted on their stomachs and backs when the anthems were played before kick-off, said Ernst Lackner, chairman of Vienna’s Mariahilf team.

Continued: https://punchng.com/vatican-womens-team-refuses-to-play-after-anti-abortion-protest/


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/


ANDORRA – Member of Parliament calls on France to pressure Andorra re abortion

ANDORRA – Member of Parliament calls on France to pressure Andorra re abortion

Andorra is one of the last States in Europe, with Malta, San Marino and the Vatican, to prohibit abortion, including in cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly and risk to the life of the woman. Women from Andorra access abortion either in Spain or France, or by unsafe or clandestine methods.

Laurence Gayte is a Deputy in France for Pyrénées-Orientales, which borders with Andorra, a member of President Macron’s party En Marche, and a member of the delegation on the rights of women in the National Assembly. She asked the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to clarify the government’s position on the criminalisation of abortion in Andorra. President Macron is a co-prince of the principality. Even giving patients information or the address of a clinic abroad is against the law, Dr Eric Sylvestre Dolsa told Agence France Presse, one of a few Andorran doctors openly backing legalisation, “no matter the reason” for ending the pregnancy.

For 28 September 2018, International Safe Abortion Day, women in Andorra “marched through the streets to demand the decriminalisation of abortion in their country and would like to know the position of France on this question”. The Spanish Bishop of Andorra, Urgell Mgr Joan-Enric Vives, is staunchly opposed to abortion and has threatened to abdicate if abortion is legalised, reported Elisa Muxella, head of Andorra’s Human Rights Institute. “The government is hiding behind this excuse, saying it would put our institutions in peril.”

The Vatican is also putting pressure on Andorra to stop abortion from being legalised. According to the Andorran press, Pope Francis phoned the head of government, Antoni Martí, to deliver a clear message – threatening to demand the abdication of the co-prince.

SOURCES: FranceBleu, 31 October 2018 ; FranceBleu, 8 November 2018

SEE ALSO: France24, 28 September 2018 ; Le Figaro, by AFP, 31 October 2018

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Source: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/andorra-member-of-parliament-calls-on-france-to-pressure-andorra-re-abortion/


Letters to Pope Francis

FEATURE: Letters to Pope Francis
(three letters at the link, from the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, and Catholics for Choice.)
******************************
TO: His Holiness, Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
c/o Vatican Press Office
av@pccs.va

14 November 2018

Dear Pope Francis,

We are writing to express our disappointment at two recent pronouncements you made related to abortion, which seemed to contradict statements you had made earlier in your Papacy.

After you became Pope, you made two important statements in relation to women and abortion. First, you said that the Church should stop its obsession with the subject of abortion, and spend more time on its primary roles. We found that very hopeful because we think abortion is a public health and human rights issue, not a religious one, and we hoped your statement was an expression of understanding of the reality of women’s lives. We knew that you would not reverse the formal position the Church has taken since the mid-19th century, but we read your statement as a possibility that you might ever so slowly take the Church in a different direction.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/feature-letters-to-pope-francis-14-november-2018?e=372dd34034


Abortion is nothing like hiring a hitman, whatever Pope Francis says

Abortion is nothing like hiring a hitman, whatever Pope Francis says

October 11, 2018
Arianne Shahvisi, Lecturer in Ethics, University of Sussex

Pope Francis has compared having an abortion to “hiring a hitman to resolve a problem”. The leader of the Catholic Church made the comment during a speech in which he declared that it is always wrong to end a human life. While this has always been the line taken by the church, this comparison condemns abortion in particularly strong terms.

Some careful reasoning shows that comparing abortion with contract murder equates two acts that are far from obviously morally equivalent. To begin with, it would be a challenge to find a person who thinks that cold-blooded murder, of the sort carried out by hitmen, is morally acceptable.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-nothing-like-hiring-a-hitman-whatever-pope-francis-says-104741