Abortion rights groups don’t want to “restore Roe” — but they won’t fight Biden on it

Many reproductive health organizations want to codify stronger standards. They’re not going to pick that fight this year.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Feb 5, 2024

When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held their first joint campaign event of 2024 last month in northern Virginia, they left no doubt that codifying abortion rights would be central to the president’s reelection bid. With the rally timed to honor what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Biden stood under a large “Restore Roe” sign and beside supporters holding smaller posters to “Defend Choice.”

“We need the protections of Roe v. Wade in every state. And we can do it. You can do it,” Biden stressed at the event. “Give me a Democratic House of Representatives and give me a bigger — a bigger Democratic Senate, and we will pass a new law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade, and I will sign it immediately.”

Continued: https://www.vox.com/24056692/abortion-roe-dobbs-2024-biden-election-presidential

Pro-choice Catholics fight to seize the narrative from the religious right

Maya Yang
Mon 3 Jul 2023

Since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade a year ago, reproductive rights have become an even more contentious issue in an already polarized landscape. With more than 1,500 politicians – mostly men – helping ban abortions since Roe fell, Catholic and pro-choice organizations are increasingly trying to carve out space for themselves in the nationwide dialogue to center their own messaging: that being Catholic and pro-choice are not mutually exclusive.

One organization trying to dismantle religious stigma surrounding abortions is Catholics For Choice, a Washington-DC based Catholic abortion rights advocacy group. For CFC, the belief in individual reproductive rights comes as a result of the Catholic faith, not in spite of.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/03/pro-choice-catholics-us

03.07.2023

Biden has reminded us yet again that he’s a weak and lukewarm ally of abortion rights

At a recent fundraiser he said he’s ‘not big on’ abortion. It’s not pro-choice activists who are out of step with the mainstream; it’s Joe Biden

Moira Donegan
Thu 29 Jun 2023

A closed-door fundraiser for the very wealthy is a place where a lot of politicians really shine. Among their fellow elites, surrounded by people like them who like them – and are giving them money – Democrats and Republicans alike often become their truest selves. They drop the flesh-pressing affectations, the focused-group soundbites, the stiff smiles. They become something they’re usually not: honest.

Honest is what Biden was at a similar fundraiser in tony Chevy Chase, Maryland, this past Tuesday, when he told a crowd of his wealthy supporters that he was personally ambivalent about abortion rights. “I’m a practicing Catholic. I’m not big on abortion,” the president said. Nevertheless, he claimed that the compromise Roe v Wade decision on abortion “got it right”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/29/biden-abortion-rights-dobbs-roe-v-wade

29.06.2023

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

USA – Religious abortion rights supporters fight for access

Holly Meyer, Associated Press
Nov. 28, 2021

On the day the Supreme Court hears arguments in a Mississippi abortion ban case, Sheila Katz plans to be at a nearby church.

It is where the Jewish organization she leads is helping to host a morning interfaith service in support of abortion rights. That gathering, and a planned rally outside the court, are among the ways the National Council of Jewish Women and like-minded faith groups are challenging the erosion of abortion access in the U.S.

Continued: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2021/11/28/religious-abortion-rights-supporters/8786118002/

A question of faith: Biden, Catholicism and the presidency

Some bishops think America's second Catholic president should be denied the Eucharist. Are Biden's faith and job title an unworkable mix?

By Tara McKelvey, BBC White House reporter
July 13, 2021

On the matter of faith, President Joe Biden is not shy.

Each weekend that he is in town, he goes to
Mass in Washington. A motorcade takes him on Saturday evenings or Sunday
mornings to Holy Trinity, the church where President Kennedy, the only other
Catholic US president, used to attend services. He makes the sign of the cross
at public events, and his Catholicism is woven into his speeches and policies.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57825309

“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/

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

27.05.2021

Biden’s Catholic and supports abortion rights. It puts him in the majority of American Catholics.

One his first acts will be to end the "global gag rule." Many of our faith have seen the harm that reproductive rights restrictions cause in the world.

Jan. 22, 2021
By Jamie Manson, president, Catholics for Choice

President Joe Biden, like his Democratic predecessors, will reportedly mark the early days of his tenure by overturning the "global gag rule," a policy dating to the presidency of Ronald Reagan that prevents all international organizations that receive U.S. foreign aid from advocating for abortion access in their own countries or providing clients with abortion services, referrals to other organizations that provide abortions or even information about the existence of legal abortion programs.

But while it could be seen as the typical action of a Democratic president — the rule is lifted every time a Democrat replaces a Republican in the White House, only to be reinstated when a Republican wins the presidency — it's particularly notable to some commentators this time because Biden is a practicing Roman Catholic, and only the second to win the presidency after John F. Kennedy.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/biden-s-catholic-supports-abortion-rights-it-puts-him-majority-ncna1255215

Biden is a pro-choice Catholic. Will he expand reproductive healthcare?

BY STEPHANIE RUSSELL-KRAFT, Sojourners
DEC 10, 2020

When Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20, he will become the most prominent pro-choice Catholic in the country.

Although the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops opposes abortion and advocates for religous exceptions to birth control coverage, the majority of U.S. Catholics support access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including 56 percent of U.S. Catholics who believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, said she hopes these Catholics will have more of a voice under the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

Continued: https://sojo.net/articles/biden-pro-choice-catholic-will-he-expand-reproductive-health-care https://sojo.net/articles/biden-pro-choice-catholic-will-he-expand-reproductive-health-care