Argentina Legalizes Abortion

The Organization for World Peace
January 4, 2021
by Catherine Kreider

Argentina entered the new year with the national legalization of abortion, making it the sixth and most populace Latin American country to decriminalize pregnancy termination. Argentina joined the relatively small group of pro-abortion countries in the primarily Catholic region of the world, abolishing section 86 of its 1921 criminal code that only allowed for legal abortions in the case of rape and if the pregnancy was health risk-averse to the mother. As Pope Francis’s birthplace, Argentina’s transition towards legalizing abortion marks a significant societal shift within Latin America towards expanding women’s reproductive rights. The 1 January 2021 vote to legalize abortion followed years of campaigning by woman’s rights groups, with the movement for legal abortion becoming particularly widespread throughout the country after a series of brutal femicides, including the murder of a 14-year-old pregnant girl in 2015.

Continued: https://theowp.org/reports/argentina-legalizes-abortion/

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

USA – How Raphael Warnock Came to Be an Abortion-Rights Outlier

Religious, pro-abortion-rights voices were not always so rare.

Dec 31, 2020
Mary Ziegler

When the Democratic Senate candidate Reverend Raphael Warnock tweeted that he was a “pro-choice pastor,” backlash arrived within minutes. Conservative commentators including Ben Shapiro and Erick Erickson lined up to mock Warnock. A group of conservative Black ministers recently sent Warnock a letter asking him to reconsider his position. Representative Doug Collins, a Republican and an ordained Southern Baptist minister, called the tweet “a lie from the bed of hell.”

In this brief and explosive incident, one of the most significant dynamics of America’s abortion politics was laid bare: the seeming invisibility of pro-choice religious voices. It’s not that pro-choice faith leaders such as Warnock aren’t out there. It’s that, for decades, they’ve been losing the fight for the spotlight.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/liberal-religion-abortion/617491/

South Koria – Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung Raises Concerns over Delayed Revisions to Anti-Abortion Law

2020-12-28

Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung submitted a statement to National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug on Monday, raising concerns over a delay in parliamentary revisions to the country's anti-abortion law.

The Constitutional Court decided last year that an outright ban on abortion goes against the Constitution, calling for legal amendments by the end of this year to partially allow abortions in the early stages of pregnancy.

Continued: http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&Seq_Code=158555

28.12.2020

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Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung

Park Byeong-seug

South Korea abortion law

South Korea Constitutional Court

Is Croatia going the way of Poland on reproductive rights?

In Croatia, lawmakers and activists have been debating abortion legislation for three decades. The church, conservative politicians and pro-life activists now want to see rules tightened as they have been in Poland.

26.12.2020
Author Siniša Bogdanić, Davor Batisweiler

Since 1991, when Yugoslavia fell apart and
Croatia became an independent state, conservative elements in the country have
been trying to overturn the liberal abortion law introduced in the communist
era. This legislation from 1978 allows Croatian women to have an abortion up to
the 10th week of pregnancy without having to give reasons or fulfill any
additional conditions. That is the theory. In practice, however, implementing
the law has been somewhat tricky, as it was amended in 2003 to give doctors the
right to refuse the operation on grounds of conscience.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/is-croatia-going-the-way-of-poland-on-reproductive-rights/a-56044929

Argentina’s Catholics, Evangelicals Unite Against Abortion Bill

By AFP
December 26, 2020

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - At the entrance to Argentina's Congress is a plaque reminding legislators that Our Lady of Lujan is the patron saint of the country's political parties, a not-so-subtle nod to religion in a nation considering whether to allow abortions.

As Argentina's Senate prepares to vote on a bill that would legalize the practice, the Catholic Church has joined forces with evangelical Christians to fight the measure tooth and nail.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/americas/argentinas-catholics-evangelicals-unite-against-abortion-bill

26.12.2020

Argentina church asks lawmakers to search their hearts ahead of abortion vote

Reuters
Dec 26, 2020

BUENOS AIRES — The Church of Argentina on Saturday called on the country´s lawmakers to vote their conscience this coming week, when the Senate will take up a bill to legalize abortion that has divided a nation with long-held Roman Catholic roots.

During a religious celebration in a small city west of Buenos Aires, Bishop Oscar Ojea, president of the local bishops’ conference and an outspoken opponent of abortion, suggested a “no” vote was supported by “medical science and law.”

Continued: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/argentina-church-asks-lawmakers-to-search-their-hearts-ahead-of-abortion-vote

26.12.2020

Russian Orthodox Church has ‘soft & flexible’ stance on abortion & does not demand practice be made illegal, spokesman reveals

26 Dec, 2020
By Jonny Tickle

The Russian Orthodox Church is not proposing a blanket ban on abortion and its official position is actually “more flexible” than a complete prohibition. That’s according to Vladimir Legoyda, the institution's main spokesperson.

Speaking on Saturday to RTVI, a New York-based Russian-language channel aimed at expats, Legoyda revealed that the Church is not entirely against the termination of pregnancy being legal.

Continued: https://www.rt.com/russia/510794-orthodox-church-abortion-position/

26.12.2020

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Oleg Apolikhin

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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

Malawi Muslim Council Endorses Abortion Bill

8 DECEMBER 2020, Nyasa Times (Leeds)
By Chipambano Mbewe

A group of Sheikh's leaders from different Muslim organisations in the country which are under the Qadriyyah Muslim Association of Malawi (QMAM) through Qadriyyah Ulama Council in Malawi (QUCM) has come out to openly support the controversial proposed Termination of Pregnancy Bill.

The grouping officials on Monday came out in the open to support the bill which has been sharply criticised by some Christians and Muslims.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202012081173.html