Catholics for Choice

From their Twitter page (an account that I follow):

A voice for Catholics who believe that Catholic tradition supports one's right to follow her/his conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health.

This is an article that was recommended and linked to, in a recent tweet. It is relevant, given the obfuscation and lies that CPC MP Stephen Woodworth and his antichoice Attack Parrots™© are saying about third trimester termination of pregnancy.

“This was our baby that we had waited a long time for and the decision was not made lightly. We had to think of our life too and that of our families. What would happen after we died? Nobody could love our child like we could. We had to let go, try to be unselfish. Perhaps many would say that this decision was not right, but we made it for what we considered the right reasons.”
— “Jill” 2007

Since Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) was founded in the UK in 1988, we have had contact with thousands of women like “Jill.” In our lifetime, we have seen a rapid development in and implementation of genetic testing technologies. What has definitely not changed is the emotional impact on a parent who is told their baby has a fatal, life-limiting or disabling condition. After receiving the news that their baby is not developing as expected, parents then face the difficult decision about continuing or ending the pregnancy. I use the words “parent” and “baby” because this is the way women like Jill who come to us most often refer to themselves and the fetus. [...]

It is worth pausing to consider the political context in which women now make decisions after prenatal diagnosis. In recent years we have seen laudable gains made by the disability rights movement. There have been legislative changes to combat discrimination against those living with disabilities dis-abilities and inroads made in constructing a more inclusive and accepting society. At the same time, antichoice campaigners have seized the opportunity to attack the clause in the UK Abortion Act of 1967 that allows for abortion if “there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped” and called it “eugenic.” Antichoice advocates have attempted to enlist disability campaigners to their cause. The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (a small but vociferous UK antichoice organization) uses its website to accuse ARC of being “actively complicit in the fatal discrimination of disabled people enabled by legal abortion.”

It is a clever move by the antichoice lobby, as they are aware that many who would class themselves as “prochoice” worry that ending a pregnancy on the grounds of disability may devalue the lives of those living with some sort of impairment. Furthermore, when antichoicers decry that those women who have terminations for fetal anomaly are pursuing perfection or taking the “easy way out,” they know that it is rare for a woman who made this choice to speak out publicly against such vilification. In such a deeply private and personal experience, most women understandably do not want their circumstances put under public scrutiny.

The antichoice movement also readily exploits public squeamishness about late abortions in the hope of restricting access. There are regular media flurries around late abortions, in particular those performed past the legal limit of 24 weeks for non-medical abortions in the UK. The fact is that these post-24 week abortions are few in number (according to government statistics there are fewer than 200 post-24 week abortions per annum in England and Wales—0.1 percent of the total) and the majority are carried out due to indications of serious fetal abnormalities that do not manifest until late in the pregnancy.

This charged context can add an extra layer of difficulty for women and couples dealing with a diagnosis of fetal anomaly. They struggle with complex and often conflicted feelings over ending the pregnancy while being fearful of the judgment of those around them and in the wider world. I hope that by exploring the perspective of parents who come to ARC, it will be clear that they are not denigrating those living with a disability, but making responsible decisions informed by their individual values and personal circumstances.

It continues in this rational, compassionate and prochoice manner. An excellent read and also a necessary antidote against the glurge and disinformation that antichoicers Somerville, Blob Blogging Wingnut and other supporters of the Vatican Taliban religious dogma always shriEEEk.

uh-oh ... You're in beeeg trouble now, Justin.

Fundamentalist religious zealot laser beams have latched onto Justin Trudeau for expressing his beliefs.

Following in his father's footsteps, Trudeau is an ardent supporter of the homosexual movement. He spoke at the homosexual activist group EGALE's June 5th gala this year. In September, he participated in the Montreal Gay Pride parade, gaining special media attention for his appearance.

Despite the publicity of these stances, his reputation seems to have eluded organizers of Catholic events. Only few months after addressing the gay activist group, Trudeau was a key speaker for the Toronto Catholic District School Board, addressing 4,000 Catholic students. He also addressed Catholic students of the Halton Catholic school board in 2008 at the Notre Dame high school's Leadership Conference.

Covering his 2001 speech for the papal World Youth Day promo, the Toronto Star reported, "Trudeau recounted his struggles with the strict tenets of Catholicism." To youth who were to receive the late John Paul II, Trudeau said he slowly started to rediscover his own religion and said, "Church isn't about rules. It's about guidance." He urged the youth present to reject "old men with old ideas."

LieSiteNews is emitting low-decibel shrieks in his direction, too.

Trudeau, the member of Parliament for the riding of Papineau is pro-choice and supports gay equality rights.

eh. "Church isn't about rules. It's about guidance. [Reject] old men with old ideas."

That should get Blob Blogging Wingnut spitting mad. Well, madder than usual.

Sometimes you find allies in the darndest places.

Allies are individuals or organizations that may not share the same vision or raison d'être yet choose to join forces to further a cause or to advocate for specific rights.

The humorous graphic above is from a clickable link I found on a Blogging Tory's site. I suspect that I wouldn't agree with many of Ranting Owl's opinions, but I was delighted to see the above.

From a March 18 2009 media release at Catholics4life:

Pope Not Infallible on Condoms

The Vatican has yet again been forced to revise statements made by Pope Benedict XVI as he embarked on a foreign trip. En route to Cameroon on March 17, the pope claimed that condom use would "aggravate the problem" of HIV. A transcript of the pope's comments on the Vatican's Web site altered the comment to suggest that condoms "risked" aggravating the problem.

Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, welcomed the change as a sign that the pope is not infallible on this issue and is willing to acknowledge his mistakes. "The pope has admitted that he is unsure whether condoms can help alleviate the spread of HIV. Where there is doubt there is freedom and Catholics can make up their own minds whether they use condoms or not. Indeed, the vast majority of Catholics has already made this call and use condoms to protect themselves and their partners against STIs, including HIV.

"We call on the pope to revisit the teaching on condoms with a view to lifting the ban at the earliest possible moment. In his review, he should include experts who are unequivocal that condoms can help prevent the spread of HIV, like UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations around the world."

"It took the church hierarchy 359 years to stop continuing the line taken by their predecessors on Galileo. We hope that this error does not take so long to change."

Yes. Still relevant today as it was last March.

Oh, and .... SHRIEEEK!!!

Spin and shrieeekkk watch.

Pro-choice supporters advocates have allowed to a certain extent pro-lies zealots to set the terms of an 'abortion vs no abortion' orthodoxy.

Because abortion-criminalizers are rigid, absolute, dogmatic, uncompromising, and extreme in their ideological discourse, pro-choice individuals and organizations have articulated and developed official positions that offer the same political intransigeance, as counter-weight.

Frances Kissling - you may remember her from this - raises some challenging and complex questions in the first part of an essay posted at Salon.

We are pro-life to the extent that we do not want to abuse or harm living things if we can avoid it. That at least is our ideal -- which we then regularly violate with war, torture, the death penalty, and the callous way in which we deny those in need healthcare, food, shelter and education. Still, I realize that expressing pro-life values, when you're pro-choice, is much more complicated. The fact that the fetus resides in the body of a woman requires special consideration of her rights.

Protecting the fetus in any way comes with a cost that only women can bear. But I have come to believe that women's autonomy does not require that all efforts be made to protect women from pain or from hearing the word "no." The Supreme Court attempted to balance women's autonomy and respect for life in Roe [vs Wade] by allowing states to "proscribe abortion [after viability] except when it is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother."

These are valid considerations in the US where the laws are different. In Canada, the termination of a pregnancy has been for over 20 years a strictly medical intervention regulated by the health care system. Yet we know for a fact that access to first-trimester abortion is not quickly nor easily available in all jurisdictions and that has consequences for women's reproductive health as well as their choices.

It's safe to predict that Blob Blogging Wingnut and other fetus fetishists will prevaricate and spin snippets of Kissling's reflection while ignoring its resolutely pro-choice foundation. SHE has sneered and twisted HER own meaning from such iconoclastic musings before - it may be the fact that Kissling is a former president of Catholics for Choice that gets HER knickers in knots.

In parting, we at DAMMIT JANET! support Emma the Embryo and her perspective, as drawn below by Alison at her own blogsite Creekside.

We, on the other hand, proudly raise money for Crisis Pregnancy Centres

What a waste of time and money.

A new program sponsored by the national Knights of Columbus has helped its first pregnancy center obtain an ultrasound machine. The program is meant to provide pregnancy centers with the tools to help women considering an abortion see their baby and choose pro-life alternatives.

The Supreme Office of the Knights of Columbus and the Florida State Council of the Knights of Columbus yesterday donated $44,050 dollars to the Women's Help Center in Jacksonville, Florida, for the purchase of a new 4-D ultrasound machine.

A pricey piece of medical equipment that will serve no useful medical purpose. Instead, images from it will be misrepresented to women to manipulate and scare them out of choosing an abortion.

Glad to see such righteous priorities.

No-choicer bombast falls short of risking tax-exempt status.

In Colorado, a Catholic clergyman attacked US presidential candidate Obama and his running mate at the Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women dinner. Archbishop Chaput also took the opportunity to criticize liberal Catholic groups as well as the Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec who recently endorsed Obama.

Many members of Catholics for Choice in the US believe in a broad definition of pro-life which includes opposition to war and the death penalty as well as support for those principles associated historically with the Catholic worker movement: eradicating poverty and promoting social justice. Their president Jon O’Brien issued a statement:

“The fact sheet from the bishops’ lobbying arm, the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, reaffirms the US bishops’ desire to place themselves at the center of the political discussion on abortion. However, in doing so, they do not reflect the fullness of Catholic teaching on abortion, nor do they represent
what Catholics actually believe. It is simply not true that the Roman Catholic church’s position on abortion has remained unchanged for 2,000 years.

While members of the Catholic hierarchy have consistently opposed abortion, their reasons for doing so and the teachings they espoused to the faithful have varied continually. … It is also telling that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops omitted to mention that no pope has proclaimed the
prohibition of abortion an ‘infallible’ teaching. This means that there is much more room for debate than is usually thought, with opinions among theologians and the laity differing widely. In any case,
Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views.

The reality that the bishops are trying to overcome is that the majority of Catholics do not agree with them on abortion, or on their role in political life.”

More at Catholics In Public Life.

Wendy Norris writes about the Bishop’s dinner screed for the Colorado Independent:

… Chaput was sure to point out that his remarks were offered as a private citizen and not as a representative of the diocese at the dinner for Catholic women. The Internal Revenue Service has been cracking down on clergy for breaching the law that prohibits tax-exempt religious groups from making statements supporting or opposing political candidates.

Indeed. So it may not require hell freezing over, more likely the icy gaze of the IRS to make sure a certain religious cleric refrains from meddling in election campaigns, for fear of having his status and privileges go kaput?

First posted at Birth Pangs.