Skip to main content

Interesting article on the history of the Catholic Church and abortion

This article argues that the Catholic Church's stance on abortion has not changed over time, contrary to popular opinion. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The irony of the inquiry into Dr. Halappanavar's death

The Associated Press (via  The Washington Post ) reports that the composition of the panel that is investigating Dr. Savita Halappanavar's death in Ireland has changed: Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers he hoped the move — barely 24 hours after Ireland unveiled the seven-member panel — would allow the woman’s widower to support the probe into why Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist, died Oct. 28 while hospitalized in Galway.   Kenny’s U-turn came hours after her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, said he would refuse to talk to the investigators and would not consent to their viewing his wife’s medical records because three of the Galway hospital’s senior doctors had been appointed as investigators. Kenny said that the three doctors would be replaced by other officials “who have no connection at all with University Hospital Galway. In that sense the investigation will be completely and utterly independent.”   This makes sense. Why conduct an inquiry at all

A post-Roe world

Among all of the policy areas where Barack Obama and Mitt Romney clash, their views on abortion present some of the starkest contrasts, despite what some see as an attempt by the Romney campaign to dial back its conservatism on abortion. (UPDATE: Just as I posted this, I came across this article on a new Romney ad . So much for "what some see." It's what it is.) The New York Times   published an editorial  predicting what would happen if the U.S. Supreme Court reversed  Roe v. Wade  (actually, Casey v. Planned Parenthood ). In short, around half of the states would enact much more restrictive abortion laws within a legislative session after the undoing of Roe/Casey . One thing that I wonder about in a post- Roe/Casey  landscape is how states would attempt to ban medical abortions, in particular self-abortions by women using drugs like Cytotec, which is an anti-ulcer medication but is also effective in causing a miscarriage early in pregnancy. (The active ingredient