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Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling | Reuters

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

"Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase," he wrote.

He cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a rise in maternity mortality rates overall and that the rate was nearly three times higher for black women.

"Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners.

He also cited statistics from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry showing that the United States has much lower rates of paid parental leave compared with other rich nations.

"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling | Reuters

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

"Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase," he wrote.

He cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a rise in maternity mortality rates overall and that the rate was nearly three times higher for black women.

"Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners.

He also cited statistics from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry showing that the United States has much lower rates of paid parental leave compared with other rich nations.

"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.

Even the Vatican is being practical. Evangelicals are looking more and more looney tunes.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling | Reuters

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

"Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase," he wrote.

He cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a rise in maternity mortality rates overall and that the rate was nearly three times higher for black women.

"Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners.

He also cited statistics from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry showing that the United States has much lower rates of paid parental leave compared with other rich nations.

"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.
Ya know....the Catholic Church has such great wealth.
Yet "paid parental leave" to him means that employers
pay for it. How about the Pope letting loose his luscious
lucre for this purpose, eh. Or pay for pre natal care.
It would be so "pro life".
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
Ya know....the Catholic Church has such great wealth.
Yet "paid parental leave" to him means that employers
pay for it. How about the Pope letting loose his luscious
lucre for this purpose, eh. Or pay for pre natal care.
It would be so "pro life".
Maybe the church should pay for all the unwanted babies who will be mistreated and abused and abandoned. Babies cost money and most of the families who are denied abortions are poor and can not afford more nanies. Let the church put its money where it will help.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
...
"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.
That's fine but let's not get side-tracked. Let's bring the topic back to abortion.

If the Church's position is that Conscience is primary (The Voice of God), and Catholics should follow their conscience even when it disagrees with the instruction of the Church, why are the American Catholics (56% to 60%) who are following their conscience, rather than their Church's instruction, wrong in their pro-choice opinion?
 
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Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
Maybe the church should pay for all the unwanted babies who will be mistreated and abused and abandoned. Babies cost money and most of the families who are denied abortions are poor and can not afford more nanies. Let the church put its money where it will help.

I think what they really want is for mothers to put their babies into Christian adoption agencies, so more people can be raised Christian. But then I realize that fewer people are raised Christian, so are more likely to place them in a secular agency. Well, they can always ban secular agencies then. They can do most anything they want nowadays...
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
At least they are willing to look at the life cycle, not just before birth and after death.
After criticism, they saw the light.
It all smacks of justifying prohibiting abortion.
Beforehand, children were just nascent Catholics
who lacked much of the autonomy given adults.
 
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England my lionheart

Rockerjahili Rebel
Premium Member
This is what I was thinking as well. Abortion bans have an atrociously detrimental effect from a humanitarian and medical standpoint, but the Vatican's statement seems to beat around the bush and refuse to directly address that.

Maybe they just cannot based on the doctrine.
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
Maybe they just cannot based on the doctrine.

There is an old Arabic saying I greatly appreciate: "If you cannot speak truth, do not speak falsehood." If the Vatican can't stand by the position that has demonstrable medical and life-saving benefits, it seems to me that it is better for them to stay silent and out of politics than be tacitly complicit in enabling the harms of abortion bans by not condemning them.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
This is what I was thinking as well. Abortion bans have an atrociously detrimental effect from a humanitarian and medical standpoint, but the Vatican's statement seems to beat around the bush and refuse to directly address that.

I think in context, it is important to bear in mind that the Vatican editorial speaks from an already assumed 'pro-life' (to use the American political jargon) perspective and starts from that as a presupposition.

In the OP, the Vatican editorial was critiquing the stance of American pro-lifers from its own pro-life standpoint - for their failure to apply a consistent ethic of life and for their preoccupation with the prohibition of abortion to the exclusion of the protection of life at all stages and in every form; as the appalling rise in mortality rates of mothers, support for firearms, the death penalty etc. which the Vatican cites, amply evidences.

The key is this line:


In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

Thus, the Vatican editorial states:

For life, always - Vatican News

A serious and shared reflection on life and the protection of motherhood would require us to move away from the logic of opposing extremisms and the political polarization that often—unfortunately—accompanies discussion on this issue, preventing true dialogue.

Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase. In the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the maternal mortality rate has gone from 20.1 deaths of women per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020. And, strikingly, the maternal mortality rate for black women in 2020 was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for white women.

Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life. According to one statistic in the United States, about 75 per cent of women who have abortions live in poverty or have low wages. And only 16 per cent of employees in private industry have access to paid parental leave, according to a study published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry on 9 March 2020. Almost one in four new mothers who are not entitled to paid leave are forced to return to work within ten days of giving birth.

Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the US.

We can hope, therefore, that the debate on the US Supreme Court ruling will not be reduced to an ideological confrontation, but will prompt all of us—on both sides of the ocean—to reflect on what it means to welcome life, to defend it, and to promote it with appropriate legislation.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Maybe the church should pay for all the unwanted babies who will be mistreated and abused and abandoned. Babies cost money and most of the families who are denied abortions are poor and can not afford more nanies. Let the church put its money where it will help.

The author of the article is not an ecclesiastical.
He is quoting an Italian journalist working for VaticanNews.

He basically said that being pro-life is taking care of every life. And this is done through planning in advance.
Universal healthcare, prevention, efficient adoption system and so on.
 
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