The only reasonable explanation for the public stand-off is that Beatriz and other resource-poor women are politically expendable, and that crossing the Catholic Church is seen as worse than being hung out in the press as inhumane.
International human rights bodies are urging the government of El Salvador to act to save Beatriz. Please add your voice.
A 22-year-old Salvadoran woman with severe chronic medical conditions is pregnant with a fetus without a brain. But a 1998 law in El Salvador prohibits all abortions, without exception.
And loathe as I am to admit it, all the studies in the world demonstrating that emergency contraception works not by preventing implantation but by preventing ovulation and therefore fertilization might not hold sway in court.
Bergoglio’s past statements show a lack of understanding of how fundamental reproductive autonomy is to economic justice.
St. Francis was a non-violent reformer who gave up inherited riches to live, work with, and advocate for the poor. With the new Pope, I am hoping that there is something in a name.
Last month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a final ruling in favor of the right to access in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Costa Rica. This is a win for women and Catholics and a blow to the bishops and conservatives who want to deny individuals the right to decide whether and when to have children.
Numerous questions have arisen in the wake of Savita’s case. Why did this happen? Doesn’t Ireland, a country with otherwise draconian abortion laws, allow abortion to save the life of the mother? Was there any doubt an abortion was necessary to save Savita’s life? Can this happen in the United States? And here are my answers.
Last month, a Catholic hospital in Ireland effectively murdered a pregnant woman by denying her a life-saving abortion. Anti-choicers in the United States are trying to impose the same policies on women in the United States. This must be stopped.
It seems outlandish to claim that the Catholic bishops’ own crusade against contraception is anti-Catholic. Still, arguments that this position is anti-Catholic seem not only well-founded but reasonable, whereas the Catholic bishops’ incessant interfering in American women’s lady-business is spectacularly unreasonable.
