Politicians have voted for a new law allowing three days’ bereavement leave where pregnancies end because of miscarriage or stillbirth, but not for women suffering post-abortion grief. Politicians have rejected calls for the leave to be extended to allow support for these women. “We absolutely support this bill but requested that it be extended to Read more
Why are some US bishops of the Catholic Church telling Catholics to avoid the newly approved Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine? Why did some U.S. Catholic leaders rush to issue warnings about this vaccine even though the Vatican has already said that it can be morally acceptable to receive it? Most importantly, why did these Read more
It has puzzled me a long time why Catholics are so much more engaged with the abortion issue than members of other Christian churches. All Churches start their response to abortion from the same baseline – the Commandment “thou shalt not kill”. Yet they do not all arrive at the same destination. Why is this? Read more
Should a secular state be concerned with the issue of abortion and if so, in what way? May the Church appeal to secular leaders, including Catholics, to protect women and children from a practice increasingly funded and vigorously promoted both by governments and by non-governmental bodies? In a letter on behalf of the US Bishops Read more
“Pastorally dangerous” and “unhelpful” is how South African ethicist Anthony Egan SJ is labelling the Archdiocese of New Orleans claim the Johnson & Johnson Covid Vaccine is “morally compromised”. He made the claims in America Magazine. Egan’s irritation is that just one day before the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorisation to a Read more
Are Catholicism and democracy incompatible? Pope Pius IX, in his notorious 1864 Syllabus of Errors, seemed to think so. Every Catholic politicians since then has had to wrestle with the eruptions and upheavals that occur where these two tectonic plates grind together. The latest example is President Joe Biden, who has been reprimanded by the President Read more
Over a thousand people gathered in Wellington last Saturday to give a voice to pre-born children in the National March for Life. The event celebrates the value of life and the unborn child and offers a peaceful protest against New Zealand’s abortion laws. “Forty-three years ago, Parliament passed a law that said not all unborn Read more
I would rather jump through a glass window than talk to literally anyone about reproductive politics. Given the choice between a very normal and appropriate conversation about reproductive politics and a glass window, I will be in the bushes out front, picking glass out of my torso. That is because when I was 17 I Read more
Above all, protecting life is about human ethics, says Pope Francis in a letter to Argentine anti-abortion protesters dated 22 November. Thousands of protesters took to Argentina’s streets on Saturday. They were holding Argentine flags and wearing the sky-blue scarves that identify them as anti-abortionists. The protesters also carried signs with slogans like “Save Both Read more
Edward Jenner is considered the father of vaccinology. He pioneered the world’s first vaccine, which was for smallpox. Caused by a virus, smallpox was a serious disease which killed about three in ten of the people who contracted it and left many others with severe scars. Smallpox was mainly spread by direct, lengthy face-to-face contact Read more