US CATHOLIC VOTERS PLAYED A pivotal role in the 2020 election, helping lift Democrat Joe Biden to a narrow victory over President Donald Trump. In so doing, they sent a powerful message about support for abortion rights and access to reproductive healthcare among US Catholics today, as well as the limited role they believe US bishops should play in our electoral system.
US CATHOLIC VOTERS PLAYED A pivotal role in the 2020 election, helping lift Democrat Joe Biden to a narrow victory over President Donald Trump. In so doing, they sent a powerful message about support for abortion rights and access to reproductive healthcare among US Catholics today, as well as the limited role they believe US bishops should play in our electoral system.
I was originally asked to give my personal analysis on how people of color voted and participated in this past election. I spent a few days considering one of those words most: …“how.”
WITH A VOTE OF 4-1 AGAINST, Mexico’s Supreme Court blocked the decriminalization of abortion in the state of Veracruz in late July. The Court ruled against removing sections of the legal code pertaining to abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
ON OCTOBER 22, A RULING from the Polish Constitutional Tribunal tightened preexisting abortion laws to exclude the use of the procedure in cases of severe birth defects and fetal abnormalities. With an estimated 98 percent of abortions within the country attributable to fetal abnormalities and defects, the Tribunal’s ruling drastically impacts abortion access throughout Poland.
While 1960 brought us our first Catholic president, 2020 brought us our first prochoice Catholic president—a fact about which Catholics could not be prouder. Every election with a Catholic candidate (especially an election for president) features varying degrees of braying and pearl-clutching by self-appointed arbiters on the question of choice.
Seventeen years ago, I moved to the US. In a little town in the mountains of Colorado, I found the much needed space to start the long and hard path of my healing journey. Who would have imagined that it was in my long walks through tall aspen trees, old evergreens and the sweet and grounding smell of nature that I would find within me the courage to show up for myself? To be with myself. To come back … home.