Insights & Resources
What does it mean to trust women and value individual conscience? World-renowned experts agree: Catholics - and many people of faith - all over the...
As the Holy See, representatives of the Catholic church use direct access to the UN’s General Assembly and influential international conferences to...
In 2018, members of the Coalition for Liberty & Justice produced "When Religious Freedom Hurts." The video tells the story of three women--Debbie,...
The Value of Life: Scientific and Moral Reflections on Abortion What is life? When and how does it begin? How do we know it's present? Can we end ...
The Secret History of Sex, Choice and Catholics
BRACING FOR THE POSSIBILITY that the Supreme Court will further weaken, or even overturn, Roe v. Wade—potentially allowing states to ban abortion entirely—legal scholars and activists are preparing for an assault on the Constitution. Similarly, people of faith see an assault on our values, teachings and faith commitments. Julianna Gonnen’s “Equal Dignity – A Way Forward If Roe Falls?” argues that constitutional protection for reproductive freedom may be found not only in Roe’s imperiled privacy sphere, but also in a holistic understanding of equal protection, indicating both a compelling legal strategy and a space that allows shared values of law and faith to intersect.
Resources designed to help Catholic policymakers promote policies that ensure access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.
A place for reproductive health care providers to share stories and reflections from the frontlines of abortion care.
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.
WE GREET YOU IN THE midst of a global pandemic, an economic catastrophe and a moral emergency. We are women who lead Catholic-rooted organizations and communities. Our hearts are heavy with grief over COVID-19 and its related deaths, with the sting of unemployment and fiscal uncertainty and, especially, with the weight of systemic racism and white supremacy that ensures that people of color suffer these disproportionately.
A recent statement by a Roman Catholic bishop that abortion and Roe v. Wade were the ultimate concern in this year’s presidential elect ion is beyond foolish—it is a fetishizing of the issue to the exclusion of all other moral concerns.
With a Catholic candidate headlining the Democratic ticket, the 2020 presidential election saw Catholic voters divided just almost evenly between President Donald Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden.
JULIANNA S. GONEN, PHD, JD, is the policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), where she works to advance legislative and regulatory policy at the federal level that ensures the well-being of LGBTQ people.
As a lifelong student of and advocate of sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice, I anticipated AKA Jane Roe (FX-produced movie, premiered May 22 on FX and May 23 on Hulu) would elucidate the complexity that was Norma McCorvey's life and activism. My admiration for McCorvey’s courage in sharing her story and appreciation for the reality of her life brought a hope that filmmaker Nick Sweeney would give an overdue portrayal of this mercurial figure not just as a trophy to be won or as a symbol to be used.
Roe v. Wade is arguably the most well-known US Supreme Court decision in modern America. Ask anyone on an American street if they’ve heard of it, and almost all will say, “Yes.” Only slightly fewer will correctly identify it as having to do with abortion, and fewer still, though still a fairly high number, will say it stands for a woman’s right to choose an abortion. But which is it?