Jezebel 
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New York, 6:04 PM
Fri Nov 27
15 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/14/09
Clearly everyone here knows the catholic church is not the only right way to live, because its a personal choice. Personally, I am "catholic" in the sense that I go to church 2x a year and i got confirmed in 8th grade, etc. And i still have premarital sex, big woop. So to everyone who hates the church: don't be part of it then. At least in the US, the church isnt going to do anything to get in your way.
10/14/09
Well, unless they chip away at our abortion and contraception rights, bit by bit. It's already much harder to get the morning after pill, pharmacists don't HAVE to give people birth control in some areas if they are morally against it, and abortions are illegal in many places - and that is because of the church. Church and state SHOULD be separate in our country, but that is not always the case. There is no reason to outlaw abortion EXCEPT for religious reasons, which should have nothing to do with our laws - but they often do.
So yes, in many ways the church is getting in the way of the rights of women.
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How is I'm not christian but am grasping the concept of caring for other people a bit better than you are?
10/14/09
Because we're not.
Pro-lifers tend to win these arguments because very few pro-choicers defend "women who make bad choices" when it comes to abortion. The general idealism that if only everyone had BC, we'd never have an abortion that isn't caused by rape or health issues is dangerous, because it shifts the ground and supposes that pro-choicers are tacitly agreeing that all things being equal, women shouldn't get abortions, or there's something wrong about it.
Whereas I think, "all things being equal, it's none of our damn business." I might think the multiple-abortion lady is being dumb and needs to learn the virtues of condoms, but that thought should have no impact on law, because on a legal and social level, what I think shouldn't matter to someone else's rights to bodily integrity.
10/14/09
PS. I say this as someone who had an abortion due to BC failure, so I know that even with 100 percent accessibility to BC, abortions are going to be important and women SHOULD be getting them if that's their decision.
10/14/09
What sort of creative ways can these people think of to prevent abortions? There are no magical uterus gnomes that will fight to keep a 10 week old fetus inside a women who wants and has access to an abortion. Human sexuality isn’t a creative writing class. it is freakin common sense and an understanding of biology. But hey, I guess if you believe in transubstantiation you will believe in "creative" forms of birth control.
10/14/09
Just sayin'.
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Religions like being the alpha wolf.
10/14/09
What was laughable is that every different village was essentially owned by some religion. Whoever came in with the money - well that is the religion to which you converted. In one of my homestays the father went to church every Sunday (he was Lutheran) and thought the name came from MLK. He also said he doesn't believe in God because why would a God allow children to suffer. When you have conversations like that and then can't do condom demos because of the church. *aargh* I got the impression that all that mattered was people saying they were the religion, not that they actually were.
This was just my, albeit limited, experience. But it did not engender a love of organized religion.
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I'm done. If anyone wants me I'll be under my desk.
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I remember hearing awful, downright horrible stories about how the children at the orphanage I worked at in South Africa ended up there. It only made me realize that one thing that will greatly change things is sex education and birth control.
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Also, I just looked at a map of states with parental consent and notification laws, and I think I'm going to have an aneurysm.
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My mother has said of abortion: "Well, you can never un-have a child, but you can very likely get pregnant again at some point if you decide to do it."
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I'm guessing the "supportive services" they mean are more along the lines of adoption or those awful 'pregnancy crisis centers'.
10/14/09
Condoms are a great solution to avoid pregnancy and the spread of AIDS, assuming you have a husband who gives a crap about your health and well-being. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that men who are bringing HIV home to their wives after having sex with prostitutes don't have too terribly much respect for their wives' autonomy or health.
The downside to NFP is that it only works if both partners are willing and able to make the comittment to practice it. The problem with condoms are that they only work if your husband will agree to wear them. The cultural changes necessary to make condoms accepted could also make NFP a more viable option.
10/14/09
Guess what I'm saying is that I'm thankful that NE is a small area... I can't imagine being in that situation miles and miles and hours and hours away from a legal, safe, confidential abortion provider.
Final note: How can you argue with those statistics???????????? Goddamn.
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This is NOT my opinion. I'm restating what I've heard argued.
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The RCC holds that sex is by it's nature both unitive and procreative, and that those two functions should not be separated. Thus, under Catholic teaching, it is every bit as sinful to have sex strictly to conceive and not out of love for your spouse as it is to have sex while using contracpetion.
Not like you'll ever hear any rabid pro-lifers say as much, but in Catholic teaching, love of one's spouse is every bit as essential as the procreative potential of sex.
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I think the Church is dead wrong in stubbornly opposing contraception, but the logic behind why isn't nearly as cut and dried as "the evil man-run church hates the wimmins and wants babies".
The Church is attempting to call people to a higher standard. If men loved and honored the wives the way the Church idealizes in a marriage, well, we wouldn't have to be worried about AIDS so much. And they'd be willing to work with their wives to plan and time pregnancies in a way that benefits their wives' health. Contraception is a great solution to achieving and intermediary goal, but the problem of women dying in childbirth and of STI's has at least as much with cultural undervaluing of women and children as it does with lack of access to condoms (that a man may or may not consent to wear anyway).
The biggest sin of the Church is that they think in the realm of the spiritual and the ideal, and apparently utterly unable to function in reality. In short, their hearts are in the right places, but man do they allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
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10/14/09
It makes me so angry.
10/14/09
"There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. ... So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often."
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10/14/09
@ the Catholic church: Nun up; clearly you boys just make a mess of things.
10/14/09
I'm not responding to the insane troll who has also commented here, btw.
10/14/09
However, the actions of the leadership are completely unacceptable.
Also (not directed at you, but everyone), please resist the urge to approve or feed trolly comments. You know what I'm sayin?
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10/14/09
Actually not true. When Bush met the late Pope a few years back, John Paul II took the time to criticize him for both the death penalty and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And if I remember correctly the new Pope has as well. To the best of my knowledge, Catholics tend to be much better at being consistent on these issues.
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10/14/09
Catholic neocons, like any other stripe of neocon, are for the war. But most Catholics, especially Catholics who are involved in issues of social justice, are very much anti-war. I think (and oh god this sounds very sloppy, but I know I saw it) during the election one of the zillions of polls suggested that Catholicity correlated more strongly with anti-war viewpoints, and liberal policies in general, than mainstream/evangelical Protestantism, which skewed more toward pro-war and conservative policymaking.
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On a sad note, my mother tells me that especially with this Pope and their current Bishop, the diocese is is turning more hardline right and isolating a lot of devout parishioners.
10/14/09
I had a parish here in Chicago that I attended for a spell solely based on the aesthetics of the church and the proximity to where I lived at the time. Every. Single. Sermon there was about abortion or birth control or about how women should want babies, always babies babies babies, and how having babies is so awesome, amirite ladies, said the celibate man.
Finally I just got frustrated and left and noticed in the midst of my indignant storming out of mass that that particular church is run by Opus Dei. Oopsie.
In conclusion, do not go to a church run by Opus Dei folks. Stuff gets weird quickly.
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However, I went to Georgetown for law school, and campus health services didn't give out condoms or prescribe birth control.
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The well-rounded ones are more the exception than the rule these days. I don't know if the priests are trying to out-do each other or what.
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I was just being humorously obtuse.
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In my personal experience, as a Catholic, I've found people who make statements like yours have never had any first-hand contact with the Church, so please enlighten us as to your specific experience or research.
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This dickhead of a bishop from my hometown ([www.medicalnewstoday.com]).
Notre Dame protesting Obama's speech because he's pro-choice?
Abortion abortion abortion abortion. That's all that matters.
The actions of the Catholic Church when it comes to abortion? Is that not proof enough? They will not accept that contraception is the best route to a lower abortion rate and healthier women.
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And I sincerely disagree that it is anything like saying all Muslims are terrorists. Being very anti-choice and a terrorist are vastly different things. And it's not as if there is no basis for asserting the Catholic Church is anti-choice, when the official position of the RCC is very anti-abortion. There is no similar official edict from Muslims.
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Obama overwhelming won Notre Dame in the 2008 elections. Clinton also won the ND campus in both 1992 and 1996.
The students there are more conservative than your run of the mill college students, but I definitely wouldn't use the student body there to paint a picture of how all of Catholicism is obsessed with women's reproductive systems.
10/14/09
The Cardinal Newman Society, a group that promotes orthodoxy at Catholic colleges and universities, began the protest.
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I've lived in a lot of places, so I've attended mass in a lot of areas, and the one time abortion was specifically mentioned was when they were asking parishioners to sign a petition not to lift the partial birth abortion ban in Illinois. And it wasn't harped on, it was a card handed out after mass.
Ironically and interestingly enough, the article you sent suggests that the Vatican asked the bishop you're complaining about to resign.
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I agree that not all RCC parishes do this, and accept others' assertions that their churches don't do this. I just can't agree that the churches who do it are the EXCEPTION, especially when the official RCC stance is so adamantly anti-choice.
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