The case of three Irish women who are challenging Ireland’s abortion ban will be heard by the full 17 member chamber of the European Court of Human Rights this week. The three women claim in their lawsuit, ABC v. Ireland, that their well-being and health was threatened by Ireland’s restrictive laws that prevent abortion in […]
The Washington, DC city council voted today to legalize same-sex marriage. The bill passed in an 11 to 2 vote and must undergo a second vote before it reaches Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. Mayor Fenty has agreed to sign the measure, according to the Washington Post. Council member Phil Mendelson, a supporter of the bill […]
Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), was reportedly barred from receiving communion by Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin in 2007 due to Kennedy’s pro-choice position on abortion. Kennedy told the Providence Journal Friday that the “bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion.” Bishop […]
The House passed the historic Affordable Health Care Act (HR3962) by a narrow margin (220-215) with major gains for women including eliminating gender rating in insurance prices, banning pre-existing conditions, capping out of pocket expenses, expanding Medicaid to include individuals at 150% of the federal poverty level, improving Medicare by closing the donut hole on […]
The House passed the historic Affordable Health Care Act (HR3962) for Women by a narrow margin (220-215) Saturday night with major gains for women including eliminating gender rating in insurance prices, banning pre-existing conditions, capping out of pocket expenses, expanding Medicaid to include individuals at 150% of the federal poverty level, improving Medicare by closing […]
Maine voters approved overturning legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the state yesterday. According to the Bangor Daily News, with 87 percent of precincts reporting, 53 percent voted to overturn the law and 47 percent voted to maintain the law. The law in question was supposed to go into effect September 15, but […]
As a Peruvian congressional committee met Tuesday to review a bill allowing limited exceptions to the country’s ban on abortion, hundreds of protestors both for and against the measure demonstrated outside. The proposed law would legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fetal deformity, according to the BBC. Currently abortion is illegal except when […]
Last week, the Chicago city council passed an ordinance mandating anti-choice protestors maintain a safe distance away from clinics and facilities that provide abortion services. The ordinance establishes a 50 foot buffer zone and authorizes fining any protestor who gets within 8 feet of a patient without their consent $500, NBC Chicago reports. Chicago’s Mayor, […]
The legal community in Uruguay is now questioning whether a law passed in the nation’s congress last week would make Uruguay, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation, the first country in Latin America to legalize gay adoption. After the law was approved, the New York Times reported that the legislation would allow gay couples to adopt […]
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that Belmont Abbey College discriminated against its employees on the basis of sex by denying them health care coverage of contraceptives. According to the Gaston Gazette, the complaint involved the college’s December 2007 decision to alter its employee health insurance plan by removing coverage for oral contraceptives, […]
The Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) has approved mifepristone, also known as RU-486, for use through the seventh week of pregnancy. Last week’s ruling stipulates that the drug can be administered by doctors in a hospital but can not be sold in pharmacies, according to the BBC. As the host country of the Vatican, Italy has […]
Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings for the United States Supreme Court began yesterday. Though the first day of hearings was dominated by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s opening statements, Sotomayor made a brief introductory statement at the close of the proceedings. In her opening statement Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) referenced Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth […]
Three Irish women are challenging Ireland’s abortion ban in the European Court of Human Rights. Ireland has restrictive laws that prevent abortion in almost every circumstance except when a woman’s life is in jeopardy. The three women claim in their lawsuit, ABC v. Ireland, that their well-being and health was threatened by the strict ban. […]
A settlement has been reached in a discrimination case filed by an Arizona doctor who alleged he had been fired as a result of his pro-choice position. Dr. Christopher Carey, who formerly led the Maricopa Medical Center’s ob-gyn residency program originally filed suit in 2005 and alleged that he was harassed and removed from his […]
Randall Terry, the founder of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is planning to “make a circus” out of President Obama’s Sunday commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame. A small plane with a graphic banner of an aborted fetus and several trucks with similar images have been displayed above and around the campus […]
A bill that would ban all abortion in the Dominican Republic was approved by the country’s Revisory Assembly last week. According to the Dominican Today, the constitutional revision in question states: “The right to the life is inviolable from conception until death.” The article was passed without including exceptions in the case of rape, incest, […]
Archibishop Rino Fisichella, a Vatician bioethics official, wrote last week against the Vatican’s support of excommunicating the Brazilian doctors who were involved with securing an abortion for a 9-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather. The Catholic Church in Brazil had planned to excommunicate all of the doctors involved […]
President Obama announced late last week that he plans to maintain and expand President Bush’s Office on Faith Based Initiatives. Obama has renamed the office the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has appointed 15 of the 25-person council, and has appointed Joshua DeBois, a Pentecostal who worked on Obama’s campaign, as the head of […]
US Attorney Thomas P O’Brien has launched a federal investigation into the way the Los Angeles archdiocese, led by Cardinal Roger M Mahony, dealt with priests accused of sexual abuse. A federal grand jury will determine if some church leaders, including Mahony, violated federal law by inadequately responding to abusive priests and simply reassigning them […]
The American Civil Liberties Union charged in a suit filed yesterday that some funds distributed through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act by the Department of Health and Human Services were in violation of the separation of church and state. The suit alleges that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who have received Health and Human […]
