I’m ambivalent about that most common pro-life argument: that, because life begins at conception, to abort a pregnancy is to commit murder. That’s not to say I don’t believe it’s true. On the contrary: it’s not only true, it’s obviously true. It’s one of the few points upon which credible scientists and ethicists can agree. … Read more
Editor’s note: this article by the founder of Crisis first appeared in the March 1993 print edition of this magazine. More and more, through deception and euphemism, the American people are being led by their government into the primitive and barbaric practice of abortion. They are being led to think of abortion as a moral good, a … Read more
I don’t watch Hollywood award shows anymore, although there was a time in my life when I did. In my early college days, I would turn on the television to gape at the pre-awards red carpet glamor, and then chow on popcorn while relishing every acceptance speech over the next few hours, all the while … Read more
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the January 1988 print edition of Crisis Magazine. It has been edited for brevity. CRISIS: Is abortion really a political issue? It seems not. After all, politics is a dispute over the arrangements by which a community lives. Abortion raises a prior question: who belongs to the community? … Read more
The feminist writer Florynce Kennedy once said, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” She didn’t give the left enough credit. Abortion has become a kind of “sacrament” because women can get pregnant. Abortion has morphed from a taboo tragedy to a constitutional right: a sine qua non of the Democratic Party, … Read more
Ireland, particularly its government, is now in the strange position of being simultaneously hostile and indifferent to Catholicism. An indication of the seemingly indifferent attitude toward the Catholic Church by Irish officialdom occurred in connection with the recent canonization of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman was the founding rector (or president) of University College Dublin. … Read more
As the United States has grown more and more ideologically polarized, the divide has been magnified on the Supreme Court. The divisions on the Court made Justice Anthony Kennedy the most powerful man in America by 2018 because he was often the Court’s swing vote on important decisions. Where the swing vote of the Supreme … Read more
Many moons ago, even before Roe v. Wade, I taught an ethics class that consisted of 16 students. At the outset, I used an anonymous questionnaire to learn about their respective stances on abortion. The class was split in half, with eight accepting abortion and eight opposing it. By the end of the course, all … Read more
By their own admission, the United Nations plan to impose abortion—which it calls “reproductive health”—on the whole world. It’s a project 25 years in the making, beginning no later than 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. (It was here that Catholics and Evangelicals were awakened by Pope St. John Paul … Read more
Two elderly priests I know have offered complementary insights into our current cultural crisis: “Social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering,” and “Those who win the language wars win the culture wars.” Language carefully hones, shapes—or distorts—our culture. And, since language is our medium for comprehension, our use of language directly impacts our ability to … Read more
Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska made national headlines with his novel challenge to a decision by state’s supreme court, which requires the Alaskan state government to fund abortions. Dunleavy vetoed a portion of the state’s appropriation for its judicial branch: a portion equal to the amount the court requires the government to provide for abortions … Read more
July was not a good month for the former CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. And I am not taking about Cecile Richards. I am referring to Leana Wen, who, after suffering a miscarriage early in July, also suffered a job loss when on July 16 the Planned Parenthood board of directors showed her … Read more
I provide the following glossary as a service to those unwoke, unhip noctambulants who, like me, find themselves obliviously sleepwalking through the dreamscape of contemporary American culture. I provide for your edification, fellow somnambulists, the following terms taken from the argot of those who place themselves at the vanguard of the current reproductive rights/reproductive justice … Read more
Seventy years ago in June 1949 George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. On June 7, 2019, the day prior to Nineteen Eighty-Four’s 70th anniversary, The Guardian, the United Kingdom’s leading socialist newspaper, announced: “Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses to describe abortion bans.” What follows in this pronouncement would have … Read more
The June 21 decision by an English Court of Protection judge to order a Nigerian woman, in the fifth month of pregnancy, to have an abortion against her own and her family’s wills, stirred criticism. A three-judge Court of Appeal overturned the decision June 24. Apart from the barbarism of forced abortion—hitherto the preference of totalitarian … Read more
Thomas Paprocki, the bishop of Springfield (the state capital of Illinois), has issued a decree barring the Illinois State Senate President and House Speaker—both ostensibly Catholics—from receiving Communion in the diocese. The June 2 decision took place in response to enactment of abortion legislation codifying in state law an unlimited abortion liberty through birth, in … Read more
Speaking at the University of Notre Dame in October 2016, just a few weeks before a national election that seemed sure to put a second Clinton in the White House, I noted that [Q]uite a few of us American Catholics have worked our way into a leadership class that the rest of the country both … Read more
Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims’s efforts to bolster his abortion advocacy credentials by berating pro-life protesters and posting it on social media have surely backfired. Sims, a gay-rights attorney who first ran for office as a Democrat in 2012, cast himself as the star of two videos filmed outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion facility … Read more
“Beam me up Scotty.” These are an abortionist’s words directing a nurse to turn on the suction machine, words Abby Johnson heard when she was unexpectedly summoned to the procedure room of the Bryan, Texas, Planned Parenthood clinic, of which she was the manager, to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion. She was stunned to observe … Read more
Operating out of the national spotlight that is focused on late-term abortion legislation around the U.S., Vermont legislators are quietly seeking to enshrine their already exceptionally broad abortion policies into state law. Unrestricted abortion is already permitted for any reason and at any stage of pregnancy in the Green Mountain State, but that hasn’t stopped … Read more