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In reply to the discussion: Why does every religion on the planet [View all]beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)111. Another uppity woman speaks: Beatriz Case Reveals Catholic Hierarchy’s War on Women
Beatriz Case Reveals Catholic Hierarchys War on Women
For the women of the worlds more privileged nations, it is tempting to view the plight of Beatriz, the gravely ill Salvadoran woman denied a therapeutic abortion of a fetus missing its brain, as something that could not happen to us. But if the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had its way, women who face similar medical challenges in the United States would be forced into the same life-threatening circumstances as the 22-year-old Central American mother.
El Salvadors draconian abortion ban is Catholic doctrine made law, in a nation where church prelates hold great political power. While the bishops political power encounters greater checks in the U.S. system of government, it is nonetheless substantialnever mind that the USCCBs positions on womens health and rights do not represent the beliefs of most American Catholics.
Bishops Political Power and the War on Women
One need only look at the way in which bishops tried to derail the Affordable Care Act (ACA), holding up the legislation for months through the resistance of several conservative Catholic congressmen, ostensibly because the law would allow women to purchase, with their own money, health-care coverage for abortion (via a convoluted formula designed to satisfy the church fatherswhich, of course, it didnt).
Today the bishops jihad against the health-care law rests in the requirement that employer-provided health plans, including those offered by Catholic-affiliated institutions such as universities and hospitals, provide coverage for prescription contraception without a co-pay. Hoping to avoid a conflict with the Catholic bishops, whose doctrine forbids the use of birth control, the administration convinced insurance companies to pay for contraceptive prescriptions in such plans so the Catholic institutions wouldnt have to, but that did not satisfy church leaders.
The USCCB, working in coalition with members of the Protestant evangelical right, claims the contraception requirement to be an infringement on its religious liberty, since it prevents the bishops from imposing their religious views on the women of many faiths who work in these large institutions, some of which receive federal dollars, whose primary work is not religious in nature. (In many parts of the country, in fact, the only hospital within reach is one affiliated with the Catholic church. In 2009, according to the National Catholic Reporter, Catholic hospitals served one in six U.S. hospital patients.)
As I write, dozens of lawsuits filed by Catholic institutions and agencies against the Obama administration, challenging the ACA contraception policy, are wending their way through the courtsan effort spearheaded, according to Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones, by the USCCB. (Many of those institutions are represented by the right-wing Becket Fund, which is led by Catholic conservatives.) Essentially, the church is claiming a right to discriminate against women as a matter of religious liberty, much as Bob Jones University claimed a religious right to discriminate against African Americans, a claim knocked down by the Supreme Court in 1983.
A Cult of Misogyny?
Before you write off Beatrizs predicament to moral ambiguity on later abortion, it is only fair to consider the whole of the churchs teaching on matters particular to women, exemplified by its proscription on contraception, which finds no standing in the teachings of Jesus or his disciples, or in the consciences of most Catholics, 82 percent of whom reject it, according to a 2012 Gallup poll.
Neither does one find admonitions against women preachers in the teachings of Jesus, yet the Vatican holds fast to its ban on women priests, a doctrine that can only be viewed, in the modern age, as misogynistic.
Despite the many good works of those it claims to lead, the Vatican and the institutional church has a troubled, centuries-old history in the realm of temporal power. At its essence, the hierarchy is, more than anything, a cult of powera cult whose leaders wish to assure that any future members look and think exactly like them. And thats what accounts for the prelates stunning lack of compassion in matters concerning women.
Theyd have you believe, of course, that their concern is for the children of the worlda term they apply liberally, to zygotes, embryos, and fetuses.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/04/beatriz-case-reveals-catholic-hierarchys-war-on-women/#sthash.OrYTSC56.dpuf
For the women of the worlds more privileged nations, it is tempting to view the plight of Beatriz, the gravely ill Salvadoran woman denied a therapeutic abortion of a fetus missing its brain, as something that could not happen to us. But if the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had its way, women who face similar medical challenges in the United States would be forced into the same life-threatening circumstances as the 22-year-old Central American mother.
El Salvadors draconian abortion ban is Catholic doctrine made law, in a nation where church prelates hold great political power. While the bishops political power encounters greater checks in the U.S. system of government, it is nonetheless substantialnever mind that the USCCBs positions on womens health and rights do not represent the beliefs of most American Catholics.
Bishops Political Power and the War on Women
One need only look at the way in which bishops tried to derail the Affordable Care Act (ACA), holding up the legislation for months through the resistance of several conservative Catholic congressmen, ostensibly because the law would allow women to purchase, with their own money, health-care coverage for abortion (via a convoluted formula designed to satisfy the church fatherswhich, of course, it didnt).
Today the bishops jihad against the health-care law rests in the requirement that employer-provided health plans, including those offered by Catholic-affiliated institutions such as universities and hospitals, provide coverage for prescription contraception without a co-pay. Hoping to avoid a conflict with the Catholic bishops, whose doctrine forbids the use of birth control, the administration convinced insurance companies to pay for contraceptive prescriptions in such plans so the Catholic institutions wouldnt have to, but that did not satisfy church leaders.
The USCCB, working in coalition with members of the Protestant evangelical right, claims the contraception requirement to be an infringement on its religious liberty, since it prevents the bishops from imposing their religious views on the women of many faiths who work in these large institutions, some of which receive federal dollars, whose primary work is not religious in nature. (In many parts of the country, in fact, the only hospital within reach is one affiliated with the Catholic church. In 2009, according to the National Catholic Reporter, Catholic hospitals served one in six U.S. hospital patients.)
As I write, dozens of lawsuits filed by Catholic institutions and agencies against the Obama administration, challenging the ACA contraception policy, are wending their way through the courtsan effort spearheaded, according to Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones, by the USCCB. (Many of those institutions are represented by the right-wing Becket Fund, which is led by Catholic conservatives.) Essentially, the church is claiming a right to discriminate against women as a matter of religious liberty, much as Bob Jones University claimed a religious right to discriminate against African Americans, a claim knocked down by the Supreme Court in 1983.
A Cult of Misogyny?
Before you write off Beatrizs predicament to moral ambiguity on later abortion, it is only fair to consider the whole of the churchs teaching on matters particular to women, exemplified by its proscription on contraception, which finds no standing in the teachings of Jesus or his disciples, or in the consciences of most Catholics, 82 percent of whom reject it, according to a 2012 Gallup poll.
Neither does one find admonitions against women preachers in the teachings of Jesus, yet the Vatican holds fast to its ban on women priests, a doctrine that can only be viewed, in the modern age, as misogynistic.
Despite the many good works of those it claims to lead, the Vatican and the institutional church has a troubled, centuries-old history in the realm of temporal power. At its essence, the hierarchy is, more than anything, a cult of powera cult whose leaders wish to assure that any future members look and think exactly like them. And thats what accounts for the prelates stunning lack of compassion in matters concerning women.
Theyd have you believe, of course, that their concern is for the children of the worlda term they apply liberally, to zygotes, embryos, and fetuses.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/04/beatriz-case-reveals-catholic-hierarchys-war-on-women/#sthash.OrYTSC56.dpuf
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Well they said she was a virgin but since there was no artificial insemination back then
malaise
Jan 2016
#18
Not a single one of my friends stayed in the Church after they were old enough to leave.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#30
Thank you, kind fan. The Christians have no good answer for me on that.
Manifestor_of_Light
Jan 2016
#69
Some break free, more than a few DUers were raised as fundamentalist Christians.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#68
Nope, it's not but they've made it their modern day crusade and they have the numbers to wage it.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#115
Yes, many do but the only one powerful enough here to affect laws is Christianity.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#119
"The RCC was behind every law restricting access to birth control, women's health clinics and
rug
Jan 2016
#82
Every recent law, splitting hairs about how involved the RCC is in restricting my rights?
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#85
Knowing the facts is not splitting hairs. And the issue is far greater than "your" rights.
rug
Jan 2016
#93
Anyone who feels he needs to defend the Church from its victims is no ally.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#94
Has someone ordained you to declaim who is or who is not an ally of whatever you think you're doing?
rug
Jan 2016
#99
Oops, missed one: Catholic dominance over hospitals endangers women
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#100
The Church frames it as a religious war, rug and they wage it every day.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#104
There it is! The word "religious", thanks for admitting that religion is the source.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#106
Another uppity woman speaks: Beatriz Case Reveals Catholic Hierarchy’s War on Women
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#111
Your disregard of Pelosi suggests yorur real target here is not women's rights at all.
rug
Jan 2016
#112
My focus is the Church's war on women and guess who's leading the charge?:
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#114
You asked and I answered, my opinion is just as valid as Nancy's and counts for more than yours.
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#121
More: "Thank the Catholic church for terrifying abortion restrictions in Latin America"
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#107
Rightwing Watch: The Personhood Movement: Internal Battles Go Public
beam me up scottie
Jan 2016
#96
Yes there are female bodhisattvas (enlightened beings) in Buddhism.
Manifestor_of_Light
Jan 2016
#81
Until this year, The Presiding Bishop of the U.S. Episcopal church was Katharine Jefferts Schori...
Journeyman
Jan 2016
#24
Funny thing. Look up the origins of the goddess Columbia and her importance
Promethean
Jan 2016
#128
I think that's true for most institutions - the views of the dominant class prevail
malaise
Jan 2016
#49
And they are codified in texts considered to be hand made by God, backward norms made sacred
Bluenorthwest
Jan 2016
#76
The dictionary definition of the word squaw is "an American Indian Women". Had no idea
doc03
Jan 2016
#133
Movies? Of course one must base all one knows about First Nations people on movies.
Cleita
Jan 2016
#103
TPTB are also killing the planet AKA "Mother" Nature. They really hate women. nt
valerief
Jan 2016
#102
It's easier to justify injustice if you are guided by an invisible being whose will only you know
DFW
Jan 2016
#134
Because almost every religion codifies the existing power structure. eom.
Bad Thoughts
Jan 2016
#144
I think it's more like the power structure adopting and adapting what suits them
malaise
Jan 2016
#148
Yes. It's the outward show of the crux. The crux can be ferreted out. One theory is Marilyn French's
ancianita
Jan 2016
#149
Most of the ones that have gained and retained power were made up for that very reason.
Arugula Latte
Feb 2016
#165