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Comment by tathougies | Hacker News Reader

This is incredibly disingenous. The largest pro-life advocacy group, the Catholic Church, is pro-universal healthcare, pro-maternity leave (and paternity leave, the Church believes both parents should be home with their children). Moreover, the church has a long history (longer than planned parenthood) of providing accessible healthcare services. One need only look at the number of Catholic hospitals that closed during the recession because they provided free or discounted care when no one else would.

So, yeah, please stop projecting the entire sphere of simple-minded conservatism on the pro-life cause. The anti-abortion posse has supporters all over the political spectrum, not just in the republican party. If you want the democratic party to win an election, you should figure this one out.

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man, i'm sorry, after today's news it will for awhile be especially hard [and not in the way "hard" is understood these days in Vatican] for me to consider seriously as genuine any declared position of Catholic Church. I mean, for Christ sake, it was the Cardinal responsible for Inquisition (department of Doctrine of Faith as it is called these days) ! :)

The Church isn't one homogeneous group. Each diocese operates independently, and each order is a separate entity, so the hospitals (which are usually run by nuns) are usually separate from the regular Church hierarchy.

Nevertheless -- regardless of the many shortcomings of its members -- the Church is still probably the single largest non-political entity behind a single payer universal health care system in the country.

>The Church isn't one homogeneous group. Each diocese operates independently, and each order is a separate entity

that definitely contradicts the Church's own teachings and declarations, and it doesn't work in the civil law space too - the courts stroke down that argument when the Church tried to use it in order to shield the assets from the child molestation lawsuits.

No... they didn't. Can you please provide a link or something showing a group of religious sisters drawn into the whole child abuse lawsuits and being considered the same entity? Preferably, a hospital, nursing home, or school.

Do they provide LBGT sex education as well? Seems like a burden the church should take on given what the leaders of this community have done.

I have a hard time taking men who have engaged in sexual child abuse as valid leaders of pro life or pro choice movement. I don't think they should have a say in anything sex related at all.

They are the last group of people on the planet right now who should be taking a moral stand on sexual rights.

Wait, you think LGBT sex requires different sex education?

When sex education was taught to me, sexual preference wasn't assumed or implied. The parts worked the way they anatomically do. STDs have no gender preference.

What is LGBT sex education? The Church provided the best sex education my wife and I got. During marriage prep, we actually learned how our reproductive systems worked, and how to monitor my wife's cycles, which led to the diagnosis of several health problems that should have been obvious in retrospect. If only we had actually been taught about our bodies in high school, it would have saved us a lot of heartache. Thank God for the Church.

The modern pro-life movement that people are referring to here is dominated by evangelical christians. If anything, the Catholics are marginalized in the movement.

Simply put... no. You may perceive it that way because the evangelicals make a big fuss, but the Catholic church is by far the largest group. Additionally, most evangelicals believe abortion is okay in certain cases. Their main argument against abortion is that woman should be saddled with the 'consequences of their actions'.

In contrast, the Church is against abortion in all cases, period, and doesn't think that children are a 'consequence' to be dealt with, but rather a life to be preserved.

According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_pro-life_movemen...), a 2008 study (the Munson study) found that, of all pro-life activists, 66% were Catholic, a substantial majority.

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