medical ethics
Demographics race colors Israel’s abortion debate
By Tracy Gordon — June 4, 2010
JERUSALEM (RNS) Inside an office about the size of a three-bedroom apartment, the walls are covered with pictures of babies and letters from grateful mothers. In a warehouse a few blocks away, three workers pack boxes with essentials — diapers, baby wipes, formula, matzo for Passover in the spring — alongside stacks of pint-sized mattresses […]
COMMENTARY: What started on Mt. Sinai didn’t end there
By Tracy Gordon — May 13, 2010
(RNS) The story of the two-day Jewish festival of Shavuot — beginning this year at sundown on Tuesday (May 18) is well known, starting with a ragtag group of Israelites who had just escaped slavery in Pharaoh’s Egypt. The ancient Israelites, under Moses’ leadership, weren’t yet ready for prime time, much less entry into the […]
D.A. reaches out to families in faith-healing church
By Tracy Gordon — April 24, 2010
OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) District Attorney John Foote kept his promise to reach out to an Oregon City church whose members have been prosecuted for failing to provide adequate medical care for their children. Foote sent a letter to 415 families who belong to the Followers of Christ Church. The church has a long tradition […]
Bishop removes hospital from CHA over health care bill
By Tracy Gordon — April 14, 2010
WASHINGTON (RNS) A health care system in Rhode Island has withdrawn from the national Catholic Health Association in a lingering dispute over the health care bill Congress passed last month. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., demanded that CHA remove St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island from its membership rolls, calling its affiliation with […]
Experts describe Michigan militia as a cult
By Tracy Gordon — March 30, 2010
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (RNS) When militia expert Jack Kay first ran across a MySpace page for the Michigan-based Hutaree militia six months ago, he thought it was just another group wrapping itself in God and country. But on Monday (March 29), following weekend raids by federal authorities in three states, Kay said the group went […]
Quebec moves to ban veils for Muslim women
By Tracy Gordon — March 26, 2010
TORONTO (RNS) The Canadian province of Quebec has introduced unprecedented legislation that would effectively bar Muslim women from receiving or delivering public services while wearing a niqab, or face-covering veil. “Two words: Uncovered face,” Quebec Premier Jean Charest told reporters during a press conference in Quebec City on Wednesday (March 24). “The principle is clear.” […]
Friday’s roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — March 5, 2010
The former COO of Catholic Charities in Washington said the decision to end spousal benefits for employees is “devastating” and will hurt the agency’s ability to recruit quality employees. The Iowa teacher who refused to let a student build a Wiccan altar in shop class has been suspended; he’s not happy about it. A federal […]
For traveling Jews, no more wandering alone in the wilderness
By Tracy Gordon — March 2, 2010
JERUSALEM (RNS) Andre Ufferfilge figures he probably could have found a couch to crash on in Israel through friends of friends, but he instead found a home-cooked kosher meal and acceptance for his traditional Jewish lifestyle. Before he left his university campus in Dusseldorf, Germany, Ufferfilge hopped online and registered with Jewgether (http://www.jewgether.org), a social […]
God and the gridiron? Some are crying foul
By Adelle M. Banks — February 3, 2010
(RNS) Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow won’t be on the Super Bowl field in Miami this Sunday (Feb. 7), but his expected prime-time anti-abortion ad is keeping him in the spotlight, and raising questions about the sometimes awkward balancing act between religion and sports. “He has become sort of the epitome or exemplar of the […]
Tuesday’s round up
By Daniel Burke — December 8, 2009
President Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the White House yesterday and pressed him to “reintegrate religious minorities,” open the Halki seminary, and give Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew some room to do his job. The Supreme Court said it will decide whether a California law school illegally discriminated against a Christian group that discriminates […]
Wednesday’s religion round-up
By Daniel Burke — October 28, 2009
Federal authorities charged two Chicago men with plotting terrorist attacks in Europe, including the offices of the Danish newspaper that published anti-Muslim cartoons several years ago. An anti-abortion activist is calling on people to burn effigies of Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, e-Bay says it will block an auction to raise money for the […]
GUEST COMMENTARY: Barring abortion in health care reform
By Tracy Gordon — October 26, 2009
(RNS) It’s time to clear the air in the current debate over whether proposed health care legislation covers abortion. What’s the truth? Number one issue: Whether the Hyde Amendment applies now The Hyde Amendment has been federal policy since 1976. It states that money from the Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill cannot be used […]
Conscience clauses not just about abortion anymore
By Tracy Gordon — October 22, 2009
WASHINGTON (RNS) Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Dr. Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the answer. “I’m not going to give any kind of medication I see as harmful,” said Phillips of San Antonio. The drugs would not protect her patient from “emotional […]
Vatican to canonize Hawaii’s leper priest
By Tracy Gordon — October 7, 2009
VATICAN CITY (RNS) When Pope Benedict XVI proclaims Blessed Damien de Veuster a saint on Sunday (Oct. 11), among the 40,000 expected attendees at the ceremony in St. Peter’s Square will be the King and Queen of Belgium and a White House delegation including Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Diaz and Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. […]
Report: Support for abortion on decline in America
By Tracy Gordon — October 1, 2009
WASHINGTON (RNS) Support for abortion is declining across the country, with Americans now evenly divided on whether it should be legal, a new report shows. In 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion more clearly outnumbered opponents, but recent surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 47 percent […]
