Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, explains how right wing religious groups attempt to grant precedence to the interests of institutions over the consciences of individuals, and why this dangerous for everyone.

Catholics for Choice Podcast

What War on Religion?

Rabbi Dennis S. Ross, director of Concerned Clergy for Choice, shares stories from New York state about the ongoing work by religious and non-religious leaders towards achieving real religious liberty. He believes this means, above all else, that a woman will be protected when making personal decisions about planning a family.

A Lot Happens, But Not a Lot Changes: What Can We Do To Achieve Real Religious Liberty?

How do ultraconservative religious groups work to impose their extreme views on everyone? Sara Hutchinson, domestic program director at Catholics for Choice, highlights the recent lawsuits opposing contraception coverage from faith-based universities and for-profit companies to demonstrate how religious extremists, particularly in the Catholic Church, can affect federal law.

Politics at the Pulpit and the Catholic Hierarchy’s Negative Impact on Reproductive Rights

Marieme Helie Lucas, an internationally-based panelist from Women Living under Muslim Laws and Secularism Is a Women’s Issue, discusses the influence of Muslim extremists on laws and policies throughout the world and how discrepancies in definitions of secularism can have real consequences for human rights everywhere—and why people in the United States need only look at international examples to see what happens when religious extremism controls public policy.

How Can Discrepancies in the Definition of “Secularism” Impact Human Rights?

En este podcast, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir (CDD) – El Salvador muestra como después de la penalización del aborto en el país en 1998, toda mujer se convierte virtualmente en sospechosa de un crimen que tal vez, ella misma no ha cometido! Los casos de Karina y Marlene nos hacen ver la complejidad de la situación de toda mujer embarazada que puede enfrentarse a un aborto espontáneo y necesariamente involuntario y a condenas entre 8 y 30 años de cárcel! Abortion in El Salvador = Aggravated Homicide? In this podcast, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir El Salvador reveals how, after abortion was criminalized in the country in 1998, women who suffer from a miscarriage can be prosecuted on suspicion of having an abortion and be sent to prison.

¿Aborto en El Salvador: Homicidio Agravado?

En este podcast, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir (CDD) – Nicaragua comparte con nosotros/nosotras tanto el proceso de penalización del aborto en ese país como la influencia de la jerarquía católica sobre el mismo. Mostrando así que como resultado de tal criminalización, mujeres como Amelia, ven su vida amenazada por falta de un tratamiento de quimioterapia y la imposibilidad de una interrupción voluntaria de su embarazo para sobrevivir al cáncer y hacerse cargo de su niña de 10 años! Nicaragua 2010: Access to Reproductive Health and the Criminalization of Abortion In this podcast, we use information from our colleagues in Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir Nicaragua to explain how abortion is criminalized in their country, as well as examining the influence of the Catholic hierarchy. As an example of what is happening as a result of the criminalization of abortion, we provide information about the case “Amalia,” whose life is threatened because medical practitioners refuse to administer chemotherapy as she is pregnant. 

Nicaragua 2010: El Acceso a la salud Reproductiva y la Penalización del Aborto

This is the fourth and final podcast in a series of four podcasts from a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication.  Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. This week's speaker is Mary Hunt, feminist theologian and co-director of Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual.

The Ban on Contraception - Podcast #4 with Mary Hunt

This is the third in a series of four podcasts of a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication.Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. This week Daniel Maguire, Professor of Moral Theological Ethics at Marquette University, speaks on the difference between Catholic theology and Vatican theology.

The Ban on Contraception - Podcast #3 with Daniel Maguire

This is the second installment of four podcasts from a telephone conference call launching a new Catholics for Choice publication. Truth and Consequence—A Look behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception reflects on 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. Today, we feature noted feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, a professor at the Graduate Theological Union at the Pacific School of Religion. 

The Ban on Contraception - Podcast #2 with Rosemary Radford Ruether

On the eve of the pope's visit to the United States, Catholics for Choice organized a telephone conference call with four noted Catholic theologians to launch a new publication examining the impact of 40 years of Humanae Vitae, the Vatican document that cemented the ban on contraception. Truth and Consequence—A look behind the Vatican's ban on contraception reflects on a defining moment in modern church history. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting podcasts of the four theologians’ contributions. We start with Anthony Padovano, a distinguished professor and author of twenty-eight books.

The Ban on Contraception - Podcast #1 with Anthony Padovano

For World AIDS Day 2007, Catholics for Choice commissioned the Washington, DC, polling firm, Belden Russonello & Stewart, to carry out polls in five countries on four continents about Catholic attitudes towards the use of condoms. The polls were done in the United States, Ireland, Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines. Condoms4Life is an unprecedented worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishops’ ban on condoms. The campaign was launched on World AIDS Day 2001 with the display of billboards and ads in subways and newspapers saying, “Banning Condoms Kills.? The campaign is sponsored by Catholics for Choice, our partners in Europe and Latin America and colleagues in Africa and Asia. Nancy Belden, a pollster from Belden Russonello & Stewart, talks here about the survey results with the Condoms4Life campaign coordinator, Marissa Valeri. For more information, please visit www.CatholicsforChoice.org.

Multinational Poll Shows Catholics Want Vatican to End the Ban on Condoms

"Whether or not they are fully informed about its intricacies, almost everyone in the United States seems to have an opinion about stem-cell research...Opponents claim that to destroy an embryo, even for a good purpose such as curing Alzheimer's disease, is as wrong as killing an adult so that his or her organs can be distributed to six or seven other adults who might otherwise die. But is the wrong done in each of these cases really of the same magnitude?"Dr. Rosemarie Tong, a distinguished professor of health care ethics and director of the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, tackles the moral questions surrounding stem cell research and puts forth an approach that asserts the positive potential--and moral correctness--of such research.  For more information, or to read Dr. Tong's original article, please visit www.CatholicsforChoice.org/Conscience. 

Stem Cell Research and the Affirmation of Life: An Interview with Dr. Rosemarie Tong

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimates that 51 percent of Latina teens get pregnant at least once before age 20—nearly twice the national average.  Moreover, the Latina teen pregnancy rate is declining at half the pace of the overall national rate, and some states are reporting rising rates of Latina teen pregnancy and childbearing. Listen as Bill Albert, the deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the author of “51%: Latinas and Teen Pregnancy? in the latest issue of Conscience, describes recent trends in the Latina teen pregnancy rate and the barriers to reducing that rate in the future. To read the article available online, please visit the Conscience homepage. To subscribe to the magazine, click here.  

Teen Pregnancy Among Latinas

"As the World Congress of Families packs up its tents and leaves its fantasy world in Warsaw, participants will now have to face the harsh reality of the real world in which we all live. There will be far fewer subservient women, there will be gays living on the same block, and there will be people having premarital sex and using contraception to boot..." Listen as Catholics for a Free Choice analyzes the World Congress of Families (May 11-13, 2007), an international gathering of extreme--and extremely out-of-touch--anti-choice groups in Warsaw, Poland.  A Catholics for a Free Choice associate attended the conference and provided first hand reports and analysis of what turned out to be an underwhelming event.  For full coverage of the event and to read daily reports, visit Catholics for a Free Choice Opposition Watch: World Congress on Families. 

Unpacking the World Congress of Families, Poland, May 2007

Abortion has been at the eye of a terrible storm in recent years. Clinic bombings, Supreme Court decisions, shootings, violent protests and venomous rhetoric have not brought the country any closer to a resolution. Both sides in the debate have generated more heat than light... Listen as Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, discusses the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancies as the best means of reducing the need for abortion--something that the majority of Americans and American Catholics, regardless of where they identify themselves on the issue of abortion, support.  His remarks are from an OpEd published in the May 4, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.   

How to Move Forward on the Abortion Debate: Prevention, Not Prohibition

Provocative thought and new ideas from Catholicism's premier think tank.