t eanc 0 VOL. 37, NO.8.
Friday, February 26, 1993
FALL RIVER, MASS.
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Governor Casey:
FOCA will. further divide nation WAS HINGTON (CNS) Passing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) "will only fan the flames of controversy and further divide our nation," Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey told a House subcommittee Feb. 23. "Y ou cannot stifle this debate with a piece of paper," Casey told the judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. "N 0 edict, no federal mandate can put to rest the grave doubts of the American people." FOCA is promoted by its supporters as codifying Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court Ruling legalizing abortion. Its opponents say it would prohibit all state regulation of abortion including generally favored laws such as those requiring that juveniles notify a
parent or that women be told of the risks before they may obtain an abortion. Casey, a Democrat, said the bill would invalidate the essential parts of Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Law, which he said closely mirrors American public opinion about how readily available abortion should be. Most of Pennsylvania's law was upheld in a June 1992 Supreme Court ruling that also reinforced what the justices called "the central holding" of Roe, that the right to have an abortion is constitutionally protected. The federal bill would make abortion the least-regulated industry in the country, Casey contended, and "mandate an abortion-on-demand regime for the entire country in a way which goes against the
expressed will of the overwhelming majority of the American people. "It would repeal reasonable limitations on the practice of abortion enacted by the people in the states and prohibit them from enacting any similar limitations in the future. It would bind the people in a legal straitjacket that would only provoke more confrontation and controversy," he said. At the same hearing Harvard Law professor Frank I. Michelman testified that FOCA would not forbid all state regulation of abortion. Michelman said the measure is necessary to equalize a patchwork of abortion laws that vary from state to state. But while it would' Turn to Page 10
S even lost lives WASHINGTON (CNS) - The U.S. Supreme Court put an end Feb. 22 to a Tennessee woman's attempt to use frozen embryos created with her ex-husband to become pregnant. The fate of the seven embryos had been debated in court since 1989. Mary Sue Davis Stowe wanted to be given custody of the embryos in order to become pregnant at a later date or donate them to a childless couple, and her exhusband, Junior Lewis Davis, wanted them destroyed. By turning down-without comment Mrs. Stowe's request for review, the high court affirmed the Tennessee Supreme Court's decision that Davis' right not to be a father outweighed Mrs. Stowe's right to the embryos. "Ordinarily the party wishing to avoid procreation should prevail," the state court said. It also ruled that the embryos were not human
beings with independent legal rights, overturning a lower court decision that life begins at conception and that custody of the embryos should go to Mrs. Stowe. "It is a tragic day in America when a father's 'wish to avoid procreation' would result in the legal killing of his children," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, in a Feb. 23 statement. '''The Supreme Court has sentenced seven innocent people to death," she added. "Refusing their moral obligation to overturn the state of Tennessee's ethically unacceptable ruling to destroy what a lower trial court correctly deter. mined to be human beings from fertilizatio.n, the Supreme Court has by its silence turned a custody case into seven cases of intentional kiliing." Custody of the seven embryos now remains -in the hands of the Knoxville, Tenn., fertility clinic
where they were created in December 1988 and where they are being preserved in liquid nitrogen. A Tennessee judge was expected to order the clinic to destroy them. In another case related to medical technology, the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to hear a "wrongful birth" suit brought by a Georgia couple who said an Army doctor's failure to correctly diagnose her pregnancy led to the 1985 birth ofa retarded and handicapped daughter and denied the woman her right to an abortion. A suit by ,Thomas and Patricia Campbell of Marietta, Ga:, had been thrown out by the Georgia Supreme Court since state law bars "wrongful birth" lawsuits. ' In a third ruling Feb. 22, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the dismissal of a lawsuit by a woman who had sought an abortion at what she thought was an abortion Turn to Page 10
, ONE OF the youngest members of the Fall River diocese receives ashes fro'm Bishop Sean O'Malley as the bishop conducts his first Ash Wednesday liturgy at St. Mary's Cathedral. In a brief homily, the bishop commented on the words that accompany imposition of ashes: "Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you will return." He said that "dust is aimless, everywhere, but nowhere at home" and added that "we experience something of this feeling in our own lives, but we must remember that the ashes are imposed in the sign of the cross to remind us that Jesus, who became dust for us, has redeemed our dust." Lenten works of penance, said the bishop, are worthwhile, but must be accompanied 'by prayer and a change of heart. What Lent should be for us, he concluded, "is a 40-day retreat in the desert with Jesus." (Hickey photo)
Budget must confront fiscal, social woes, says Bishop Ricard WASHINGTON (CNS) - The federal budget process must deal with the nation's "intertwined" fiscal and human deficits, said the chairman of a committee of U.S. bishops as President Clinton presented new economic proposals in his State of the Union message. "The political posturing, budget games and postponing of hard choices of the past cannot continue," said a statement issued by Auxiliary Bishop John H. Ricard of Baltimore as chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference's Committee of Domestic Policy. The statement was released Feb. 17. hours before Clinton's State of the Union message that called for $499 billion in tax increases and spending cuts.
Among other things, Clinton's ing" fiscal deficit and its "growing economic plan proposes higher human deficit." energy ta~es for households "Our nation is wasting vl;lluable making more than $30,000, a human resources - people who freeze on federal workers' pay, an want to work and cannot find increase in income taxes for . employment; children who lack families making more than the education, health care and $140,000, cuts totaling $76 billion housing that will help them grow in Pentagon spending and $91 bilinto responsible and productive lion in pensions and automatic adults; and communities that breed benefit programs, and taxes on violence and hopelessness instead Social Security benefits for cou- of offering opportunity and safety," ples earning more than $32,000 it said. and individuals earning more than "We cannot continue to mul$25,000. tiply debt nor can we ignore the Although Bishop Ricard's fiscal and social costs of neglecting statement did not address any Of basic human needs." the statement the specific proposals that had added. The statement noted that it was been floated by the Clinton administration, it said. any budget plan "not the church's competence or must address the nation's "stagger- responsibility to propose a 'moral'
budget." But the statement did The statement said every public suggest four "directions for action" policy -- especially budget policy that should guide the budget de- - should be measured by "how it bates: touches the life, dignity and rights - "Targeted cuts in federal spend- of the human person." In the field of foreign aid, it said, ing," with only federal assistance to the poor excluded from consid- the United States "must resist the tempting. but dangerous. abandoneration of cuts. - "Tax reform" to raise revenue ment of global responsibility in a and "help meet basic needs of poor . still hungry and hurting world. filled with refugees and victims of families." - Cuts in and "redirection" of violence and injustice." On tax reform. it called for a military spending "to meet the defense and security challenges of policy that would "raise the necessary revenue and provide fairness a changing world." - "Careful targeted and disci- for vulnerable families with childplined investments to promote ren, without creating disincentives economic growth and employment, for charitable giving which also contributes to the common good to address the human deficit and reduce current and future public and meeting the needs of the nation." costs."