Dolan, Abortion & NOW | National Catholic Reporter

Dolan, Abortion & NOW National Catholic Reporter by Michael Sean Winter

It is good A/B Dolan is taking this step - but he needs to take one step farther and give free tuition to any teenage couple in a family way at both the high school and college level and make sure their living and day care expenses are met as well.

He should also pay families in his employ a living wage, meaning that if someone has a child, they get a $1000 per month raise to cover expenses (if not more, given housing prices in NYC). He should also lobby for tax policy so that the state and the fed each kick in $500 per month per child.

As for Roe being unjust - yes and no. It was surely unfortunate, but under the constitutional rules for who has protection and how they should get it, the ruling was absolutely just. Who is a person is a matter of federal jurisdiction, not state and until someone is a person, their interests are not to be considered in public policy (that's privacy). A constitutional amendment is not needed to do this, however caution is.

One cannot begin life at conception - or even gastrulation - and not consider what would happen to society if each person were given equal access to justice after that point (meaning that abortion would not be punished as a medical misdomeanor but as a felony with all concerned - including mothers - subject to punishment and that all failed pregnancies would be subject to some type of investigation - including natural miscarriage - as well as tort action - thereby denying care for anyone who has a pregnancy until the danger of miscarriage is passed (at the behest of insurers). An adult policy would take the paranthetical issues into consideration. It is not up to pro-choice Catholic politicians to come up with work-arounds and until the pro-life side does, pro-choice pols get a free ride.

As for NOW, they are pretty much pro-abortion - however, unless they had a draft of his speech, they protested because they expected the worst. It would take both the economic measures I mentioned previously, the ordination of women and a rethinking of how crisis pregnancies are dealt with - like in Phoenix and Brazil where the child has no chance of living and therefore no right to life - for them to stop their opposition to Church policy.