From The Wall Street Journal:
The big news in Honduras is that the good guys seem to have won a four-month political standoff over the exile of former President Manuel Zelaya. Current President Roberto Micheletti agreed yesterday to submit Mr. Zelaya's request for reinstatement as president to the Supreme Court and Congress, and in return the U.S. will withdraw its sanctions and recognize next month's presidential elections.
Mr. Zelaya, whose term would have expired in January, isn't likely to be reinstated, given that the court has twice ruled against his right to remain in office. The Honduran Congress, which voted in June to remove Mr. Zelaya, will then use that high court's opinion to decide if he should be restored to power.
------
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trumpeted the result as a diplomatic triumph, but it's more accurate to say that it extricated her and the Obama Administration from the box canyon they entered by throwing in with Mr. Zelaya. Hondurans had deposed Mr. Zelaya on entirely legal grounds for threatening violence and violating the country's constitution in an attempt to run for a second term. The U.S. nonetheless meddled and demanded that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated.
But Hondurans refused to bend, and the State Department apparently decided at last that Honduras was going to go ahead with its election whether the U.S. agreed or not. The Honduran compromise provided Mrs. Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit.
Complete article:
Honduras and US Reach Agreement Over Zelaya - WSJ.com
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Catholic College Retains Law Firm To Defend Itself Against EEOC
(Undated) -- Belmont Abbey College retained The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to joing its legal team and help defend the school against the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A statement from The Beckett Fund says the EEOC accused the Roman Catholic liberal arts college in North Carolina of discriminating against its female employees by not covering contraceptives in its health insurance plan. The Becket Fund's Kevin "Seamus" Hasson said, quote, “When he went to Notre Dame and the Vatican, President Obama talked a good game about protecting conscience. But when his administration went to Belmont Abbey, where the rubber meets the road, it was a very different story." Belmont Abbey College removed coverage for abortion, contraception and voluntary sterilization from its employee health benefits plan in 2007, after learning that these procedures had accidentally been included in violation of the college’s religious tenets. - MetroNetworks
InsideCatholic.com - A Bridge Across the Tiber
InsideCatholic.com - A Bridge Across the Tiber
There was a T-shirt on the market last year for converts to the Catholic faith. Emblazoned on the front were the words, "Member of the Tiber Swimmers Club." After today's amazing announcement from the Vatican, Anglicans no longer need to change into their swimming trunks. Trembling toes no longer need to be dipped in the chilly waters of the Roman river. Anglicans needn't take the plunge: Benedict has built a bridge.
The "personal ordinariate" is a structure whereby Anglicans will be able to come into full communion with the Holy See. Individuals, congregations, parishes, religious communities, whole dioceses and provinces will be able to maintain their Anglican traditions, use the Anglican Use Roman liturgy, see their married priests ordained to serve as Catholic priests, and even have their own "ordinary" (akin to their own bishop). Think of a mixture of the system used to minister to the military and the semi-autonomous structure that the Eastern Rite Catholics enjoy.
Read the full column...
There was a T-shirt on the market last year for converts to the Catholic faith. Emblazoned on the front were the words, "Member of the Tiber Swimmers Club." After today's amazing announcement from the Vatican, Anglicans no longer need to change into their swimming trunks. Trembling toes no longer need to be dipped in the chilly waters of the Roman river. Anglicans needn't take the plunge: Benedict has built a bridge.
The "personal ordinariate" is a structure whereby Anglicans will be able to come into full communion with the Holy See. Individuals, congregations, parishes, religious communities, whole dioceses and provinces will be able to maintain their Anglican traditions, use the Anglican Use Roman liturgy, see their married priests ordained to serve as Catholic priests, and even have their own "ordinary" (akin to their own bishop). Think of a mixture of the system used to minister to the military and the semi-autonomous structure that the Eastern Rite Catholics enjoy.
Read the full column...
CNSNews.com - Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance
CNSNews.com - Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance
Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”
“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”
The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”
“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”
The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
We have an inalienable right to life
The right to life is first and foremost
By Bishop Michael O. Jackels
The Pew Research Center recently issued a report on attitudes of Americans towards abortion. It says things like, fewer people support abortion rights than in previous years, but also fewer regard abortion as a critical issue, and an incredibly four-in-ten of people polled are unaware of the present President’s position on abortion.
There is reason for encouragement in these poll results. There is also I believe reason for worry. The more formidable enemy of the dignity of the human person and the inalienable right to life is not abortion advocates, but rather people who are indifferent and/or uninformed.
The following is offered to inform those who are indifferent to or who promote abortion rights.
We are responsible to care about and care for, to provide and protect not only our own lives, health, and dignity, but that of others as well, especially those unable to provide for or protect themselves.
Moreover, our responsibility for others is greatest when their ability is least, beginning and greatest at the moment of conception until birth. This duty lessens (but never entirely) as people grow into adulthood, and increases again as they age or become sick. Of course, our responsibility remains great even towards adults when they are mentally or physically disabled, or unable to secure for themselves the basics of a dignified life.
Some people defend their support for or indifference to abortion by pointing out their support for social issues championed by the Catholic Church. There is no trade-off here. The right to life comes first and foremost.
And some, like pro-abortion Catholic voters and politicians, try to portray opposition to abortion as a Catholic thing, saying that on account of the separation of church and state they cannot oppose abortion because it is the law of the land. Nonsense. Man’s inherent dignity and the inalienability of the right to life are true, not because the Catholic Church teaches so, but rather the Catholic Church teaches so because they are true.
With regard to the dignity of the human person and the inalienable right to life, it is to our own peril when we are indifferent or uninformed. When we hold human life and dignity cheaply, we are inviting other people to regard us likewise.
By Bishop Michael O. Jackels
The Pew Research Center recently issued a report on attitudes of Americans towards abortion. It says things like, fewer people support abortion rights than in previous years, but also fewer regard abortion as a critical issue, and an incredibly four-in-ten of people polled are unaware of the present President’s position on abortion.
There is reason for encouragement in these poll results. There is also I believe reason for worry. The more formidable enemy of the dignity of the human person and the inalienable right to life is not abortion advocates, but rather people who are indifferent and/or uninformed.
The following is offered to inform those who are indifferent to or who promote abortion rights.
We are responsible to care about and care for, to provide and protect not only our own lives, health, and dignity, but that of others as well, especially those unable to provide for or protect themselves.
Moreover, our responsibility for others is greatest when their ability is least, beginning and greatest at the moment of conception until birth. This duty lessens (but never entirely) as people grow into adulthood, and increases again as they age or become sick. Of course, our responsibility remains great even towards adults when they are mentally or physically disabled, or unable to secure for themselves the basics of a dignified life.
Some people defend their support for or indifference to abortion by pointing out their support for social issues championed by the Catholic Church. There is no trade-off here. The right to life comes first and foremost.
And some, like pro-abortion Catholic voters and politicians, try to portray opposition to abortion as a Catholic thing, saying that on account of the separation of church and state they cannot oppose abortion because it is the law of the land. Nonsense. Man’s inherent dignity and the inalienability of the right to life are true, not because the Catholic Church teaches so, but rather the Catholic Church teaches so because they are true.
With regard to the dignity of the human person and the inalienable right to life, it is to our own peril when we are indifferent or uninformed. When we hold human life and dignity cheaply, we are inviting other people to regard us likewise.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The remedy for an undemocratic system: more democracy
From National Review
We Need a Bigger House
By Jonah Goldberg
...what our political system may be lacking more than anything else is enough members of Congress.
Except for a brief effort to accommodate Alaska and Hawaii, the size of the House has been frozen at 435 members since 1911. A 1929 law, driven in part by a desire to keep immigrants underrepresented, has kept it that way.
But there’s nothing sacred about the 435 number. In fact, the Founders would be aghast at the idea that the “peoples’ house” is filled with pols speaking for hundreds of thousands of citizens.
In Federalist No. 55, James Madison defended the proposed Constitution’s apportionment clause despite its widespread unpopularity. The chief complaints, according to Madison, were that such a small Congress would become an “unsafe depository of the public interests”; that the districts would be too large and diverse for any politician to “possess a proper knowledge of the local circumstances of their numerous constituents”; and that such a tiny House would have the net result of attracting elitist types whose aim would be the “permanent elevation of the few on the depression of the many.”
So how big were these liberty-threatening districts? How tiny was the potentially oligarchic House? The districts had no more than 30,000 people, yielding 65 representatives. Under today’s apportionment system, the “ideal” congressional district is 700,000 people, with some districts reaching nearly 1 million. Montana, with a population of 958,000, has just one representative, but each of Rhode Island’s two districts has about 530,000 people.
---
Montanans’ votes don’t count as much as Rhode Islanders’ — in fact, a Montanan’s vote only counts for about three-fifths of a Rhode Islander’s.
---
A lawsuit filed in federal court in Mississippi last month hopes to force Congress to remedy the status quo’s assault on the one-person, one-vote principle by increasing Congress to as many as a paltry 1,761 members.
Continue article at: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTE2ZjNhOTA1N2UyNDZhMDcwNDU0NDk0ZTJhNzYwZjI=
We Need a Bigger House
By Jonah Goldberg
...what our political system may be lacking more than anything else is enough members of Congress.
Except for a brief effort to accommodate Alaska and Hawaii, the size of the House has been frozen at 435 members since 1911. A 1929 law, driven in part by a desire to keep immigrants underrepresented, has kept it that way.
But there’s nothing sacred about the 435 number. In fact, the Founders would be aghast at the idea that the “peoples’ house” is filled with pols speaking for hundreds of thousands of citizens.
In Federalist No. 55, James Madison defended the proposed Constitution’s apportionment clause despite its widespread unpopularity. The chief complaints, according to Madison, were that such a small Congress would become an “unsafe depository of the public interests”; that the districts would be too large and diverse for any politician to “possess a proper knowledge of the local circumstances of their numerous constituents”; and that such a tiny House would have the net result of attracting elitist types whose aim would be the “permanent elevation of the few on the depression of the many.”
So how big were these liberty-threatening districts? How tiny was the potentially oligarchic House? The districts had no more than 30,000 people, yielding 65 representatives. Under today’s apportionment system, the “ideal” congressional district is 700,000 people, with some districts reaching nearly 1 million. Montana, with a population of 958,000, has just one representative, but each of Rhode Island’s two districts has about 530,000 people.
---
Montanans’ votes don’t count as much as Rhode Islanders’ — in fact, a Montanan’s vote only counts for about three-fifths of a Rhode Islander’s.
---
A lawsuit filed in federal court in Mississippi last month hopes to force Congress to remedy the status quo’s assault on the one-person, one-vote principle by increasing Congress to as many as a paltry 1,761 members.
Continue article at: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTE2ZjNhOTA1N2UyNDZhMDcwNDU0NDk0ZTJhNzYwZjI=
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Paying poor foreign women for eggs is 'a kind of prostitution’ says fertility expert
From The Times
September 19, 2009
Fiona Hamilton and Hannah Devlin
British couples who travel abroad for IVF treatment and buy other women’s eggs are engaging in a form of prostitution, a fertility conference was told yesterday.
In an attack on the “fertility tourism” industry, Naomi Pfeffer warned that increasing numbers of “vulnerable women in developed countries” were being exploited by Westerners who were desperate to conceive.
----
A recent study revealed that hundreds of British couples were travelling to Europe for IVF treatment every month. University College London researchers have estimated that at least 20,000 to 25,000 cross-border fertility treatments are being carried out on the Continent each year.
Donors, in destinations such as Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania and Ukraine, are paid hundreds of pounds for their eggs. Professor Pfeffer said that these women were often vulnerable, desperate and willing to take health risks to make sizeable sums of money.
---
“These women are being encouraged to take real risks with their health through ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval. It commodifies women’s bodies and treats their reproductive capacities as a service.”
---
... she said, it raised questions for the child who was conceived. “What can you tell a child when half their genetic make-up came from a woman in Romania? A woman who was so poor that she was prepared to enter [into egg exchange]? What does that child think of its social mother, a woman who was prepared to exploit another woman?”
----
In fertility tourism, two thirds of women are estimated to be above 40. They do not qualify for free treatment on the NHS
Researchers estimate that 20,000-25,000 cross-border fertility treatments are carried out on the Continent each year
Complete article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6840672.ece
September 19, 2009
Fiona Hamilton and Hannah Devlin
British couples who travel abroad for IVF treatment and buy other women’s eggs are engaging in a form of prostitution, a fertility conference was told yesterday.
In an attack on the “fertility tourism” industry, Naomi Pfeffer warned that increasing numbers of “vulnerable women in developed countries” were being exploited by Westerners who were desperate to conceive.
----
A recent study revealed that hundreds of British couples were travelling to Europe for IVF treatment every month. University College London researchers have estimated that at least 20,000 to 25,000 cross-border fertility treatments are being carried out on the Continent each year.
Donors, in destinations such as Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania and Ukraine, are paid hundreds of pounds for their eggs. Professor Pfeffer said that these women were often vulnerable, desperate and willing to take health risks to make sizeable sums of money.
---
“These women are being encouraged to take real risks with their health through ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval. It commodifies women’s bodies and treats their reproductive capacities as a service.”
---
... she said, it raised questions for the child who was conceived. “What can you tell a child when half their genetic make-up came from a woman in Romania? A woman who was so poor that she was prepared to enter [into egg exchange]? What does that child think of its social mother, a woman who was prepared to exploit another woman?”
----
In fertility tourism, two thirds of women are estimated to be above 40. They do not qualify for free treatment on the NHS
Researchers estimate that 20,000-25,000 cross-border fertility treatments are carried out on the Continent each year
Complete article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6840672.ece
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