On a morning in September 2021, a 24-year-old Auckland make-up artist sent a text to her flatmate and to her father to say she was not feeling well. The pain in her lower back and down her left leg was bad enough that she wanted to be sick.

Her flatmate replied three times but never heard back. She returned home later that day to find the woman unresponsive in their Auckland home. She was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics from what was found to be thrombosis in her right pulmonary artery. Read more

The USCCB says the change is a "return to common sense, long-standing federal practice, and peaceful coexistence between church and state."

The change provides "a broad religious and moral exemption from the mandate requiring employers to fund health insurance cover for sterilisation, contraception, and drugs and devices that may cause abortions."

Besides those already exempt from the birth control mandate, the change will exempt any nonprofit groups that have a religious or moral objection to contraception coverage. For-profit groups that are not publicly traded will also be able to be exempt for religious reasons. Insurance companies with a religious affiliation are also exempt from the birth control mandate.

The change in the policy took effect last Friday.

Among the reasons offered for the change in policy are Trump's promises in relation to issues on religious freedom and 50 lawsuits filed by groups challenging the Obamacare coverage requirement.

"No American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our healthcare system," Caitlin Oakley, HHS press secretary, said.

The USCCB issued a statement after the change in the mandate was announced.

"The Administration's decision to provide a broad religious and moral exemption to the HHS mandate recognizes that the full range of faith-based and mission-driven organisations, as well as the people who run them, have deeply held religious and moral beliefs that the law must respect. Such an exemption is no innovation, but instead a return to common sense, long-standing federal practice, and peaceful coexistence between church and state. It corrects an anomalous failure by federal regulators that should never have occurred and should never be repeated.

"These regulations are good news for the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who are challenging the HHS mandate in court. We urge the government to take the next logical step and promptly resolve the litigation that the Supreme Court has urged the parties to settle.

"The regulations are also good news for all Americans. A government mandate that coerces people to make an impossible choice between obeying their consciences and obeying the call to serve the poor is harmful, not only to Catholics, but to the common good as well.

"Religious freedom is a fundamental right for all, so when it is threatened for some, it is threatened for all.

"We welcome the news that this particular threat to religious freedom has been lifted and, with the encouragement of Pope Francis, we will remain 'vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.'"

In an article in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Dr Neil Pickering and Dr Lynley Anderson from the university's Bioethics Centre and Dr Helen Paterson from its Department of Women's and Children's Health say teen pregnancy places significant costs on the individual and society, and is associated with higher perinatal mortality.

Dr Pickering says there is a good case for making it an opt-out programme which provides adolescents with the opportunity to have a LARC, rather than having to go and seek care. Continue reading

Beginning with a disclaimer "Don't get me wrong. I love kids. They're adorable and tons of fun to be around," it goes on to "shows just how much damage kids can do".

The minute-long commercial has been described at "borderline melodramatic genius" by Adweek, and won best spec spot of the year in a recent advertising competition.

Adweek says the advertisement is, "an excellent depiction of what may lie ahead if you're not careful." and advises men to protect themselves.

"The music, which masterfully drives the piece, is Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, also known as the Moonlight Sonata, which is offset by humorous yet dramatic cinematography", it says.

"The slow motion increasingly builds the misery of fatherhood: the unkempt yard, the overcooked hot dogs, the wild kids (why won't they stop running around?), the screaming wife, the fake smiles."

"Will it ever end? Then, wham, a wake-up call, a shot to the family jewels. Don't let it get this far, guys. Protect yourselves now so you don't have to protect yourselves for the rest of your natural lives."

Source

• Essential Mums
• Adweek
• Image: Bab.unica.ro

Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, said he and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York had spoken to Madagascar's Archbishop Odon Razanakolona of Antananarivo and Archbishop Désiré Tsarahazana of Toamasina about allegations that the CRS was involved in contraception and abortifacient distribution.

"They assured us clearly that they did not feel that this was something that CRS was doing, that they had great respect for CRS and great regard for the work that was being done," Bishop Kicanas told the Catholic News Service.

The prelate's comments counter a report from the Population Research Institute which contended Madagascar's Catholic Church was alienated from the US-based Catholic relief agency and believed its work to be violating Catholic teaching.

The Washington, D.C.-based institute on July 26 charged that the relief agency was "using funding from American Catholics to distribute contraceptive and abortifacient drugs and devices in concert with some of the world's biggest population control / family planning organizations."

Sources

CNS/St Louis Review

Catholic News Agency

LifeSite News

Image: CNS/USA Today

They also argue, that according to the Church's moral guidelines, religious women are free to take the pill for this purpose.

As reported by the Guardian, the scientists say that it is an established scientific fact that by not having children there is an increased risk in getting cancer because pregnancy, and breastfeeding a baby, reduces the number of ovulatory cycles a woman has in her lifetime.

More ovulatory cycles increases cancer risk.

While increasing the risk of blood clots, the oral contraceptive pill has been shown to reduce the

• overall mortality rates of women who have ever taken it by 12% compared with non-users, and
• risk of developing ovarian and endometrial cancers by 50%-60% in pill users compared with never-users. (Protection that persists for 20 years.)

Writing in the Lancet, Dr Kara Britt from Monash University, Melbourne, and Professor Roger Short from the University of Melbourne say religious women should have the option to take the pill.

"The Catholic church condemns all forms of contraception, as outlined by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae in 1968. Although Humanae Vitae never mentions religious women, they should be free to use the contraceptive pill to protect against the hazards of nulliparity since the document states that 'the church in no way regards as unlawful therapeutic means considered necessary to cure organic diseases, even though they also have a contraceptive effect."

"If the Catholic church could make the contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns, it would reduce the risk of those accursed pests, cancer of the ovary and uterus, and give nuns' plight the recognition it deserves," they write.

Women who begin their periods at an early age and hit the menopause late are also at a higher risk of mortality from breast, ovarian and uterine cancer.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: St Rita

The catechism, a project of the Austrian, German and Swiss bishops' conferences were to be given to participants at World Youth Day Madrid in August this year.

The errors are so significant that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is setting up a high level working group to compile the errors and fix them.

The first error, allowing for married couples to limit their family by using "contraceptive methods" was corrected for the launch by crossing out the incorrect phrase and including an insert with the correct translation.

A second error concerned the distinction between "active euthanasia" and "passive euthanasia." The book explained that "active euthanasia" isn't condoned by the church because it violates the 5th commandment, not to kill. YouCat goes on to say, "In so-called passive euthanasia someone helps another person in the dying process and thereby obeys the commandment 'Love your neighbor'".

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who spearheaded the book effort, said the original German book did not use the term "euthanasia," but rather the less loaded word "Sterbehilfe," which can either refer to medically assisted suicide or hospice-type care for someone on their deathbed.

While the original German version had been studied and approved by the doctrinal congregation before its publication, the other language editions did not pass through the doctrinal office after they were translated by different publishing houses.

"For each translation we had an agreement with the publisher and we, the Austrian bishops' conference, asked that a bishop who had theological and catechetical expertise act as guarantor of the translation in his language," Cardinal Schonborn said.

Schoenborn said that Venice patriarch Cartinal Agnelo Scola was responsible for the Italian translation.

"As you can see, the German language isn't so easy for everyone," Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi conceded at the end of the press conference.

Lombardi referred to the "misunderstandings" saying "let's go ahead with the understanding that the new editions will, shall we say, be improved, and that it's important that they arrive in time for World Youth Day."

YouCat is first published in 17 languages and a further 13 are planned.

Pope Benedict wrote the preface to the book exhorting people to study the catechism. "This is my heartfelt desire", he said.

Sources

• Herald Online
• Catholic News Service
• The Telegraph

A friend with polycystic ovarian syndrome whom I will call "Michelle" had been prescribed the pill since she was 16 years old. Not only was it unnecessary, but the contraceptives exacerbated more severe health problems. Having struggled for many years with debilitating depression, Michelle went to a psychiatrist who advised her to get off the pill immediately.

When Michelle went back to her gynaecologist to inform the doctor of her suicidal tendencies, her ob-gyn sighed with frustration. "How suicidal?" she asked.

That was enough for Michelle, and she stopped taking the pill. Soon she began to feel a level of sexual desire that had been largely suppressed by the contraceptive since she started taking it at 16. With natural hormones racing through her body for the first time in years, she realized she had never had the chance to experience the normal libido that young women discover as part of their maturation process.

"My body suddenly feels like a teenage girl's again," she said. On this point there is no debate: even proponents of the pill acknowledge that it reduces a woman's sexual drive. Therefore, millions of women spend much of their prime reproductive years never knowing the natural level of sexual feeling that is part of developing as a woman.

Read more of Elsie Enrhard's article "Overprescribing the Pill"

Source

• Image: 365dana.blogspot.com