November 19, 2019 // Diocese

Around the Diocese: November 24, 2019

Todays Catholic

Hill: Abortion provider’s arguments ‘fail as a matter of law’

INDIANAPOLIS — Attorney General
Curtis Hill has asked a federal district court to reject challenges brought by the Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and affiliated co-plaintiffs against Indiana laws designed to protect women seeking abortions.

“Unsurprisingly,” Hill said, “there are not among the plaintiffs any pregnant women seeking to invalidate such safeguards. (The) plaintiffs attack nearly every Indiana abortion statute and regulation — from licensing to physical examination — including some that do not even affect them. And while plaintiffs invoke the rights of patients, their interests as abortion providers diverge from pregnant women.”

WWHA operates a South Bend clinic that provides medication abortions, in which patients are provided medications that cause fetal death and then cause the patients to expel the deceased fetuses after they leave the clinic.

Key arguments put forward by Hill challenge the plaintiffs’ standing to sue, and Hill laments that WWHA treats as trivial the very real threats to women’s mental and physical health inherent in abortion procedures. In documents filed as part of Indiana’s Nov. 8 motion for summary judgment, multiple women’s testimonies are included to help shed light on the experience of obtaining abortions.

Besides mental health concerns, women face significant threats to their physical health. Surgical abortion features such risks as “bleeding, infection, or injury to the cervix, vagina, or uterus,” as described in one physician’s testimony. Medication-induced abortions also carry risks to women’s physical health, with many women experiencing far worse pain and bleeding than expected.

Eucharistic Miracles of the World

Jennifer Barton
At St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish a display of information about the many eucharistic miracles of the world was set up for viewing Nov. 16-17. The Vatican-approved exhibit was presented by the Real Presence Association, and its Fort Wayne appearance was the first in the state of Indiana.