The Catholic Connection

Somehow this fact went completely unnoticed by me, a righteous atheist who should know better.All 5 supreme court justices deciding for the majority in the recent upholding of the "partial birth" abortion ban are Catholic. I thought there was something eerily familiar in Kennedy's obsession with the "life within the woman" and his virtual silence on the health of the woman herself. Now I remember where I've heard it before. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In fact the whole philosophical underpinning of the ban is consistent with Catholic doctrine, which sees women as mere vessels delivering more Catholics to the world.Let's make something good and crystal clear about the procedure. It's gruesome, rare, and only necessary when other methods will harm the woman. Remember her? The woman? The other person in this whole sad affair? To rule that it is constitutional to compromise a woman's health for the sake of an inherently religious idea is a stunning change in what I thought was a secular democracy. This transition to theocratic thinking has been made possible by a religiously-motivated (and religiously-funded) PR campaign that has successfully erased the woman from the abortion question.And five Catholic men finished the job. Damn them. Damn them straight to their own Catholic version of hell.