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(OSV News) — A lecture series on “reproductive justice” at the University of Notre Dame is advancing “activist propaganda” rather than “conducting a neutral inquiry or exploring the debates within this field,” Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, in whose diocese the university operates, stated in a sharply written March 21 column.
The university’s Gender Studies Program is holding an ongoing series titled “Reproductive Justice: Scholarship for Solidarity and Social Change,” which it claims “zooms out from the issue of abortion — and from intractable ‘pro-choice vs. pro-life’ debates — to the wider frame of Reproductive Justice.”
However, Bishop Rhoades, in an article in Today’s Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, criticized “the past and planned events in this series” as well as the speakers, stating “the voices featured (including abortion providers and advocates) consider abortion itself to be an essential tool for pursuing justice, equality, and fighting discrimination.”
A March 20 event in the series titled “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions” featured Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Histories of the Transgender Child,” as well as Ash Williams, who was described on the event page as “a Black trans abortion doula” from North Carolina.
Williams, the event page said, “has been vigorously fighting to expand abortion access by funding abortions and training other people to become abortion doulas.”
Bishop Rhoades wrote that the series “appears to be an explicit act of dissent from Notre Dame’s admirable institutional commitment to promoting a culture of life that embraces and affirms the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn, pregnant mothers, and families,” citing a 2010 institutional statement in which the university said it “recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.”
In his article, Bishop Rhoades took particular aim at Williams’ inclusion in the event, as Williams “is not a scholar or even a prominent public intellectual” and was given “a platform for unanswered pro-abortion activism.”
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
The university’s Gender Studies Program is holding an ongoing series titled “Reproductive Justice: Scholarship for Solidarity and Social Change,” which it claims “zooms out from the issue of abortion — and from intractable ‘pro-choice vs. pro-life’ debates — to the wider frame of Reproductive Justice.”
However, Bishop Rhoades, in an article in Today’s Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, criticized “the past and planned events in this series” as well as the speakers, stating “the voices featured (including abortion providers and advocates) consider abortion itself to be an essential tool for pursuing justice, equality, and fighting discrimination.”
A March 20 event in the series titled “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions” featured Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Histories of the Transgender Child,” as well as Ash Williams, who was described on the event page as “a Black trans abortion doula” from North Carolina.
Williams, the event page said, “has been vigorously fighting to expand abortion access by funding abortions and training other people to become abortion doulas.”
Bishop Rhoades wrote that the series “appears to be an explicit act of dissent from Notre Dame’s admirable institutional commitment to promoting a culture of life that embraces and affirms the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn, pregnant mothers, and families,” citing a 2010 institutional statement in which the university said it “recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.”
In his article, Bishop Rhoades took particular aim at Williams’ inclusion in the event, as Williams “is not a scholar or even a prominent public intellectual” and was given “a platform for unanswered pro-abortion activism.”
Continued below.
Bishop calls 'reproductive justice' lecture series with abortion doula 'scandal,' 'unworthy' of Notre Dame university
A lecture series on "reproductive justice" at the University of Notre Dame is advancing "activist propaganda" rather than "conducting a neutral inquiry or exploring the debates within this field," Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades said
www.oursundayvisitor.com
