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ANALYSIS: The university president’s response to a pro-abortion editorial by two professors was minimal — and it’s part of a larger pattern
College students are often encouraged to go beyond the bare minimum in their education, to treat their studies as important endeavors in their own right, not just hoops to be jumped through or boxes to be checked.
Perhaps a similar lesson could be taken to heart by Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, in his witness to the institution’s pro-life commitments.
This past Tuesday, Father Jenkins took to the pages of the Chicago Tribune to respond to a pro-abortion op-ed published in the same paper just the day before. That editorial, entitled “Lies about abortion have dictated health policy,” was written by two Notre Dame professors, Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann. Among other falsehoods, Kay and Ostermann claimed that abortion doesn’t “kill babies” because, at the earlier stages of pregnancy when most abortions happen, the unborn person is “too small to count” — a disturbing departure from the basic truth of the sanctity of all human life by two figures publicly representing themselves as teachers at a prominent Catholic university.
In his letter to the editor, Father Jenkins stated that while Kay and Ostermann are “of course, free to express their opinions on our campus or in any public forum,” he wrote “to state unequivocally that their essay does not reflect the views and values of the University of Notre Dame in its tone, arguments or assertions.”
What exactly are those views and values and how did the tone, arguments and assertions of the two pro-abortion professors deviate from them? Father Jenkins doesn’t say. Unlike Notre Dame alumna Alexandra DeSanctis, who wrote a blistering critique of Kay and Ostermann’s piece in the National Review, there’s no clear and emphatic statement that abortion ends a human life (a truth of science as much as it is of religion). Unlike the organization Secular Pro-Life, which compiled a Twitter thread of the falsities contained in the editorial, Father Jenkins doesn’t highlight how the two professors distort terms like “baby” and “fetus” and push lies about abortion restrictions.
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
College students are often encouraged to go beyond the bare minimum in their education, to treat their studies as important endeavors in their own right, not just hoops to be jumped through or boxes to be checked.
Perhaps a similar lesson could be taken to heart by Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, in his witness to the institution’s pro-life commitments.
This past Tuesday, Father Jenkins took to the pages of the Chicago Tribune to respond to a pro-abortion op-ed published in the same paper just the day before. That editorial, entitled “Lies about abortion have dictated health policy,” was written by two Notre Dame professors, Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann. Among other falsehoods, Kay and Ostermann claimed that abortion doesn’t “kill babies” because, at the earlier stages of pregnancy when most abortions happen, the unborn person is “too small to count” — a disturbing departure from the basic truth of the sanctity of all human life by two figures publicly representing themselves as teachers at a prominent Catholic university.
In his letter to the editor, Father Jenkins stated that while Kay and Ostermann are “of course, free to express their opinions on our campus or in any public forum,” he wrote “to state unequivocally that their essay does not reflect the views and values of the University of Notre Dame in its tone, arguments or assertions.”
What exactly are those views and values and how did the tone, arguments and assertions of the two pro-abortion professors deviate from them? Father Jenkins doesn’t say. Unlike Notre Dame alumna Alexandra DeSanctis, who wrote a blistering critique of Kay and Ostermann’s piece in the National Review, there’s no clear and emphatic statement that abortion ends a human life (a truth of science as much as it is of religion). Unlike the organization Secular Pro-Life, which compiled a Twitter thread of the falsities contained in the editorial, Father Jenkins doesn’t highlight how the two professors distort terms like “baby” and “fetus” and push lies about abortion restrictions.
Continued below.
Is Notre Dame ‘Bare Minimum’ Pro-Life?
ANALYSIS: The university president’s response to a pro-abortion editorial by two professors was minimal — and it’s part of a larger pattern
