Catholic colleges link web sites to pro-abort groups

15 comments

• Not to justify colleges not be Catholic, but some of these do seem to have legit academic reasons.  (And trust me, I am concerned about our schools catholicity.  Just check out my website to prove it.)

• infanted,

  could you specify hich of these you think have “legitimate academic reasons” or are we supposed to guess?

• If I go to the link provided by CNS, the web page is there. Even if it’s not “official” this page on the university’s official web site provides link and referral information to abortion clinics.

  When they remove the information from their web site, I’ll note it on my blog.

• Behind all your high-faluting rhetoric is a blatant attempt at misdirection. This isn’t about me or CNS.

  Neither have you addressed the central point: Does or does not Georgetown University include a page on its web site that provide reference information to abortion clinics? Yes or No. Obviously the answer is Yes because if you click on that you will find that information.

  The Catholic educational system quite obviously does need a watchdog if you have (supposed) professors at Catholic universities claiming that someone who claims that putting abortion reference information on its web site is anti-Catholic.

  Catholic colleges are not exempt from normal requirements of morality. At the very least they should not aid or abet abortion. If pointing that out isn’t working to help Catholic colleges reform themselves, I don’t know what is.

  You say I should give the benefit of the doubt to Georgetown. Why? In the past the university’s administration and faculty have flouted Catholic teaching. They have lost the right to a benefit of the doubt. That trust must be re-earned.

  There’s no doubt here. The university web page lists references to abortion clinics. Period.

• What animus? Why won’t you answer the question? Does the Georgetown web site include a web page of the Women’s Health Center that provides reference information for DC area abortion clinic? Yes or No.

  Why can’t you just answer that question? This isn’t a matter of bias or certitude. It’s a question of fact.

• You seem incapable of giving a straight answer. The link to the georgetown web page is within the text of the CNS press release.

• You’re not getting it. The CNS press release doesn’t make the pregnancy distinction. A Catholic university should not be offering referrals to female students for abortion clinics. The very first item listed on the “Women’s Health Resources” page mentions pregnancy testing as do other of the clinics listed in addition to offering other sexual health services.

  Let me spell out: It is inappropriate for a Catholic university to list abortion clinics as “health resources” on its web site. Period.

  Second, it is not “my” article. It is a Cardinal Mewman Society press release. Once again you seem unable to make the distinction.

  Finally, to answer your question, nowhere in the press release does it say specifically that Georgetown refers to Planned Parenthood. It says that the named colleges provide links to “abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood.” And the first person to bring up the morning-after pill was you. CNS doesn’t mention it at all.

  Tell me you’re not an English professor.

• No, I did not write the article. I am the editor of Catholic World Report magazine, so when I saw we followed up, I mean we published the article.

  And when the article was written in February 2003, the information contained in it was accurate.

• I’m going to amend the original blog post. I just double-checked and the article appeared in the January 2003 issue of CWR, not February. The Catholic World News site has the date wrong.

• There is not going to be any emmendation of that article. As of the time of publication, everything asserted in it was true. My understanding is that many, if not all, of the colleges cited removed the links, although as the Cardinal Newman Society points out those links have creeped back in.

  As for whether those are abortion clinics, I have worked with the CNS before and trust them. If they say they are abortion clinics, then I believe them. I have no reason to doubt CNS. Georgetown, on the other hand, despite your defense of it, has not earned my trust.

• No, I do not have screen captures related to a small story written by someone else and published more than three years ago when I was an assistant editor.  But it is standard practice that when writing stories like that we carefully examine everything before going into print. After all, if we were wrong we could have been sued for libel.

  The obvious reason to put the information on there and not label it as abortion referrals is for plausible deniability. Go look at each one of the places listed on the page CNS links to. Every single one is an abortion clinic. Ask yourself why.

  And yes, CNS has an agenda. It is to make sure that Catholic higher education institutions are actually Catholic and not hiding a more sinister agenda under the veneer of Catholicism.

  Yes, this has been an educational exchange for me, but probably not in the way you intended.

• Melanie, one would expect that in a study on feminism in America the topic of Planned Parenthood would come up and a student would be encouraged to look at their website.  In a classroom setting, where the teacher would then refute the errors found, this is perfectly acceptable.  This is not the same as referring someone there blindly or health services doing it.  Similarly, while “The Vagina Monologues” has no place being performed on a Catholic campus, it may have a legitimate place in a classroom being discussed.  For example, Prof. Kreeft used a book in philosophy of world religions that completely got Judaism and Christianity wrong, but he pointed out all the errors and went out of his way to prove the divinity of Christ, the historic reliability of the Gospels, etc.  But one would never know this going based upon the texts he uses. 

  This is the reason that although I like what CNS is doing, as it needs to be done, I think sometimes they are misguided.  That is why I support a more local chapter approach, like what has been done at Holy Cross.

• infanted,

  My comment was not meant as an attack. I merely desired you to be specific and not make broad sweeping statements without clarifying your point. Thank you for doing so.

  Is the context of the links that of an individual professor providing links for a specific class? In that case, certainly there is a good academic reason. My impression—though I will confess I did not take the time to click through all the links in the press release, I’m just not that interested in the subject—was that this was a general departmental page rather than that for a specific course.

  Certainly I have come close to the scenario you described: linking to materials that I do not agree completely with when I put up pages to support classes that I teach; but in that case the links were on a page dedicated to the class and would not have been readily found on the college web pages by anyone not looking for information for that course. And if I were to be linking to something truly objectionable such as planned parenthood, I probably would have attached a disclaimer or at least some explanatory comments to the link—in fact generally annotate each link on my class pages explaning how the linked material pertains to the course.

• Well, I’m not affiliated with Catholid World News, so I can’t speak for them, but I have neither seen nor heard of this letter. Frankly, claims about “mean-spiritedness” mean little to me, but facts do.

  And the committee on implementing Ex Corde has done such a bad job actually implementing it that I don’t wonder they would feel miffed at criticism.

• Melanie, I didn’t feel attacked at all.  If I sounded offended, I am sorry.

  God bless you.