“We need to pay attention to maternal mortality, poverty, and gun issues.”
In connection with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the abortion right, the Vatican has urged attention to a variety of life-threatening issues, such as guns, poverty and maternal mortality, in addition to abortion.
Vatican News editor Andrea Tornieli said in an editorial on the 25th (local time) that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision “will be an opportunity to reflect on life,” but emphasized that there are various issues with respect to life, according to Archyde.com.
“Always saving lives is a concern in the case of rising female mortality from pregnancy,” Tornielli wrote in the editorial.
Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he pointed out that the overall maternal mortality rate is increasing, and that black women are nearly three times more likely to die.
“Always for life,” he said, “is to ask how we can help women face a new life.”
He cites statistics that show that 75% of women who have had an abortion are fighting poverty and earning low wages.
He also pointed out that the rate of paid parental leave in the United States is lower than that of other developed countries through the ‘Harvard Psychiatry Review’ data.
“And always to save lives is to protect lives from the gun threat, which unfortunately is the leading cause of death in children and adolescents in the United States,” Tornielli said.
Traditionally, Catholics view abortion as a sin under the belief that ‘life begins at fertilization and ends at natural death’.
Pope Francis has also expressed his steadfast opposition to abortion, while emphasizing that the focus should be on various issues such as the death penalty, family life, and immigration, rather than focusing on abortion as a life-related issue.
The day before, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to officially abolish the Ro v Wade ruling, which established women’s right to abortion, following half a century.
The Pontifical Academy of Life Sciences welcomed this, but said that social change should be made so that women can raise children.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, a longtime Catholic, called the Supreme Court ruling “a sad day for America” and criticized the conservative Supreme Court Justice who led the ruling as “extreme”.
/yunhap news
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