The president of the University of Notre Dame distanced the Catholic institution from two of its professors this week after they defended the legalized killing of unborn babies in abortions in a Chicago Tribune column.
The Daily Wire reports the Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of the Indiana school, said Professors Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann do not represent the views or values of Notre Dame.
“Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann are, of course, free to express their opinions on our campus or in any public forum,” Jenkins responded in a letter to the editor. “Because they chose to identify themselves as Notre Dame faculty members, I write 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.”
Published Monday, the column by Kay and Ostermann attempted to “fact check” several “lies” that they blamed pro-life advocates for telling, but their piece sounded more like it came from abortion activists than academics dedicated to the truth.
“Abortion has been demonized and characterized by utter falsities; it has gone under the radar for far too long,” they wrote. “Because lies have dictated health policy, it is even more important to correct them now that voters are choosing policy on the state level.”
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Their column received a lot of criticism online for ignoring evidence and facts about abortion, including what many abortion activists themselves say.
The supposed “lies” that Kay and Ostermann attempted to refute included that pro-life laws stop abortions (they do), and that abortions kill babies (also true).
Secular Pro-Life responded on Twitter with links to numerous academic and expert sources that confirm abortion bans/restrictions do stop abortions and save unborn babies’ lives. A number of prominent abortion activists, including university professors, also have been urging people to stop saying abortion bans do not ban abortions because it is not true.
Another “lie,” according to Kay and Ostermann, is that women are not having elective abortions late in their pregnancies. After 21 weeks, they claimed abortions are “almost always a matter of life or death, and the pregnancy was very much wanted.”
But this “lie” also is true, according to pro-life and pro-abortion leaders, researchers, OB-GYNs, abortionists and women’s own testimonies.
For example, a new study from ANSIRH, a pro-abortion research group at the University of California, contradicts the professors’ claim. “The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester…” the researchers wrote. “[T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
Recent articles the Associated Press and New York Magazine also have featured stories of women getting elective late-term abortions at 26 weeks and 28 weeks, respectively; the mothers were healthy and carrying healthy babies. And doctors confirm late-term abortions are never necessary to save lives.
Kay and Ostermann ignored these inconvenient facts and went on to attack pro-life pregnancy centers that serve mothers and babies, calling them “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites.”
Their employer, the University of Notre Dame, is a Catholic school that is supposed to uphold the dignity and value of every human life, born and unborn, in accordance with Christian teaching. However, its leaders repeatedly have faced criticism in recent years for employing pro-abortion faculty and honoring individuals who promote killing unborn babies in abortions.
Earlier this fall, for example, the Irish Rover reported Kay was offering to help students abort their unborn babies by advertising abortions to students on her office door and on social media in defiance of her Catholic employer.
The Catholic Church teaches that every human being from conception to natural death is valuable because he or she is created in the image of God, and killing an innocent human being is a grave moral evil.
