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Catholic compassion

By pharyngula on July 16, 2011.

I guess the Catholic church is concerned about the rights of breast cancer tumors: they probably identify too much with a deadly metastatic disease, and don't want to seem them hindered. At least, that's the only way I can interpret the decision of the Toledo, Ohio diocese to ban all support for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Or maybe it's just because breast cancer primarily affects women, so letting them die is of minimal consequence to them.

Their published reasoning is almost as ludicrous as that. Church officials say they won't support Komen because 1) some of the money might go to Planned Parenthood, and we all know how much sanctioned church doctrine hates rational family planning, and 2) some of the money might someday support stem cell research. The Foundation doesn't have any specific programs funneling money to stem cell research right now, but they might, someday, so let's cut 'em off for something they don't do!

I'm also rather peeved about another thing. The head of the Ohio Komen affiliate said, to persuade the church to reverse its declaration, that the local affiliate had not used any of its money to support Planned Parenthood. Screw that; maybe you haven't, but you ought to be willing to do so if appropriate, and don't throw an ally under the bus like that.

Tags
Politics
religion
reproduction

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