Tag: pregnant

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Angela Curio, Catholic Herald Staff

Three mothers reflect on pregnancy, birth, and faith during pandemic

MADISON — Pregnancy can be both a joyous and stressful time for new mothers. It can come with health hurtles, worries about the future, but usually not to the level of a global pandemic.

Three new and expecting mothers — Tabitha Hansen, Diana Bur, and Kristin Dvorsky — talked about what it is like to be expecting a child during this time and how their faith has been supporting them in their struggles.

Offering it up

Tabitha Hansen, a convert to Catholicism and member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Madison, had already lost three children to miscarriage and has four living children. Her daughter, Julia, is due to be born in September.

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Jane Tarrell

Young people know value of human life

To the editor:

This is a testimony from a young local lady: “My lifestyle had become so unmanageable, that every time I spoke with my mother on the phone, she asked me how she should start planning my funeral. I knew I had to get clean, but I didn’t know how. Then a miracle happened: I found out I was pregnant. Yes, a miracle, because this baby saved my life. Right then and there I stopped everything (addictive), and I moved back home and started planning our future — the future I would have with my baby. Now, I had a reason to live!”

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Vicky Franchino, For the Catholic Herald

Retreats help heal pain of abortion

Jessica* was a sophomore in college. Naïve about sex, she thought she was in love.

But when Jessica became pregnant, her boyfriend coerced her into having an abortion. Jessica went along with a “choice” that seemed largely out of her control.

Shelly’s* pregnancy was unplanned and unwelcome. After her abortion, her immediate reaction was relief — she just wanted to move on.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Supporting the rights of the unborn

When I taught religion at Beloit Catholic High, I invited pro-life speakers to give talks. I especially remember a pro-life doctor who described the tragedy of aborted babies. During his talk, he wept. Each tear convinced us that he truly believed that unborn babies were persons. Aborting them was destroying human lives.

Tears flowed from the eyes and hearts of committed pro-lifers when on January 22, 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Their ruling made it legal for mothers to abort their unborn baby.

The Church position on life

In no. 2270 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person . . . among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” The Church’s position, which recognizes the individual as human from conception until death, is supported by natural law.

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John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Gimme Shelter is moving, realistic film

NEW YORK (CNS) — Perhaps the best moment in the fact-based drama Gimme Shelter (Roadside) comes when its beleaguered, deeply sympathetic protagonist, played by Vanessa Hudgens, wonderingly recites a passage from the Book of Psalms that tells of God’s promises to those who trust in him.

It’s a moving scene precisely because such faith-based optimism seems so far removed from all that Hudgens’ character, teenager Agnes “Apple” Bailey, has previously endured.

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Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Nickels, dimes, and family size

Making Sense out of Bioethics column by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

A few years ago, I spoke with a young man preparing to get married. His aunt told him that she thought he and his fiancée were too financially-strapped to have a child, and that it wouldn’t be fair to bring up a baby in poverty. Keenly aware of his joblessness and his minuscule bank account, he concluded she was probably right.

The young man and his fiancée were ready to tie the knot in a few months and they expected that she would be at the infertile phase of her cycle around the time of their honeymoon, so they would be able to consummate the marriage while avoiding bringing a child into the world.

They agreed they would use Natural Family Planning (NFP) after that to avoid a pregnancy. A few years later when they felt financially secure, he told me, they would have their first child.

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Barbara Sella

Contraception mandate: engangers religious liberty, women’s health

Eye on the Capitol by Barbara Sella

In implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now requires almost all private health plans to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women.

It is deeply disturbing that at the very time when scientists and contraception advocates are beginning to acknowledge some of the dangers of artificial contraception, our government has chosen to make contraception coverage mandatory.

Hormonal contraception and STIs

This past July, a new study reported on at the International AIDS Society in Rome found that women in Africa who were taking hormonal contraception (i.e., oral contraception like the Pill and injectables like Depo-Provera) were not only twice as likely to contract the AIDS virus, but were also twice as likely to transmit HIV to their uninfected partners.

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