Supreme Court credit:Courant

Twenty five years ago when a handful of St. Louis women gathered to publicly defend Catholic Church teaching, the immediate topics were feminism, abortion and women’s ordination. Within a couple of months and many enthusiastic letters from faithful Catholic women, we understood a national organization was in the making, Women for Faith & Family:

WFF Beginnings
In September 1984, six St. Louis women gathered around a dining room table to discuss their concern that the US bishops, who had announced their intention to write a pastoral letter on the subject of “women’s concerns”, might not receive an accurate picture of Catholic women. The women were concerned about the impression given in the media that most Catholic women feel “alienated” from the Church, and dissent from Church teachings on issues ranging from abortion to ordination. They were aware that feminist theology had influenced many women and Catholic leaders. They wanted to…

This past January, Yale University’s Reproductive Rights Action League (RALY) and Yale Medical Students for Choice commemorated the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision by demonstrating abortion procedures on papayas, displaying surgical tools and discussing the “emotional fallout” some patients experience.

Rasha Khoury, MED ‘08 and member of Medical Students for Choice, brought internet attention to herself and the project by saying, “It’s not as scary as it seems. It’s just blood and mucus,” referring to the fetal remains in a manual vacuum aspiration device. “You’ll be able to see arms and stuff, but still just miniscule.”

The Yale Daily News, which had covered the event, pulled its report after it attracted attention on the Catholic Answers Forums and the blog GODSBODY.

Less than three months later, Yale has attracted controversy again, just yesterday, this time because an art student, Aliza Shvarts, claims to have impregnated herself artificially several times over the last…