"Fuck Stupak" for saying when he wants to talk about abortion, he talks to the Bishops (who are, you know, all men).

But if he had talked to the nuns, they would have supported him. That's where I'm getting confused.

(I mean, it's nice that the nuns aren't asking for the bill to be even more anti-choice, which is what the bishops want, but they're still supporting legislation that effectively bans abortions for poor people.)

Jess, I thought the point was that, reagrdless of the topic, Stupak was very dismissive of nuns, as in "nuns are worthless, I only talk to the men".

I am slowly waking up and trying to find the energy to go out and search for zeppole for St Joseph's Day today.

I don't know the particulars, but the nuns may well be supporting it for reasons broader-reaching than the no abortionness.

There has always been a bunch of social justice oriented leaders in the Roman Catholic church and some of the Sisters can be particularly mouthy. JZ would know the specifics.

In happy me news, the rec center in my neighborhood not only has an excercise room, it has computers with ::gasp:: pretty nice printers. In fact, one is color. I haven't had a printer in years since I don't print much, never more than what was reasonable to do at work. Job (both legal and voice over) hunting is sooooo much easier with this magical power once again at my fingertips.

Not bad for fiddy bucks a year.

Welcome back Nora! Hope you got lots of sleep and the not feeling good was mostly lack of sleep. Glad to hear you had fun.

There has always been a bunch of social justice oriented leaders in the Roman Catholic church and some of the Sisters can be particularly mouthy

Social justice! Code word, code word!

There has always been a bunch of social justice oriented leaders in the Roman Catholic church

And who is the Pope? What is his history? It's all connected people!

The full quote from the letter:

"Despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions," said the letter signed by 60 leaders of women's religious orders. "It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments ... in support of pregnant women. This is the real pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it."

Whatever else this is about, it's primarily and explicitly about banning abortion.

Just to make life more interesting, C-FAM (Catholic Institute on the Family and ... I forget) has it in for those radicals, Girl Scouts.

There has always been a bunch of social justice oriented leaders in the Roman Catholic church and some of the Sisters can be particularly mouthy.

When I first got out of college, I freelanced for the local Catholic paper, and I interviewed a nun who was active with the UN in building womens' and children's shelters in (I think) Turkey. (I don't remember very well, since this was 1994-ish.)

After the interview was officially over, we were talking more about it, and she said something about "family planning," or some such, and I said to her, how is that effective in such a perilous part of the world -- these women aren't in situations where the rhythm method is practical, and the Church doesn't allow any other contraception.

The nun said something along the lines of, yes, the Church doesn't allow other contraception, so we can't actively promote it, but if we have boxes of condoms sitting prominently on the counters and the women take them, well, that's the women's decisions.

And I thought, right on, sister. Right on.