Notre Dame president disavows professors who defended abortion in newspaper article

Two professors at Notre Dame University were criticized by the school’s president for promoting abortion in a “Chicago Tribune” article.

Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann defended abortion by attempting to debunk “lies” told by pro-life advocates and policymakers. The two professors made spurious claims about abortion while leveling accusations at pro-lifers. Notre Dame’s president then wrote a letter to the editor disavowing their comments.

The first “lie” the professors targeted was the idea that abortion bans prevent abortion, they wrote. Instead, Kay and Ostermann claimed that abortion bans lead to more abortions, more unwanted pregnancies and infant and maternal mortality. They offered no evidence to support the first two claims but pointed to the fact that in El Salvador, which completely banned abortion in 1998, abortion complications are the second-leading cause of maternal mortality and the third0leading cause among adolescent girls; and that “hundreds of women have been jailed for abortion and aggravated homicide.”

The second “lie” the professors attempted to debunk was that abortions kill babies in the womb. To counter this idea, they claimed that 90 percent of abortions take place within 10 weeks of conception and fell back on the claim that at such an early stage, the developing embryo is neither a baby nor a fetus.

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In a letter to the editor this week, Notre Dame President John Jenkins disavowed the two professors, saying their article did not reflect the values of the university.

“Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann are, of course, free to express their opinions on our campus or in any public forum,” he wrote “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.”

Kay previously was outed by Notre Dame’s conservative Catholic student newspaper, “The Irish Rover,” for facilitating abortion on campus in violation of both Catholic doctrine and Indiana state law.

In another response, fellow professor Daniel Philpott writes that “The evidence that life begins at conception is so preponderant that to deny this fact is to deny science.

Their essay does not reflect the view and values of the University of Notre Dame in its tone, arguments or assertions.”

Philpott went on to list several key points, including scientific facts which can be read HERE.

–Dwight Widaman | MV