Posted on 03/10/2012 2:24:45 PM PST by NYer
Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity Church, testified at a House hearing on March 8, 2012 against a bill that would make it a federal crime to transport minor girls without parental consent across state lines to get an abortion. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) – Were Congress to outlaw the transporting of a minor without her parents’ permission across state lines to get an abortion, an abortion- and gay-rights activist testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday she would break the law to continue to help girls end their pregnancies.
Appearing as a Democratic Party witness at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. recalled the time she took a 15-year-old girl she had never met before to get an abortion.
“Although New Hampshire was closer to that girl’s home than Boston, as it happened, I did not take her across state lines,” Ragsdale said. “Nor did I, to my knowledge, break any laws.
“But if either of those things had been necessary in order to help her, I would have done them,” she continued. “And if helping young women like her should be made illegal I will, nonetheless, continue to do it.”
Ragsdale cited her vows as an Episcopal priest as the reason why she would “have no choice” but to break the law.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said a bill introduced in the House last summer – the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (H.R. 2299) – would make it an offense to “circumvent parental consent laws in a state by, without the parents’ knowledge, taking a minor girl across state lines for an abortion.”
He said he found it difficult to believe opposition to the law, like that expressed by the subcommittee’s ranking member Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who called it an “assault to the reproductive rights of women.”
“I always find it a little unnerving when people tell me that to say that, you know, that someone taking a minor child of someone else’s across the state lines to perform – or having surgery performed upon them – that somehow, that it’s unconstitutional to recognize parents’ rights in that regard,” Franks said. “It just astonishes me beyond comprehension.”
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, expressed disbelief that anyone could oppose parents’ right to know if their minor daughter was being taken to another state for a surgical procedure. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
As for the witness Democrats picked to testify on the panel, Franks said that as the father of a three year-old daughter he hoped “she will never run into someone with the philosophy of Rev. Ragsdale.”
Ragsdale is well known for her activism for homosexual and abortion rights.
At a Jan. 24, 2010 event organized by the Jane Fund, a Massachusetts-based group that raises funds for abortions, Ragsdale delivered a speech in which she said she was “angry and fed up” at people who had spoken out again her sexuality – Ragsdale is a lesbian – and her radical stance on abortion.
In the speech Ragsdale defended previous remarks she has made stating that “abortion is a blessing.” A verbatim extract follows:
“When a woman gets pregnant against her will and wants an abortion – it’s the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
“When a woman might want to bear and raise a child but fears she can’t afford to because she doesn't have access to healthcare or daycare or enough income to provide a home ---it’s the lack of justice that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
“When a woman has planned and provided for a pregnancy, decorated the nursery and chosen a name, and, in the last weeks, discovers that her fetus will not live to become a baby, that it has anomalies incompatible with life, and that preserving her own life and health, and sparing the fetus suffering, require a late-term abortion – it’s the loss of her hopes and dreams that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
“And, and here's one that really gets me in trouble, when a woman simply gets pregnant unintentionally and decides this is not a good time for her to bear and care for a child – there is no tragedy. The ability to enjoy healthy sexuality without risking a pregnancy that could derail her education or career, the development or exercise of the gifts God has given her, is a blessing.”
Ragsdale then added, “Now just in case there are any aspiring headline writers listening – let me be clear – motherhood also is a gift and a ministry and a blessing – but not for everyone, and not always right now.”
“Abortion is a blessing – sometimes a joyful relief; sometimes a painful choice – but a blessing still,” she added.
In that same speech, Ragsdale also said that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, gave women “freedom from slavery to our reproductive systems.”
Count your blessings, ping!
She needs her episcope replaced
What a gagulous philosophy she has. Shrugging off the traditional order, she steps boldly into the void.
So the devil has again successfully placed one of his followers into a position to corrupt the faithful.
All Hail the Whore of Babylon.
Frankly I don’t think the faithful would really bother with her “church.” There is too much weird stuff already in it.
Bless her heart, she’s a poster child for using a condom.
I was baptized into the Episcopal Church but thank God I joined the Roman Catholic Church after seeing the direction the Episcopal Church was going.
Caravaggio's Medusa 
She’s a sewer mouth. Period. - They’ve now got those realistic looking, and feeling to the touch, “newborn” baby dolls that require nothing from the woman (or man) who purchases them but to be wrapped in a blanket and “cuddled”.
What a horror - this woman and these “newborn” dolls.
Another day in Obamanation.
Good to know. When such a bill passes, that's practically probable cause right there. Just stick a tracking chip on her car for an easy collar and a trip to Federal prison. She'll get to know lots about gay rites.
Snippet from Wikipedia:
“She is openly lesbian. On January 1, 2011, she married Rev. Mally Lloyd at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston. Bishop M. Thomas Shaw performed the ceremony.”
I think it was just yesterday that Freepers posted an article here bashing Rick Santorum for saying that the “Mainline Churches” are no longer really Christian.
This is the kind of thing he was talking about. This woman heads the DIVINITY SCHOOL that is busy training new priestesses for her church. “Mainline Church” refers to the most fashionable churches, and the Episcopal Church is the most fashionable of them all. Extremely regretable, because there used to be plenty of decent Episcopalians, but the few who are left are suffering from this sort of thing.
I wish I had opened a millstone factory. I would be a millionairess.
This creature is no priest. High priestess maybe, but not a priest.
The “Episcopal Church” is an evil satanic cult.
Pure evil.
It seems the Anglican/Episcopal communion has become a tragic joke.
I was reading a book about Cleopatra earlier today, about how she would as easily give a guy poison as look at him. This priestess is no less callous.
Yup, it’s pretty much sadly true for the mainline communions, with the exception of a few orthodox Lutheran synods (LCMS, WELS). They have gone very unbiblical. I have seen some good Methodist preaching in the south, but that is in spite of, not because of, what is getting wished down the hierarchy. Also I am not counting Southern Baptist as a mainline — that is a voluntary affiliation of independent Baptist congregations.
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