The Irish Catholic Church nails its blood-soaked colours to the mast. Continue reading
Category Archives: Abortion
El Salvador: Want an abortion?
Then die, witch, die! Continue reading
UK: Green policy champion also an abusive husband, court told
Disgraced MP [ex-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change] Chris Huhne pressured his ex-wife into having an abortion because it was “bad timing”, she has told a court. Continue reading
US: Oh noes! I forgot to have children, and now my womb is full of dead babies!
It seems that talk show host Kevin Swanson has talked to “some doctors” who believe that if you take birth control, tiny little dead babies are simply hanging around, embedded into the lining of your womb. Continue reading
US: Catholic policy is staunch and unchanging…
…it’s always whatever’s expedient at the time.
Lori Stodghill was 31-years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb…
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth…
The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives… Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” … “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”…
But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
The Colorado Independent – my emphasis.
Unfortunately the law is and should be the same for everyone, no matter what slimy slippery conniving lying bastards they turn out to be.
Germany: A Catholic hospital’s worst nightmare…
… a rape victim seeking help.
Irmgard Maiworm, an emergency centre doctor, first treated the 25-year-old woman when she walked into the centre in the early hours of December 15 saying that she believed that she had been sedated with a date-rape drug and sexually assaulted.
Dr Maiworm called the neighbouring St Vincent’s Hospital, run by the Catholic Foundation of the Cellites, to arrange a gynaecological examination – but she said doctors “fearful of their jobs” refused the request.
According to Dr Maiworm, the hospital’s ethics committee, following consultation with Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner, had decided not to conduct examinations of sexual assault victims to avoid having to be in the position to recommend options such as the morning-after pill, which run contrary to Catholic teachings.
Another hospital run by the same organisation also refused to help, Dr Maiworm claimed.
Poland: Hey, it’s Christmas! Let’s hate women!
The Polish [Catholic] bishops criticized a government decision to sign an international convention combating violence against women.
“It’s a pity neither the church’s voice nor the appeals of many other organizations were taken into account,” said Auxiliary Bishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno, secretary-general of the Polish bishops’ conference.
“Though devoted to the important problem of violence against women, this convention is built on ideological, untruthful assumptions which cannot be accepted in any way,” he said. “This is why the church is forced to protest.”
The ‘assumptions’ being, of course, that people have the right to determine what happens to and in their own bodies.
UK: ‘Zealot’ hacker steals abortion clinic data
A member of the hacking group Anonymous broke into the website of Britain’s biggest abortion provider because he “disagreed” with the decisions of two women he knew over their pregnancy terminations, a court heard.
James Jeffery, 27, stole around 10,000 database records containing the personal details of women who had registered with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s site, before boasting of his crime on Twitter….
Deputy senior district judge Daphne Wickham adjourned the case because she did not have “sufficient” powers to pass sentence.
Describing the defendant as a “zealot with an anti-abortion campaign,” she refused an application for bail, adding: “Many, many other organisations and people’s private details would be at risk. You clearly are an able hacker.” Jeffery will be sentenced at Southwark crown court at a later date.
Vatican: Christmas love and tolerance, Part 2
Pope Benedict used his annual Christmas message to denounce gay marriage, saying that it destroyed the “essence of the human creature.”
In one of his most important speeches of the year, the Pope stressed that a person’s gender identity is God-given and unchangeable. As a result, he sees gay marriage as a “manipulation of nature.”
“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said at the Vatican on Friday. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.”
The Pope has said that gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, is a threat to world peace.
Because they will give birth to and raise vast armies of gay children, who will rise up in their millions and…
Oh, wait.
Global: 50 reasons to boycott the Catholic Church
Adam Lee has done the research, so you don’t have to.
“Just give back the plate, Kate.
Sock the man in the frock, Jock.
Walk out of the church, Lurch!
And set yourself free…”
– apologies to Paul Simon.
Ireland: Catholic bishops show that total ignorance is no obstacle to dictating medical procedures
The Irish Catholic Bishops have seen fit to clarify the church’s view on gynecology given Savita Halappanavar’s death from sepsis at 17 weeks in her pregnancy and the concern that evacuating her uterus was delayed because the fetus still had a heart beat. The full statement is here, but this is the excerpt I find most troubling:
- Whereas abortion is the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely immoral in all circumstances, this is different from medical treatments which do not directly and intentionally seek to end the life of the unborn baby. Current law and medical guidelines in Ireland allow nurses and doctors in Irish hospitals to apply this vital distinction in practice while upholding the equal right to life of both a mother and her unborn baby.
I spent quite sometime trying to understand how one could possibly translate this statement into medical care. I’ve been a doctor for 22 years and an OB/GYN for 17 years and I admit that I am at a bit of a loss…
That’s polite medical-speak for ‘these people are barking mad’.
Ireland: Time to press murder charges?
Hey Bernie! Because of your insane beliefs, a beautiful healthy young woman is dead. How do you sleep at night?
A YOUNG woman died of septicaemia in Ireland after Catholic doctors refused to terminate her miscarriage because abortion was against the country’s law and religious beliefs.
Savita Halappanavar, 31, died last month in University Hospital Galway after three days of agony, the Irish Times reported on Wednesday.
Doctors told her she was losing her 17-week pregnancy, as her cervix had dilated and the amniotic sac had broken, and that the foetus would not survive.
Her husband told the newspaper she begged for birth to be induced but was told this was not possible because the foetal heartbeat was still present “and this is a Catholic country”.
Praveen Halappanavar said that his wife, a Hindu, said, “I am neither Irish nor Catholic,” but they said there was nothing they could do.”
Mr Halappanavar said his wife was left in extreme pain for another two-and-a-half days until the foetal heartbeat stopped. The dead foetus was then removed but Mrs Halappanavar was soon taken to intensive care where she died on October 28.
Update: An inquest reveals more details of this poor woman’s horrific ordeal.
Philippines: God will provide, says Catholic church…
…because we sure as hell won’t.
…The children huddle together waiting for breakfast, which on a good day is pan de sal, or Filipino salt bread, which they dip into hot instant coffee. Mrs Cabiya-an works part-time as a laundry woman and home help.
”It’s tough when you have so many children,” she says, with a shy smile. ”I have to count them before I go to sleep to make sure no one’s missing.”
At one time Mrs Cabiya-an had access to contraceptives but the Manila mayor, Jose Atienza, a devout Catholic, swept them off the shelves of city-run clinics in 2000. Since then she has struggled to limit the size of her family, resorting to illegal abortion more than once.
Mr Aquino, a Catholic, is strongly backing a reproductive health bill before the Philippines Senate that aims to give poor couples free access to family planning methods, including contraceptives and condoms, and would require schools to teach sex education.
The legislation was first drafted 14 years ago but proved too difficult for previous governments as the country has grown to be the world’s 12th most populous nation with almost 100 million people…
But the Catholic Bishops Conference has vowed to oppose the bill, even though legislators have watered it down to appease the church, removing references to a two child per family policy. ”We are still for scrapping the bill. It is not necessary,” Archbishop Jose Palma, the conference president, says. Some priests have even branded support for the bill a ”serious sin” punishable with excommunication, reflecting how conservative the church has remained in the Philippines, the sole Catholic nation without a divorce law.
US: Got a non-viable pregnancy that will kill you?
Bad luck if you’re a Catholic.
An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy that implants outside of the uterus. It occurs in approximately 1% of conceptions. It typically grows in the fallopian tube, but rarely an ectopic pregnancy grows into the ovary or cervix….
This is how women die from ectopic pregnancies, they bleed to death…
The recommended treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is surgical removal or systemic methotrexate (a cancer drug that kills the rapidly dividing trophoblasts, which are in many ways like cancer cells)…
An ectopic pregnancy is not destined to be a baby. It can never, ever grow to viability. It will, however, grow to injure the pregnant woman. So you’d think treatment shouldn’t be controversial…unless of course you want care at some Catholic hospitals.
Yes, some Catholic ethicists argue that the catholic “Directives” preclude physicians at Catholic hospitals from managing ectopic pregnancies in a way that involves direct action on the embryo. So a woman can have her whole tube removed (an unnecessary procedure that could reduce her future fertility), but she can not have the pregnancy plucked out (as is done with the standard therapy, a salpingostomy, where a small incision is made in the tube and the pregnancy removed) and she most certainly could not have the methotrexate.
How common is this practice? Well, it is pretty sad that someone had to study it. According to a study from 2011 by Foster e. al., (Womens Health Issues, 2011) some Catholic hospitals refuse to offer methotrexate (three in this study of 16 hospitals). The lack of methotrexate resulted in changes in therapy, transferring patients to other facilities, and even administering it surreptitiously. All of these expose women to unnecessary risks, expense and are, quite frankly, wrong.
“Wrong” here being polite medical terminology for ‘insanely fucking stupid’.
US: Got raped? Got pregnant? Blame God.
Yep, God can be a right bastard sometimes.
Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock has said that pregnancy caused by rape is something “God intended” and not a situation that justifies an abortion, roiling a tight race less than two weeks before the election.
Mr Mourdock’s comment came in response to a voter-submitted question toward the end of a debate on Tuesday night with his opponents, Democratic US Representative Joe Donnelly and Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning.
“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realise that life is that gift from God,” said Mr Mourdock, the state’s treasurer. “And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Well, if you believe weird shit, you say weird shit, I guess.
Dominica: Pregnant teen dies after cancer treatment delayed by anti-abortion laws
The pregnant Dominican teenager who had to wait twenty days to start receiving chemotherapy for her acute leukemia because of her country’s draconian anti-abortion laws has died.
The anonymous teen was 16 years old and only nine weeks pregnant when the controversy began. Her plight gained attention over the last few weeks as doctors debated whether it was morally correct to start treating her cancer, given as Article 37 of the Dominican Constitution states that “the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death.” It took doctors and the Dominican government a full 20 days to decide that God and Country might care about the actually living mother’s life, too, not just the fetus inside of her, and allow the treatment. By then, it was too late.
This is just sick. Sick, sick, sick. The Catholic Church has claimed another martyr.
US: New money vs old dogma
The billionaire Catholic Melinda Gates has thrown down the gauntlet to the Vatican with a vow to dedicate the remainder of her life to improving access to contraception across the globe.
Mrs Gates…predicted that women in Africa and Asia would soon be ”voting with their feet”, as women in the West had done, and would ignore the church ban on artificial birth control.
Mrs Gates…said since she announced her new direction a few weeks ago she had been inundated with messages of support from Catholic women, including nuns. ”A church is made up of its members, and one of the things this campaign might do is help women speak out. I’ve had thousands of women come on to websites and say ‘I’m a Catholic, but I believe in contraception’. It’s going to be women voting with their feet.”…
She admitted she had agonised over whether to speak out in defiance of the church hierarchy.
She said: ”Of course I wrestled with this. As a Catholic I believe in this religion, there are amazing things about this religion, amazing moral teachings that I do believe in. But I also have to think about how we keep women alive.”
The only amazing thing about the Catholic religion is how an intelligent, well-informed person like Gates can possibly go on believing in it.
US: Shh! Don’t mention the vaginas!
And ‘pussy’ is RIGHT out!
House Republicans prohibited state Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the floor Thursday after she ended a speech Wednesday against a bill restricting abortions by referencing her female anatomy.
Brown, a West Bloomfield Democrat and mother of three, said a package of abortion regulation bills would violate her Jewish religious beliefs and that abortions be be allowed in cases where it is required to save the life of the mother.
“Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no,’” Brown said Wednesday….
Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, R-Midland, determined Brown’s comments violated the decorum of the House, said Ari Adler, spokesman for the Republican majority.
“If I can’t say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas?” Brown asked Thursday at a hastily called Capitol press conference. “What language should I use?”
Brown noted “vagina” is the “medically correct term.”
“We’re all adults here,” she said.
Definition of ADULT
1. : fully developed and mature
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adult
Well, there’s your problem.
US: The scariest thing in the world…
…is a confident woman
This post is extensively linked. It’s tragic that there are so many examples of misogyny, but it’s great to see them all exposed in one place.
Girls, these things happen because there are men with power who fear you and want to control you. I know that I have equated relatively benign baseball games with deadly, honor killings but, whereas one is a type of daily, seemingly harmless micro-aggression and the other is a lethal macro-aggression they share the same roots. The basis of both, and escalating actions in between, is the same: To teach you, and all girls subject to these men and their authority, a lesson: “Know your place.” I also know that there are places where girls are marginalized and hurt that are not religious. But all over the world these hypocritical, pious men, in their shamefully obvious wrongness, represent the sharp-edged tip of an iceberg, the visible surface of a deep and vast harm. They employ the full range of their earthly and divine influence to make sure, as early as possible, that you and the boys around you understand what they want your relative roles to be. Where there are patriarchal religions girls, in dramatically varying and extreme degrees, disproportionately suffer. Understand these men for what they are: bullies. Do not internalize what they would have you believe.
Middle East: Misogyny, thy name is Islam
Why Do They Hate Us? – By Mona Eltahawy | Foreign Policy
But let’s put aside what the United States does or doesn’t do to women. Name me an Arab country, and I’ll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt — including my mother and all but one of her six sisters — have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating “virginity tests” merely for speaking out, it’s no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband “with good intentions” no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are “good intentions”? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is “not severe” or “directed at the face.” What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it’s not better than you think. It’s much, much worse. Even after these “revolutions,” all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian’s blessing — or divorce either.
I’m guessing that Mona is not an accommodationist.
Ireland: This just in: sex causes pregnancy!
A Fine Gael TD said today that fornication is the “most likely cause” of unwanted pregnancies in Ireland.
Mayo TD Michelle Mulherin made the remarks during a debate on proposed abortion legislation in the Dáil.
“Abortion, as murder, therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful, from a scriptural point of view, than all other sins we don’t legislate against, like greed, hate and fornication, the latter, being fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country,” she said.
The Middle Ages just called. They miss you.
US: Your Governor is a loonie — THAT’S why you can’t have nice things
The [US Federal] Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday that it will cut off all Medicaid funding for family planning to the state of Texas, following Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to implement a new law that excludes Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program.
via Huffington Post
US: Bishop to hospitals: let women die, that’s an order
From the bishop:
Specifically, I require the following in order for me to postpone any further canonical action directed against St. Joseph’s Hospital:
1. CHW must acknowledge in writing that the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was a violation of ERD 47, and so will never occur again at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
And from Ophelia:
The medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was done to save the life of the mother when the only alternative was that both the mother and the fetus would die.
People don’t believe this when you tell them.
Then they don’t know anything about religion.
Let’s hope St. Joseph’s tells the Bish where he can stick his canonical action.
US: We don’t like your views, so we won’t fund the organisation you work for…
…the Catholic Church chucks a hissy fit.
The Sacramento Bee is reporting the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento has pulled the plug on funding the Francis House homeless services agency in Sacramento. Described as “largest homeless services agencies in the Sacramento region, serving upward of 25,000 people,” the non-denominational agency has enjoyed grants as large as $10,000 from the diocese for decades.
What changed? They hired a new director in April, Rev. Faith Whitmore.
Whitmore, a United Methodist minister, took over leadership of Francis House in April after the sudden death of longtime executive director Gregory Bunker.
Within her own denomination, she has been a strong advocate of same-sex marriage. In 2008, during a short period in which gay marriage was legal in California, Whitmore openly defied church law by marrying same-sex couples. She has said publicly that she supports a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.
US: Oh noes! Catholic employees may be required to do their jobs!
“The Bishops of the United States have watched with increasing alarm as this great national legacy of religious liberty … has been subject to ever more frequent assault and ever more rapid erosion,” [Bishop Lori] said…
Forced Contraception. Health and Human Service has issued a regulation mandating contraceptive coverage from almost all private health insurance plans…
Federal “Catholics Need Not Apply” Signs. It was bad enough when local businesses barred Catholics from certain jobs in the early 20th century. Now the White House has put “Catholics Need Not Apply” signs up in two key places:
–Last Spring, Health and Human Services issued a rule that bars the Church from help refugee and human trafficking victims who are kids separated from their parents. The regulation says to work with them you have to be willing to perform abortions on them to be allowed to help them.
– The State Department’s USAID bars Catholic groups from feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and caring for the sick overseas unless they promise to give them condoms, too.
Government Regulating Ministers. Lori also cited the test of the “ministerial exception” now before the Supreme Court. The exception recognizes the primacy of freedom of religion by exempting churches from federal oversight in the hiring and firing of ministers.
Catholics Officially Bigots. Said Lori, “The federal Department of Justice (DoJ) has ratcheted up its attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by mischaracterizing it as an act of bigotry,” said Lori. So now, according to the Department of Justice, Christian (and Jewish, and Muslim) belief about marriage amounts to bigotry.
How dare they prevent us from failing to do our jobs and recruiting through the Old Boy network! Just because they pay our salaries and provide tax cuts!
Australia: ‘Undercover’ Christians behind ‘secular’ opposition to abortion
My interest was piqued yesterday by a Twitter exchange between bioethicist Leslie Cannold and sceptic, Ken Dally (aka Cowcakes)…
The website they refer to is Liberty of Conscience in Medicine – A Declaration; effectively a petition asserting the right of doctors to refuse to offer certain treatments (e.g. abortion, euthanasia) even if they are legal…
So, I wondered, could the Liberty of Conscience declaration be another of these religious ‘sleeper’ organisations? I decided to find out…
In all I found nearly 70 of the doctors who signed the Liberty of Conscience declaration had clear links to Christian organisations. Of course, not everyone has their religious credentials plastered on the internet for all to see – I was never going to ‘unmask’ everyone. But, even though it might be argued I didn’t find Christian credentials for nearly half the signatories, I challenge those who have no religious affiliation or belief to step forward and declare themselves. I don’t think I’ll be deafened by the response!
Now, I’m not a Christian. I’m avowedly and publicly an atheist. But, I have a very strong ethical code and an incredible aversion to lying and deception. If an organisation tells me they’re ‘not religious’ I expect when I look at its members I will find a pretty good sprinkling of them who are ‘not religious’. I would also expect that religious dogma is not the driving force and influence underpinning the mission (pun intended) of the group in question.
I may not agree with them, but I have no objection to Christians stating their arguments in the public square. I do object, however, when their religious bias is not declared. No politician is going to spend the hours I spent last night googling the credentials of these doctors on a site which explicitly states it has ‘no religious or faith component’. And politicians should know whether the views being put to them are coloured by a hidden religious agenda.
What does it say about your opinion of your own ‘faith’, when you seek to hide it from others while giving your views?
US: Catholic group can’t see why they lost funding…
… simply because they refuse to do what they’re paid for.
A Catholic group lost a bid to continue providing assistance to victims of human trafficking for what it says may be the Obama Administration’s support for abortion rights…
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was awarded a five- year contract that paid it $19 million to coordinate the services during the administration of President George W. Bush.
The contract was extended briefly in March, and the group said it was informed recently that its grant request to continue the work was turned down. Starting today, three other non-profit groups will provide case-management services for victims such as helping them obtain food, clothing and access to medical care…
The organization, which does not refer clients for abortions or provide contraceptives, has helped more than 2,700 victims of human trafficking since the group was awarded the contract in 2006, Walsh said. She said group leaders told her they don’t know why they didn’t receive a grant.
I’m only a layman, but I would have thought that refusing to provide the service you were hired for was a pretty good reason for someone to stop your funding.
UK: Royal Family continues glorious tradition of lunacy
The Duchess of Kent has withdrawn from public life to such an extent that she is often described as a recluse, but her son Lord Nicholas Windsor is determined to speak out over causes that he believes in.
Lord Nicholas, 40, who lost his place in the line of succession when he became a Roman Catholic, has written a controversial article in which he claims that abortion is a bigger threat to Europe than al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism.
He describes abortion as “the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life” and calls for a “new abolitionism for Europe” in which abortion, like the slave trade, can be abolished.
Spread some of that Royal wealth around, and quite a lot of women could afford to have children that they can’t afford now.
UK: MPs, be afraid — Catholics are on the warpath!
The big question, as MPs set to vote today on the pre-abortion counselling amendment, is: are they free to follow their conscience – or, as most of us suspect, have they been bullied…
Bullied, that is, by someone rational and humane, who doesn’t believe nonsense, when they should have been bullied by someone religious, like the author…
But beware, Members of Parliament, of following pied piper Dave over the cliff. As the ever-splendid Ann Widdecombe has warned, a vote against the amendments may well cost you your post. …
…And it should send a shiver of fear down every MP’s spine today: you mess with people of conscience at your peril.
All hail the Selective Vision of the Righteous, which only sees ‘bullying’ when someone else does it.
Spain: Catholic priests get new temporary super-power…
…making God forgive abortions.
Hundreds of thousands of young people descending on Madrid this week for the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day – which features processions, group prayers and a mass with Pope Benedict – are to get a ”special” concession.
Church leaders have ordered that anyone during the event who confesses to having had an abortion – a sin punishable by excommunication – will be welcomed back into the Church.
”Normally, only certain priests have the power to lift such an excommunication but the local diocese has decided to give all the priests taking confession at the event this power,” said the Pope’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi.
Two hundred white wooden confession booths have been set up in Madrid’s Buen Retiro Park for the event, which started on Monday and runs until Sunday.
I wonder if they’re cleared to give absolution for child rape too. I wonder if it’s even regarded as a sin.
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