For World AIDS Day 2007, Catholics for Choice commissioned the Washington, DC, polling firm, Belden Russonello & Stewart, to carry out polls in five countries on four continents about Catholic attitudes towards the use of condoms. The polls were done in the United States, Ireland, Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines.

Condoms4Life is an unprecedented worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishops’ ban on condoms. The campaign was launched on World AIDS Day 2001 with the display of billboards and ads in subways and newspapers saying, “Banning Condoms Kills.? The campaign is sponsored by Catholics for Choice, our partners in Europe and Latin America and colleagues in Africa and Asia.

Nancy Belden, a pollster from Belden Russonello & Stewart, talks here about the survey results with the Condoms4Life campaign coordinator, Marissa Valeri.

For more information, please visit www.CatholicsforChoice.org.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimates that 51 percent of Latina teens get pregnant at least once before age 20—nearly twice the national average.  Moreover, the Latina teen pregnancy rate is declining at half the pace of the overall national rate, and some states are reporting rising rates of Latina teen pregnancy and childbearing.

Listen as Bill Albert, the deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the author of “51%: Latinas and Teen Pregnancy? in the latest issue of Conscience, describes recent trends in the Latina teen pregnancy rate and the barriers to reducing that rate in the future.

To read the article available online, please visit the Conscience homepage.
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"As the World Congress of Families packs up its tents and leaves its fantasy world in Warsaw, participants will now have to face the harsh reality of the real world in which we all live. There will be far fewer subservient women, there will be gays living on the same block, and there will be people having premarital sex and using contraception to boot..."

Listen as Catholics for a Free Choice analyzes the World Congress of Families (May 11-13, 2007), an international gathering of extreme--and extremely out-of-touch--anti-choice groups in Warsaw, Poland.  A Catholics for a Free Choice associate attended the conference and provided first hand reports and analysis of what turned out to be an underwhelming event. 

For full coverage of the event and to read daily reports, visit Catholics for a Free Choice Opposition Watch: World Congress on Families.

Abortion has been at the eye of a terrible storm in recent years. Clinic bombings, Supreme Court decisions, shootings, violent protests and venomous rhetoric have not brought the country any closer to a resolution. Both sides in the debate have generated more heat than light...

Listen as Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, discusses the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancies as the best means of reducing the need for abortion--something that the majority of Americans and American Catholics, regardless of where they identify themselves on the issue of abortion, support. 

His remarks are from an OpEd published in the May 4, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.   

Listen to Jon O'Brien, executive vice president of Catholics for a Free Choice, discuss rumors of possible changes to the Vatican's policy on condoms and call for Catholics to hope, pray and, most importantly, speak out against the Vatican's arcane and callous policy against condoms.  

With more than 40 million people now infected with HIV and AIDS it has been hard to understand and accept Vatican intransigence in insisting that condoms cannot be used as part of comprehensive program of prevention diagnosis and treatment.

Many people have applauded recent pronouncements that signal a possible modest change in the Vatican’s policy. Some officials have said the Vatican is considering the possibility of allowing married heterosexual couples where partners are at risk of using condoms. Other equal powerful Vatican officials have said this change is not possible. Ultimately it will be up to the Pope – and if history is any predictor, he will veto change.

Listen to CFFC president Frances Kissling make the case for changing the Vatican’s opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS, even for married couples when one partner is infected. (This podcast was originally released on RHRealityCheck.org.)

Emergency contraception has the potential to prevent pregnancy before it happens.  Listen to Frances Kissling's challenge to the Catholic health care industry to help women, especially survivors of sexual assault, prevent unintended pregnancy.

Internationally recognized feminists Catholics

Thoughtful, honest and at times provocative, Frances and Kavita