To the Editor:
“New Laws Ban Most Abortions in North Dakota” (front page, March 27) asserts that the Roman Catholic Church does not support bills like the “heartbeat” legislation signed by Gov. Jack Dalrymple, prohibiting abortion when an unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected.
While it is true that legal counsel for Catholic dioceses normally advise that such measures will not hold up in court, that hardly means that the church is opposed to the measure.
On the contrary, Roman Catholic teaching continues to call for full protection of human life from conception forward, and the heartbeat bill brings us closer to that goal.
(Rev.)
FRANK PAVONE
Staten Island, March 27, 2013
The writer is national director of Priests for Life.