Vicki Quade, the editor of the ABA journal, Human Rights, has made a reply, of sorts, to those who criticized the cover of the journal’s summer edition. Catholic League members will recall that in that edition, a pregnant woman appeared on the cover, in a crucifix-like pose, with her unborn child showing inside her body. So proud of their work, the ABA section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities refused us permission to reprint the illustration.
Quade’s response goes like this: “No offense was intended by our cover and I regret any offense that was caused. Because there are two sides to every issue, we will be publishing in the future an article by a priest/lawyer explaining the First Amendment rights of sectarian hospitals.”
In short, we still don’t have an apology. What we have instead is the familiar, ”I’m sorry if you took it that way but I really didn’t mean it.” Oh, really? And what is the purpose of publishing an article that balances the one published in the summer edition? Our complaint spoke to the cover illustration, not the article (flawed though it was) on the merger of Catholic hospitals with non-sectarian ones. As for the quip that “there are two sides to every issue,” we hope that the sages at the ABA don’t publish an article on the horrors of slavery or genocide lest they be compelled to offer a rebuttal.
