Knights of Columbus Resolution Defends 'Gift of Life'

Text of Resolution

Delegates to the 124th annual Knights of Columbus convention today [Aug. 3] adopted a resolution that reiterates the Order’s longstanding opposition to abortion, and calls for “adoption of laws that recognize and protect in law the right of conscience for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other medical personnel, providing that they may not be forced to provide medical services which violate their religious beliefs and similar protection for Catholic hospitals.”

The Knights of Columbus, which has been a major supporter of the Right to Life movement ever since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, promised to support programs which offer alternatives to abortion, and endorsed “state parental consent or parental notification laws and initiatives, such as California’s Proposition 85, and legislation that would give force to these state laws by making it a federal crime to transport a minor child across state lines to obtain an abortion.”

The resolution restated the Order’s “continued opposition to the death penalty,” and affirmed its longstanding policy of prohibiting individuals, including public officials or candidates for public office, who support abortion rights, the marketing of abortifacient drugs, or embryonic stem cell research, “from renting or otherwise using facilities over which we have control, or speaking at Knights of Columbus events or bestowing on them honors or privileges of our Order of any kind.”