The Pope is at the centre of the Catholic Sex Scandal. Which Pope???

It seems that child abuse flies under the radar in the church - any church - but this one particularly. I suspect (with utterly no evidence to support the suspicion) that if there is no penetration, the catholic church does not consider sex to be sex: therefore, molesting little boys and girls doesn't count....

This is supported, however, by what I know to be the practice of 'chaste' sex among pre-married or unmarried catholic couples. Everything but penetration goes....

I'm willing to wager there is all manner of means by which these deprived and depraved priests mitigate in their minds what they're doing and the damage done to these little ones.

Sex is sex is sex; however one engages, which parts one puts into action, if the genitals are involved, it's sex, call it what you will.

Where it comes to children, however, it is sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape.

The Catholic church has, for centuries, found any loophole it can where it comes to sex and that's what makes the whole thing so stinky. One can no more tell a human body to cease breathing than one can order the human body to ignore other necessary functions.

Gloria Steinham still thinks women are too stupid to figure out how to prevent pregnacy...

Lack of reproductive freedom my backside.

Gloria Steinem still thinks that a woman's ability to kill her unborn child and women's right to be irresponsible prior to sex by not accessing birth control/prevention means women don't have equality.

Bullshit.

In the US and Canada, women have unlimited access to legal, free information and FREE conception prevention via the Internet, the local family planning, their doctors, etc. etc., yet in these two countries, women are still becoming pregnant when they say they don't want.

Two issues here: if women say its their body and their right to control it, then why are they NOT acting on those rights and controlling their bodies PRIOR to becoming pregnant with children they say they don't want?

NOT acting is not being in control. Failure to take advantage of the EXTENSIVE pre-conception options available in this country and in the US is irresponsible and flies in the face of control. A woman in control only in rare occasions becomes pregnant when she doesn't desire it.

Secondly, Ms Steinem and others like her never touch on the issue of median age of those who choose abortions, nor do they talk at all about the age of those who are having their second and third and in some cases fourth abortion. It is idiocy to say these women are in control of anything.

Finally, there is a demographic that chooses to abort because doing otherwise would expose an extramarital affair. I make no comment here on the morality of extramarital sex; however, for those who choose it and for those for whom that choice results in conception, they too cannot be confused as people who are in control.

The high numbers of abortions in this country and the US must logically show that women are decidedly not taking control of their bodies but resorting to an act that is incredibly hard on the female body and terminal for the being that body contains.

And for those who say 'it isn't a baby,' or 'it isn't human,' those arguments are ridiculous. Humans cannot conceive anything other than human and yes, tiny as that being is, it is a human child with the same start in life as the body carrying it. Changing the labels or covering one's eyes to reality doesn't change the fact of the 'operation.

It is irresponsible for those who say they support women's equality and rights to continue diminishing women to the status of irresponsible children, when all of - more than - the necessary tools for fully in-control behaviour are readily available.

Women cannot expect equality when they refuse to take a credible stance on this issue.