Results tagged “abortion”

Coach Rick Pitino took a page out Rudy Giuliani's playbook while addressing revelations that he had an affair and paid for the abortion of a woman who then tried to extort him for millions. After apologizing to family, friends, fans and colleagues in his statement, Pitino then took a sharp turn while thanking the Lousiville community which he arrived into after being hired in 2001. He said, "When 9/11 hit, you needed a community to get you over it. In New York City, it was easy because everybody knew the devastation of that and they got each other over it. In Louisville, the impact wasn't felt like New York City, but I needed this community to help me get over it." You can't fault the logic of using 9/11 if you wanna knock abortion out of the headlines—especially when new quotes from Karen Cunagin Sypher, the woman who accuses the coach of rape, now include this one: "He made me murder my child. It should sicken the public and it devastated my children...I wanted to have the baby but Rick said if I did, my children would all be in concrete." Sypher has released a phone message Pitino left her, but in it he only encourages Sypher to make her own decision about the pregnancy.

Former Knicks coach and current head coach of Big East powerhouse Louisville Rick Pitino is mired in an extortion scandal where it has come out that he had an affair inside a Kentucky restaurant and then paid for the woman to have an abortion. Karen Cunagin Sypher was indicted back in April of attempting to extort Pitino for $10 million. She had since responded to the charges with her own claims that the coach had raped her inside a restaurant and at a second location in 2003. Now the Louisville Courier-Journal obtained police interviews where Pitino admits to having sex with her at the restaurant after its employees had left; an assistant coach on-hand also told police that he heard "only the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter." The Long Island native Pitino, a married father of five and Catholic who has a priest travel around with his team, then admitted to paying $3,000 for Sypher to have an abortion because she did not have health insurance, an anecdote unlikely to be brought up by the president in his current town hall meetings. Sypher pleaded not guilty to the extortion charges and prepares to go for trial. Sources say Pitino has no plans to take a leave of absence from Louisville.

A nurse is suing Mount Sinai Hospital, claiming the institution "forced" her to assist with an abortion, despite her pleas. The Post reports, "The hospital even exaggerated the patient's condition and claimed the woman could die if the nurse, a devout Catholic, did not follow orders, the nurse alleges in a lawsuit."

While President Obama drew a lot of flak from the Catholics angry about him giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame yesterday, pro-choicer Mayor Bloomberg seemed to fly under the church's radar for being honored (and giving "humorous" remarks) at local Catholic university Fordham on Saturday. A spokesman for Archbishop Dolan said that he was "unaware that the mayor was at Fordham," but stopped short of offering any take on the school's choice. Dolan has been very open about his objections to Obama speaking at Notre Dame, saying this weekend it could be seen as an endorsement of the president's pro-choice stance. Good thing he cleared that up since there's been so much speculation on just where the Catholic Church stands on the issue. The Post talked to one New Yorker who sat out her Notre Dame graduation yesterday (opting to spend the time praying instead). She told the paper, "I wouldn't be able to approve them handing him a degree. Your commencement speaker is supposed to be someone you emulate, and they're supposed to be sending you off into the world."

      

During the elaborate installation ceremonies yesterday, Archbishop Timothy Dolan said to the thousands gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral, "This cathedral has been such a warm, embracing, spiritual hall for so many millions. Thank you. Thank you all for embracing me." Dolan, replacing retiring Edward Cardinal Egan, is now the leader of the New York Archdiocese, which has 2.5 million in the NY area.

A City Council hearing had to be recessed after Council members James Oddo and Charles Barron got into a shouting match about a bill. The bill was the Clinic Access Bill--which covers harassment outside abortion clinics and is sponsored by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

When Pope Benedict XVI gave a papal mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, onlookers were surprised that former mayor Rudy Giuliani took Communion, given his three marriages and pro-choice abortion stance. Now Edward Cardinal Egan has issued a statement slamming Giuliani, saying Rudy was never supposed to have had the holy wafer!