Iowa governor appoints pro-life Catholic priest to Board of Medicine

Three weeks after the Iowa Senate rejected a Dubuque anti-abortion activist for a seat on the Iowa Board of Medicine, Gov. Terry Branstad has nominated a prominent Catholic priest, also an abortion opponent, for the spot.

Msgr. Frank Bognanno, the pastor at Des Moines’ Christ the King Catholic Church, has routinely spoken against abortion, which his faith condemns. The medical board, which licenses physicians, gets involved in the issue when abortion opponents file complaints about abortion providers.

Democrats controlling the Iowa Senate voted last month to block Branstad’s nomination of Colleen Pasnik to the medical board. Pasnik is a past director of the Family Life Office for the Archdiocese of Dubuque and a past employee of Dubuque County Right to Life.

Among other things, the Democrats noted that Pasnik was photographed with national abortion activist Cheryl Sullenger during a 2010 meeting of the medical board, at which opponents objected to a Planned Parenthood system of dispensing abortion pills via a video system. Pasnik has denied any direct association with Sullenger, an Operation Rescue leader who was convicted of bombing a California abortion clinic in the 1980s.
continue at Des Moines Register

2 comments:

Al said...

Let's see how they handle this one after Rep. Pam Jochum set up Colleen to be defeated while pretending to support her.

Lisa Ann Homic, M.Ed. D.C. said...

It's a sad day when the writers have to discern between a pro-life priest and a pro-abort priest, how did this happen?