Iowa priest's role in telemed abortion ban challenged

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland contends that a prominent Catholic priest played an “outsized role” in the state medical board’s decision to ban use of a tele­medicine system for providing abortion pills.

Planned Parenthood’s complaint is aimed at Msgr. Frank Bognanno, who has been a member of the Iowa Board of Medicine since 2012. Bognanno, who has been an outspoken abortion opponent, took part in an 8-2 board vote last August to bar doctors from using Planned Parenthood’s video-conferencing system to dispense abortion pills to women in outlying clinics.

The medical board’s ruling is on hold while Planned Parenthood pursues a lawsuit in Polk County District Court. Planned Parenthood recently filed hundreds of pages of supporting documents in court. The information includes the allegation about Bognanno’s role.

Planned Parenthood said that a few weeks before last year’s board vote, Bognanno sent other board members dozens of pages of materials collected by anti-abortion groups.
continue at Des Moines Register

A well written article.

Some background:
Kilimanjaro-climbing Iowa priest nominated to medical board

Climb every mountain: a priest’s journey up Kilimanjaro

1 comment:

JoshD said...

I have known Msgr. Bognanno for a while through his work with the St. John Bosco Conference for Religious Educators that Franciscan University of Steubenville hosts each summer. He is a wonderful priest and a passionate servant for life and for evangelization and catechesis.