California
California pro-lifers prepare to ‘help in any way we can’ in wake of Dobbs
LOS ANGELES — For years, it appeared like Jim Hanink and different native Catholic pro-life advocates have been rebels for a trigger going nowhere.
Because the Nineteen Seventies, they’ve spent hours reaching out to pregnant ladies, inviting them to rethink the choice to abort. They’ve handed out flyers, wrangled with elected officers, and rallied the trustworthy in native parishes to hitch them in supporting ladies and households.
Hanink and his spouse, Elizabeth, a nurse, even helped lease flats situated close to inner-city abortion clinics with the hope of saving preborn lives.
However residing within the aggressively progressive state of California, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court docket determination that legalized abortion nationwide, at all times appeared like a distant goal.
“I bear in mind my oldest son asking me not so way back, ‘You suppose it’ll ever change?’” remarked Hanink, a parishioner at St. John Chrysostom Church in Inglewood. He retired in 2015 after 4 many years as a philosophy professor at Loyola Marymount College.
His reply: “Not whereas I’m alive.”
The June 24 Supreme Court docket determination in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group proved Hanink unsuitable. And whereas the second is one for rejoicing, the courtroom’s returning of abortion legislation to the states additionally portends a combat that simply bought way more severe in California and elsewhere.
He expects “there would be the sharpest, strongest backlash” to the Dobbs’ ruling in states like California, the place Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to determine an abortion “haven” for girls looking for abortions however are from different states the place the process is now banned.
“The Structure,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion, “makes no reference to abortion, and no such proper is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
The workers at Los Angeles Being pregnant Providers have been ready a very long time to listen to these phrases.
“I’m glad to see the Supreme Court docket in its majority embrace fact, decency and humanity,” mentioned government director Astrid Bennett, whose nonprofit supplies testing, counseling and child provides to expectant moms.
“For the unborn, it means recognition that their lives are sacred,” she instructed Angelus, the web information outlet of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “They’re part of the human household and they’re Individuals with rights.”
Msgr. John Moretta, pastor at Resurrection Church in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, mentioned he was “grateful to God” for the Dobbs ruling.
“It’s lengthy overdue,” mentioned the priest, who has labored for many years to combat abortion within the metropolis’s Latino neighborhood. “I’ve personally cried to heaven to cease this onslaught of the harmless. I imagine we as a society are going to be higher.”
Mary Huber, who in July will obtain the “Individuals of Life Award” from the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops, known as the ruling a very good first step.
Huber, now semi-retired, served as director of the Workplace of Respect Life and Pastoral Care Applications of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, for six years and labored within the division almost twenty years earlier than that.
“This isn’t a closing victory however actually a vital milestone,” she mentioned. “Individuals typically suppose if it’s authorized, it’s ethical and but as Catholics we all know abortion isn’t ethical. This ruling may have an effect on the general considering of generations.”
Greater than a dozen states have now moved to ban or restrict entry to most abortions. However in California, Newsom and state lawmakers have pledged to spend $40 million in taxpayer monies to make California an abortion “haven.”
Newsom additionally has joined his counterparts in Oregon and Washington in promising to type a “West Coast offense” of elevated abortion entry frequent to all three states.
“It’s actually a disgrace that we’ll turn out to be a mecca for abortions,” Msgr. Moretta mentioned. He known as it “unconscionable” for Newsom to supply cash to move ladies from different states to have abortions in California.
Ordained in 1968, only a few years earlier than Roe, Msgr. Moretta has since served on the Proper to Life League’s board of administrators and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Professional-Life Fee, teams that established native being pregnant facilities and girls’s shelters.
“We (Catholics) are on the forefront of the protection of life. We imagine life is sacred from the very starting to the very finish. We ought to be happy with that,” he instructed Angelus.
Father Edward Molumby, a retired priest in residence at Sacred Coronary heart Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California, served for 12 years as chaplain at Rachel’s Winery retreats serving to ladies and men heal after abortion. He mentioned he has seen firsthand how the scars of abortion can linger for many years.
“Typically there are ladies who had abortions 60 years in the past and it nonetheless bothers them,” defined Molumby. “They can’t overlook the ache and a number of them suppose they can’t be forgiven.”
Whereas happy with the courtroom’s ruling, Father Molumby is anxious in regards to the months forward.
“When it comes to God’s plan, sure, that is good, however the value we’ll pay is unrest,” he mentioned. “I’m fearful. I believe there’s going to be a number of violence.”
At Our Woman of Guadalupe Church in Chino, California, pastor Father Edmund Gomez mentioned he shall be stepping up his ministry to ladies and households. Already, he visits abortion clinics in hopes of adjusting ladies’s minds, however he pressured that such work should be finished with sensitivity and care. He fears ladies looking for abortion may nonetheless face harassment.
“We nonetheless have to do this one-on-one work,” mentioned Gomez. “We put ladies in actually arduous conditions in our society. They get dumped on quite a bit.”
Huber believes women and men share equal duty for the creation of life, and this ruling brings the legislation nearer to acknowledging that.
“Behaviors are in the end going to have to vary to some extent. If I can’t simply go to the shop and get an abortion tablet, perhaps I’ve to suppose this via just a little higher,” mentioned Huber. “Abortion additionally impacts how some males deal with ladies. It strips away his duty as a result of it’s her duty to have the abortion.”
The state’s Catholic bishops, via the California Catholic Convention, not too long ago launched “We Have been Born Prepared,” an informational marketing campaign to mobilize help for these with “troublesome and sudden pregnancies” and assist ladies get hold of housing, well being care and different wanted providers.
Bennett desires expectant moms to know that the “assist arm” of the pro-life motion is prepared with greater than 3,000 services throughout the nation. She is the founding father of the VIDA Initiative, a company devoted to coaching leaders within the Hispanic neighborhood.
“Latinos are instinctively pro-life,” mentioned Bennett, herself the daughter of immigrants. “Our tradition is a tradition that embraces youngsters, loves youngsters, welcomes youngsters. I believe Hispanics carry hope due to their robust religion and their love of household.”
– – –
Romano writes for Angelus, the web information web site of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Kay is editor-in-chief of Angelus.
California
Maps: See how large the California wildfires are
Multiple major wildfires are leaving a trail of destruction and death in the Los Angeles area.
A handful of wildfires kicked up Tuesday, powered by high winds and dry conditions , and have exploded in size. As of Tuesday afternoon, 2 people have been killed and more than 80,000 people have been evacuated.
Follow live coverage here.
The maps below show the size and status of the fires. They will be updated frequently.
California
AIR7 video offers aerial view of wildfires' destruction in LA County: WATCH LIVE
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Aerial video from AIR7 on Wednesday morning offered one of the first overhead glimpses at the devastation caused by multiple wildfires in Los Angeles County.
Footage from the helicopter showed the destructive path of the Eaton Fire near Altadena, which resulted in at least two fatalities while destroying more than 100 structures and burning more than 2,200 acres.
Shortly after 9:30 a.m., the aircraft’s perspective showed several two-story homes burning in the area of Lilac Canyon Lane, located in a residential neighborhood near the north end of Lincoln Avenue. Many nearby houses were smoldering.
Meanwhile, another ABC7 helicopter was over Pacific Palisades, where massive plumes of smoke continued to rise above burning homes in the foothills. Other structures were completely destroyed.
Houses were also on fire near Topanga Canyon Boulevard, the major artery that stretches from the San Fernando Valley to Pacific Coast Highway.
Media and fire department aircraft were mostly grounded Tuesday due to dangerous conditions caused by a powerful windstorm in the region.
Copyright © 2025 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
California
What to know about the wildfires spreading through Southern California
More than 4,000 acres of land are burning in Southern California from three wildfires, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
With firefighters having not contained any portion of the fires and high winds forecast overnight, anxiety grew over what conditions residents and officials will face as Wednesday breaks.
Here’s what we know so far.
The scopes of the fires
The Palisades fire started Tuesday at about 10:30 a.m. local time, and has burned nearly 3,000 acres of land in Los Angeles County.
The Eaton and Hurst fires both started later Tuesday, with the Eaton fire first reported at about 10:30 p.m. local time, also in Los Angeles County. Late Tuesday night, the Hurst fire was reported in the Sylmar neighborhood north of Los Angeles, leading the L.A. Fire Department to issue evacuation orders near where Interstate 5 meets the 14 and 210 freeways.
By early Wednesday morning Eaton had burned 1,000 acres of land, while the Hurst fire had burned 500 acres of land.
The causes of all three fires are being investigated, and they were all at 0% containment early Wednesday morning.
Evacuation orders and warnings have been issued in association with the fires.
Danger posed to neighboring counties
An evacuation order signals the fire poses an “immediate threat to life” and mandates evacuations, while an evacuation warning carries a “potential threat to life and/or property” and suggests that those with pets and livestock, and those who would need more time to evacuate, do so, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire.
The fires could spread to neighboring areas, such as Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, according to the National Weather Service.
Wildfire season in Southern California typically runs from the late spring to the fall, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group.
“This time of year traditionally has not been fire season, but now we disabuse any notion that there is a season,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a video posted to X. “It’s year-round in the state of California.”
All hands are on deck to fight the #PalisadesFire in Southern California. California is deeply grateful for the brave firefighters & first responders battling the blaze.
We will continue to mobilize resources and support local communities as they respond to this severe weather. pic.twitter.com/JZrYy85e4z
— Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor) January 8, 2025
Local, state and federal government responses
Newsom declared a state of emergency Tuesday, as did Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Additionally, five Los Angeles schools will be closed Wednesday, and a sixth school has temporarily relocated and joined with another. The district said it is waiting to make a decision about whether to close the impacted schools Thursday.
Flames reached two schools, the structure of Palisades Charter Elementary, and the playing fields of Palisades Charter High School, according to The Los Angeles Times. The latter school “is currently not in session,” the district said.
More than 200,000 customers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties were without power early Wednesday morning. Firefighting authorities will typically turn off power lines, as a downed line can cause sparks that escalate to flames.
“This is a highly dangerous windstorm that’s creating extreme fire risk – and we’re not out of the woods,” Newsom said. “We’re already seeing the destructive impacts with this fire in Pacific Palisades that grew rapidly in a matter of minutes.”
He said Tuesday that California had secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, which will reimburse up to 75% of eligible costs authorities have taken on to suppress the fires.
President Biden said his team is in touch with state and local officials in California and that he is receiving frequent updates.
“My Administration will do everything it can to support the response,” he said. “I urge the residents of the Pacific Palisades and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles to stay vigilant and listen to local officials.”
Weather conditions in the area
Critical fire conditions are expected in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Thursday. The fires are forecasted to be exacerbated by low humidity, dry vegetation and strong winds between 50 and 100 miles per hour, the National Weather Service said.
The agency has issued wind advisories for the area.
How to prepare
➡️ Trying to stay safe in a wildfire? There’s an app that can help
➡️ Evacuation terms can be confusing. Here’s what they mean and how to sign up for alerts
➡️ How to keep yourself safe from wildfire smoke
➡️ This is why fire officials don’t want you to stay and defend your home
The California Newsroom is following the latest from across the region. Click through to LAist’s coverage for the latest.
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