Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, religion, and conscience. But international human rights standards do not protect our right to express those thoughts or that conscience in a manner that infringes on other people's human rights.

The slow and painful death Ireland's abortion ban forced Savita to endure brings to mind another tragic story. Earlier this year, doctors in the Dominican Republic refused chemotherapy to a 16-year-old cancer patient because she was pregnant. Think this couldn't happen in the United States? Think again.

Suppose a handful of U.S. Senate races and our close presidential election had gone Republican. Savita's tragedy could have foretold many American women's funerals.

I do not doubt in the least that Cardinal Dolan and the Bishops take their task with the utmost seriousness and compassion. But, ethics are informed by experience and, as such, their ethics will remain fatally flawed and their conclusions fatally unjust.

Savita's death serves as the most raw of reminders that the global war against women's fundamental human rights rages on. And even though our country spoke loudly for women's rights on election day, that war does rage on right here at home.