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Bush Picks
Antiabortion, Antimarriage Professor to be Vatican
Ambassador

Bush Picks
Antiabortion, Antimarriage Professor to be Vatican
Ambassador

President Bush plans to nominate Harvard University law professor Mary Ann Glendon to be his new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Glendon, 69, is an antiabortion scholar and an opponent of gay marriage who also has written on the effects of divorce and increased litigation on society. Her 1987 book Abortion and Divorce in Western Law was critical of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion.

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President Bush plans to nominate Harvard University law professor Mary Ann Glendon to be his new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Glendon, 69, is an antiabortion scholar and an opponent of gay marriage who also has written on the effects of divorce and increased litigation on society. Her 1987 book Abortion and Divorce in Western Law was critical of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion.

The White House announced Monday that Bush will nominate Glendon to the post, which requires Senate confirmation.

Glendon was appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1994 to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a panel that advises the Roman Catholic Church on social policy.

Glendon has served as an adviser to the Vatican in several capacities. In 1995 she was the first woman to lead a delegation of the Holy See at the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing. She has also served on the Pontifical Council for the Laity and as a consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family.

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who last summer named Glendon to cochair his campaign advisory committee on the constitution and courts, praised the choice.

''She will serve our country with the honor and dignity we expect from those who represent our country's values abroad. While I may have lost her trusted counsel to our campaign, our country has gained an extremely gifted ambassador,'' Romney said in a statement.

A native of Dalton, Mass., Glendon taught at Boston College and became a visiting professor of law at Harvard in 1974. She became a full professor there in 1986. (Andrew Miga, AP)

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