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| <Previous | Next Page> CATHOLIC MASS HONORING KENNEDY LEGACY RAISES STRONG QUESTIONS Washington, DC (27 August 2009) – Once again, President Barack Obama will be given a Catholic stage to eulogize the memory of a man whose life was spent committed to the destruction of innocent preborn life. And once again, the bishops are silent.
The New York Times reported that in his later moments, Senator Kennedy began attending daily Mass, prayed often, and called for Father Patrick Tarrant moments before his death on Tuesday evening.
“The deaths of untold millions of preborn babies rested on the conscience of Ted Kennedy,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “There is an impending disaster about to take place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. Senator Edward Kennedy spent the past 30 years doing all he could to advocate and support the act of procured abortion - including his divorce, remarriage, et cetera -- and yet he continued to call himself Catholic,” stated Brown. “These are public matters, not private.”
“If we are led to assume Kennedy was remorseful of his pro-abortion past and repented, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley should make this known to the Catholic faithful clearly – before the media and pro-abortion politicians turn Kennedy’s death and Mass honoring his memory into yet another victory,” said Brown. “If this remains unclear, what will millions of Catholic Americans be led to believe as Obama canonizes Kennedy’s pro-abortion legacy on live television?”
“The truth does not change because of the respect the world is paying to this man. The Catholic principles which Cardinal Sean O’Malley has sworn to uphold have not disappeared because of Senator Kennedy's death,” continued Brown. “If this funeral Mass proceeds as planned, Sen. Edward Kennedy will have spit one more time on Christ, this time from a casket.”
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
Pro-Life Today | 24 August 2009 HEADLINES
Wisconsin Requiring Catholic Institutions to Provide Contraceptive Coverage
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97183
EWTN
The bishops of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) have issued a statement to the state's Catholic faithful expressing their deep concern about a state provision that requires providers of health insurance include contraceptive services. The rule will force Catholic dioceses and other agencies to pay for a gravely immoral service, the conference says.
Pro-life Groups Organize in Response to 'Abortion Mandate'
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97186
EWTN
Responding to President Barack Obama's efforts to rally sympathetic religious groups to back his proposed health care legislation, pro-life groups have organized prayer campaigns and issued protests of the proposal's abortion mandate.
Amnesty International Supporter Leaves over Abortion
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97185
EWTN
The British woman Fiorella Nash owes the release of her father from prison in Malta in the 1970s to Amnesty International. For Nash, supporting the organization over the years was a given, but recently she decided to suspend her support because of group's pro-abortion agenda.
For more headline news, click here for ALL's Daily News Summary. FEATURE STORY WHO IS REALLY ‘WEE-WEED UP’?
By Judie Brown President Obama has resorted to an incredibly infantile phrase wee-weed up ”to degrade his "health care reform" detractors. While the White House has now explained this remark as the president describing opponents of his health care debacle as agitated bed wetters, the truth is sobering”not silly. In fact, Obama's opponents are perhaps a bit more honest than he would like; thus, the insults.
Having said that, the worrying fact is that there is still an enormous number of well-meaning people, including Catholics, who simply do not want to see the truth about what is and is not contained in the various proposals currently floating around Congress. One example recently came my way via a Facebook comment.
A very sincere Catholic wrote to me about American Life League's opposition to the "health care reform" plan, even though our concerns stem from the fact that the proposals are based on imposed death as a cost-saving measure. The more I read and reread her earnest viewpoint on the matter, the more I am convinced that far too many Catholic Americans have never heard of the Church's teachings. Either that, or they do not understand and accept them. Such confusion results from a type of Catholic ignorance which Americans like Obama count on, day in and day out.
I am so concerned about it that I want to share her comments and then provide the reasons why she is fundamentally misguided. Dear Ms. Brown, I am also a Catholic. I do not believe in abortion and have marched many times in the annual March for Life. I have been ridiculed by onlookers but have always stood firm in my beliefs. Nevertheless, I believe President Obama is a good man. I believe if he says he is not in fact planning to fund abortions that his health care package will not fund them. I believe in everything he stands for except this one thing. I know it is a very BIG thing. But I believe in nothing the Republican Party stands for except this one thing. I stand with the Pro-Life Democrats (most of whom are Catholics) because I believe in uplifting the poor, the worker, the homeless and downtrodden. I believe in cleaning up and taking responsibility for our environment and endangered animals. I believe that life is sacred, Ms. Brown, even the lives of the millions already here who, maybe through no fault of their own, maybe through their own fault, need a hand up. I believe if we have a government that can help, that needs to happen if we are to follow the footsteps of Christ as a nation... This should not be a political issue at all, and you, Ms. Brown, should do your work in that way, not involving yourself in politics. If, in fact, abortions are funded, you can expose that once the legislation takes effect. I do not believe the president is a liar so I do not believe they will be funded. In any case, it will not cause more abortions to take place than would have taken place otherwise. And it will definitely not be tax dollars that pay for abortions since the dollars the program will run on will not be tax dollars. Anyone who wants to opt out can certainly do that and pay nothing. B.E. My correspondent does not understand that pro-life organizations and spokespeople who maintain their credibility are those who have not and will not align themselves with any political party. The reason for this is simple: Our party, if you will, consists of those who have no voice, either because they are not yet born or are in danger of becoming victims of euthanasia. They are people incapable of defending their right to life. These human beings do not wear a partisan label; they wear only a hope that we will defend them and be their voice.
B.E.'s belief in uplifting the poor, the worker, the homeless and downtrodden is not only a reflection of the Beatitudes, in which we all should believe, but a fundamental mandate for pro-life people, because our commitment to human dignity does not end at birth, nor does it end with imposed death. We are pro-life in every sense and stand with B.E.
When B.E. goes on to express her belief in being responsible for the earth and all that is a part of it, she reflects the stewardship that God has assigned to us. It is indeed our responsibility to respect and care for that which He has created and entrusted to us, His children. In fact, it is what Pope John Paul II described in Centesimus annus as the foundational characteristic of a just culture: All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture. For an adequate formation of a culture, the involvement of the whole man is required, whereby he exercises his creativity, intelligence, and knowledge of the world and of people. Furthermore, he displays his capacity for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness to promote the common good. (Section 51) And it is here, at this critical juncture between the individual and his fellow man, that a serious rupture occurs between what is perceived by some as the U.S. president's honorable goals and the reality of what he intends.
There can be no solidarity unless man accepts his moral obligation to defend the weakest in our midst. As anyone who follows American Life League's mission knows, there are countless numbers of preborn children killed daily by human embryonic stem cell research, early abortion chemicals marketed as contraceptives, as well as surgical and medical abortion. Each of these individual persons is a member of our human family, and their fate is part of our responsibility if, indeed, we wish to live in a just society.
So, when President Obama claims, for example, that we who have found abortion in the "health care reform" proposals are “bearing false witness against him, we decry his arrogance. Perhaps B.E. has not seen the fallacy of his public pronouncements, but all one needs to do, really, is examine the legislation, as we at American Life League did in our latest ALL Report, Obamacare: Abortion's Trojan Horse. The viewer can read about abortion in at least one of the bills by viewing actual statements from the bill that are exhibited in this video.
Or review the statements of ABC News chief medical editor, Dr. Timothy Johnson, who, among others, says, If you look at the language, it gets complicated. It's not crystal clear whether or not that could happen with a so-called public option, and even with private plans that might be subsidized by the government, maybe abortion would be allowed.
So who is the one deceiving the public? Even though B.E. does not believe that the president is a liar, she needs to examine the factual evidence, not for the purpose of making a pejorative judgment about anyone, but to inform herself so that she understands what is being said versus what is being promoted.
If, as B.E. suggests, we remain silent now and ignore the evils contained in the various "health care reform" bills, it would not be spiritually healthy for any of us, nor would it be politically feasible to go back and fix the problem later! Pro-lifers have heard that argument regarding other pieces of legislation. We have learned from painful experience that, in politics, usually nothing is improved in order to agree with God’s word. Usually, revisions result in more evil. The sad history of the Hyde Amendment, which allegedly bars the use of tax dollars to pay for abortion, is a testimony to such failure.
No, the time to fix the deadly aspects of "health care reform" proposals is now. The time to see that justice is done for one and all is now, not later.
Finally, on a personal note and as one Catholic to another, B.E., let me say that, as Catholics, we know how to reach out to those in danger of dying because they do not have adequate health insurance or because their health care is nonexistent. We know because we learned it from and some of us have witnessed it in the work of Mother Teresa and countless others whose names are not readily known, all of whose work has left a legacy of love. It is called charity! It is the willingness of one community of faithful people to reach out and give of itself for the good of others.
The federal government has never understood charity, and it is not a source of Christ-like care. It is a bloated bureaucracy badly in need of cost-cutting measures, and that is the most fearful of truths when honestly assessing what “health care reform is actually all about. The American Health Care Association says seniors would face billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.
That does not sound like good news to me! It is a warning and should be uppermost in B.E.'s thoughts and prayers as she continues, as each of us should, to be concerned for the most vulnerable in our midst.
God save us from silly phrases and deadly agendas.
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 29 August 3, 2009
New Associate Groups
Please join me in welcoming two new Associate groups this week – Loreto House and AMEN (Abortion Must End Now)!
Loreto House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Denton, Texas which exists to promote and enhance the sacredness of life at all stages – in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Specifically, the volunteers of Loreto House provide information, education and material resources to pregnant women in need, married couples, post-abortive men and women, and to the elderly and disabled. Loreto House is truly a “sanctuary of hope.” The current executive director is Laurie Bollig. See the Loreto House website at www.loretohouse.org. AMEN (Abortion Must End Now) is a relatively new group, formed earlier this year in Yuma, Arizona. Volunteers with AMEN make it their mission to demonstrate to all the sanctity of life, as they vow to defend life from conception to natural death and put an end to abortion once and for all. Though young, the group has taken a very active role educating the community through its presence at the local fair, church events and prayer vigils at the local Planned Parenthood. The president of AMEN is Kristy Lien. See their website at www.amen4life.org. All of us here at American Life League are both pleased and proud to be working with so many wonderful groups; and we look forward to assisting these two new Associates in their future endeavors!
Tip of the Month – Population
From Handbook on Population by Robert Sassone
To date, we have looked at claims by population control advocates that the world was running out of many of its natural resources. We have also pointed out that the opposite is actually true when it comes to both petroleum supplies and water. Today, we look at whether or not earth is running out of unused living space. Many live in cities and assume the whole world is like their cities. In reality, cities cover less than 1% of the earth’s land surface. If you look at a population density map, you find that most square miles of land in the world have less than one family living in them! If you divide the land of the earth into square kilometers, about half have nobody living in them. While large numbers of people believe that some land is more desirable than other land, experience shows that people differ. Millions want, and do, live in desert, mountain, cold, jungle or other climates that others might consider unlivable. If everyone were huddled together in a big ball, the ball would be about one half kilometer (1/4 mile) in radius. One person could walk from the center to the farthest person in about five minutes. All the people in the world could stand in about 143 square miles. In other words, if you had everybody in the world standing in one place, you could put them in about 20% of the area of Jacksonville, Florida, or 10% of the area of Juneau, Alaska, and have room left over. If everybody in the world wanted to lie down on one flat surface with nobody touching anybody else, you could put all in about 650 square miles. In other words, you could put them all inside the city limits of Jacksonville or in any one of several other cities with room left over! There are about 6 billion people in the world averaging in weight less than 100 pounds each, so that all together, they weigh about 300 million tons. This is about the weight of the bugs eaten by the world’s spiders each month. About 13,000 square miles of the world’s surface is taken up by housing. The actual area for homes may even be less than this, since many live in apartments or multi-story structures which take even less space. Road mileage throughout the world is about 12.5 million miles. Mileage of railroads is only a tiny fraction of road mileage. Total land surface actually used as cropland is estimated by the UN to be about 3 million square miles. When we add together all human artifacts such as homes, paving, buildings, etc., they take up about 100,000 square miles. This is one-sixth of 1% of the land area of the world of about 58 million square miles. (All calculations are available in the text of Handbook on Population.) If everyone in the world lived in the United States, they could live better than they do now. They could have roomier residences with more space than they have now in an area less than the size of Alaska. If you include space for industry, parks, etc., and assume they live as urbanized as one-third of American people live, everybody in the world could have their homes, parks, etc., on about 15 percent of US land. The rest of the US land would be sufficient to grow enough food to feed everybody in the world comparable to how they eat now, assuming yields comparable to those in the highest agricultural yield nations. If everyone lived like they do in New York City, they could all live in Arizona and New Mexico. Each of 44 US states alone could hold all the world’s people if they were as densely populated as Manhattan in 1970. Next month: World population decline
News
New research backs abortion-breast cancer link
A Turkish researcher has reported a statistically significant 66 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women who have had an abortion.
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=96826
Abortion - more harm than good
A survey shows increased recognition of the harm of abortion. The poll conducted by Marist College suggests that over half (53%) of the American public believes abortion does a woman more harm than good.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=620574
Gardasil causes 400 percent more deaths than other common vaccine
A federal report has concluded that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil has a 400 percent higher rate of adverse effects than another comparable vaccine, the Menactra anti-meningitis shot. http://www.naturalnews.com/026722_Gardasil_HPV_cervical_cancer.html
Stem cell therapy gives folk singer his voice back
It's heartening to see Baba Anand (65), the noted folk singer of the state, who had fallen seriously ill one-and-a-half-years ago, singing straight from his heart again. Thanks to Institute of Kidney Disease and Research Centre (IKDRC), Anand's recovery has been quick enough. The centre pioneered in locally producing cardiac stem line from fat extracted from the singer's abdominal wall and improved his heart function by treating him with stem cell therapy!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/City/Ahmedabad/Stem-cell-therapy-gives-folk-singer-his-voice-back/articleshow/4813315.cms
Researchers may have found equivalent of embryonic stem cells
Chinese scientists have bred mice from cells that might offer an alternative to human embryonic stem cells, producing the most definitive evidence yet that the technique could help sidestep many of the explosive ethical issues engulfing the controversial field but raising alarm that the advance could lead to human cloning and designer babies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072301786.html?hpid=topnews
New artificial stem cells have their own ethical issues
Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are created by reprogramming adult tissue into a versatile, embryo-like state, have been described as an ethical breakthrough … These reprogrammed cells, however, address only in part the moral objections of those who think that embryos have the same right to life as born people. They also raise their own ethical challenges.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6725335.ece
Editor’s Note: ALL, along with a small handful of other pro-life organizations, warned that pro-lifers in general were being too hasty in their praise of iPS stem cells. See the following: Huge “Ethical” Embryonic-like Stem Cell Discovery not so Ethical After All
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08010803.html Why Are We Celebrating the Reprogramming of Adult Cells?
http://www.cogforlife.org/reprogramandethics.htm
Reprogramming Stem Cells – or Pro-lifers’ Minds? January 2009
http://www.cogforlife.org/
Interview: Head of Vatican's liturgical office says principle of refusing communion is "charity in truth"
Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the head of the Vatican’s liturgical office, emphasized in an interview that the withholding of Communion is meant for the person’s spiritual salvation.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072304.html
Closing Thought
"Whatever is forced on you contrary to the Christian faith, whatever is presented to you contrary to the commandments of God, it comes from the deceptions of the one who tries with many wiles to divert you from eternal life." –Pope St. Leo the Great, Magnificat, July 2009, p. 107
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 28 Monday, July 27, 2009
New Associate Group
Please join me in welcoming the newest Associate group to join our Program – Baby Steps, c/o St. Vincent and St. Mary of the Crown Catholic Churches in Carbondale, Colorado!
Baby Steps c/o St. Vincent and St. Mary’s chose their name after viewing and discussing ALL’s video 'Baby Steps' at their first organizational meeting. Baby Steps is comprised of members of both parishes under the leadership of their pastor, Fr. José Sáenz, and Mrs. Bonnie Kowar. The group seeks to educate both the parish communities as well as the community at large on the life issues, coordinate pro-life efforts with other local churches and support the local pregnancy resource center. ALL is particularly honored by the way in which Baby Steps chose their group name. We are also quite pleased to announce that the addition of this new group brings the total number of ALL Associates to 100! Watch for details on celebratory events soon!
From Associates
Pro-Life Waco
See the three minute mini-documentary on Pro-Life Waco’s opposition to Planned Parenthood’s 2009 Nobody’s Fool “sex education” event (as well as other Pro-Life Waco videos) at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pro-Life+Waco&search_type=&aq=f.
Editor’s Note: The article appearing in this issue under Tip of the Month concerning Planned Parenthood philosophies contains graphic language that may not be suitable for children.
Tip of the month – Parent Power
From Parent Power!! By Jim Sedlak
After reading accounts such as those in our previous newsletters, many people ask staff and supporters of STOPP, “Why do you people do this?” Many, including Planned Parenthood, do not understand what makes us expend this type of effort for no material gain. They don’t understand what is so bad about Planned Parenthood programs that gets people upset enough to basically give up all of their free time to fight for the demise of these programs. We will now take a look at the basic philosophies of Planned Parenthood as they relate to the subjects taught in typical Family Life Education programs. Our source for determining these philosophies is a book entitled How to Talk with Your Child About Sexuality which was written by Faye Wattleton while she was president of Planned Parenthood (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York; copyright 1986 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.). The stated intent of this book (page 5) is to provide parents with information on the subject of sexuality so that these parents can become “the best source” of information for their children. The book then proceeds to offer information on a variety topics concerning sexuality. Of particular interest is some of the information provided in Chapter 7, “The Top Seven Questions.” The first two of the “top seven” questions deal with the physical changes of boys and girls during puberty and the wording is, on the whole, informative and accurate. However, included in this section on puberty is a topic almost always included in Planned Parenthood literature – masturbation. Wattleton’s book states that the “modern view” of masturbation is that it is a natural and harmless expression of sexuality. The advice given to parents who see a small child fondling himself for the first time is to use the occurrence as a “teachable moment,” reassuring the child that masturbation is “something practically everyone does because it feels good…and that there’s nothing wrong with it.” Planned Parenthood also tells parents that “…many boys, at some point in their development, make it a group event with one or more boys.” Another of the “top seven questions” deals with discussing intercourse and pregnancy with your children. The book strongly recommends that these conversations take place with 10 to 12 year olds. While the book encourages frank discussion of these topics and the parents’ values, it also states that teenagers have the right to make their own decisions on this matter and that parents actually “owe” them certain reassurances if they choose to become promiscuous! It should be noted that Planned Parenthood has a major adversary in this pushing of sex education on young children. Sigmund Freud contended that the period of life from six to twelve years was, normally, a “sexual latency” period where one usually suppresses sexual interest and develops other important behavioral capabilities. Freud, in fact, states that an undue dwelling on sexual matters during this time of life would hinder a person’s normal development. Freud’s concept is so well accepted that Wattleton had to take the time to address it in her book. On page 52, Wattleton brings up the Freud “latency idea” and then dismisses it in three short paragraphs. The book describes a “more widely accepted view” that sex education for this age group is okay but does so without citing any scientific studies or giving the name of even one reputable scientist who agrees. It obviously doesn’t fit their philosophy, so they dismiss it. On the other side of the issue, psychologist Melvin Anchell wrote in a 1986 edition of National Review of the accuracy of Freud’s “latency period” and goes so far to say that today’s sex education programs for the young are DIAGRAMS FOR DISASTER! And which one of us, after viewing the state of our nation following years of this garbage in our schools, would disagree? Next month: Planned Parenthood philosophies continued.
News
Unborn child's memory develops by 30 weeks in the womb: New research
30-week-old babies in the womb already have short-term memory capabilities, a new study from the Netherlands, published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development, has found. The scientists found that at thirty weeks, the child in the womb has a short-term memory of about ten minutes. At 34 weeks, the child can store information and retrieve it up to four weeks later.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071602.html
Lines that divide: The great stem cell debate
Scientists at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, are discovering a potential cure for leukemia and sickle-cell disease. How? By using blood stem cells from the placentas of women who have had Caesarian deliveries. But researchers at the hospital are frustrated. State agencies have made multi-million-dollar grants available for embryo-destructive research, but money is scarce for its ethically sound counterpart, adult stem cell research.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090715/lines-that-divide-the-great-stem-cell-debate/index.html
Students embed stem cells into sutures for tendon repair
Biomedical engineering students from Johns Hopkins have demonstrated a way to use stem cells from a patient to help repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The students demonstrated a method of embedding the patient's own stem cells into a surgical thread that the surgeon uses to repair torn tendons.
http://www.dailytech.com/Students+Embed+Stem+Cells+Into+Sutures+for+Tendon+Repair/article15747.htm
The dirty secret of embryonic stem cell research
"The routine utilization of human embryonic stem cells for medicine is 20 to 30 years hence," embryonic stem cell research advocate William Haseltine and then-chief executive officer of Human Genome Sciences told Agence France Presse in 2001. "The timeline to commercialization is so long that I simply would not invest," he added.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/15/stem-cells-research-cancer-opinions-contributors-embryonic-funding.html
Study confirms cohabitation leads to higher chance of divorce and lower relationship quality
A new study published in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that couples who live together before getting engaged and/or married are more likely to get divorced than those who don't move in together until engagement or marriage, and that couples who live together before engagement report lower satisfaction in their marriages.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071502.html
Closing Thought
With determination and God’s help all of us can attain Christian moral perfection by persistent effort and prayer. Not all of us are expected to die a martyr’s death, but we are all called to the pursuit of Christian moral virtue. This demands strength of character and…a constant, persistent and relentless effort right up to the moment of our death. - Pope Pius XII
A.L.L.’S HUNDREDTH ASSOCIATE GROUP INSPIRED BY ‘BABYSTEPS’ DVD Washington, DC (29 July 2009) – American Life League welcomed its 100th Associate group this week – an organization inspired to take the name “Baby Steps” after viewing ALL’s guided DVD tour of a baby’s development in utero via 4D ultrasound.
Baby Steps joins the ALL Associate Program which has grown, in the past five years, from just 29 to 100 (and counting!) groups in over half of the states in the nation, plus associated groups in Canada and Africa.
“As the personhood movement gains momentum around the country, more and more grassroots organizations are ready to fight for human rights for all human beings,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “After 36 years of legalized murder in this country, the grassroots are shouting, ‘No more!’ And ALL’s Associate Program provides a community dedicated to the same mission – personhood.”
The new group, Baby Steps, based in Carbondale, Co., one of the most pro-abortion areas of the state, is a collaboration between members of two Roman Catholic parishes – St. Vincent and St. Mary of the Crown. The group is dedicated to supporting personhood through the needs of men and women in crisis pregnancies with everyday help, prayer, education and activism.
“Our goal is to teach personhood,” said Bonnie Kowar, co-founder of Baby Steps. “Our feeling is that once the Holy Spirit helps create the understanding of personhood in one’s heart, the rest of the truths will follow.”
“Real cultural change happens and lives are saved at the grassroots level,” Brown said. “We are so excited to work with Baby Steps and our 99 other Associates working around the clock to defeat what Pope John Paul II named the culture of death.”
According to Fr. Saenz, chaplain of Baby Steps, this new collaboration means their best efforts are yet to come. “American Life League is the nation’s premier organization working to end abortion and establish a true Culture of Life in our country. We are excited to join their nationwide family and look forward to working with them for a very long time to come,” said Fr. Saenz.
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League: Associates Program
http://www.all.org/associates/ American Life League: Baby Steps
http://babystepsdvd.com/
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 27 Monday, July 20, 2009
Tip of the month – Human Embryos and Scientific Language – Part 2
Following are excerpts from “’Pre-embryos’ and ‘Pre-embryo substitutes’: Safeguarding human life ‘from the very beginning?’” by Dr. Dianne Irving. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_164safeguardinglife.html In Part 1 of her article distributed last week, Dr. Irving pointed out how difficult it has been to "safeguard human life" from "the very beginning," particularly when the abuse of language, especially scientific "language," has shrouded clear facts about precisely when the "first moment of its existence is," and has hastened this drastic decline in the respect for human life. First, there was the “pre-embryo,” a false pseudo-scientific term which has since been formally rejected by the international nomenclature committee in human embryology. Scientifically, there is no such thing as a "pre-embryo" that exists after fertilization and before 14 days. There is, rather, an already existing embryo. But, the "pre-embryo" has been institutionalized, so "stage two" of this sort of verbal deception begins by substituting other false "science" in its place – or simply leaving out legitimate early phases of human embryonic development as if they didn't exist. "Pre-embryo Substitutes" One example of this is to claim that the "zygote" is the beginning of when a human being begins to exist. But this would render the human being already existing before the formation of the "zygote" non-existent. By claiming he or she is neither a human being nor a human person, it can be used simply as "biological material", especially in human genetic engineering research, etc. This "biological entity" is often referred to in the literature as a "pre-zygote" - that is, what is there from the beginning of fertilization up to the formation of the zygote is not a human embryo or a human being. It is just a human "cell.” However, the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development make it clear that the "zygote" formed at the end of the process of fertilization is not when a new human being begins to exist. Before that, the developing embryo (in Stage 1 of the Carnegie Stages) begins with "first contact" of the sperm with the oocyte, followed by, respectively, the phases of development referred to as "the penetrated oocyte" and the "ootid." In other words, the new human embryo begins to exist at first contact, at the beginning of the process of fertilization. Another example of leaving out specific stages of early human embryonic development can be found in several definitions in laws and regulations. A classic example are the formal definitions of "fetus" and "pregnancy" in federal guidelines for the use of human subjects in research as both "beginning at implantation". [A]ll women (rather than just those undergoing IVF or ART) become pregnant only at implantation; before that they are not "pregnant" [and therefore, the use of abortifacients, embryo flushing, prenatal genetic diagnosis, as well as all manner of human embryo research, are "ethical"]. Or, one can add to specific stages of early human embryonic development. Look at a more recent example: "Embryos are no different in their essential humanity from a fetus in the womb, a 10-year old boy, or a 100-year old woman. At every stage of development, human beings (whether zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, adolescent or adult) retain their identity as an enduring being that grows toward its subsequent stage(s); embryos are integral beings structured for maturation along their proper time line." The order of scientific terms that should inclusively mean the embryo at all of its various early stages is shifted. Listing the term "embryo" after them, as if what came before was not an embryo, makes the embryo during those earliest of phases of development essentially disappear. Thus we have this following subtle but spurious "pre-embryo substitute" which for all the world sounds very prolife. To the casual observer, by adding the term "embryo" after the terms "zygote" and "blastocyst" - followed by "fetus", "infant", etc. -- it would appear that the "zygote" and the "blastocyst" are something other than an "embryo" when, in fact, these are early stages of embryonic development. Again, one can make a "pre-embryo substitute" by articulating only one kind of human reproduction. For example, one can claim that all human beings begin to exist at "fertilization" or at "conception". But by definition, that makes all human beings reproduced asexually disappear.
Perhaps the most daring, and most successful, "pre-embryo substitute" was concocted by human cloning and human embryonic stem cell researchers Irving Weissman, Michael West, et al. For these researchers, the immediate product of both sexual and asexual human reproduction is "just a cell" - not a human being, not a human organism, not a human embryo. And the "blastocyst" from which "stem cells" are derived is simply "a ball of cells." These researchers also concocted another way to get rid of the human embryo - in fact, they got rid of the human embryo and the human fetus - by making a false distinction between "therapeutic" and "reproductive" cloning. They claimed that the product of "therapeutic cloning" was just a bunch of cells; the product of "reproductive cloning" was a human being - but not until it was born! They also enjoyed defining "cloning" only in terms of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) - thus making all of the other dozens of kinds of human cloning techniques disappear. Indeed, such "pre-embryos" and "pre-embryo substitutes" as noted above are particularly useful in laws and regulations involving the early human embryo, because often such innovative and imaginative but false scientific terms used in legal definitions are legally "exclusionary" - and thus create useful legal loopholes. It's enough to make our collective heads spin! Correct Formation of Conscience As noted, the abuse of language concerning the early human embryo is an ongoing concern; ever new, inventive and imaginative "pre-embryo substitutes" appear almost on a daily basis. This is why it is important to be aware of and acknowledge the long-established and documented empirical facts of human embryology.
As Pope John Paul II warned,
“The end result of this is tragic: not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life... “...[W]e need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception... Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things.” (Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995, Sections 4 and 58).
News
Consuming secondhand steroids
[F]ew in the general public are aware that oral contraceptives ("the Pill"), levonorgestrel ("the morning-after pill"), and mifepristone, or RU-486 ("the abortion pill"), are also all steroids. In fact, they are the same sort of synthetic anabolic steroids that are illegal for professional athletes to take, but they are anabolic for female tissues (like breast tissue) rather than muscle. In 2006, the World Health Organization acknowledged that the estrogen-plus-progestin drugs (birth control pills and combination hormone replacement drugs like Prem-Pro) cause cancers in the breast, cervix, and liver.
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/bri/bri_01steroids.html
Teva gets FDA approval for new version of Plan B
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said Monday the Food and Drug Administration approved the company's one-pill version of the emergency contraceptive Plan B. The drug has been available in a two-pill dose.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Teva-gets-FDA-approval-for-apf-2981810969.html?x=0&.v=1
Pharmacists can't refuse Plan B pill, appeals court says
Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the "morning after" contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pill-ruling9-2009jul09,0,6469894.story
Report on 'medical abortions' somewhat misleading
A new report on the abortion-drug regimen known as RU-486 may leave a false impression of safety. The report suggests that about one-fourth of the abortions in America are induced using RU-486, a two-drug combination that causes the death and abortion of an unborn baby. One of the concerns surrounding usage of that regimen has to do with the number of deaths and serious side effects, including infection. Such infections have claimed a number of lives. But another problem still persists -- excessive bleeding -- because that is just a fundamental part of the regimen.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=599150
Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg: I thought Roe would help eradicate unwanted populations through abortion
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to have made a stunning admission in favor of cleansing America of unwanted populations by aborting them. In an interview with the New York Times, the judge said that Medicaid should cover abortions, and that she had originally expected that Roe v. Wade would facilitate such coverage in order to control the population of groups "that we don't want to have too many of."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070901.html
Closing Thought
“To fall in love with God is the greatest of romances, to seek Him the greatest adventure, to find Him the greatest human achievement.” —St. Augustine
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 26 Monday July 13, 2009 New Associate Please join me in welcoming the newest addition to our Associate Program: Project Defending Life! Project Defending Life (PDL) is a Catholic umbrella ministry in New Mexico that sponsors many pro-life ministries, including a Holy Innocents Chapel, Gabriel Project, Intercessors for Life, Books for Life, Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and Mom’s Ministry – all with a special focus on ending all abortions. PDL maintains a pro-life chapel just 50 feet from a Planned Parenthood abortion center. Father Stephen Imbarrato is the founder and chaplain of Project Defending Life. He is a priest in the archdiocese of Santa Fe and long-time pro-life activist. Father Imbarrato works with PDL's Board of Directors to oversee a growing staff of part-time volunteers who coordinate pro-life action in the geographical areas within the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Visit PDL’s wonderful web site at http://www.defendinglife.org/pro-life_new_mexico/index.html.
From Associates
Pro-Life Wisconsin
Pro-Life Wisconsin recently made an open records request to each of the 72 counties in Wisconsin (using STOPP guidelines for defunding Planned Parenthood) and found that Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is receiving county taxpayer funds from five counties. PLW also discovered that, in addition to these county funds, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin received $5,450,448 in 2007, under Wisconsin’s Family Planning Waiver Program. Through this federal/state program, minors as young as 15 receive free birth control, without their parents’ knowledge or consent. See http://www.prolifewisconsin.org/news_story.asp?id=258 for the full press release.
Pro-Life Waco
Pro-Life Waco is once again challenging Planned Parenthood Waco’s annual Nobody’s Fool youth conference that will take place on July 15. Nobody’s Fool is a “sex education program” for Waco-area children entering grades 5-9 in the fall.
See Pro-Life Waco’s web site at http://www.prolifewaco.org/fool05.htm for information on past campaigns, to view the yard sign Pro-Life Waco designed for the protest (http://www.prolifewaco.org/email/Takethehighroad.jpg and to watch for similar conferences that may be coming to your community!
Children of God for Life
Is there a link between aborted fetal DNA, and the rise in autism and autism spectrum disorder? A new study is underway by Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, the nonprofit arm of AVM Biotechnology and strategic partner of Children of God for Life. Read the June 2009 newsletter at www.cogforlife.org/SCPIJune2009news.pdf.
Tip of the month – Human Embryos and Scientific Language – Part 1
Following are excerpts from “’Pre-embryos’ and ‘Pre-embryo substitutes’: Safeguarding human life ‘from the very beginning?’” by Dr. Dianne Irving. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_164safeguardinglife.html How difficult it has been to "safeguard human life" from "the very beginning." Indeed, especially over the last 40 years or so, the value of human life has diminished steadily and rapidly – especially with regard to its "beginning.” Yet, even aside from the important and significant "personhood" debates, the Church has consistently taught that the mere fact that there is a living innocent human being before us is sufficient to safeguard the life of that human being even at its very beginning. But precisely when is "the first moment of its existence"? Without doubt, the abuse of language, especially scientific "language," has shrouded clear facts about precisely when the "first moment of its existence is," and has hastened this drastic decline in the respect for human life. This linguistic abuse has been both purposeful as well as naively equivocal. That is, it is not just because of the willful and devious use of language by ardent supporters of [the culture of death], but also because even many of those who are dedicated to this "safeguarding" themselves fall victim to the use of erroneous "scientific" terms. The result is an amazingly long list over the decades of what I have often referred to as "pre-embryo substitutes." Given that this linguistic phenomenon continues unabated as we speak, it might be of help to remind ourselves of how very subtly these linguistic twists can come about so that we can be more sensitive to identifying them. Generally speaking, there are a number of ways that the misuse of simple scientific "language" can slip into our rhetoric and our thinking processes without notice. The 'Pre-Embryo' First, it is to be noted historically that the authors of the now officially rejected false scientific term "pre-embryo" were a Catholic Jesuit priest and a Catholic frog biologist – Fr. Richard McCormick and Clifford Grobstein. According to them, there is an important scientific and moral distinction to be made between a "human being" and a "human person." That is, they agreed that the immediate product of fertilization was a human being (a "genetic individual"), but before 14-days it was not yet a human person (a "developmental individual") with a rational soul, and thus with the same ethical and legal rights and protections as all other human persons. Before 14-days there was just a "pre-embryo," a "non-person," and although it should be "respected," it is still ethical to kill this "pre-embryo" for proportionate reasons. Of course, this "distinction" of McCormick and Grobstein between a "human being" and a "human person" is a false distinction, a "distinction" without a real difference. This false pseudo-scientific term "pre-embryo," and its accompanying false term "individuality," was finally, formally rejected by the international nomenclature committee in human embryology. That committee made it clear that, at fertilization (sexual human reproduction), the "embryo" begins to exist immediately. Thus, scientifically, there is no such thing as a "pre-embryo" that exists after fertilization and before 14-days. There is, rather, an already existing embryo. However, the "pre-embryo" had already been institutionalized by then (even around the world), and many on both sides of the aisle were not happy with this formal scientific refutation of their supra-useful linguistic invention. For those who wanted to pursue IVF, abortion, research, etc., they would have to come up with some other false scientific terms to scientifically "justify" what they wanted to do. And thus began "stage two" of this sort of verbal deception required to "scientifically" justify all manner of projects with the early human embryo. This "stage" I have often referred to as consisting of "pre-embryo substitutes." That is, the term "pre-embryo" must now necessarily be dropped, but the same agenda could be accomplished by substituting other false "science" in its place, or simply leaving out legitimate early phases of human embryonic development as if they didn't exist. Next week: Part 2 – “Pre-embryo substitutes”
News
Generic Plan B pregnancy prevention approved for teens
A generic version of the morning-after-pill known as Plan B has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for prescription use by women aged 17 and under. The new generic version is manufactured by Watson Pharmaceuticals of Corona, California. They call their version “Next Choice.”
http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/sexual-health/plan-b-pregnancy-prevention-approved-teens-3358.html
£6m drive to cut teen pregnancies sees them DOUBLE
A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving. The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex. But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the program, at a cost of £2,500 each, were "significantly" more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programs who were not given contraception and sex advice.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198228/6m-drive-cut-teen-pregnancies-sees-DOUBLE.html#
Stunning new technology allows parents to hold a life-size model of their unborn child
It's a defining moment in a parent's life: Seeing their unborn child's image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby. The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student's Ph.D.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1195703/The-stunning-new-technology-allows-parents-hold-life-size-model-unborn-child.html Abortions double premature tot risk
Women who have had an abortion or miscarriage are more likely to give birth to a premature baby, researchers have found.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/06/29/abortions-double-premature-tot-risk-115875-21480051/ Abortion has greater impact on parenting than other forms of pregnancy loss, new review finds
A new review of studies examining various types of prenatal loss and the effects on subsequent parenting has concluded that abortion may be "particularly damaging to the parenting process."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070603.html
Gardasil safety continues to raise concerns
Since the introduction of Gardasil HPV vaccine, the FDA has reported forty-seven deaths. According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, "The already serious problems associated with Gardasil seem to be getting worse. No one should require this vaccine for young children."
http://www.examiner.com/x-14041-Charlotte-Health-and-Happiness-Examiner~y2009m6d28-Gardasil-safety-continues-to-raise-concerns
First clinical trials completed of adult cardiac stem cell repair
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles have announced the successful completion of the first human trials in growing new heart tissue from adult cardiac stem cells, which the researchers hope will be successful in repairing damage due to heart attacks.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09063005.html
GE to use embryonic stem cells
General Electric is entering into a venture with Geron Corp. to commercially develop products from human embryonic stem cells, including developing sample human cells that drug companies can use to test the toxicity of new drugs. The use of embryonic stem cells to develop other types of human cells entails the destruction of human life.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1336
Closing Thought
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
DON'T BE FOOLED: PLAN B ONE-STEP CAUSES ABORTION
Washington, DC (30 July 2009) - American Life League’s Marie Hahnenberg, director of The Pill Kills project, issued the following statement on Plan B One-Step, an abortifacient “emergency” contraceptive newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:
“Planned Parenthood and the birth control industry would have you believe Plan B One-Step cannot cause an abortion. That is a lie.
“In 1965, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a Terminology Bulletin that ‘officially’ changed the definition of “conception” from the union of sperm and egg to implantation. As a result, the medical establishment does not call the killing of a human being prior to implantation an abortion. But that is just semantics.
“Plan B One-Step works like any other abortifacient drug: It can alter (thin) the lining (endometrium) of the mother’s uterus so that the newly-formed baby cannot implant and thus dies. Plan B One-Step’s product information itself states, “It may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium).” Direct abortion is the willful ending of a preborn human being’s life. Plan B One-Step is thus a direct abortion method. Women should not allow themselves to be misled by sales representatives for Plan B and Plan B One-Step, who claim that these products will not terminate an existing pregnancy.
“Unfortunately, the birth control industry and Planned Parenthood – the nation’s largest abortion chain – have tricked many women into aborting their tiny children. Plan B One-Step, Plan B, the birth control pill, IUD and other hormonal birth control products can all cause abortions. Period.
“So, the next time you hear that Plan B or Plan B One-Step cannot cause an abortion, you will know the truth. Plan B products kill.”
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: American Life League: The Pill Kills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUe4Lk-yUI Plan B One-Step: Product Information
http://www.planb1step.com/pdf/PlanBOneStepFullProductInformation.pdf Newsweek: Preventing Pregnancy 'One-Step' Easier: FDA Approves Simpler Plan B (15 July 2009)
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/07/15/preventing-pregnancy-one-step-easier-fda-approves-simpler-plan-b.aspx
NEW VIDEO 'LAWS, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE' EXPOSES PROPAGANDA
Washington, DC (04 August 2009) – American Life League recently released the latest ALL Report exposing the the half-truths of the abortion-promoting National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).
The video, “Laws, Lies and Videotape,” dissects four stories pro-abortion groups claim are examples of the effects of Human Personhood legislation.
“The examples provided by NAPW omit vital information that invalidate their entire premise,” said Michael Hichborn, host of the American Life League Report. “One story sounded almost convincing, until we discovered that it wasn’t personhood legislation that caused the problem, it was Roe v. Wade. But why include information damaging to your case, right?”
“Laws, Lies and Videotape” is currently available on American Life League’s home page, www.all.org<http://www.all.org/> and on YouTube under the same title.
“Our video is meant to serve as a reminder to pro-lifers that we can and must expose the lies of the abortion lobby,” said Hichborn. "Human personhood is a inalienable, fundamental human right—every human being should be a person under the law."
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League: Laws, Lies and Videotape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myo0F1jpv4Q
Pro-Life Today | 24 July 2009 HEADLINES
Pro-Life Leaders Mobilize Over 36,000 to Stand Against 'Abortion Mandate'
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090724/pro-life-leaders-mobilize-over-36-000-to-stand-against-abortion-mandate/index.html
Christian Post
Over 36,000 Americans joined a last-minute nationwide webcast Thursday to hear from more than a dozen top-level pro-life leaders about the massive effort to mandate taxpayer-funded abortions as part of a proposed trillion-dollar healthcare takeover.
Congressman Smith Warns of Phony Abortion "Compromise" Obama Health Care Overhaul
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=96745
EWTN
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) released a statement today cautioning Americans to be wary of Congress attempts to compromise on abortion funding and expressed concern that any alteration in the language of the proposed authentic pro-life amendments may leave room for ambiguity allowing millions more abortions. "Just as Americans are beginning to more fully appreciate and more fully understand the colossal threat posed by Obamacare to the culture of life including a massive expansion of abortion and rationing for the sick and frail elderly, some in Congress are now trying to cobble together a phony compromise on abortion mandates, and abortion funding," the congressman began. "While we have yet to see the language, please beware."
Number of U.S. abortion clinics falling
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/23/Number-of-US-abortion-clinics-falling/UPI-55291248359957/
UPI
Women seeking to terminate pregnancies in the United States are facing a dwindling supply of providers, an abortion rights group says.
Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ...
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY SEX: GOOD, BABIES: BAD
By Kortney Blythe This mindset seems to be common in the pro-death camp.
Take, for instance, this quote by Elisabeth Garber-Paul in an article on the rise in sexual activity during this economic recession: So join the rest of America in this exciting new trend. Save money, stay in, have sexjust don't make a baby.
That's right, Elisabeth, throw respect for yourself out the window and spit in the face of God by removing one of his intentions for intercourse. More babies will just make the economy worse, right? Wrong. In fact, one of the reasons we are even in this recession is because of the plummeting birthrate. There simply aren't enough people to replace the retiring population in the workplace and pay for Social Security, or to stimulate the economy.
Not that you'll hear about that from the anti-human, overpopulation zealots. But do your research. Watch Demographic Winter and Demographic Bomb, two documentaries which debunk the overpopulation myth and ask a very important question: Is it possible we have been failed by the very ideas we thought could save us? It goes without saying that abortion advocates think saving sex for marriage is ludicrous and archaic. Just check out the title of a book just released by radical feminist Jessica Valenti: The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women.
In an interview on the rabidly pro-abortion RH Reality Check web site, Valenti purports that teaching and honoring purity is just as dangerous as the media's pressure on sexuality and the hypersexualization of women. Oh, really? So, protecting young people from the heartbreak and emptiness of premarital sex, not to mention a load of sexually transmitted diseases, is akin to the objectification of women, the result of which has been a generation of depressed, confused girls with eating disorders?
She goes on to say. The purity myth is so embedded in our culture and our psyche. You don't have to be forcing your daughter to take a virginity pledge in order for the fiction of virginity to affect your life. Really? Then why does every Hollywood film end (or begin) with a couple jumping into bed together? If it's so embedded in our culture, then why are abortion, STD and teen pregnancy rates so high? (I'm not going to even legitimize her term fiction of virginity with a response).
As if that isn't enough, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a new program is paying high school girls not to get pregnant. That's right. For every day they stay baby-free, $1 is deposited into an account to be used for college. According to a local TV news report, the group was founded by Hazel Brown, “a maternity nurse who thought too many teens were having babies. Ms. Brown, how about seeing the root of the problem? Too many teens are having premarital sex. The problem is not the presence of a baby, but the actions of his mother and father, which resulted in his existence.
The three goals of this program, called College Bound Sisters, are for the girls to “avoid pregnancy, graduate from high school and enroll in college, Brown said. Oh, what lofty goals we have for our young people!
Teenagers rise to the expectations that are set for them. If all we ask is that they avoid pregnancy (and we'll even pay them for that!), what are we teaching girls about sex, relationships, the value of children or personal responsibility, for that matter? Instead of urging purity and self-control, and demonstrating the joys of a quiver full of children (Psalm 127:3-5) within marriage, this program bribes young girls. If those same girls were taught basic biblical morality, they wouldn’t be having sex, and thus, there would be no chance of pregnancy.
The message of this program in a nutshell: Go ahead and sin against God by having damaging premarital sex, but just make sure you avoid one of the outcomes: babies.
If only young people knew the joy and blessings they are missing out on when they use sex for purely physical and selfish reasons! Then, and only then, would they cherish chastity as it should be cherished.
To my single friends reading this, please flee from this deadly mentality of me-first, pleasure-seeking sex without consequences. Seek righteousness, pursue holiness and practice chastity.
But understand this: There will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them. (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Kortney Blythe is the chapter and street teams coordinator for American Life League's Rock for Life project, which brings the human personhood message to youth through music, education and human rights activism. This commentary originally appeared in the July 2, 2009 issue of the RFL Report.
Pro-Life Today | 23 July 2009 HEADLINES
Obama: "Let's Not Get Distracted" over Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Coverage in Healthcare
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072212.html
Life Site News
In a CBS Evening News interview yesterday evening, President Obama dodged a question on his position regarding taxpayer-funded abortion coverage in the healthcare bill, saying only that concerned citizens should not get "distracted" with the contents of the new healthcare's essential package. The only direct statement Obama has made regarding abortion's role in the health legislation came before he was elected during a July 2007 Q&A session before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, where Obama called abortion "at the center, the heart of" his healthcare overhaul. Congressman Makes Bid to Strip Planned Parenthood of Title X Funds
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072209.html
Life Site News
A US Congressman has proposed an amendment that would eliminate millions of dollars in federal funds for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, which has lately come under public scrutiny after numerous employees across the country were caught on camera failing to inform law enforcement of child victims of sexual abuse. U.S. House Representative Mike Pence, (R-Ind.) submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services, which would make Planned Parenthood ineligible to receive Title X funds for "family planning" services. The Pence Amendment, submitted to the House Rules Committee, states, "None of the funds made available under this Act shall be available to Planned Parenthood for any purpose under Title X of the Public Health Services Act." Webcast targets abortion-funding mandate
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104728
World Net Daily
Jim Sedlak of American Life League. He is considered one of the leading experts on the harm caused by Planned Parenthood and has helped to close dozens of Planned Parenthood facilities. Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CHURCH TEACHING AND HUMAN REPRODUCTION
By John B. Shea, M.D., FRCP(C) Contraception:
The Catholic Church teaches that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally excluded … is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or the woman. This teaching prohibits contraception by means of the condom, intrauterine device, vasectomy, tubal ligation and chemical contraception by the use of oral contraceptives, morning-after pills, or the administration of contraceptives by injection or in a skin patch. The reason for this prohibition is that contraception breaks the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act. Contraception greatly dishonors marriage, the greatness of which is beautifully described by Dietrich von Hildebrand. No natural human good has been exalted so high in the New Testament. No other good has been chosen to become one of the Seven Sacraments. No other has been endowed with the honor of participating in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The wonderful, divinely appointed relationship between the mysterious procreation of a new human being, and this most intimate communion of love illuminates the grandeur and solemnity of this union. Thus it is that in order to preserve the reverent attitude of the spouses toward the mystery of this union, this general connection between procreation and the communion of love must always be maintained. History has clearly demonstrated how prescient Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) was when he predicted that the practice of contraception would cause the man to lose respect for the woman, considering her a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment. The gigantic increase in the incidence of abortion and of sexually transmitted infections bears witness to the promiscuity that followed the legalization and wide availability of chemical contraceptives. The pope also warned of the danger that public authorities which take no heed of moral exigencies would try to solve problems of the community by means illicit for married couples. Witness the worldwide promotion of contraception and abortion fostered by the United Nations today, and also the mandatory one-child policy of the government of China. Paul VI, in Humanae vitae, stated that if, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate births without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier. Pius XII taught that unless some serious circumstances arise, spouses are obliged to have children. However, he also teaches that it is moral for the spouses to limit their family size or even to refrain from having children altogether, if they have sufficiently serious reasons. He stated that “there are serious motives, such as those often mentioned in the so-called medical, eugenic, economic, and social indications, that can except for a long time, perhaps even during the whole duration of the marriage, from the positive and obligatory carrying out of the act. The 1965 Vatican document The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) teaches that “among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decisions, courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large number of children. It also states that it is the duty of the parents, and of them alone, to decide on the number and spacing of children, and that they should take into consideration their own good and the good of their children already born or yet to come, and ability to read the signs of the times and of their own situation, on the material and spiritual level, and finally, an estimation of the good of the family, of society, and of the Church. The morally acceptable way for spacing the birth of children is called “Natural Family Planning. One of the best methods is the Hilgers system. The effectiveness rates of this method for avoiding pregnancy have been shown to be 99.5 to 98.8 at the twelfth month of use. This compares favorably to the pill, of which Planned Parenthood's web site states, Of 100 women who use the Pill, only 8 will become pregnant during the first year of typical use. Relevant medical facts Some chemical contraceptives abort all of the time. All of them abort some of the time. They do this by preventing implantation of an embryo in the uterus. Elites in the medical profession try to justify their use of the word “contraceptive by stating that there is no embryo before implantation. This statement is false. The science of human embryology demonstrated, over 100 years ago, that a new individual human being comes into existence when the single-cell zygote is formed, either by fertilization or by cloning. Using the oral contraceptive pill before the first child is born causes a 40-percent increase in the risk of breast cancer. Taken for four or more years before the first child is born increases that risk to 72 percent. The OCP also increases the risk of cancer of the cervix of the uterus and of the liver. The condom does not provide complete protection from the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infection.
Artificial reproductive technologies:
A human being can be brought into existence by the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm. This can be achieved by sexual intercourse or in the laboratory by in vitro fertilization. Reproduction of a human being can also be achieved by cloning. There are many different methods of cloning that include nuclear transfer, embryo splitting, etc. The Church teaches that IVF and human cloning are morally forbidden. Why? IVF between husband and wife is condemned because it is illicit in itself, and in opposition to the dignity of procreation and the conjugal union. IVF in which the sperm or ovum of a third person is used is also condemned because, in addition, it violates the reciprocal commitment of spouses and shows a grave lack of regard for that essential property of marriage which is unity. It also deprives the child of her or his filial relationship with parental origins, can hinder the maturing of personal identity, can damage personal relationships within the family and has repercussions on civil society.
IVF is neither, in fact, achieved nor positively willed as an expression and fruit of a specific act of conjugal union. The human embryo is treated as a product of technology and not as a gift of God. In its use and in the use of many other techniques of genetic engineering, a human person is objectively deprived of his or her proper perfection. Such fertilization establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the person. This domination is contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. Therefore, IVF and cloning are morally unacceptable.
Relevant medical facts • Few children conceived by IVF are ever born. In each cycle, six to eight embryos are conceived. At most, two are implanted. The rest are either disposed of immediately or are frozen, and eventually, most die. Only 25 percent of those conceived are implanted, and of them, only 20 percent are born. Therefore, only five percent of IVF embryos are born alive. The Australian bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini calculates that the chance of saving a given frozen human embryo by implantation is less than two percent. Birth defects associated with assisted reproductive technologies: 4.9-7.2 fold increase in malignant tumor of the retina; five percent incidence of Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome (large tongue, predisposition to cancer); in Brazil, incidence of cancer increased 117 times; cerebral palsy increased 1.4 -1.7 times; fourfold increase in developmental delay; premature birth increased 5.6 times; low birthrate increased 9.8 times and heart deformity increased four times.
To achieve IVF, a woman is given hormones to stimulate the development of many ova at the same time. This may cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and breathing difficulty. In rare cases, blood clots, kidney or lung disease may occur and may be life-threatening. Dr. Thomas Hilgers FertilityCare System: Dr. Hilgers Natural Procreative Technology is a method of care that involves precise diagnosis of the hormonal caused of infertility, and its appropriate treatment. It is also morally acceptable as a way to help an infertile woman to conceive, and is two to three times more successful than IVF, at a fraction of the cost. One study on women who had previous failed IVF, showed a success rate of 36.2 percent. The Hilgers system has been shown to be up to 80-percent successful in helping women to have a successful pregnancy after they have suffered repeated miscarriages. It cuts the rate of premature birth in half, thus helping to reduce the incidence of brain damage. For more information, about the Hilgers System for avoiding or achieving pregnancy, contact the Marguerite Bourgeoys Family Centre Fertility Care Program; 688 Coxwell Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4C 3B7, Canada; phone 416-365-2868; e-mail fertilitycare@sympatico.ca Dr. John B. Shea is a retired diagnostic radiologist and a fellow of the Royal College of Canada. This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Catholic Insight magazine and is reprinted here with its kind permission. For more information on the availability of the FertilityCare System in the U.S. and Canada, visit www.fertilitycare.org; call 402-390-6600; or write to FertilityCare Centers of America, 6901 Mercy Rd., Omaha, NE 68106.
Pro-Life Today | 22 July 2009 HEADLINES
Planned Parenthood spearheads effort to influence Obama health care
http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/07/22/news/nation/doc4a609919ac53b103102816.txt
The Bulletin
The nation's largest provider of abortions laid siege to Capitol Hill Thursday lobbying lawmakers to include women's health issues in the massive Obama health care plan. On Thursday, a gaggle of Planned Parenthood staff, board members and volunteers visited 250 lawmakers on the Hill. Their purpose, as stated by a Planned Parenthood release, was to ensure “any health care reform effort must include access to comprehensive reproductive health care.
Congress seeks to force taxpayer funding for D.C. abortions
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104615
World Net Daily
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that will force taxpayers to pay for abortion in the nation's capital and now the Senate is considering the measure. The House voted 219-208 for the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, H.R. 3170, July 16, and now a companion bill is being considered by the Senate. It provides $768 million in federal money for the Washington, D.C., government. Restrictions on using taxpayer dollars for abortions were lifted when the House rejected an amendment that would have retained a ban on using local taxpayer funds to pay for abortions in Washington, D.C.
Anti-abortion group sues over arrests
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20135030/detail.html
WBALTV
A pro-life group is suing several Maryland agencies, saying they've been unfairly targeted by State Police. Defend Life Inc. and its associates admitted their message is controversial Tuesday but said state troopers are stepping on their First Amendment rights. The graphic images often used by anti-abortion groups on roadsides are hard to miss and forget, 11 News reporter John Sherman said, but Defend Life insisted that is their point and that they have the constitutional right to make it. On Aug. 1, 18 protesters were arrested on Route 24 in Bel Air. Minutes before, troopers confronted the protesters. Videotape showed a trooper tried to tell them they needed a permit to protest on the roadside.
Ginsburg's remark stirs an old debate: Abortion, eugenics and the meaning of Margaret Sanger
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/22/ginsburgs-remark-stirs-an-old-debate-abortion-eugenics-and-th/
Politics Daily
There is a disquieting reason Ruth Bader Ginsburg's defenders have been denying, however implausibly, the clear meaning of the Supreme Court justice's recent remarks about the history of abortion law, and that reason is this: Historically, eugenics has always been a significant component of the intellectual underpinnings – and political impetus – of the movement to legalize abortion.
Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CATHOLIC HEALTH CARES DEMISE IS IT IMMINENT?
By Judie Brown There was a time when institutions bearing a Catholic identity, such as hospitals and clinics, would never have agreed to even the slightest hint of deviating from the Catholic Church’s teachings. That was, I am sad to say, a very long time ago.
Today, there appears to be a slow deterioration in the Catholic identity of Catholic health-care institutions. I started to become aware of this over 10 years ago, when the Peoria Protocol first came to my attention. For those unfamiliar with it, the Peoria Protocol, first developed in 1995, was put in place at Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois. The Protocol defines permissible approaches to medical care following a sexual assault. Following are two of its four possible courses of action: * The woman is determined to be past the early post-ovulatory phase of her cycle if the LH urine test is negative and her progesterone level is greater than or equal to 6 ng/mL. In this situation, the timing of the sexual assault could not have coincided with the presence of an ovum. Hence, it is morally permissible to administer an emergency contraceptive for the victim's psychological benefit.
* Finally, the woman is determined to be in the late post-ovulatory phase if the LH urine test is negative, her progesterone level is less than 6 ng/mL, and she anticipates menstruation in less than seven days. Here, too, it is morally permissible to administer a contraceptive medication. These two statements, while approved by many Catholic medical ethicists, represent a fundamental moral problem. If the Catholic Church does not condone the use of contraception as medical treatment in any case other than a situation involving a serious medical condition and in which the female abstains from sexual relations during such treatment, how can it be permissible to administer a powerful chemical compound that is known to abort, when there is no serious medical condition and alternative therapies exist? Neither of the above scenarios described in the Peoria Protocol provide a 100-percent guarantee that a child has not been conceived. Moreover, these statements are nuanced and do not provide adequate safeguards to protect the child, should his conception have occurred as a result of the rape.
One has to wonder why a Catholic hospital would even consider this treatment option. Saint Francis Medical Center is also involved in dispensing oral contraceptives. The news media reports that its involvement in the distribution of birth control pills is the direct result of a middle ground decision: [W]hen OSF Saint Francis began hiring primary care physicians in the 1990s as part of OSF Medical Group, many of the physicians wanted to prescribe oral contraceptives. Much anguished discussion ensued, said Joseph Piccione, corporate ethicist for OSF Healthcare System.
Yet a middle ground was found. No contraception of any kind would be distributed within the four walls of the hospital itself, Piccione said. Regardless of walls, there is no Catholic doctrine that would sanction an arm's-length agreement that the birth control pill can be dispensed under the aegis of the Church. Then there's the California case involving known abortionists serving as staff physicians for Catholic hospitals. When Wynette Sills first brought this to our attention earlier this year, we investigated, only to find to our dismay that, in fact, the situation is as she originally described it. As Bud Reeves reports, We want our readers to know that we are continuing with our investigation as well as with our direct action activities regarding Mercy San Juan Hospital (MSJH) and Catholic Healthcare West's (CHW) practice of allowing identified abortion doctors to practice at MSJH and even be promoted on their webpage. CHW originally excused their promotion and use of three identified abortion doctors as a matter of an insurance requirement. Following my (Bud) efforts to get clarification from Mr. Gardner, last week he sent me a one sentence email which now claims that federal law requires CHW hospitals to allow the abortion doctors to practice in their hospitals. I wrote back to Mr. Gardner and asking him for a meeting or at least giving us the citations for the laws he refers to. So far nothing but silence from Mr. Gardner. Keep this in prayer. It is probably no accident that about a year ago, Catholic Healthcare West entered into an alliance with human cloning practitioner Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. While it is reported that Catholic Healthcare West will be conducting clinical trials of adult stem cell treatment for heart disease, this alliance raises serious ethical questions, due to the fact that ACT has previously promoted research that contradicts Catholic principles regarding respect for the rights of the human embryo.
The problematic nature of such agreements, arrangements and alliances is not by any means limited to Illinois and California. It is a nationwide epidemic, rooted in the age-old dilemma of choosing between God and money. This becomes very clear when revisiting the complexities of the Boston archdiocese's Caritas Christi mess. You may recall that American Life League was quick to commend Cardinal Sean O'Malley when the archdiocese made this announcement on June 26: Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers. But, within days, we received a telephone call informing us that the agreement had actually not been cancelled. Carol McKinley reported this on her blog, which has thus far not been refuted: Nobody (including other bishops and cardinals) is able to get details out of the cardinal about what it is he has approved. I think our Catholic pro-life force deserves to know what the actual arrangement is.
But we do have an inkling when we consider the statement Cardinal O'Malley made, as quoted in the Boston Globe: By withdrawing from the joint venture and serving the poor as a provider... upholding Catholic moral teaching at all times, they are able to carry forward the critical mission of Catholic health care. The newspaper's analysis: Because Caritas will no longer be a joint owner of the insurance venture, the archdiocese is hoping that there will no longer be any question that Caritas will not financially profit from abortions, sterilizations, or other services provided by non-Catholic hospitals.†A Caritas spokeswoman told the Globe. This is the right way to move the distraction of the debate of ownership and allow us to be a provider. Here is noted Catholic commentator Phil Lawler’s response: A debate over involvement in killing unborn babies is a distraction’ from the business of saving lives. A debate over mutilating people to make them infertile is a distraction from the distinctive mission of Catholic health care.
So we are left to wonder if all this means is that Caritas Christi is no longer a an official business partner of abortion providers, but still connected with them in some way. Does it mean that Catholic hospitals will continue to refer for abortion, use the morning-after pill to treat rape victims and so forth? Nobody knows!
As I write this, similar problems are developing in New Hampshire, where the pressure is on Catholic hospitals to bend to the will of the state. New Hampshire Right to Life has prepared a set of three videos dealing with the challenges they face at this time. As was the case in Massachusetts, the cause of concern is a merger.
Wisconsin’s Catholic hospitals are also under the gun. Just last year, they were forced to dispense emergency contraception and did not sue, or in any other way, act to protect their Catholic identity. So what will happen now?
Well, the answer, which is frightening to say the least, may be contained in a short commentary written by Catholic Health Association's president and CEO, Sister Carol Keehan, DC, who attended the March 5 Obama White House Health Reform Summit. She tells us, President Obama also was clear that we will have to spend more money in the immediate future to build the infrastructure to lower health care costs in order to achieve the kind of savings and affordability in the future. He pointed out that this is politically one of the hardest kinds of decisions to make. It occurs to me that the various pressure tactics already being used by state governments to pressure Catholic hospitals into doing the unthinkable are but one way to tighten the noose as Obama-care becomes a reality, if, in fact, it does. What also occurs to me is that our bishops must speak with a unified voice, without any dissent and without any bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. They must set forth authentically Catholic medical ethics as the only medical ethics that will be followed in a Catholic setting”with or without mergers, alliances or “common-ground shenanigans. Until that happens, Catholic health care, as we once knew it, will continue to deteriorate and, at some point, will crumble.
Pro-Life Today | 21 July 2009 HEADLINES
Kathleen Kennedy Attacks the Pope for Obama
http://www.turkishforum.com.tr/en/content/2009/07/21/kathleen-kennedy-attacks-the-pope/
Turkish Forum
Among the voices decrying Townsend's column is Judie Brown, president and co-founder of the American Life League, a pro-life organization.
YouTube Bans Student Group's Video Showing Abuse at Planned Parenthood, Group Protests Politically Motivated Censorship
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/7416111014.html
Christian Newswire
In a censorship that appears politically motivated, the popular video-sharing site YouTube has blocked a video critical of Planned Parenthood made by the student-led nonprofit Live Action. The video shows a Planned Parenthood clinic in Birmingham offering to "bend the rules" of Alabama's parental consent and mandatory reporting laws in order to cover up statutory rape with a secret abortion, and has opened an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office into the nation's largest abortion provider.
White House Refuses to Rule out Taxpayer Funding for Abortion in Health-Care Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072004.html
Life Site News
As President Obama races against the clock to push nationalized healthcare through Congress, the New York Times has picked up on the growing fear among Americans that the bill will ultimately spell taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand. In a Sunday article, the Times reported that White House budget director Peter Orszag refused to rule out taxpayer money paying for abortion under the bill. "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now," said Orszag. "It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate." Orszag's response corresponds to the refusal by committees in both chambers to pass several amendments that would have explicitly restricted the government-funded healthcare from covering abortion. In addition, major pro-abortion groups have praised the new healthcare arrangement as setting the stage for promoting abortion as "basic healthcare."
Did you miss today's episode of ...
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY IS ABORTED FETAL DNA LINKED TO AUTISM?
By Theresa A. Deisher, Ph.D. Just when the pharmaceutical industry thought the vaccine-autism controversy had been resolved, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee has recommended further study of vaccine safety. A perceived fear of the safety of the U.S. vaccination schedule has led increasing numbers of parents to opt out of full compliance. The numbers of children who are not fully vaccinated has now reached a point where her immunity may be compromised, compelling the Centers for Disease Control to hold town-hall meetings and convene a Vaccine Safety Working Subgroup. Despite research ruling out mercury (Thimerosal) or the measles portion of one specific vaccine, autism continues to rise to a level of one in every 64 children in the UK.
The NVAC draft report recommends further study of the potential for vaccines to contribute to autism in children who have underlying mitochondrial disease, a worthwhile study given the clinical history of such children developing autism after vaccinations (see Poling case). What the NVAC has overlooked, however, in their recommendations, is that epidemic regressive autism is associated with the switch from using animal cells to produce vaccines to the use of aborted human fetal cells for vaccine production. Now when we vaccinate our children, some vaccines also deliver contaminating aborted human fetal DNA. The safety of this has never been tested.
Autism and autism spectrum disorder are polygenic diseases, meaning that multiple genes have been shown to be associated with these diseases. Studies have also clearly shown that there is an environmental component, a trigger, that is required. Vaccines are an obvious potential environmental trigger for autism because of the almost universal childhood exposure to vaccines in first world countries. The vaccine-autism connection was first hypothesized following the introduction of a new measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to the U.S. in 1979, with complete U.S. market share by 1983, and to the UK in 1988. Autism rates began to rise in the U.S. after 1979 and rose dramatically after 1983, and likewise rose in the UK after 1988, leading physicians to suspect a link. Initially, the measles component of this vaccine, MMR II, was suspected to be the culprit. Subsequent studies have also focused on the presence of mercury in vaccines, which incidentally, the MMR II vaccine did not contain.
Those studies have largely ruled out the new measles portion of the MMR II or mercury as the environmental trigger for autism. However, the compelling temporal association between this new MMR vaccine and autism cannot be ignored or explained away. What has been ignored is the fact that this new MMR vaccine introduced the use of aborted fetal cells for vaccine production. At one point, as much as 94 percent of children in the U.S. and 98 percent of children in the UK were given this vaccine.
Today, more than 23 vaccines are contaminated by the use of aborted fetal cells. There is no law that requires that consumers be informed that some vaccines are made using aborted fetal cells and contain residual aborted fetal DNA. While newer vaccines produced using aborted fetal cells do inform consumers, in their package inserts, that the vaccines contain contaminating DNA from the cell used to produce the vaccine, they do not identify the cells as being derived from electively aborted human fetuses. (See the Varivax chicken pox package insert for the presence of MRC5 residual DNA.)
In other words, they tell you what is in the vaccine, but they don't fully inform you where it came from. The earliest aborted fetal cell-produced vaccines such as Meruvax (rubella) and MMR II do not even inform consumers that the vaccines contain contaminating DNA from the cell used to produce them. Furthermore, it is unconscionable that the public-health risk of injecting our children with residual contaminating human aborted fetal DNA has been ignored.
How could the contaminating aborted fetal DNA create problems? It creates the potential for autoimmune responses and/or inappropriate insertion into our own genomes through a process called recombination. There are groups researching the potential link between this DNA and autoimmune diseases such as juvenile (type I) diabetes, multiple sclerosis and lupus. Our organization, Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, is focused on studying the quantity, characteristics and genomic recombination of the aborted fetal DNA found in many of our vaccines.
Preliminary bioinformatics research conducted at SCPI indicates that hot spots for DNA recombination are found in nine autism-associated genes present on the X chromosome. These nine genes are involved in nerve-cell synapse formation, central nervous system development and mitochondrial function.
Could genomic insertion of the aborted fetal DNA, found in some of our childhood vaccines since 1979, be an environmental trigger for autism? Could the fact that genes critical for nerve synapse formation and nervous system development are found on the X chromosome provide some explanation of why autism is predominantly a disease found in boys? Could the hot spots identified in these autism-associated genes be sites for insertion of contaminating aborted fetal DNA?
These questions must be answered, and quickly. Recent literature suggests that autism spectrum disorder may now impact one out of every 100 children. The pharmaceutical industry is also currently moving to replace more animal-produced vaccines with aborted-fetal-cell production and also to produce biologic drugs using aborted fetal cells.
The practice of using aborted fetal cells for vaccine and drug production creates wrenching moral dilemmas for parents and consumers, ignores informed consent rights, and exposes our children and ourselves to contaminants lacking safety evaluations. We cannot ignore this issue in good conscience, and we cannot afford to wait. Dr. Deisher is president of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (www.soundchoice.org), as well as a cofounder and the research and development director for Ave Maria Biotechnology Company (www.avmbiotech.com), which promote pro-life biotechnology. This article is an adaptation and update of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute’s June 2009 newsletter and is published with its kind permission. For more information on Dr. Deisher, see "Providing real choice: A conversation with Dr. Theresa Deisher" in American Life League's Celebrate Life magazine (January-February 2009) .
Pro-Life Today | 20 July 2009 HEADLINES
Colorado personhood amendment goes to title board
http://www.gazette.com/articles/span-58615-div-12px.html
AP
A proposed constitutional amendment that would protect the rights of embryos is advancing. On Thursday, the personhood amendment proposal got the approval of legislative staffers assigned to review and make recommendations on all ballot measures. Next it must be reviewed by the state title board, which makes sure that all voter initiatives only address a single topic. The proposed amendment says the term "person" would apply to every human being "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."
House approves publicly funded abortions in D.C., cans D.C. school vouchers
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071706.html
Life Site News
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill that allows the District of Columbia to fund abortions and legalize the consumption of marijuana for medicinal purposes, but phases out a school-voucher program designed to help lower-income class parents send their children to a school of their choice.
The next generation of the pro-life movement
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1675/the_next_generation_of_the_pro-life_movement
Religion Dispatches
Earlier this month, Personhood USA, along with the American Life League, launched personhood initiatives in Colorado and Montana, seek[ing] the passage of state constitutional amendments that would define every human being as a human person under state law, from the beginning of their biological development, an American Life League report declared.
Don't miss tomorrow's EXCITING episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CHANGE: BUT IN WHAT DIRECTION?
By Ken Connor There is no doubt that President Obama's most valuable political asset is his remarkable charisma—his ability to send the spirit of the nation soaring on the wings of hope and change. Among the hopeful visions and promises of change articulated by Mr. Obama in his inaugural speech this past January was a vow to "restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality." Six months into his term, a picture of the president's understanding of science and its "rightful place" is emerging, and it is anything but flattering. President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a propensity to elevate "science" over ethical considerations in pursuit of utilitarian goals. He has shown himself to be all too willing to sacrifice principle, morality and the most vulnerable among us for the sacred "achievements" of social and scientific progress. This penchant of the president to disregard the importance of protecting innocent human life should come as no surprise. As a state senator, Mr. Obama opposed legislation mandating emergency medical treatment for infants who survived an attempted abortion because he felt that a live baby would "add one more burden on a woman." Still, one would hope that President Obama, famed "reconciler of opposites," would find a way to strike a balance between his pro-abortion, pro-"science" constituency and his pro-life supporters. On the issue of life however, Mr. Obama has thus far proven himself to be unwilling or unable to find that mythical "common ground" he so eloquently spoke of in his commencement address at Notre Dame. In his short time in office, the president has disbanded his council on bioethics (apparently they spent too much time talking about ethics), overturned limits on embryonic stem cell research instituted by President Bush, ended federal funding of abstinence-based education in favor of funding for contraception-based education, lobbied for federal funding for abortion in Washington, D.C. and supported the addition of an abortion provision in the behemoth health-care bill currently winding its way through Congress. Perhaps most revealing is the elimination of the President's Council on Bioethics, a distinguished group of experts who explored the ethical and public policy implications of emerging biomedical developments such as cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The Council provided an important forum for discussing such matters, thereby fostering the development of a reasoned consensus about how to proceed through uncharted territory. One would think that such a role would hold great attraction for President Obama in light of his stated commitment to discussion and debate; yet time and again, Mr. Obama has demonstrated that when it comes to protecting innocent human life, he is unwilling to allow ethical concerns to impede scientific "progress." Mr. Obama appears to view any "advance" in science as an intrinsic good that is always beneficial to mankind. This is the same mentality that animated the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. In the 21st century, this mentality has given rise to a "disposable man" ethic that dictates that embryonic stem cell research should proceed unencumbered, regardless of its lack of success and regardless of the fact that each tiny embryo dissected in our quest for our improvement or immortality represents the willful destruction of nascent human life. Obama's disposable man mentality may also be seen in his approach to pregnancy and abortion. His decision to de-fund abstinence education makes it clear that he sees no utility in a principled approach to preventing unplanned pregnancies. Obama apparently believes that the abstinence-only approach is stifling and outdated. Why encourage teens to defer sex until marriage? Their hormones are, after all, raging. We’ll just provide condoms on the front end, and if that doesn’t do the trick, abortion on the back end—all at taxpayer expense, of course. Problem solved; principle be damned. Taking a cue from President Obama's approach to eliminating "problems" without addressing root causes, Planned Parenthood, the nation's number one abortion provider and recipient of millions in federal taxpayer dollars, has shown itself willing to break the law and bury reports of the abuse of underage girls requesting abortions. Under the organization’s utilitarian view of life, it doesn't matter how a girl got pregnant—even if it was through the commission of a crime. Planned Parenthood is in the business of solving the "problem" of unwanted pregnancy through abortion. Period. But what about those who, based on principle, refuse to perform—or assist in the performance of—an abortion? If President Obama has his way, the days of conscientious objection will soon be over. Medical practitioners who refuse to train in these procedures or offer these services will be guilty of—you guessed it—an ethics violation! President Obama has made it crystal clear where he stands on questions of medical ethics and human life. And rest assured, it is nowhere near middle ground. In his inaugural address, the president invoked a noble vision for America: "The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.... Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency's sake." As he advances his agenda, President Obama would do well to remember his own inspiring words and ask himself if his policies will preserve the American tradition of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or whether they will sacrifice these precious ideals on the altar of utility and scientific expedience. Ken Connor is chairman of the Center for a Just Society (www.centerforajustsociety.org), an attorney and coauthor of Sinful Silence: When Christians Neglect Their Civic Duty. This article was originally published by the Center for a Just Society on July 10, 2009 and is reprinted here with its kind permission. Respond to Ken
http://www.all.org/newsroom_judieblog_response.php?id=268
<Previous | Next Page> CATHOLIC MASS HONORING KENNEDY LEGACY RAISES STRONG QUESTIONS Washington, DC (27 August 2009) – Once again, President Barack Obama will be given a Catholic stage to eulogize the memory of a man whose life was spent committed to the destruction of innocent preborn life. And once again, the bishops are silent.
The New York Times reported that in his later moments, Senator Kennedy began attending daily Mass, prayed often, and called for Father Patrick Tarrant moments before his death on Tuesday evening.
“The deaths of untold millions of preborn babies rested on the conscience of Ted Kennedy,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “There is an impending disaster about to take place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. Senator Edward Kennedy spent the past 30 years doing all he could to advocate and support the act of procured abortion - including his divorce, remarriage, et cetera -- and yet he continued to call himself Catholic,” stated Brown. “These are public matters, not private.”
“If we are led to assume Kennedy was remorseful of his pro-abortion past and repented, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley should make this known to the Catholic faithful clearly – before the media and pro-abortion politicians turn Kennedy’s death and Mass honoring his memory into yet another victory,” said Brown. “If this remains unclear, what will millions of Catholic Americans be led to believe as Obama canonizes Kennedy’s pro-abortion legacy on live television?”
“The truth does not change because of the respect the world is paying to this man. The Catholic principles which Cardinal Sean O’Malley has sworn to uphold have not disappeared because of Senator Kennedy's death,” continued Brown. “If this funeral Mass proceeds as planned, Sen. Edward Kennedy will have spit one more time on Christ, this time from a casket.”
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
Pro-Life Today | 24 August 2009 HEADLINES
Wisconsin Requiring Catholic Institutions to Provide Contraceptive Coverage
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97183
EWTN
The bishops of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) have issued a statement to the state's Catholic faithful expressing their deep concern about a state provision that requires providers of health insurance include contraceptive services. The rule will force Catholic dioceses and other agencies to pay for a gravely immoral service, the conference says.
Pro-life Groups Organize in Response to 'Abortion Mandate'
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97186
EWTN
Responding to President Barack Obama's efforts to rally sympathetic religious groups to back his proposed health care legislation, pro-life groups have organized prayer campaigns and issued protests of the proposal's abortion mandate.
Amnesty International Supporter Leaves over Abortion
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97185
EWTN
The British woman Fiorella Nash owes the release of her father from prison in Malta in the 1970s to Amnesty International. For Nash, supporting the organization over the years was a given, but recently she decided to suspend her support because of group's pro-abortion agenda.
For more headline news, click here for ALL's Daily News Summary. FEATURE STORY WHO IS REALLY ‘WEE-WEED UP’?
By Judie Brown President Obama has resorted to an incredibly infantile phrase wee-weed up ”to degrade his "health care reform" detractors. While the White House has now explained this remark as the president describing opponents of his health care debacle as agitated bed wetters, the truth is sobering”not silly. In fact, Obama's opponents are perhaps a bit more honest than he would like; thus, the insults.
Having said that, the worrying fact is that there is still an enormous number of well-meaning people, including Catholics, who simply do not want to see the truth about what is and is not contained in the various proposals currently floating around Congress. One example recently came my way via a Facebook comment.
A very sincere Catholic wrote to me about American Life League's opposition to the "health care reform" plan, even though our concerns stem from the fact that the proposals are based on imposed death as a cost-saving measure. The more I read and reread her earnest viewpoint on the matter, the more I am convinced that far too many Catholic Americans have never heard of the Church's teachings. Either that, or they do not understand and accept them. Such confusion results from a type of Catholic ignorance which Americans like Obama count on, day in and day out.
I am so concerned about it that I want to share her comments and then provide the reasons why she is fundamentally misguided. Dear Ms. Brown, I am also a Catholic. I do not believe in abortion and have marched many times in the annual March for Life. I have been ridiculed by onlookers but have always stood firm in my beliefs. Nevertheless, I believe President Obama is a good man. I believe if he says he is not in fact planning to fund abortions that his health care package will not fund them. I believe in everything he stands for except this one thing. I know it is a very BIG thing. But I believe in nothing the Republican Party stands for except this one thing. I stand with the Pro-Life Democrats (most of whom are Catholics) because I believe in uplifting the poor, the worker, the homeless and downtrodden. I believe in cleaning up and taking responsibility for our environment and endangered animals. I believe that life is sacred, Ms. Brown, even the lives of the millions already here who, maybe through no fault of their own, maybe through their own fault, need a hand up. I believe if we have a government that can help, that needs to happen if we are to follow the footsteps of Christ as a nation... This should not be a political issue at all, and you, Ms. Brown, should do your work in that way, not involving yourself in politics. If, in fact, abortions are funded, you can expose that once the legislation takes effect. I do not believe the president is a liar so I do not believe they will be funded. In any case, it will not cause more abortions to take place than would have taken place otherwise. And it will definitely not be tax dollars that pay for abortions since the dollars the program will run on will not be tax dollars. Anyone who wants to opt out can certainly do that and pay nothing. B.E. My correspondent does not understand that pro-life organizations and spokespeople who maintain their credibility are those who have not and will not align themselves with any political party. The reason for this is simple: Our party, if you will, consists of those who have no voice, either because they are not yet born or are in danger of becoming victims of euthanasia. They are people incapable of defending their right to life. These human beings do not wear a partisan label; they wear only a hope that we will defend them and be their voice.
B.E.'s belief in uplifting the poor, the worker, the homeless and downtrodden is not only a reflection of the Beatitudes, in which we all should believe, but a fundamental mandate for pro-life people, because our commitment to human dignity does not end at birth, nor does it end with imposed death. We are pro-life in every sense and stand with B.E.
When B.E. goes on to express her belief in being responsible for the earth and all that is a part of it, she reflects the stewardship that God has assigned to us. It is indeed our responsibility to respect and care for that which He has created and entrusted to us, His children. In fact, it is what Pope John Paul II described in Centesimus annus as the foundational characteristic of a just culture: All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture. For an adequate formation of a culture, the involvement of the whole man is required, whereby he exercises his creativity, intelligence, and knowledge of the world and of people. Furthermore, he displays his capacity for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness to promote the common good. (Section 51) And it is here, at this critical juncture between the individual and his fellow man, that a serious rupture occurs between what is perceived by some as the U.S. president's honorable goals and the reality of what he intends.
There can be no solidarity unless man accepts his moral obligation to defend the weakest in our midst. As anyone who follows American Life League's mission knows, there are countless numbers of preborn children killed daily by human embryonic stem cell research, early abortion chemicals marketed as contraceptives, as well as surgical and medical abortion. Each of these individual persons is a member of our human family, and their fate is part of our responsibility if, indeed, we wish to live in a just society.
So, when President Obama claims, for example, that we who have found abortion in the "health care reform" proposals are “bearing false witness against him, we decry his arrogance. Perhaps B.E. has not seen the fallacy of his public pronouncements, but all one needs to do, really, is examine the legislation, as we at American Life League did in our latest ALL Report, Obamacare: Abortion's Trojan Horse. The viewer can read about abortion in at least one of the bills by viewing actual statements from the bill that are exhibited in this video.
Or review the statements of ABC News chief medical editor, Dr. Timothy Johnson, who, among others, says, If you look at the language, it gets complicated. It's not crystal clear whether or not that could happen with a so-called public option, and even with private plans that might be subsidized by the government, maybe abortion would be allowed.
So who is the one deceiving the public? Even though B.E. does not believe that the president is a liar, she needs to examine the factual evidence, not for the purpose of making a pejorative judgment about anyone, but to inform herself so that she understands what is being said versus what is being promoted.
If, as B.E. suggests, we remain silent now and ignore the evils contained in the various "health care reform" bills, it would not be spiritually healthy for any of us, nor would it be politically feasible to go back and fix the problem later! Pro-lifers have heard that argument regarding other pieces of legislation. We have learned from painful experience that, in politics, usually nothing is improved in order to agree with God’s word. Usually, revisions result in more evil. The sad history of the Hyde Amendment, which allegedly bars the use of tax dollars to pay for abortion, is a testimony to such failure.
No, the time to fix the deadly aspects of "health care reform" proposals is now. The time to see that justice is done for one and all is now, not later.
Finally, on a personal note and as one Catholic to another, B.E., let me say that, as Catholics, we know how to reach out to those in danger of dying because they do not have adequate health insurance or because their health care is nonexistent. We know because we learned it from and some of us have witnessed it in the work of Mother Teresa and countless others whose names are not readily known, all of whose work has left a legacy of love. It is called charity! It is the willingness of one community of faithful people to reach out and give of itself for the good of others.
The federal government has never understood charity, and it is not a source of Christ-like care. It is a bloated bureaucracy badly in need of cost-cutting measures, and that is the most fearful of truths when honestly assessing what “health care reform is actually all about. The American Health Care Association says seniors would face billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.
That does not sound like good news to me! It is a warning and should be uppermost in B.E.'s thoughts and prayers as she continues, as each of us should, to be concerned for the most vulnerable in our midst.
God save us from silly phrases and deadly agendas.
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 29 August 3, 2009
New Associate Groups
Please join me in welcoming two new Associate groups this week – Loreto House and AMEN (Abortion Must End Now)!
Loreto House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Denton, Texas which exists to promote and enhance the sacredness of life at all stages – in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Specifically, the volunteers of Loreto House provide information, education and material resources to pregnant women in need, married couples, post-abortive men and women, and to the elderly and disabled. Loreto House is truly a “sanctuary of hope.” The current executive director is Laurie Bollig. See the Loreto House website at www.loretohouse.org. AMEN (Abortion Must End Now) is a relatively new group, formed earlier this year in Yuma, Arizona. Volunteers with AMEN make it their mission to demonstrate to all the sanctity of life, as they vow to defend life from conception to natural death and put an end to abortion once and for all. Though young, the group has taken a very active role educating the community through its presence at the local fair, church events and prayer vigils at the local Planned Parenthood. The president of AMEN is Kristy Lien. See their website at www.amen4life.org. All of us here at American Life League are both pleased and proud to be working with so many wonderful groups; and we look forward to assisting these two new Associates in their future endeavors!
Tip of the Month – Population
From Handbook on Population by Robert Sassone
To date, we have looked at claims by population control advocates that the world was running out of many of its natural resources. We have also pointed out that the opposite is actually true when it comes to both petroleum supplies and water. Today, we look at whether or not earth is running out of unused living space. Many live in cities and assume the whole world is like their cities. In reality, cities cover less than 1% of the earth’s land surface. If you look at a population density map, you find that most square miles of land in the world have less than one family living in them! If you divide the land of the earth into square kilometers, about half have nobody living in them. While large numbers of people believe that some land is more desirable than other land, experience shows that people differ. Millions want, and do, live in desert, mountain, cold, jungle or other climates that others might consider unlivable. If everyone were huddled together in a big ball, the ball would be about one half kilometer (1/4 mile) in radius. One person could walk from the center to the farthest person in about five minutes. All the people in the world could stand in about 143 square miles. In other words, if you had everybody in the world standing in one place, you could put them in about 20% of the area of Jacksonville, Florida, or 10% of the area of Juneau, Alaska, and have room left over. If everybody in the world wanted to lie down on one flat surface with nobody touching anybody else, you could put all in about 650 square miles. In other words, you could put them all inside the city limits of Jacksonville or in any one of several other cities with room left over! There are about 6 billion people in the world averaging in weight less than 100 pounds each, so that all together, they weigh about 300 million tons. This is about the weight of the bugs eaten by the world’s spiders each month. About 13,000 square miles of the world’s surface is taken up by housing. The actual area for homes may even be less than this, since many live in apartments or multi-story structures which take even less space. Road mileage throughout the world is about 12.5 million miles. Mileage of railroads is only a tiny fraction of road mileage. Total land surface actually used as cropland is estimated by the UN to be about 3 million square miles. When we add together all human artifacts such as homes, paving, buildings, etc., they take up about 100,000 square miles. This is one-sixth of 1% of the land area of the world of about 58 million square miles. (All calculations are available in the text of Handbook on Population.) If everyone in the world lived in the United States, they could live better than they do now. They could have roomier residences with more space than they have now in an area less than the size of Alaska. If you include space for industry, parks, etc., and assume they live as urbanized as one-third of American people live, everybody in the world could have their homes, parks, etc., on about 15 percent of US land. The rest of the US land would be sufficient to grow enough food to feed everybody in the world comparable to how they eat now, assuming yields comparable to those in the highest agricultural yield nations. If everyone lived like they do in New York City, they could all live in Arizona and New Mexico. Each of 44 US states alone could hold all the world’s people if they were as densely populated as Manhattan in 1970. Next month: World population decline
News
New research backs abortion-breast cancer link
A Turkish researcher has reported a statistically significant 66 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women who have had an abortion.
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=96826
Abortion - more harm than good
A survey shows increased recognition of the harm of abortion. The poll conducted by Marist College suggests that over half (53%) of the American public believes abortion does a woman more harm than good.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=620574
Gardasil causes 400 percent more deaths than other common vaccine
A federal report has concluded that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil has a 400 percent higher rate of adverse effects than another comparable vaccine, the Menactra anti-meningitis shot. http://www.naturalnews.com/026722_Gardasil_HPV_cervical_cancer.html
Stem cell therapy gives folk singer his voice back
It's heartening to see Baba Anand (65), the noted folk singer of the state, who had fallen seriously ill one-and-a-half-years ago, singing straight from his heart again. Thanks to Institute of Kidney Disease and Research Centre (IKDRC), Anand's recovery has been quick enough. The centre pioneered in locally producing cardiac stem line from fat extracted from the singer's abdominal wall and improved his heart function by treating him with stem cell therapy!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/City/Ahmedabad/Stem-cell-therapy-gives-folk-singer-his-voice-back/articleshow/4813315.cms
Researchers may have found equivalent of embryonic stem cells
Chinese scientists have bred mice from cells that might offer an alternative to human embryonic stem cells, producing the most definitive evidence yet that the technique could help sidestep many of the explosive ethical issues engulfing the controversial field but raising alarm that the advance could lead to human cloning and designer babies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072301786.html?hpid=topnews
New artificial stem cells have their own ethical issues
Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are created by reprogramming adult tissue into a versatile, embryo-like state, have been described as an ethical breakthrough … These reprogrammed cells, however, address only in part the moral objections of those who think that embryos have the same right to life as born people. They also raise their own ethical challenges.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6725335.ece
Editor’s Note: ALL, along with a small handful of other pro-life organizations, warned that pro-lifers in general were being too hasty in their praise of iPS stem cells. See the following: Huge “Ethical” Embryonic-like Stem Cell Discovery not so Ethical After All
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08010803.html Why Are We Celebrating the Reprogramming of Adult Cells?
http://www.cogforlife.org/reprogramandethics.htm
Reprogramming Stem Cells – or Pro-lifers’ Minds? January 2009
http://www.cogforlife.org/
Interview: Head of Vatican's liturgical office says principle of refusing communion is "charity in truth"
Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the head of the Vatican’s liturgical office, emphasized in an interview that the withholding of Communion is meant for the person’s spiritual salvation.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072304.html
Closing Thought
"Whatever is forced on you contrary to the Christian faith, whatever is presented to you contrary to the commandments of God, it comes from the deceptions of the one who tries with many wiles to divert you from eternal life." –Pope St. Leo the Great, Magnificat, July 2009, p. 107
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 28 Monday, July 27, 2009
New Associate Group
Please join me in welcoming the newest Associate group to join our Program – Baby Steps, c/o St. Vincent and St. Mary of the Crown Catholic Churches in Carbondale, Colorado!
Baby Steps c/o St. Vincent and St. Mary’s chose their name after viewing and discussing ALL’s video 'Baby Steps' at their first organizational meeting. Baby Steps is comprised of members of both parishes under the leadership of their pastor, Fr. José Sáenz, and Mrs. Bonnie Kowar. The group seeks to educate both the parish communities as well as the community at large on the life issues, coordinate pro-life efforts with other local churches and support the local pregnancy resource center. ALL is particularly honored by the way in which Baby Steps chose their group name. We are also quite pleased to announce that the addition of this new group brings the total number of ALL Associates to 100! Watch for details on celebratory events soon!
From Associates
Pro-Life Waco
See the three minute mini-documentary on Pro-Life Waco’s opposition to Planned Parenthood’s 2009 Nobody’s Fool “sex education” event (as well as other Pro-Life Waco videos) at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pro-Life+Waco&search_type=&aq=f.
Editor’s Note: The article appearing in this issue under Tip of the Month concerning Planned Parenthood philosophies contains graphic language that may not be suitable for children.
Tip of the month – Parent Power
From Parent Power!! By Jim Sedlak
After reading accounts such as those in our previous newsletters, many people ask staff and supporters of STOPP, “Why do you people do this?” Many, including Planned Parenthood, do not understand what makes us expend this type of effort for no material gain. They don’t understand what is so bad about Planned Parenthood programs that gets people upset enough to basically give up all of their free time to fight for the demise of these programs. We will now take a look at the basic philosophies of Planned Parenthood as they relate to the subjects taught in typical Family Life Education programs. Our source for determining these philosophies is a book entitled How to Talk with Your Child About Sexuality which was written by Faye Wattleton while she was president of Planned Parenthood (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York; copyright 1986 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.). The stated intent of this book (page 5) is to provide parents with information on the subject of sexuality so that these parents can become “the best source” of information for their children. The book then proceeds to offer information on a variety topics concerning sexuality. Of particular interest is some of the information provided in Chapter 7, “The Top Seven Questions.” The first two of the “top seven” questions deal with the physical changes of boys and girls during puberty and the wording is, on the whole, informative and accurate. However, included in this section on puberty is a topic almost always included in Planned Parenthood literature – masturbation. Wattleton’s book states that the “modern view” of masturbation is that it is a natural and harmless expression of sexuality. The advice given to parents who see a small child fondling himself for the first time is to use the occurrence as a “teachable moment,” reassuring the child that masturbation is “something practically everyone does because it feels good…and that there’s nothing wrong with it.” Planned Parenthood also tells parents that “…many boys, at some point in their development, make it a group event with one or more boys.” Another of the “top seven questions” deals with discussing intercourse and pregnancy with your children. The book strongly recommends that these conversations take place with 10 to 12 year olds. While the book encourages frank discussion of these topics and the parents’ values, it also states that teenagers have the right to make their own decisions on this matter and that parents actually “owe” them certain reassurances if they choose to become promiscuous! It should be noted that Planned Parenthood has a major adversary in this pushing of sex education on young children. Sigmund Freud contended that the period of life from six to twelve years was, normally, a “sexual latency” period where one usually suppresses sexual interest and develops other important behavioral capabilities. Freud, in fact, states that an undue dwelling on sexual matters during this time of life would hinder a person’s normal development. Freud’s concept is so well accepted that Wattleton had to take the time to address it in her book. On page 52, Wattleton brings up the Freud “latency idea” and then dismisses it in three short paragraphs. The book describes a “more widely accepted view” that sex education for this age group is okay but does so without citing any scientific studies or giving the name of even one reputable scientist who agrees. It obviously doesn’t fit their philosophy, so they dismiss it. On the other side of the issue, psychologist Melvin Anchell wrote in a 1986 edition of National Review of the accuracy of Freud’s “latency period” and goes so far to say that today’s sex education programs for the young are DIAGRAMS FOR DISASTER! And which one of us, after viewing the state of our nation following years of this garbage in our schools, would disagree? Next month: Planned Parenthood philosophies continued.
News
Unborn child's memory develops by 30 weeks in the womb: New research
30-week-old babies in the womb already have short-term memory capabilities, a new study from the Netherlands, published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development, has found. The scientists found that at thirty weeks, the child in the womb has a short-term memory of about ten minutes. At 34 weeks, the child can store information and retrieve it up to four weeks later.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071602.html
Lines that divide: The great stem cell debate
Scientists at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, are discovering a potential cure for leukemia and sickle-cell disease. How? By using blood stem cells from the placentas of women who have had Caesarian deliveries. But researchers at the hospital are frustrated. State agencies have made multi-million-dollar grants available for embryo-destructive research, but money is scarce for its ethically sound counterpart, adult stem cell research.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090715/lines-that-divide-the-great-stem-cell-debate/index.html
Students embed stem cells into sutures for tendon repair
Biomedical engineering students from Johns Hopkins have demonstrated a way to use stem cells from a patient to help repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The students demonstrated a method of embedding the patient's own stem cells into a surgical thread that the surgeon uses to repair torn tendons.
http://www.dailytech.com/Students+Embed+Stem+Cells+Into+Sutures+for+Tendon+Repair/article15747.htm
The dirty secret of embryonic stem cell research
"The routine utilization of human embryonic stem cells for medicine is 20 to 30 years hence," embryonic stem cell research advocate William Haseltine and then-chief executive officer of Human Genome Sciences told Agence France Presse in 2001. "The timeline to commercialization is so long that I simply would not invest," he added.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/15/stem-cells-research-cancer-opinions-contributors-embryonic-funding.html
Study confirms cohabitation leads to higher chance of divorce and lower relationship quality
A new study published in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that couples who live together before getting engaged and/or married are more likely to get divorced than those who don't move in together until engagement or marriage, and that couples who live together before engagement report lower satisfaction in their marriages.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071502.html
Closing Thought
With determination and God’s help all of us can attain Christian moral perfection by persistent effort and prayer. Not all of us are expected to die a martyr’s death, but we are all called to the pursuit of Christian moral virtue. This demands strength of character and…a constant, persistent and relentless effort right up to the moment of our death. - Pope Pius XII
A.L.L.’S HUNDREDTH ASSOCIATE GROUP INSPIRED BY ‘BABYSTEPS’ DVD Washington, DC (29 July 2009) – American Life League welcomed its 100th Associate group this week – an organization inspired to take the name “Baby Steps” after viewing ALL’s guided DVD tour of a baby’s development in utero via 4D ultrasound.
Baby Steps joins the ALL Associate Program which has grown, in the past five years, from just 29 to 100 (and counting!) groups in over half of the states in the nation, plus associated groups in Canada and Africa.
“As the personhood movement gains momentum around the country, more and more grassroots organizations are ready to fight for human rights for all human beings,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “After 36 years of legalized murder in this country, the grassroots are shouting, ‘No more!’ And ALL’s Associate Program provides a community dedicated to the same mission – personhood.”
The new group, Baby Steps, based in Carbondale, Co., one of the most pro-abortion areas of the state, is a collaboration between members of two Roman Catholic parishes – St. Vincent and St. Mary of the Crown. The group is dedicated to supporting personhood through the needs of men and women in crisis pregnancies with everyday help, prayer, education and activism.
“Our goal is to teach personhood,” said Bonnie Kowar, co-founder of Baby Steps. “Our feeling is that once the Holy Spirit helps create the understanding of personhood in one’s heart, the rest of the truths will follow.”
“Real cultural change happens and lives are saved at the grassroots level,” Brown said. “We are so excited to work with Baby Steps and our 99 other Associates working around the clock to defeat what Pope John Paul II named the culture of death.”
According to Fr. Saenz, chaplain of Baby Steps, this new collaboration means their best efforts are yet to come. “American Life League is the nation’s premier organization working to end abortion and establish a true Culture of Life in our country. We are excited to join their nationwide family and look forward to working with them for a very long time to come,” said Fr. Saenz.
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League: Associates Program
http://www.all.org/associates/ American Life League: Baby Steps
http://babystepsdvd.com/
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 27 Monday, July 20, 2009
Tip of the month – Human Embryos and Scientific Language – Part 2
Following are excerpts from “’Pre-embryos’ and ‘Pre-embryo substitutes’: Safeguarding human life ‘from the very beginning?’” by Dr. Dianne Irving. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_164safeguardinglife.html In Part 1 of her article distributed last week, Dr. Irving pointed out how difficult it has been to "safeguard human life" from "the very beginning," particularly when the abuse of language, especially scientific "language," has shrouded clear facts about precisely when the "first moment of its existence is," and has hastened this drastic decline in the respect for human life. First, there was the “pre-embryo,” a false pseudo-scientific term which has since been formally rejected by the international nomenclature committee in human embryology. Scientifically, there is no such thing as a "pre-embryo" that exists after fertilization and before 14 days. There is, rather, an already existing embryo. But, the "pre-embryo" has been institutionalized, so "stage two" of this sort of verbal deception begins by substituting other false "science" in its place – or simply leaving out legitimate early phases of human embryonic development as if they didn't exist. "Pre-embryo Substitutes" One example of this is to claim that the "zygote" is the beginning of when a human being begins to exist. But this would render the human being already existing before the formation of the "zygote" non-existent. By claiming he or she is neither a human being nor a human person, it can be used simply as "biological material", especially in human genetic engineering research, etc. This "biological entity" is often referred to in the literature as a "pre-zygote" - that is, what is there from the beginning of fertilization up to the formation of the zygote is not a human embryo or a human being. It is just a human "cell.” However, the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development make it clear that the "zygote" formed at the end of the process of fertilization is not when a new human being begins to exist. Before that, the developing embryo (in Stage 1 of the Carnegie Stages) begins with "first contact" of the sperm with the oocyte, followed by, respectively, the phases of development referred to as "the penetrated oocyte" and the "ootid." In other words, the new human embryo begins to exist at first contact, at the beginning of the process of fertilization. Another example of leaving out specific stages of early human embryonic development can be found in several definitions in laws and regulations. A classic example are the formal definitions of "fetus" and "pregnancy" in federal guidelines for the use of human subjects in research as both "beginning at implantation". [A]ll women (rather than just those undergoing IVF or ART) become pregnant only at implantation; before that they are not "pregnant" [and therefore, the use of abortifacients, embryo flushing, prenatal genetic diagnosis, as well as all manner of human embryo research, are "ethical"]. Or, one can add to specific stages of early human embryonic development. Look at a more recent example: "Embryos are no different in their essential humanity from a fetus in the womb, a 10-year old boy, or a 100-year old woman. At every stage of development, human beings (whether zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, adolescent or adult) retain their identity as an enduring being that grows toward its subsequent stage(s); embryos are integral beings structured for maturation along their proper time line." The order of scientific terms that should inclusively mean the embryo at all of its various early stages is shifted. Listing the term "embryo" after them, as if what came before was not an embryo, makes the embryo during those earliest of phases of development essentially disappear. Thus we have this following subtle but spurious "pre-embryo substitute" which for all the world sounds very prolife. To the casual observer, by adding the term "embryo" after the terms "zygote" and "blastocyst" - followed by "fetus", "infant", etc. -- it would appear that the "zygote" and the "blastocyst" are something other than an "embryo" when, in fact, these are early stages of embryonic development. Again, one can make a "pre-embryo substitute" by articulating only one kind of human reproduction. For example, one can claim that all human beings begin to exist at "fertilization" or at "conception". But by definition, that makes all human beings reproduced asexually disappear.
Perhaps the most daring, and most successful, "pre-embryo substitute" was concocted by human cloning and human embryonic stem cell researchers Irving Weissman, Michael West, et al. For these researchers, the immediate product of both sexual and asexual human reproduction is "just a cell" - not a human being, not a human organism, not a human embryo. And the "blastocyst" from which "stem cells" are derived is simply "a ball of cells." These researchers also concocted another way to get rid of the human embryo - in fact, they got rid of the human embryo and the human fetus - by making a false distinction between "therapeutic" and "reproductive" cloning. They claimed that the product of "therapeutic cloning" was just a bunch of cells; the product of "reproductive cloning" was a human being - but not until it was born! They also enjoyed defining "cloning" only in terms of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) - thus making all of the other dozens of kinds of human cloning techniques disappear. Indeed, such "pre-embryos" and "pre-embryo substitutes" as noted above are particularly useful in laws and regulations involving the early human embryo, because often such innovative and imaginative but false scientific terms used in legal definitions are legally "exclusionary" - and thus create useful legal loopholes. It's enough to make our collective heads spin! Correct Formation of Conscience As noted, the abuse of language concerning the early human embryo is an ongoing concern; ever new, inventive and imaginative "pre-embryo substitutes" appear almost on a daily basis. This is why it is important to be aware of and acknowledge the long-established and documented empirical facts of human embryology.
As Pope John Paul II warned,
“The end result of this is tragic: not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life... “...[W]e need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception... Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things.” (Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995, Sections 4 and 58).
News
Consuming secondhand steroids
[F]ew in the general public are aware that oral contraceptives ("the Pill"), levonorgestrel ("the morning-after pill"), and mifepristone, or RU-486 ("the abortion pill"), are also all steroids. In fact, they are the same sort of synthetic anabolic steroids that are illegal for professional athletes to take, but they are anabolic for female tissues (like breast tissue) rather than muscle. In 2006, the World Health Organization acknowledged that the estrogen-plus-progestin drugs (birth control pills and combination hormone replacement drugs like Prem-Pro) cause cancers in the breast, cervix, and liver.
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/bri/bri_01steroids.html
Teva gets FDA approval for new version of Plan B
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said Monday the Food and Drug Administration approved the company's one-pill version of the emergency contraceptive Plan B. The drug has been available in a two-pill dose.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Teva-gets-FDA-approval-for-apf-2981810969.html?x=0&.v=1
Pharmacists can't refuse Plan B pill, appeals court says
Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the "morning after" contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pill-ruling9-2009jul09,0,6469894.story
Report on 'medical abortions' somewhat misleading
A new report on the abortion-drug regimen known as RU-486 may leave a false impression of safety. The report suggests that about one-fourth of the abortions in America are induced using RU-486, a two-drug combination that causes the death and abortion of an unborn baby. One of the concerns surrounding usage of that regimen has to do with the number of deaths and serious side effects, including infection. Such infections have claimed a number of lives. But another problem still persists -- excessive bleeding -- because that is just a fundamental part of the regimen.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=599150
Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg: I thought Roe would help eradicate unwanted populations through abortion
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to have made a stunning admission in favor of cleansing America of unwanted populations by aborting them. In an interview with the New York Times, the judge said that Medicaid should cover abortions, and that she had originally expected that Roe v. Wade would facilitate such coverage in order to control the population of groups "that we don't want to have too many of."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070901.html
Closing Thought
“To fall in love with God is the greatest of romances, to seek Him the greatest adventure, to find Him the greatest human achievement.” —St. Augustine
Associate Newsletter Volume 6, Number 26 Monday July 13, 2009 New Associate Please join me in welcoming the newest addition to our Associate Program: Project Defending Life! Project Defending Life (PDL) is a Catholic umbrella ministry in New Mexico that sponsors many pro-life ministries, including a Holy Innocents Chapel, Gabriel Project, Intercessors for Life, Books for Life, Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and Mom’s Ministry – all with a special focus on ending all abortions. PDL maintains a pro-life chapel just 50 feet from a Planned Parenthood abortion center. Father Stephen Imbarrato is the founder and chaplain of Project Defending Life. He is a priest in the archdiocese of Santa Fe and long-time pro-life activist. Father Imbarrato works with PDL's Board of Directors to oversee a growing staff of part-time volunteers who coordinate pro-life action in the geographical areas within the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Visit PDL’s wonderful web site at http://www.defendinglife.org/pro-life_new_mexico/index.html.
From Associates
Pro-Life Wisconsin
Pro-Life Wisconsin recently made an open records request to each of the 72 counties in Wisconsin (using STOPP guidelines for defunding Planned Parenthood) and found that Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is receiving county taxpayer funds from five counties. PLW also discovered that, in addition to these county funds, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin received $5,450,448 in 2007, under Wisconsin’s Family Planning Waiver Program. Through this federal/state program, minors as young as 15 receive free birth control, without their parents’ knowledge or consent. See http://www.prolifewisconsin.org/news_story.asp?id=258 for the full press release.
Pro-Life Waco
Pro-Life Waco is once again challenging Planned Parenthood Waco’s annual Nobody’s Fool youth conference that will take place on July 15. Nobody’s Fool is a “sex education program” for Waco-area children entering grades 5-9 in the fall.
See Pro-Life Waco’s web site at http://www.prolifewaco.org/fool05.htm for information on past campaigns, to view the yard sign Pro-Life Waco designed for the protest (http://www.prolifewaco.org/email/Takethehighroad.jpg and to watch for similar conferences that may be coming to your community!
Children of God for Life
Is there a link between aborted fetal DNA, and the rise in autism and autism spectrum disorder? A new study is underway by Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, the nonprofit arm of AVM Biotechnology and strategic partner of Children of God for Life. Read the June 2009 newsletter at www.cogforlife.org/SCPIJune2009news.pdf.
Tip of the month – Human Embryos and Scientific Language – Part 1
Following are excerpts from “’Pre-embryos’ and ‘Pre-embryo substitutes’: Safeguarding human life ‘from the very beginning?’” by Dr. Dianne Irving. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_164safeguardinglife.html How difficult it has been to "safeguard human life" from "the very beginning." Indeed, especially over the last 40 years or so, the value of human life has diminished steadily and rapidly – especially with regard to its "beginning.” Yet, even aside from the important and significant "personhood" debates, the Church has consistently taught that the mere fact that there is a living innocent human being before us is sufficient to safeguard the life of that human being even at its very beginning. But precisely when is "the first moment of its existence"? Without doubt, the abuse of language, especially scientific "language," has shrouded clear facts about precisely when the "first moment of its existence is," and has hastened this drastic decline in the respect for human life. This linguistic abuse has been both purposeful as well as naively equivocal. That is, it is not just because of the willful and devious use of language by ardent supporters of [the culture of death], but also because even many of those who are dedicated to this "safeguarding" themselves fall victim to the use of erroneous "scientific" terms. The result is an amazingly long list over the decades of what I have often referred to as "pre-embryo substitutes." Given that this linguistic phenomenon continues unabated as we speak, it might be of help to remind ourselves of how very subtly these linguistic twists can come about so that we can be more sensitive to identifying them. Generally speaking, there are a number of ways that the misuse of simple scientific "language" can slip into our rhetoric and our thinking processes without notice. The 'Pre-Embryo' First, it is to be noted historically that the authors of the now officially rejected false scientific term "pre-embryo" were a Catholic Jesuit priest and a Catholic frog biologist – Fr. Richard McCormick and Clifford Grobstein. According to them, there is an important scientific and moral distinction to be made between a "human being" and a "human person." That is, they agreed that the immediate product of fertilization was a human being (a "genetic individual"), but before 14-days it was not yet a human person (a "developmental individual") with a rational soul, and thus with the same ethical and legal rights and protections as all other human persons. Before 14-days there was just a "pre-embryo," a "non-person," and although it should be "respected," it is still ethical to kill this "pre-embryo" for proportionate reasons. Of course, this "distinction" of McCormick and Grobstein between a "human being" and a "human person" is a false distinction, a "distinction" without a real difference. This false pseudo-scientific term "pre-embryo," and its accompanying false term "individuality," was finally, formally rejected by the international nomenclature committee in human embryology. That committee made it clear that, at fertilization (sexual human reproduction), the "embryo" begins to exist immediately. Thus, scientifically, there is no such thing as a "pre-embryo" that exists after fertilization and before 14-days. There is, rather, an already existing embryo. However, the "pre-embryo" had already been institutionalized by then (even around the world), and many on both sides of the aisle were not happy with this formal scientific refutation of their supra-useful linguistic invention. For those who wanted to pursue IVF, abortion, research, etc., they would have to come up with some other false scientific terms to scientifically "justify" what they wanted to do. And thus began "stage two" of this sort of verbal deception required to "scientifically" justify all manner of projects with the early human embryo. This "stage" I have often referred to as consisting of "pre-embryo substitutes." That is, the term "pre-embryo" must now necessarily be dropped, but the same agenda could be accomplished by substituting other false "science" in its place, or simply leaving out legitimate early phases of human embryonic development as if they didn't exist. Next week: Part 2 – “Pre-embryo substitutes”
News
Generic Plan B pregnancy prevention approved for teens
A generic version of the morning-after-pill known as Plan B has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for prescription use by women aged 17 and under. The new generic version is manufactured by Watson Pharmaceuticals of Corona, California. They call their version “Next Choice.”
http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/sexual-health/plan-b-pregnancy-prevention-approved-teens-3358.html
£6m drive to cut teen pregnancies sees them DOUBLE
A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving. The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex. But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the program, at a cost of £2,500 each, were "significantly" more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programs who were not given contraception and sex advice.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198228/6m-drive-cut-teen-pregnancies-sees-DOUBLE.html#
Stunning new technology allows parents to hold a life-size model of their unborn child
It's a defining moment in a parent's life: Seeing their unborn child's image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby. The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student's Ph.D.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1195703/The-stunning-new-technology-allows-parents-hold-life-size-model-unborn-child.html Abortions double premature tot risk
Women who have had an abortion or miscarriage are more likely to give birth to a premature baby, researchers have found.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/06/29/abortions-double-premature-tot-risk-115875-21480051/ Abortion has greater impact on parenting than other forms of pregnancy loss, new review finds
A new review of studies examining various types of prenatal loss and the effects on subsequent parenting has concluded that abortion may be "particularly damaging to the parenting process."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070603.html
Gardasil safety continues to raise concerns
Since the introduction of Gardasil HPV vaccine, the FDA has reported forty-seven deaths. According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, "The already serious problems associated with Gardasil seem to be getting worse. No one should require this vaccine for young children."
http://www.examiner.com/x-14041-Charlotte-Health-and-Happiness-Examiner~y2009m6d28-Gardasil-safety-continues-to-raise-concerns
First clinical trials completed of adult cardiac stem cell repair
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles have announced the successful completion of the first human trials in growing new heart tissue from adult cardiac stem cells, which the researchers hope will be successful in repairing damage due to heart attacks.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09063005.html
GE to use embryonic stem cells
General Electric is entering into a venture with Geron Corp. to commercially develop products from human embryonic stem cells, including developing sample human cells that drug companies can use to test the toxicity of new drugs. The use of embryonic stem cells to develop other types of human cells entails the destruction of human life.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1336
Closing Thought
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
DON'T BE FOOLED: PLAN B ONE-STEP CAUSES ABORTION
Washington, DC (30 July 2009) - American Life League’s Marie Hahnenberg, director of The Pill Kills project, issued the following statement on Plan B One-Step, an abortifacient “emergency” contraceptive newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:
“Planned Parenthood and the birth control industry would have you believe Plan B One-Step cannot cause an abortion. That is a lie.
“In 1965, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a Terminology Bulletin that ‘officially’ changed the definition of “conception” from the union of sperm and egg to implantation. As a result, the medical establishment does not call the killing of a human being prior to implantation an abortion. But that is just semantics.
“Plan B One-Step works like any other abortifacient drug: It can alter (thin) the lining (endometrium) of the mother’s uterus so that the newly-formed baby cannot implant and thus dies. Plan B One-Step’s product information itself states, “It may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium).” Direct abortion is the willful ending of a preborn human being’s life. Plan B One-Step is thus a direct abortion method. Women should not allow themselves to be misled by sales representatives for Plan B and Plan B One-Step, who claim that these products will not terminate an existing pregnancy.
“Unfortunately, the birth control industry and Planned Parenthood – the nation’s largest abortion chain – have tricked many women into aborting their tiny children. Plan B One-Step, Plan B, the birth control pill, IUD and other hormonal birth control products can all cause abortions. Period.
“So, the next time you hear that Plan B or Plan B One-Step cannot cause an abortion, you will know the truth. Plan B products kill.”
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: American Life League: The Pill Kills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUe4Lk-yUI Plan B One-Step: Product Information
http://www.planb1step.com/pdf/PlanBOneStepFullProductInformation.pdf Newsweek: Preventing Pregnancy 'One-Step' Easier: FDA Approves Simpler Plan B (15 July 2009)
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/07/15/preventing-pregnancy-one-step-easier-fda-approves-simpler-plan-b.aspx
NEW VIDEO 'LAWS, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE' EXPOSES PROPAGANDA
Washington, DC (04 August 2009) – American Life League recently released the latest ALL Report exposing the the half-truths of the abortion-promoting National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).
The video, “Laws, Lies and Videotape,” dissects four stories pro-abortion groups claim are examples of the effects of Human Personhood legislation.
“The examples provided by NAPW omit vital information that invalidate their entire premise,” said Michael Hichborn, host of the American Life League Report. “One story sounded almost convincing, until we discovered that it wasn’t personhood legislation that caused the problem, it was Roe v. Wade. But why include information damaging to your case, right?”
“Laws, Lies and Videotape” is currently available on American Life League’s home page, www.all.org<http://www.all.org/> and on YouTube under the same title.
“Our video is meant to serve as a reminder to pro-lifers that we can and must expose the lies of the abortion lobby,” said Hichborn. "Human personhood is a inalienable, fundamental human right—every human being should be a person under the law."
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League: Laws, Lies and Videotape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myo0F1jpv4Q
Pro-Life Today | 24 July 2009 HEADLINES
Pro-Life Leaders Mobilize Over 36,000 to Stand Against 'Abortion Mandate'
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090724/pro-life-leaders-mobilize-over-36-000-to-stand-against-abortion-mandate/index.html
Christian Post
Over 36,000 Americans joined a last-minute nationwide webcast Thursday to hear from more than a dozen top-level pro-life leaders about the massive effort to mandate taxpayer-funded abortions as part of a proposed trillion-dollar healthcare takeover.
Congressman Smith Warns of Phony Abortion "Compromise" Obama Health Care Overhaul
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=96745
EWTN
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) released a statement today cautioning Americans to be wary of Congress attempts to compromise on abortion funding and expressed concern that any alteration in the language of the proposed authentic pro-life amendments may leave room for ambiguity allowing millions more abortions. "Just as Americans are beginning to more fully appreciate and more fully understand the colossal threat posed by Obamacare to the culture of life including a massive expansion of abortion and rationing for the sick and frail elderly, some in Congress are now trying to cobble together a phony compromise on abortion mandates, and abortion funding," the congressman began. "While we have yet to see the language, please beware."
Number of U.S. abortion clinics falling
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/23/Number-of-US-abortion-clinics-falling/UPI-55291248359957/
UPI
Women seeking to terminate pregnancies in the United States are facing a dwindling supply of providers, an abortion rights group says.
Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ...
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY SEX: GOOD, BABIES: BAD
By Kortney Blythe This mindset seems to be common in the pro-death camp.
Take, for instance, this quote by Elisabeth Garber-Paul in an article on the rise in sexual activity during this economic recession: So join the rest of America in this exciting new trend. Save money, stay in, have sexjust don't make a baby.
That's right, Elisabeth, throw respect for yourself out the window and spit in the face of God by removing one of his intentions for intercourse. More babies will just make the economy worse, right? Wrong. In fact, one of the reasons we are even in this recession is because of the plummeting birthrate. There simply aren't enough people to replace the retiring population in the workplace and pay for Social Security, or to stimulate the economy.
Not that you'll hear about that from the anti-human, overpopulation zealots. But do your research. Watch Demographic Winter and Demographic Bomb, two documentaries which debunk the overpopulation myth and ask a very important question: Is it possible we have been failed by the very ideas we thought could save us? It goes without saying that abortion advocates think saving sex for marriage is ludicrous and archaic. Just check out the title of a book just released by radical feminist Jessica Valenti: The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women.
In an interview on the rabidly pro-abortion RH Reality Check web site, Valenti purports that teaching and honoring purity is just as dangerous as the media's pressure on sexuality and the hypersexualization of women. Oh, really? So, protecting young people from the heartbreak and emptiness of premarital sex, not to mention a load of sexually transmitted diseases, is akin to the objectification of women, the result of which has been a generation of depressed, confused girls with eating disorders?
She goes on to say. The purity myth is so embedded in our culture and our psyche. You don't have to be forcing your daughter to take a virginity pledge in order for the fiction of virginity to affect your life. Really? Then why does every Hollywood film end (or begin) with a couple jumping into bed together? If it's so embedded in our culture, then why are abortion, STD and teen pregnancy rates so high? (I'm not going to even legitimize her term fiction of virginity with a response).
As if that isn't enough, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a new program is paying high school girls not to get pregnant. That's right. For every day they stay baby-free, $1 is deposited into an account to be used for college. According to a local TV news report, the group was founded by Hazel Brown, “a maternity nurse who thought too many teens were having babies. Ms. Brown, how about seeing the root of the problem? Too many teens are having premarital sex. The problem is not the presence of a baby, but the actions of his mother and father, which resulted in his existence.
The three goals of this program, called College Bound Sisters, are for the girls to “avoid pregnancy, graduate from high school and enroll in college, Brown said. Oh, what lofty goals we have for our young people!
Teenagers rise to the expectations that are set for them. If all we ask is that they avoid pregnancy (and we'll even pay them for that!), what are we teaching girls about sex, relationships, the value of children or personal responsibility, for that matter? Instead of urging purity and self-control, and demonstrating the joys of a quiver full of children (Psalm 127:3-5) within marriage, this program bribes young girls. If those same girls were taught basic biblical morality, they wouldn’t be having sex, and thus, there would be no chance of pregnancy.
The message of this program in a nutshell: Go ahead and sin against God by having damaging premarital sex, but just make sure you avoid one of the outcomes: babies.
If only young people knew the joy and blessings they are missing out on when they use sex for purely physical and selfish reasons! Then, and only then, would they cherish chastity as it should be cherished.
To my single friends reading this, please flee from this deadly mentality of me-first, pleasure-seeking sex without consequences. Seek righteousness, pursue holiness and practice chastity.
But understand this: There will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them. (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Kortney Blythe is the chapter and street teams coordinator for American Life League's Rock for Life project, which brings the human personhood message to youth through music, education and human rights activism. This commentary originally appeared in the July 2, 2009 issue of the RFL Report.
Pro-Life Today | 23 July 2009 HEADLINES
Obama: "Let's Not Get Distracted" over Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Coverage in Healthcare
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072212.html
Life Site News
In a CBS Evening News interview yesterday evening, President Obama dodged a question on his position regarding taxpayer-funded abortion coverage in the healthcare bill, saying only that concerned citizens should not get "distracted" with the contents of the new healthcare's essential package. The only direct statement Obama has made regarding abortion's role in the health legislation came before he was elected during a July 2007 Q&A session before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, where Obama called abortion "at the center, the heart of" his healthcare overhaul. Congressman Makes Bid to Strip Planned Parenthood of Title X Funds
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072209.html
Life Site News
A US Congressman has proposed an amendment that would eliminate millions of dollars in federal funds for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, which has lately come under public scrutiny after numerous employees across the country were caught on camera failing to inform law enforcement of child victims of sexual abuse. U.S. House Representative Mike Pence, (R-Ind.) submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services, which would make Planned Parenthood ineligible to receive Title X funds for "family planning" services. The Pence Amendment, submitted to the House Rules Committee, states, "None of the funds made available under this Act shall be available to Planned Parenthood for any purpose under Title X of the Public Health Services Act." Webcast targets abortion-funding mandate
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104728
World Net Daily
Jim Sedlak of American Life League. He is considered one of the leading experts on the harm caused by Planned Parenthood and has helped to close dozens of Planned Parenthood facilities. Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CHURCH TEACHING AND HUMAN REPRODUCTION
By John B. Shea, M.D., FRCP(C) Contraception:
The Catholic Church teaches that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally excluded … is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or the woman. This teaching prohibits contraception by means of the condom, intrauterine device, vasectomy, tubal ligation and chemical contraception by the use of oral contraceptives, morning-after pills, or the administration of contraceptives by injection or in a skin patch. The reason for this prohibition is that contraception breaks the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act. Contraception greatly dishonors marriage, the greatness of which is beautifully described by Dietrich von Hildebrand. No natural human good has been exalted so high in the New Testament. No other good has been chosen to become one of the Seven Sacraments. No other has been endowed with the honor of participating in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The wonderful, divinely appointed relationship between the mysterious procreation of a new human being, and this most intimate communion of love illuminates the grandeur and solemnity of this union. Thus it is that in order to preserve the reverent attitude of the spouses toward the mystery of this union, this general connection between procreation and the communion of love must always be maintained. History has clearly demonstrated how prescient Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) was when he predicted that the practice of contraception would cause the man to lose respect for the woman, considering her a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment. The gigantic increase in the incidence of abortion and of sexually transmitted infections bears witness to the promiscuity that followed the legalization and wide availability of chemical contraceptives. The pope also warned of the danger that public authorities which take no heed of moral exigencies would try to solve problems of the community by means illicit for married couples. Witness the worldwide promotion of contraception and abortion fostered by the United Nations today, and also the mandatory one-child policy of the government of China. Paul VI, in Humanae vitae, stated that if, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate births without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier. Pius XII taught that unless some serious circumstances arise, spouses are obliged to have children. However, he also teaches that it is moral for the spouses to limit their family size or even to refrain from having children altogether, if they have sufficiently serious reasons. He stated that “there are serious motives, such as those often mentioned in the so-called medical, eugenic, economic, and social indications, that can except for a long time, perhaps even during the whole duration of the marriage, from the positive and obligatory carrying out of the act. The 1965 Vatican document The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) teaches that “among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decisions, courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large number of children. It also states that it is the duty of the parents, and of them alone, to decide on the number and spacing of children, and that they should take into consideration their own good and the good of their children already born or yet to come, and ability to read the signs of the times and of their own situation, on the material and spiritual level, and finally, an estimation of the good of the family, of society, and of the Church. The morally acceptable way for spacing the birth of children is called “Natural Family Planning. One of the best methods is the Hilgers system. The effectiveness rates of this method for avoiding pregnancy have been shown to be 99.5 to 98.8 at the twelfth month of use. This compares favorably to the pill, of which Planned Parenthood's web site states, Of 100 women who use the Pill, only 8 will become pregnant during the first year of typical use. Relevant medical facts Some chemical contraceptives abort all of the time. All of them abort some of the time. They do this by preventing implantation of an embryo in the uterus. Elites in the medical profession try to justify their use of the word “contraceptive by stating that there is no embryo before implantation. This statement is false. The science of human embryology demonstrated, over 100 years ago, that a new individual human being comes into existence when the single-cell zygote is formed, either by fertilization or by cloning. Using the oral contraceptive pill before the first child is born causes a 40-percent increase in the risk of breast cancer. Taken for four or more years before the first child is born increases that risk to 72 percent. The OCP also increases the risk of cancer of the cervix of the uterus and of the liver. The condom does not provide complete protection from the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infection.
Artificial reproductive technologies:
A human being can be brought into existence by the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm. This can be achieved by sexual intercourse or in the laboratory by in vitro fertilization. Reproduction of a human being can also be achieved by cloning. There are many different methods of cloning that include nuclear transfer, embryo splitting, etc. The Church teaches that IVF and human cloning are morally forbidden. Why? IVF between husband and wife is condemned because it is illicit in itself, and in opposition to the dignity of procreation and the conjugal union. IVF in which the sperm or ovum of a third person is used is also condemned because, in addition, it violates the reciprocal commitment of spouses and shows a grave lack of regard for that essential property of marriage which is unity. It also deprives the child of her or his filial relationship with parental origins, can hinder the maturing of personal identity, can damage personal relationships within the family and has repercussions on civil society.
IVF is neither, in fact, achieved nor positively willed as an expression and fruit of a specific act of conjugal union. The human embryo is treated as a product of technology and not as a gift of God. In its use and in the use of many other techniques of genetic engineering, a human person is objectively deprived of his or her proper perfection. Such fertilization establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the person. This domination is contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. Therefore, IVF and cloning are morally unacceptable.
Relevant medical facts • Few children conceived by IVF are ever born. In each cycle, six to eight embryos are conceived. At most, two are implanted. The rest are either disposed of immediately or are frozen, and eventually, most die. Only 25 percent of those conceived are implanted, and of them, only 20 percent are born. Therefore, only five percent of IVF embryos are born alive. The Australian bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini calculates that the chance of saving a given frozen human embryo by implantation is less than two percent. Birth defects associated with assisted reproductive technologies: 4.9-7.2 fold increase in malignant tumor of the retina; five percent incidence of Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome (large tongue, predisposition to cancer); in Brazil, incidence of cancer increased 117 times; cerebral palsy increased 1.4 -1.7 times; fourfold increase in developmental delay; premature birth increased 5.6 times; low birthrate increased 9.8 times and heart deformity increased four times.
To achieve IVF, a woman is given hormones to stimulate the development of many ova at the same time. This may cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and breathing difficulty. In rare cases, blood clots, kidney or lung disease may occur and may be life-threatening. Dr. Thomas Hilgers FertilityCare System: Dr. Hilgers Natural Procreative Technology is a method of care that involves precise diagnosis of the hormonal caused of infertility, and its appropriate treatment. It is also morally acceptable as a way to help an infertile woman to conceive, and is two to three times more successful than IVF, at a fraction of the cost. One study on women who had previous failed IVF, showed a success rate of 36.2 percent. The Hilgers system has been shown to be up to 80-percent successful in helping women to have a successful pregnancy after they have suffered repeated miscarriages. It cuts the rate of premature birth in half, thus helping to reduce the incidence of brain damage. For more information, about the Hilgers System for avoiding or achieving pregnancy, contact the Marguerite Bourgeoys Family Centre Fertility Care Program; 688 Coxwell Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4C 3B7, Canada; phone 416-365-2868; e-mail fertilitycare@sympatico.ca Dr. John B. Shea is a retired diagnostic radiologist and a fellow of the Royal College of Canada. This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Catholic Insight magazine and is reprinted here with its kind permission. For more information on the availability of the FertilityCare System in the U.S. and Canada, visit www.fertilitycare.org; call 402-390-6600; or write to FertilityCare Centers of America, 6901 Mercy Rd., Omaha, NE 68106.
Pro-Life Today | 22 July 2009 HEADLINES
Planned Parenthood spearheads effort to influence Obama health care
http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/07/22/news/nation/doc4a609919ac53b103102816.txt
The Bulletin
The nation's largest provider of abortions laid siege to Capitol Hill Thursday lobbying lawmakers to include women's health issues in the massive Obama health care plan. On Thursday, a gaggle of Planned Parenthood staff, board members and volunteers visited 250 lawmakers on the Hill. Their purpose, as stated by a Planned Parenthood release, was to ensure “any health care reform effort must include access to comprehensive reproductive health care.
Congress seeks to force taxpayer funding for D.C. abortions
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104615
World Net Daily
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that will force taxpayers to pay for abortion in the nation's capital and now the Senate is considering the measure. The House voted 219-208 for the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, H.R. 3170, July 16, and now a companion bill is being considered by the Senate. It provides $768 million in federal money for the Washington, D.C., government. Restrictions on using taxpayer dollars for abortions were lifted when the House rejected an amendment that would have retained a ban on using local taxpayer funds to pay for abortions in Washington, D.C.
Anti-abortion group sues over arrests
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20135030/detail.html
WBALTV
A pro-life group is suing several Maryland agencies, saying they've been unfairly targeted by State Police. Defend Life Inc. and its associates admitted their message is controversial Tuesday but said state troopers are stepping on their First Amendment rights. The graphic images often used by anti-abortion groups on roadsides are hard to miss and forget, 11 News reporter John Sherman said, but Defend Life insisted that is their point and that they have the constitutional right to make it. On Aug. 1, 18 protesters were arrested on Route 24 in Bel Air. Minutes before, troopers confronted the protesters. Videotape showed a trooper tried to tell them they needed a permit to protest on the roadside.
Ginsburg's remark stirs an old debate: Abortion, eugenics and the meaning of Margaret Sanger
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/22/ginsburgs-remark-stirs-an-old-debate-abortion-eugenics-and-th/
Politics Daily
There is a disquieting reason Ruth Bader Ginsburg's defenders have been denying, however implausibly, the clear meaning of the Supreme Court justice's recent remarks about the history of abortion law, and that reason is this: Historically, eugenics has always been a significant component of the intellectual underpinnings – and political impetus – of the movement to legalize abortion.
Did you miss this week's episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CATHOLIC HEALTH CARES DEMISE IS IT IMMINENT?
By Judie Brown There was a time when institutions bearing a Catholic identity, such as hospitals and clinics, would never have agreed to even the slightest hint of deviating from the Catholic Church’s teachings. That was, I am sad to say, a very long time ago.
Today, there appears to be a slow deterioration in the Catholic identity of Catholic health-care institutions. I started to become aware of this over 10 years ago, when the Peoria Protocol first came to my attention. For those unfamiliar with it, the Peoria Protocol, first developed in 1995, was put in place at Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois. The Protocol defines permissible approaches to medical care following a sexual assault. Following are two of its four possible courses of action: * The woman is determined to be past the early post-ovulatory phase of her cycle if the LH urine test is negative and her progesterone level is greater than or equal to 6 ng/mL. In this situation, the timing of the sexual assault could not have coincided with the presence of an ovum. Hence, it is morally permissible to administer an emergency contraceptive for the victim's psychological benefit.
* Finally, the woman is determined to be in the late post-ovulatory phase if the LH urine test is negative, her progesterone level is less than 6 ng/mL, and she anticipates menstruation in less than seven days. Here, too, it is morally permissible to administer a contraceptive medication. These two statements, while approved by many Catholic medical ethicists, represent a fundamental moral problem. If the Catholic Church does not condone the use of contraception as medical treatment in any case other than a situation involving a serious medical condition and in which the female abstains from sexual relations during such treatment, how can it be permissible to administer a powerful chemical compound that is known to abort, when there is no serious medical condition and alternative therapies exist? Neither of the above scenarios described in the Peoria Protocol provide a 100-percent guarantee that a child has not been conceived. Moreover, these statements are nuanced and do not provide adequate safeguards to protect the child, should his conception have occurred as a result of the rape.
One has to wonder why a Catholic hospital would even consider this treatment option. Saint Francis Medical Center is also involved in dispensing oral contraceptives. The news media reports that its involvement in the distribution of birth control pills is the direct result of a middle ground decision: [W]hen OSF Saint Francis began hiring primary care physicians in the 1990s as part of OSF Medical Group, many of the physicians wanted to prescribe oral contraceptives. Much anguished discussion ensued, said Joseph Piccione, corporate ethicist for OSF Healthcare System.
Yet a middle ground was found. No contraception of any kind would be distributed within the four walls of the hospital itself, Piccione said. Regardless of walls, there is no Catholic doctrine that would sanction an arm's-length agreement that the birth control pill can be dispensed under the aegis of the Church. Then there's the California case involving known abortionists serving as staff physicians for Catholic hospitals. When Wynette Sills first brought this to our attention earlier this year, we investigated, only to find to our dismay that, in fact, the situation is as she originally described it. As Bud Reeves reports, We want our readers to know that we are continuing with our investigation as well as with our direct action activities regarding Mercy San Juan Hospital (MSJH) and Catholic Healthcare West's (CHW) practice of allowing identified abortion doctors to practice at MSJH and even be promoted on their webpage. CHW originally excused their promotion and use of three identified abortion doctors as a matter of an insurance requirement. Following my (Bud) efforts to get clarification from Mr. Gardner, last week he sent me a one sentence email which now claims that federal law requires CHW hospitals to allow the abortion doctors to practice in their hospitals. I wrote back to Mr. Gardner and asking him for a meeting or at least giving us the citations for the laws he refers to. So far nothing but silence from Mr. Gardner. Keep this in prayer. It is probably no accident that about a year ago, Catholic Healthcare West entered into an alliance with human cloning practitioner Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. While it is reported that Catholic Healthcare West will be conducting clinical trials of adult stem cell treatment for heart disease, this alliance raises serious ethical questions, due to the fact that ACT has previously promoted research that contradicts Catholic principles regarding respect for the rights of the human embryo.
The problematic nature of such agreements, arrangements and alliances is not by any means limited to Illinois and California. It is a nationwide epidemic, rooted in the age-old dilemma of choosing between God and money. This becomes very clear when revisiting the complexities of the Boston archdiocese's Caritas Christi mess. You may recall that American Life League was quick to commend Cardinal Sean O'Malley when the archdiocese made this announcement on June 26: Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers. But, within days, we received a telephone call informing us that the agreement had actually not been cancelled. Carol McKinley reported this on her blog, which has thus far not been refuted: Nobody (including other bishops and cardinals) is able to get details out of the cardinal about what it is he has approved. I think our Catholic pro-life force deserves to know what the actual arrangement is.
But we do have an inkling when we consider the statement Cardinal O'Malley made, as quoted in the Boston Globe: By withdrawing from the joint venture and serving the poor as a provider... upholding Catholic moral teaching at all times, they are able to carry forward the critical mission of Catholic health care. The newspaper's analysis: Because Caritas will no longer be a joint owner of the insurance venture, the archdiocese is hoping that there will no longer be any question that Caritas will not financially profit from abortions, sterilizations, or other services provided by non-Catholic hospitals.†A Caritas spokeswoman told the Globe. This is the right way to move the distraction of the debate of ownership and allow us to be a provider. Here is noted Catholic commentator Phil Lawler’s response: A debate over involvement in killing unborn babies is a distraction’ from the business of saving lives. A debate over mutilating people to make them infertile is a distraction from the distinctive mission of Catholic health care.
So we are left to wonder if all this means is that Caritas Christi is no longer a an official business partner of abortion providers, but still connected with them in some way. Does it mean that Catholic hospitals will continue to refer for abortion, use the morning-after pill to treat rape victims and so forth? Nobody knows!
As I write this, similar problems are developing in New Hampshire, where the pressure is on Catholic hospitals to bend to the will of the state. New Hampshire Right to Life has prepared a set of three videos dealing with the challenges they face at this time. As was the case in Massachusetts, the cause of concern is a merger.
Wisconsin’s Catholic hospitals are also under the gun. Just last year, they were forced to dispense emergency contraception and did not sue, or in any other way, act to protect their Catholic identity. So what will happen now?
Well, the answer, which is frightening to say the least, may be contained in a short commentary written by Catholic Health Association's president and CEO, Sister Carol Keehan, DC, who attended the March 5 Obama White House Health Reform Summit. She tells us, President Obama also was clear that we will have to spend more money in the immediate future to build the infrastructure to lower health care costs in order to achieve the kind of savings and affordability in the future. He pointed out that this is politically one of the hardest kinds of decisions to make. It occurs to me that the various pressure tactics already being used by state governments to pressure Catholic hospitals into doing the unthinkable are but one way to tighten the noose as Obama-care becomes a reality, if, in fact, it does. What also occurs to me is that our bishops must speak with a unified voice, without any dissent and without any bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. They must set forth authentically Catholic medical ethics as the only medical ethics that will be followed in a Catholic setting”with or without mergers, alliances or “common-ground shenanigans. Until that happens, Catholic health care, as we once knew it, will continue to deteriorate and, at some point, will crumble.
Pro-Life Today | 21 July 2009 HEADLINES
Kathleen Kennedy Attacks the Pope for Obama
http://www.turkishforum.com.tr/en/content/2009/07/21/kathleen-kennedy-attacks-the-pope/
Turkish Forum
Among the voices decrying Townsend's column is Judie Brown, president and co-founder of the American Life League, a pro-life organization.
YouTube Bans Student Group's Video Showing Abuse at Planned Parenthood, Group Protests Politically Motivated Censorship
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/7416111014.html
Christian Newswire
In a censorship that appears politically motivated, the popular video-sharing site YouTube has blocked a video critical of Planned Parenthood made by the student-led nonprofit Live Action. The video shows a Planned Parenthood clinic in Birmingham offering to "bend the rules" of Alabama's parental consent and mandatory reporting laws in order to cover up statutory rape with a secret abortion, and has opened an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office into the nation's largest abortion provider.
White House Refuses to Rule out Taxpayer Funding for Abortion in Health-Care Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072004.html
Life Site News
As President Obama races against the clock to push nationalized healthcare through Congress, the New York Times has picked up on the growing fear among Americans that the bill will ultimately spell taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand. In a Sunday article, the Times reported that White House budget director Peter Orszag refused to rule out taxpayer money paying for abortion under the bill. "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now," said Orszag. "It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate." Orszag's response corresponds to the refusal by committees in both chambers to pass several amendments that would have explicitly restricted the government-funded healthcare from covering abortion. In addition, major pro-abortion groups have praised the new healthcare arrangement as setting the stage for promoting abortion as "basic healthcare."
Did you miss today's episode of ...
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population-control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY IS ABORTED FETAL DNA LINKED TO AUTISM?
By Theresa A. Deisher, Ph.D. Just when the pharmaceutical industry thought the vaccine-autism controversy had been resolved, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee has recommended further study of vaccine safety. A perceived fear of the safety of the U.S. vaccination schedule has led increasing numbers of parents to opt out of full compliance. The numbers of children who are not fully vaccinated has now reached a point where her immunity may be compromised, compelling the Centers for Disease Control to hold town-hall meetings and convene a Vaccine Safety Working Subgroup. Despite research ruling out mercury (Thimerosal) or the measles portion of one specific vaccine, autism continues to rise to a level of one in every 64 children in the UK.
The NVAC draft report recommends further study of the potential for vaccines to contribute to autism in children who have underlying mitochondrial disease, a worthwhile study given the clinical history of such children developing autism after vaccinations (see Poling case). What the NVAC has overlooked, however, in their recommendations, is that epidemic regressive autism is associated with the switch from using animal cells to produce vaccines to the use of aborted human fetal cells for vaccine production. Now when we vaccinate our children, some vaccines also deliver contaminating aborted human fetal DNA. The safety of this has never been tested.
Autism and autism spectrum disorder are polygenic diseases, meaning that multiple genes have been shown to be associated with these diseases. Studies have also clearly shown that there is an environmental component, a trigger, that is required. Vaccines are an obvious potential environmental trigger for autism because of the almost universal childhood exposure to vaccines in first world countries. The vaccine-autism connection was first hypothesized following the introduction of a new measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to the U.S. in 1979, with complete U.S. market share by 1983, and to the UK in 1988. Autism rates began to rise in the U.S. after 1979 and rose dramatically after 1983, and likewise rose in the UK after 1988, leading physicians to suspect a link. Initially, the measles component of this vaccine, MMR II, was suspected to be the culprit. Subsequent studies have also focused on the presence of mercury in vaccines, which incidentally, the MMR II vaccine did not contain.
Those studies have largely ruled out the new measles portion of the MMR II or mercury as the environmental trigger for autism. However, the compelling temporal association between this new MMR vaccine and autism cannot be ignored or explained away. What has been ignored is the fact that this new MMR vaccine introduced the use of aborted fetal cells for vaccine production. At one point, as much as 94 percent of children in the U.S. and 98 percent of children in the UK were given this vaccine.
Today, more than 23 vaccines are contaminated by the use of aborted fetal cells. There is no law that requires that consumers be informed that some vaccines are made using aborted fetal cells and contain residual aborted fetal DNA. While newer vaccines produced using aborted fetal cells do inform consumers, in their package inserts, that the vaccines contain contaminating DNA from the cell used to produce the vaccine, they do not identify the cells as being derived from electively aborted human fetuses. (See the Varivax chicken pox package insert for the presence of MRC5 residual DNA.)
In other words, they tell you what is in the vaccine, but they don't fully inform you where it came from. The earliest aborted fetal cell-produced vaccines such as Meruvax (rubella) and MMR II do not even inform consumers that the vaccines contain contaminating DNA from the cell used to produce them. Furthermore, it is unconscionable that the public-health risk of injecting our children with residual contaminating human aborted fetal DNA has been ignored.
How could the contaminating aborted fetal DNA create problems? It creates the potential for autoimmune responses and/or inappropriate insertion into our own genomes through a process called recombination. There are groups researching the potential link between this DNA and autoimmune diseases such as juvenile (type I) diabetes, multiple sclerosis and lupus. Our organization, Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, is focused on studying the quantity, characteristics and genomic recombination of the aborted fetal DNA found in many of our vaccines.
Preliminary bioinformatics research conducted at SCPI indicates that hot spots for DNA recombination are found in nine autism-associated genes present on the X chromosome. These nine genes are involved in nerve-cell synapse formation, central nervous system development and mitochondrial function.
Could genomic insertion of the aborted fetal DNA, found in some of our childhood vaccines since 1979, be an environmental trigger for autism? Could the fact that genes critical for nerve synapse formation and nervous system development are found on the X chromosome provide some explanation of why autism is predominantly a disease found in boys? Could the hot spots identified in these autism-associated genes be sites for insertion of contaminating aborted fetal DNA?
These questions must be answered, and quickly. Recent literature suggests that autism spectrum disorder may now impact one out of every 100 children. The pharmaceutical industry is also currently moving to replace more animal-produced vaccines with aborted-fetal-cell production and also to produce biologic drugs using aborted fetal cells.
The practice of using aborted fetal cells for vaccine and drug production creates wrenching moral dilemmas for parents and consumers, ignores informed consent rights, and exposes our children and ourselves to contaminants lacking safety evaluations. We cannot ignore this issue in good conscience, and we cannot afford to wait. Dr. Deisher is president of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (www.soundchoice.org), as well as a cofounder and the research and development director for Ave Maria Biotechnology Company (www.avmbiotech.com), which promote pro-life biotechnology. This article is an adaptation and update of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute’s June 2009 newsletter and is published with its kind permission. For more information on Dr. Deisher, see "Providing real choice: A conversation with Dr. Theresa Deisher" in American Life League's Celebrate Life magazine (January-February 2009) .
Pro-Life Today | 20 July 2009 HEADLINES
Colorado personhood amendment goes to title board
http://www.gazette.com/articles/span-58615-div-12px.html
AP
A proposed constitutional amendment that would protect the rights of embryos is advancing. On Thursday, the personhood amendment proposal got the approval of legislative staffers assigned to review and make recommendations on all ballot measures. Next it must be reviewed by the state title board, which makes sure that all voter initiatives only address a single topic. The proposed amendment says the term "person" would apply to every human being "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."
House approves publicly funded abortions in D.C., cans D.C. school vouchers
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071706.html
Life Site News
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill that allows the District of Columbia to fund abortions and legalize the consumption of marijuana for medicinal purposes, but phases out a school-voucher program designed to help lower-income class parents send their children to a school of their choice.
The next generation of the pro-life movement
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1675/the_next_generation_of_the_pro-life_movement
Religion Dispatches
Earlier this month, Personhood USA, along with the American Life League, launched personhood initiatives in Colorado and Montana, seek[ing] the passage of state constitutional amendments that would define every human being as a human person under state law, from the beginning of their biological development, an American Life League report declared.
Don't miss tomorrow's EXCITING episode of ..
Go to iTunes for a complete episode list, and then be sure to ..
listen to On the Edge Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. EST at www.NPLR.net.
Your host, Eric Martin, and co-hosts Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker, will educate, motivate, mobilize and often entertain you for 60 minutes every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EST on NPLR.net, as well as other internet, FM and AM radio stations that rebroadcast the show.
In this week's exciting episode: - Katie Walker points out Sotomayor's waffling on abortion;
- Eric Martin exposes the population control agenda of Obama's science czar;
- Michael Hichborn jumps "On the Soapbox" to blast Obama's "City of Man."
Catch each and every episode by subscribing on iTunes or the RSS feed. FEATURE STORY CHANGE: BUT IN WHAT DIRECTION?
By Ken Connor There is no doubt that President Obama's most valuable political asset is his remarkable charisma—his ability to send the spirit of the nation soaring on the wings of hope and change. Among the hopeful visions and promises of change articulated by Mr. Obama in his inaugural speech this past January was a vow to "restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality." Six months into his term, a picture of the president's understanding of science and its "rightful place" is emerging, and it is anything but flattering. President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a propensity to elevate "science" over ethical considerations in pursuit of utilitarian goals. He has shown himself to be all too willing to sacrifice principle, morality and the most vulnerable among us for the sacred "achievements" of social and scientific progress. This penchant of the president to disregard the importance of protecting innocent human life should come as no surprise. As a state senator, Mr. Obama opposed legislation mandating emergency medical treatment for infants who survived an attempted abortion because he felt that a live baby would "add one more burden on a woman." Still, one would hope that President Obama, famed "reconciler of opposites," would find a way to strike a balance between his pro-abortion, pro-"science" constituency and his pro-life supporters. On the issue of life however, Mr. Obama has thus far proven himself to be unwilling or unable to find that mythical "common ground" he so eloquently spoke of in his commencement address at Notre Dame. In his short time in office, the president has disbanded his council on bioethics (apparently they spent too much time talking about ethics), overturned limits on embryonic stem cell research instituted by President Bush, ended federal funding of abstinence-based education in favor of funding for contraception-based education, lobbied for federal funding for abortion in Washington, D.C. and supported the addition of an abortion provision in the behemoth health-care bill currently winding its way through Congress. Perhaps most revealing is the elimination of the President's Council on Bioethics, a distinguished group of experts who explored the ethical and public policy implications of emerging biomedical developments such as cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The Council provided an important forum for discussing such matters, thereby fostering the development of a reasoned consensus about how to proceed through uncharted territory. One would think that such a role would hold great attraction for President Obama in light of his stated commitment to discussion and debate; yet time and again, Mr. Obama has demonstrated that when it comes to protecting innocent human life, he is unwilling to allow ethical concerns to impede scientific "progress." Mr. Obama appears to view any "advance" in science as an intrinsic good that is always beneficial to mankind. This is the same mentality that animated the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. In the 21st century, this mentality has given rise to a "disposable man" ethic that dictates that embryonic stem cell research should proceed unencumbered, regardless of its lack of success and regardless of the fact that each tiny embryo dissected in our quest for our improvement or immortality represents the willful destruction of nascent human life. Obama's disposable man mentality may also be seen in his approach to pregnancy and abortion. His decision to de-fund abstinence education makes it clear that he sees no utility in a principled approach to preventing unplanned pregnancies. Obama apparently believes that the abstinence-only approach is stifling and outdated. Why encourage teens to defer sex until marriage? Their hormones are, after all, raging. We’ll just provide condoms on the front end, and if that doesn’t do the trick, abortion on the back end—all at taxpayer expense, of course. Problem solved; principle be damned. Taking a cue from President Obama's approach to eliminating "problems" without addressing root causes, Planned Parenthood, the nation's number one abortion provider and recipient of millions in federal taxpayer dollars, has shown itself willing to break the law and bury reports of the abuse of underage girls requesting abortions. Under the organization’s utilitarian view of life, it doesn't matter how a girl got pregnant—even if it was through the commission of a crime. Planned Parenthood is in the business of solving the "problem" of unwanted pregnancy through abortion. Period. But what about those who, based on principle, refuse to perform—or assist in the performance of—an abortion? If President Obama has his way, the days of conscientious objection will soon be over. Medical practitioners who refuse to train in these procedures or offer these services will be guilty of—you guessed it—an ethics violation! President Obama has made it crystal clear where he stands on questions of medical ethics and human life. And rest assured, it is nowhere near middle ground. In his inaugural address, the president invoked a noble vision for America: "The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.... Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency's sake." As he advances his agenda, President Obama would do well to remember his own inspiring words and ask himself if his policies will preserve the American tradition of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or whether they will sacrifice these precious ideals on the altar of utility and scientific expedience. Ken Connor is chairman of the Center for a Just Society (www.centerforajustsociety.org), an attorney and coauthor of Sinful Silence: When Christians Neglect Their Civic Duty. This article was originally published by the Center for a Just Society on July 10, 2009 and is reprinted here with its kind permission. Respond to Ken
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