in this issue:
hot button issues: PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY / VACCINES
abortion: LATIN AMERICA
abortion and breast cancer: DENIAL / KOMEN
catholics and abortion: COMMUNION / DELAWARE / VIRGINIA
culture of life: MIRACLE IN ITALY
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2005
wisdom: KEELER
reflection for prayer: PSALM 1:1-2
hot button issue
PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY: American Life League thanks all who participated in the inaugural Pro-life Memorial Day on Monday. The day set aside to remember the innocent children who’ve been killed by abortion will be observed on the first Monday of October each year. Mark your calendar now for next year. Pro-life Memorial Day 2006 is October 2.
VACCINES: With the encouragement of Children of God for Life, an American Life League associate group, Colorado Right to Life has demanded an end to the use of fetal cell lines in childhood vaccines. “People have a right to know what they’re buying,” said Debi Vinnedge of Children of God for Life. “If the FDA can require carbohydrate information on cookies, why shouldn’t consumers know when aborted babies’ DNA is being injected into their children’s veins?”
(Reading: “CRTL delegates sign resolution denouncing aborted fetal vaccines,” Children of God for Life news release, 10/3/05)
abortion
LATIN AMERICA: Pro-abortion forces designated September 28 as a day to push for decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Vida Humana Internacional reports much of the effort is funded by well-known U.S. abortion groups that are determined to push through their agenda, despite the fact that the majority of the people want abortion to remain illegal.
(Reading: “Massive anti-life attack on Colombia,” Vida Humana Internacional, 9/23/05)
abortion and breast cancer
DENIAL: President Bush has appointed Andrew C. von Eschenbach as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. It is noted that von Eschenbach served as director of the National Cancer Institute during a review of research concerning a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Pro-life observers say that despite an abundance of research showing a connection, the process was slanted in order to produce a simple finding: “Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”
(Reading: “Pro-lifers question new FDA commissioner’s record,” Family Research Council news release, 9/29/05)
KOMEN: October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. During this month, many well-meaning people are encouraging donations to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. It is well documented that the Komen Foundation has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood. ACTION: If you hear Komen praised on a radio program or in the papers, please call or write and expose the Planned Parenthood connection.
(Background: “Breast cancer foe gives big $$ to top abortion provider,” Cybercast News Service, 2/22/05)
catholics and abortion
COMMUNION: Archbishop William Levada wants this fall’s synod of Catholic bishops to talk about whether Catholics who support pro-abortion politicians should be permitted to receive Holy Communion. The leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wants to hear from bishops from other countries about a topic that has divided American bishops.
(Reading: “Question raised on Communion and abortion,” Zenit, 10/4/05)
DELAWARE: Bishop Michael Saltarelli has asked Catholics in the Diocese of Wilmington to pray for the conversion of Catholic political figures who support abortion: “I think for too long we have been silent and our people have taken that silence as part of an acquiescence of the status quo. We are complicit in this. So we have to step forward and say, ‘No, this is not right-it is wrong, it is sinful’-and somebody at least has to say it.”
(Reading: “Interview with Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli,” Ignatius Insight, 9/28/05)
VIRGINIA: State legislator Mitchell Van Yahres (D-Charlottesville) spoke to a gathering of Planned Parenthood supporters, telling them he supports the pro-abortion group’s work “despite the teachings of my church.”
(Reading: “Delegate weighs faith, abortion view,” Charlottesville Daily Progress, 9/30/05)
culture of life
MIRACLE IN ITALY: Salvatore Crisafulli had been in a coma since a 2003 car crash, but recently woke up, telling doctors he had heard everything that had been going on around him during his time in the hospital. “I understood everything and I cried in desperation,” he told Italian media.
(Reading: “In coma for two years, patient says he heard all,” Reuters, 10/5/05)
personhood
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2005: This bill (HR 552) states, “The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” See Right to Life Act for details.
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? If not, ask!
wisdom
KEELER: Baltimore’s archbishop, Cardinal William Keeler, noted: “We know that the truth of human life is infinitely greater than any narrow view that dismisses some lives as disposable.’We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution,’ Pope Benedict pointed out at his inaugural Mass. ‘Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.'”
(Reading: “U.S. cardinal wary of progress to respect life,” Zenit, 10/3/05)
reflection for prayer
PSALM 1:1-2: Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.