in this issue:
hot button issue: PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY
abortion: COCKTAILS ANYONE? / VICTIMIZING VICTIMS
culture of death: CHILDREN AS CHATTEL
culture of life: KATRINA SURVIVORS
morning-after abortion pills: MEXICO / PRESSURE
planned parenthood: HEWLETT FOUNDATION
stem cell research: POLITICS AND HUMAN EMBRYOS
united nations: PLUG FOR NFP
web news: TRUTH SQUAD
wisdom: CHESTERTON
reflection for prayer: SILENCE
hot button issue
PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY: American Life League is leading a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Supreme Court building at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, October 3. Local groups are encouraged to plan similar events in their own communities, and nationwide participation is expected. See www.ProLifeMemorialDay.com for details.
(Reading: “First Monday in October – don’t forget the babies,” American Life League commentary, 9/28/05)
abortion
COCKTAILS ANYONE? Canadian abortion advocates are hailing an RU-486 substitute that can take up to 44 days to result in the death of a preborn baby. The “cocktail,” consisting of methotrexate plus misoprostol, neither of which is approved for abortion in the United States, is recommended for killing the children of the poor in developing countries.
(Reading: “Cocktail of medicine used for abortions,” 9/24/05, Ottawa Citizen)
VICTIMIZING VICTIMS: The Associated Press is publicizing one of a number of facilities offering free “services” to hurricane victims. Little Rock abortionist Jerry Edwards says he’s aborted six babies free of charge: “If we don’t provide it now, they would get it later – a late-term abortion that would give greater risk to the mother’s health.”
COMMENT: What about the baby?
(Reading: “Arkansas clinic offers free abortions,” Associated Press, 9/28/05)
culture of death
CHILDREN AS CHATTEL: A news report exposes the gruesome fact that the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is selling baby body parts and the parts are listed on the organization’s web site. In Canada, “fresh” human embryos are being “donated” by their mothers. Additionally, Irish parents who adopted a little Indonesian boy while they lived in that nation subsequently had a child of their own and left the little boy behind when they moved. The adoption agency said they have a “consumer friendly returns policy.”
(Reading: “Babies: Bought, sold and traded,” Zenit, 9/17/05)
culture of life
KATRINA SURVIVORS: ABC news reports that prior to Hurricane Katrina, doctors and staff from the Fertility Institute moved frozen human embryos from their clinic to the third floor of nearby Lakeland Hospital. But rising temperatures inside the hospital “made a rescue mission critical to ensure the survival of the embryos.”
COMMENT: The laboratory director said, “They have the potential to be live people.” Sir, they ARE live people existing in a suspended state.
(Reading: “Katrina rescue team saves abandoned embryos,” ABC News, 9/22/05)
morning-after abortion pills
MEXICO: Women’s eNews reports, “Inclusion of the so-called morning-after pill on the list of required medicines in Mexico’s public health clinics has provoked threats of excommunication from the Catholic hierarchy.” Cardinal Norberto Rivera is reported to have told the media that “dispensing the pill is like putting a gun in people’s hands and giving them the means to kill.”
(Reading: “Clinics in Mexico stock ‘morning-after pill,'” Women’s eNews, 9/22/05)
PRESSURE: The New England Journal of Medicine published a commentary claiming that political meddling had interfered with the drug-approval process. The writers are aghast that the FDA did not approve morning-after pills for over-the-counter distribution.
COMMENT: This is not surprising in view of the fact that this journal has never admitted that a human being begins at the point of his creation.
(Reading: “A sad day for science at the FDA,” New England Journal of Medicine, 9/22/05, pp. 1197-1199)
planned parenthood
HEWLETT FOUNDATION: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provided Planned Parenthood with $1 million to help exploit women victimized by Hurricane Katrina.
(Reading: “Grant assists victims of Katrina,” Planned Parenthood news release, 9/23/05; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)
stem cell research
POLITICS AND HUMAN EMBRYOS: Editorial and clinician articles in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association conclude that those who oppose the killing of human embryos for any purpose, including the acquisition of stem cells, are politicizing and imposing religious ideology on others. John Edward Porter writes, “Politics, ideology, and religious beliefs have no place in determining the selection of approved applications.” Irving Weissman opines, “The religious and ethical background to such beliefs equates this ball of cells with born humans.”
COMMENT: Such arrogant nonsense raises a very basic question, “Does killing an innocent human being by calling him something else result in an event other than his intended death?”
(Reading: “Federal funding and supportive policies for research,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 9/22/05, pp. 1385-1389; “Stem cell research,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 9/22/05, pp. 1359-1366)
united nations
PLUG FOR NFP: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines, in a speech at the UN, lashed out at the population control movement and its effort to encourage contraception in her country: “We expect the United Nations to respect the deep Catholicism of the vast majority of the Filipino people. The funding given by the United Nations to our national government for reproductive health shall be dedicated to train married couples in a natural family planning technology which the World Health Organization has found effective compared to artificial contraceptives.”
(Reading: “Statement of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” Philippine Mission to the United Nations, 9/15/05)
web news
TRUTH SQUAD: To learn more about professional pro-life presentations based on the facts regarding what the law says and why abortion is practiced with intent to kill the preborn, see Truth Squad.
wisdom
CHESTERTON: “The world that hates children is the antechamber [waiting room] of hell.”
(Reading: “The way of the lamb,” Ignatius Press, 1999, p. 121.)
reflection for prayer
SILENCE: “We need to habitually remind ourselves that we are in the presence of God. It will be a great help to us, perhaps an indispensable one, to have many of these moments of personal conversation with the Lord. Each day try to find a few minutes of that blessed solitude you need so much to keep your interior life going. … In our world of almost constant external distraction, we need this esteem for silence, this admirable and indispensable condition for our spirit, assaulted as it is by such a deafening clamor … O Blessed silence of Nazareth! Teach us recollection; teach us interior life; teach us to be docile to good inspirations and trustworthy spiritual guides. Teach us the value of study, of meditation, of interior life, of the secret prayer that is only heard by God. …The Blessed Virgin will show us how to have more and more esteem for this blessed silence of the heart.”
(Reading: “In Conversation with God,” Vol. 5, p. 80)