in this issue:
hot button issues: PLAN B / PLANNED PARENTHOOD / PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY / SUPREME COURT
abortion: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT / MISOPROSTOL
catholic bishops: CALIFORNIA
euthanasia: DNR
heroes: FR. TOM EUTENEUER
stem cell research: BONE MARROW / DISEASES / NOSE STEM CELLS / PLACENTA CELLS
wisdom: POPE BENEDICT XVI
reflection for prayer: POPE JOHN PAUL II
hot button issues
PLAN B: The Food and Drug Administration has delayed a decision on Barr Pharmaceuticals’ request to sell the morning-after abortion pill “Plan B” over the counter. American Life League’s Judie Brown notes, “The current delay affords concerned citizens an excellent opportunity to have their voices heard. American Life League urges all who care about the safety of American women and babies to contact the FDA Commissioner, Lester M. Crawford, urging him to reject the request for over-the-counter status for Plan B and to pull this drug from the market immediately.
(Contact: Call FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford at 301-827-2410 or e-mail him at )
(Reading: “What does the FDA fail to understand about so-called emergency contraceptive?” American Life League news release, 8/29/05; “Resignation of top FDA official over Plan B shows controversial nature of dangerous drug,” American Life League news release, 9/1/05)
PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas is offering free birth control pills as a “courtesy” to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Jim Sedlak of American Life League’s STOPP International project responds, “While Planned Parenthood’s latest stunt is disgusting and utterly inappropriate, it is not surprising. The bottom line is that Planned Parenthood is out to promote its own agenda and will stop at nothing to take advantage of an opportunity to do so.”
(Reading: “Hurricane affects clinics,” Planned Parenthood news release, 8/29/05; “STOPP condemns Planned Parenthood’s shameless post-hurricane publicity stunt,” American Life League news release, 8/31/05)
PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY: Rev. Jerry Falwell, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of the Diocese of Santa Fe, Bishop Edward Kmiec of the Diocese of Buffalo, and Bishop Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington, have shown their support by officially endorsing the first-ever Pro-life Memorial Day on October 3. In addition, American Life League has launched a special web site, www.ProLifeMemorialDay.com, to spread the word about the event.
(Reading: “ALL launches Pro-life Memorial Day web site; event gains momentum with official endorsements,” American Life League news release, 8/30/05)
SUPREME COURT: American Life League is running an ad in the Washington Times, demanding fair, honest hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. The ad specifically calls on pro-abortion Catholic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to refrain from bashing judicial nominees for holding positions in keeping with Catholic teachings on abortion.
(Reading: “Will pro-abortion Catholic senators practice religious bigotry during Supreme Court nomination process?” American Life League news release, 9/2/05; “Judgment day is coming soon,” American Life League ad, 9/2/05)
abortion
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT? Columnist David Limbaugh writes, “If the right to an abortion were fundamental, wouldn’t there have been a consensus for it among the individual states long before Roe v. Wade in 1973? But Justice Scalia, in his opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, reminds us that the opposite is true. Scalia wrote, “the long-standing traditions of American society have permitted [abortion] to be legally proscribed.” As such, the right couldn’t possibly be considered fundamental in any real sense of that word.
(Reading: “What Fundamental Rights?” Creators Syndicate, 8/27/05)
MISOPROSTOL: Researchers claim “a high-dose regimen for misoprostol terminations of pregnancy effects delivery more rapidly without an appreciable increase in side effects or complications.”
(Reading: “Outcomes of second-trimester pregnancy terminations with misoprostol: comparing two regimens,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 8/05, pp. 544-550)
catholic bishops
CALIFORNIA: Two allegedly Catholic politicians, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, are supporting a bill that would permit cloning human embryos, which would then be used in embryonic stem cell research, thus resulting in their deaths.
COMMENT: American Life League’s August 24 request to Cardinal Roger Mahony that he help these men see the error in their ways has not received a reply.
(Reading: “Feinstein, Schwarzenegger back cell study,” Associated Press, 8/24/05)
euthanasia
DNR: A recent study of California hospitals indicates that do-not-resuscitate orders are not uniformly used by sick patients nor is there a cohesive understanding of how to implement such orders. “Although implementing a DNR order is ultimately up to the patients … physicians have a responsibility to initiate the conversation.”
COMMENT: Pro-life experts opine, “in light of the weakness of human nature, once the course has been plotted by a DNR (do not resuscitate) or a No Code order, there is a tendency to preclude, eliminate, or reduce other kinds of ‘ordinary’ treatments, such as visits by physicians and care given by nurses and others. Broad orders of Do Not Resuscitate or No Code must be avoided. At no other time in medicine are treatment orders that are broad and non-specific considered to be within the standard of care.”
(Reading: “Calif. study finds wide variation in use of DNR orders,” ModernPhysician.com, 8/9/05; “Life, life support and death,” American Life League, http://www.all.org/issues/ie04.htm)
heroes
FR. TOM EUTENEUER: The president of Human Life International has provoked criticism from the pro-abortion NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin because of his erudite statements against the practice of birth control.
COMMENT: Three cheers for Father Tom!
(Reading: “GOP allies continue assault on birth control,” NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin news release, 8/24/05)
stem cell research
BONE MARROW: University of Pittsburgh Medical center scientists have been granted approval by the FDA to conduct a clinical trial to determine the safety and feasibility of injecting a patient’s own bone-marrow-derived stem cells directly into the heart during conventional heart bypass surgery.
(Reading: “Stem cells with heart bypass surgery trial to begin at University of Pittsburgh,” Medical News Today, 8/26/05)
DISEASES: A complete list of adult stem cell applications is posted online.
(Reading: “Diseases treated with stem cells,” CorCell)
NOSE STEM CELLS: New Zealand doctors are seeking ethical approval for a procedure using stem cells from the nose of a patient who has paraplegia in the hope of improving the condition.
(Reading: “Stem cells offer hope for paraplegics,” Medical Daily, 8/7/05)
PLACENTA CELLS: Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh claim that “amniotic epithelial cells,” which come from the human placenta, could be used to produce various types of cells because they possess properties similar to the human embryonic stem cell.
(Reading: “Option to embryo stem cells found in placenta,” Better Humans, 8/6/05)
wisdom
POPE BENEDICT XVI: Peace is not the first civic duty, and a bishop whose only concern is not to have any problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible is an image I find repulsive.
(Reading: “Cardinal Arinze reiterates — for the nth time — no communion for pro-abort politicians,” Life Site News, 7/25/05)
reflection for prayer
POPE JOHN PAUL II: Before the cross two attitudes are possible, both dangerous. The first consists in seeking in the cross what is oppressive and painful in it to the extent of delighting in pain and suffering as if they had a value in themselves. The second attitude is that of one who, perhaps out of reaction to the preceding, rejects the cross and succumbs to the mystique of hedonism or of glory, pleasure or power. A great spiritual author, Fulton Sheen, spoke in this connection of those who adhere to a cross without Christ, in contrast with those who seem to want a Christ without the cross. Now, the Christian knows that the Redeemer of man is Christ on the cross and therefore only with Christ is the cross redemptive.
(Reading: Homily, Pope John Paul II, 6/30/80)