in this issue:
hot button issues: RON REAGAN DECEIVES / T-SHIRT TRAUMA
abortion: CONTRACEPTION LINK / PROUD OF IT?
catholic bishops: BRUNETT / PFEIFER
catholic commentary: CALIFORNIA / KERRISON
cloning humans: FRANCE
girl scouts of america: FRIENDS OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD
human embryo stem cell research: FAKE SCIENCE
morning-after abortion pill: PLAN B
politics: DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE
vacation planning: ROME
reflection for prayer: POPE JOHN PAUL II
hot button issues
RON REAGAN DECEIVES: Responding to Ron Reagan’s fake claim that “no fetal tissue is involved in” human embryo stem cell research, Judie Brown said, “Ron, it is murder. It is human sacrifice.” The human being is a human embryo for his first eight weeks of life, and is referred to as a fetus at the beginning of the ninth week (gestational age).
(Reading: “Ron Reagan is wrong, dead wrong on human embryonic stem cell research,” American Life League news release, 7/27/04)
T-SHIRT TRAUMA: American Life League’s STOPP International calls Planned Parenthood’s new “I had an abortion” t-shirt “grossly offensive.” Even Planned Parenthood’s own are up in arms over the shirt.
(Reading: “‘I had an abortion’ t-shirt is grossly offensive to women,” American Life League’s STOPP International news release, 7/29/04; “‘I had an abortion’ t-shirt causes Carolinas rift,” Charlotte Observer, 7/28/04; “Local Planned Parenthood affiliate not pleased with controversial t-shirt,” KBCI-TV, 7/27/04)
abortion
CONTRACEPTION LINK: Right to Life Canada’s Natalie Hudson writes, “Even the United States Supreme Court, in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision [1992], is quoted as stating ‘in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception.'”
(Reading: “The Contraception Misconception,” Right to Life News Canada, 6/04)
PROUD OF IT? A New York Times commentary by Amy Richards reveals that when the single Richards discovered that she was expecting triplets, she immediately asked her doctor, “Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?” The “Owning up to abortion” commentary by Barbara Ehrenreich claims that some expectant mothers are “women whose fetuses are deemed defective” and they have to have abortion. To counter such drivel, the National Review published Jennifer Nicholson Graham’s excellent “Triplet-tale trauma.”
catholic bishops
BRUNETT: Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett will not deny Holy Communion to any politician because of “their political decisions.”
(Reading: “Seattle archbishop would not deny communion to politicians,” Seattle Times, 7/19/04)
PFEIFER: Bishop Michael Pfeifer of San Angelo, Texas, claims pro-abortion Catholic public figures like John Kerry should “make the option of not receiving Communion.” The bishop, however, would not refuse such a person Holy Communion.
(Reading: “Officials: Kerry communion flap isolated incident; bishops’ stances not supported by Catholic Church,” Midland Reporter-Telegram, 7/25/04)
catholic commentary
CALIFORNIA: Brian Kravec points out that fraternal correction is actually an act of charity.
(Reading: “Staying silent against catechism,” Merced Sun-Star, 7/25/04)
KERRISON: Ray Kerrison writes, “The faithful get little encouragement from some members of the hierarchy. Indeed, Cardinal [Theodore] McCarrick, now at the center of the Kerry-abortion-Communion inquiry, is remembered in his old archdiocese in Newark, N.J., for throwing open his cathedral to fete the arch-pro-abortion Republican Christie Whitman when she was elected governor.”
(Reading: “When bishops fear to lead,” New York Post, 7/24/04)
cloning humans
FRANCE: A report states that France has banned reproductive and therapeutic cloning, but Professor Dianne Irving begs to differ, stating, “I hate to be the one to burst the French bubble, but: (1) they define “cloning” ONLY in terms of somatic cell nuclear transfer; therefore all other kinds of human cloning (e.g., twinning, germ line nuclear transfer, pronuclei transfer, genetic engineered, etc.) would still be allowed by this bill — for both therapeutic and for reproductive purposes; (2) In the course of screening early human embryos for a genetic match for a sibling, they throw away those embryos that don’t match (or use them during the 5-year suspension of their “ban” on human embryonic stem cell research??). This is the bill that the “right” voted for? Hardly an ethical “compromise” between opposing parties.”
(Reading: “France bans reproductive cloning,” British Medical Journal, 7/17/04)
girl scouts of america
FRIENDS OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD? American Life League’s STOPP International is classifying Girl Scout councils through the United States. Of the 114 councils reported thus far, 25 (22%) do have some relationship with Planned Parenthood.
human embryo stem cell research
FAKE SCIENCE: A prestigious medical journal is packed with articles that present a less than honest picture of a grotesque practice. One member of the president’s bioethics council, Michael J. Sandell, D. Phil., says “The notion that an embryo in a petri dish has the same moral status as a person can be challenged.” Paul McHugh, MD, writes, “I argue that in vitro fertilization entails the begetting of a new human being right from its start as a zygote and that we should use it to produce babies rather than cells or tissues to be harvested for purposes dictated by other human beings. In contrast, SCNT is a biologic manufacturing process that we may use to produce cells but should not use to produce babies.” Finally another “expert” writes that the market for “stem cells” should be driving this debate, predicting that the Bush “ban” will be short-lived.
COMMENT: Sandell does not recognize human beings as persons from their beginning which happens to be when human beings are persons. He pushes a faulty philosophical position to advance his utilitarian ethic. McHugh does not mind destroying human embryos as long as we do not implant them for he does not recognize the human zygote as a human being but rather a cell mass that could be used “to produce” a baby. Since when are human beings products? McHugh has no problem with human cloning as long as we use the human clone for research and kill him sooner rather than later. And of course the third expert bases all ethical opinions in the context of dollars derived from practices executed. And even the New England Journal of Medicine cannot incorporate, into a headline, the true scientific term: human embryonic stem cell research. No wonder people are confused.
(Reading: “Embryo ethics: The moral logic of stem-cell research”; “‘Zygote and clonote’ — the ethical use of embryonic stem cells”; “The business of stem cells,” New England Journal of Medicine, 7/15/04)
morning-after abortion pill
PLAN B: The University of Pittsburgh published research claiming “teens with easy access to Plan B tended to use condoms more frequently than teens who needed a prescription.”
(Reading: “Plan B Reversal?” Journal of the American Medical Association, 7/14/04, p. 163; “The effects of advance provision of emergency contraception on adolescent women’s sexual and contraceptive behaviors,” Journal of Adolescent and Pediatric Gynecology, 4/04, pp. 87-96)
politics
DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE: DFL works to change the public identity of their party so that it is no longer called “the party of death.”
vacation
ROME: If you plan to be in Rome, check out this web site before you go because Richard Brunn’s Rome Day Toursgives to most outstanding personalized tours you will ever get.
reflection for prayer
POPE JOHN PAUL II: This distinctive nature is the foundation for the rights of every human individual, who has the dignity of personhood from the moment of his conception. This objective dignity, that has its origin in God the Creator, is founded on the spiritual nature that belongs to the soul, but also extends to the corporeality that is an essential component. No one can take human dignity away, rather all must respect it in themselves and in others. It is this dignity that is equal for all and that remains entire at every stage of the individual human life.
(Reading: Address to the Pontifical Academy for Life, 2/27/02)