in this issue:
activism: BRAIN DEATH / OUTSTANDING RESEARCH
birth control / population elimination: ARCHIVES INDIA
birth control pill: ORTHO TRI-CYCLEN
bush watch: BUSH OK’s MONEY FOR CONDOMS
good news: ERIKA HAROLD / JENNIFER O’NEILL / MAYA ANGELOU / PATRICIA HEATON
humor: QUICK QUOTE
nonoxynol-9: MORE BAD NEWS
nurses: SHORTAGE
organ procurement: SELLING
personhood: WHO IS THE ZYGOTE
politics: DEBATABLE PRUDENCE / NORTH CAROLINA
pregnancy: DISEASE
sex education: SIECUS
stem cells from human embryos: TADA RESPONDS TO REEVE
zinger: NOT A PERSON
reflection for prayer: 1 TIMOTHY 1:3-7
activism
BRAIN DEATH: Tune in EWTN on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 3 a.m. (EST), Monday, Nov. 11 at 10 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. or Thursday, Nov. 14 at 10 a.m. to see Paul Byrne, M.D., Walt Weaver, M.D., and Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz discuss brain death and organ transplants on “Living His Life Abundantly.”
OUTSTANDING RESEARCH: Pro-lifers can take heart because there is yet another credible research web site addressing breast cancer and the pill, the varicella vaccine, abortion and breast cancer, and the postfertilization effects of the pill. The Polycarp Research Institute is online.
birth control / population elimination
ARCHIVES INDIA: Two reports expose the fears of many regarding injectables and other parts of the national “family planning” program in India.
(Reading: “A woman’s body is not a testing ground,” Humanscape India, 10/01; “Caution on two contraceptives,” Frontline, 11/25/00)
birth control pill
ORTHO TRI-CYCLEN: A pharmacist recently called to our attention the Ortho-McNeil web site where one can read the many side effects of the pill, including myocardial infarction (heart attack), thromboembolism (blood clot) and hepatic neoplasia (liver cancer).
(Reading: Ortho Tri-Cyclen doctor/pharmacist package insert, Ortho-McNeil, 3/01)
bush watch
BUSH OK’S MONEY FOR CONDOMS: The Bush administration has approved plans permitting the state of New York to expand a federal Medicaid program that provides free birth control pills and condoms to low-income New Yorkers.
(Reading: “Bush OK’s Medicaid money for condoms,” New York Daily News, 10/2/02; “Bush OK’s NY Medicaid plan for contraceptives,” STOPP International news release, 10/4/02)
good news
ERIKA HAROLD: Miss America tells pageant officials she will not be bullied into silence about her pro-chastity viewpoints.
(Reading: “Miss America told to zip it on chastity talk,” Washington Times, 10/9/02)
JENNIFER O’NEILL: The actress told the U. S. Senate (9/27/02) how her abortion affected her “until I healed and am now able to help other women.”
(Reading: “Actress tells Senate, ‘I paid for my abortion my whole life,'” Pro-Life Infonet, 9/27/02)
MAYA ANGELOU: The October 8 issue of Family Circle (p. 56) presents Angelou’s story about her decision, at age 16, to have her baby. The story, entitled “Keeping my baby,” is not on the internet.
(Reading: “Maya Angelou shares pro-life views,” Traditional Values Coalition, 10/3/02)
PATRICIA HEATON: The star of “Who Loves Raymond” is speaking out for Feminists for Life in defense of life.
(Reading: “Emmy winner and FFL honorary chair Patricia Heaton ‘Revealed,'” Feminists for Life news release)
humor
QUICK QUOTE: “Never argue with a fool — people might not know the difference.”
(Reading: “Quick Quotes,” The Star, 8/02, p 5; For copies write Fr. Rawley Myers, 22 W. Kiowa, Colorado Springs, CO 80903)
nonoxynol-9
MORE BAD NEWS: At a recent World Health Organization/CONRAD meeting the conclusion was reached that nonoxynol-9 is a questionable contraceptive because of apparent lack of effectiveness when used alone. Further women at high risk of HIV infection and those uncertain about their status should not use the preparation at all.
(Reading: “Nonoxynol-9 fails to prevent STDs, but microbicide research continues,” The Lancet, 9/28/02, p. 962)
nurses
SHORTAGE: Nurses write that the nursing shortage reports “provide further evidence of what hospital nurses have feared for quite some time: there are too few registered-nurse (R.N.) staff members, and there is too little support to provide safe and beneficent care for patients.”
(Reading: “The nursing shortage and the quality of care,” New England Journal of Medicine, 10/3/02, p. 1118, paid subscribers)
organ procurement
SELLING: David Rothman, Ph.D., writes, “Sale of organs is a zero-sum game in which any advantage to one participant necessarily leads to disadvantage to one or more of the others. The organ recipient is the only one who stands a chance for gain (organ brokers, surgeons, and hospitals notwithstanding). … Sale of a kidney will no more rescue an individual from poverty than it will, in aggregate, spur economic development. Thus, for everyone except recipients, commerce in organs is a dead-end proposition.”
(Reading: “Ethical and social consequences of selling a kidney,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 10/2/02, paid subscribers only; “Economic and health consequences of selling a kidney in India,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 10/2/02, p. 1589-1593, abstract)
personhood
WHO IS THE ZYGOTE? Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, STD, writes, “If the zygote would have a life which is not a soul, then this temporary stand-in would be a biological entity which mimics the functions of a human soul. It develops the species specific enzymes and proteins of human bodies. It undertakes the building of a human organism, including the eventual construction of the brain. But only a spiritual human soul has need of a human brain, the instrument for processing spiritual thoughts and free decisions. Vegetative and sentient life, which is not yet substantially integrated into a spiritual soul, has no need for the living computers and speech facilitators housed in our skulls. Flowers and birds do not attempt to grow a forebrain to process speech. For them, blooming and chirping is enough. Human zygotes and embryos, however, unerringly pursue the path to build a forebrain, a midbrain, and a stem brain from the very beginning. From the moment of fertilization the cascading and unraveling of pre-set sequences continues on schedule, ‘come hell or high water,’ until that brain is formed, and then until the baby grows into adulthood. The end demonstrates the nature of the beginning.”
(Reading: “Human life before ensoulment?” Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, 2/14/00)
politics
DEBATABLE PRUDENCE: One pro-lifer argues that it is not only “morally permissible” to vote for a Republican candidate who is less pro-abortion than his Democratic opponent, but “very imprudent not to.” In response, a second pro-lifer comments that as long as pro-lifers continue to hold their noses and vote for pro-aborts like the Republican, the political parties will continue to serve up more of the same: “How ‘prudent’ is it to hand convenient excuses/precedents to those Catholics who are always looking for some excuse to vote for a pro-abort, or to perpetuate the moral confusion and scandal among Catholics and non-Catholics alike? … I think it is imprudent for you to suggest that what may be “morally permissible” as a theoretical matter (and I do not concede the validity of your analysis in this regard) is a moral imperative in this particular case.”
COMMENT: Fudging on moral absolutes, after 30 years of defeat, should be teaching pro-life Americans something!
(Reading: e-mail communications to Judie Brown)
NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina LifeTree, an educational pro-life organization, recently expressed its idea of how to deal with politicians who call themselves pro-life but favor abortion in certain cases, “The best form of education they can receive is to hear firmly and clearly from Catholic members of the electorate that they want lawmakers who fully support the position of the Church as it is stated in the Gospel of Life.” The group quotes from the encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Section 58: “We need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eyes and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self deception.”
(Reading: “Primary follow-up,” NCCatholic, 9/18/02; Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life))
pregnancy
DISEASE: Doctors for Life reports the South African Medical Research Council has attempted to reclassify pregnancy as a pathological condition suggesting that it would help hurting women if their babies were killed.
(Reading: “Medical Research Council tries to reclassify pregnancy,” Doctors for Life news release, 10/3/02)
sex education
SIECUS: A new study claims that low-income parents prefer sex education for their children.
(Reading: “Low income parents prefer ‘comprehensive’ sex ed for kids,” CNS News, 10/3/02; “National poll shows parents overwhelmingly support comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only-until-marriage by 5 to 1 margin,” SIECUS news release, 10/1/02)
stem cells from human embryos
TADA RESPONDS TO REEVE: Joni Eareckson Tada has written an article countering the pro-stem-cell research position taken by Christopher Reeve. Tada and Reeve are both paralyzed as a result of spinal cord injuries.
(Reading: “The best hope for a cure,” Moody Magazine, 9-10/02)
zinger
NOT A PERSON: A young mother was overcome with tears when a coroner found “that her stillborn son was not legally a person, had no rights and therefore his death could not be investigated.”
(Reading: “Your baby’s ‘not a person,'” Sunday Times (Australia), 9/19/02)
reflection for prayer
1 TIMOTHY 1:3-7: As I asked you when I was leaving Macedonia, please stay at Ephesus, to insist that certain people stop teaching strange doctrines and taking notice of myths and endless genealogies; these things are only likely to raise irrelevant doubts instead of furthering the designs of God which are revealed in faith. The only purpose of this instruction is that there should be love, coming out of a pure heart, a clear conscience and a sincere faith. There are some people who have gone off the straight course and taken a road that leads to empty speculation; they claim to be doctors of the Law but they understand neither the arguments they are using nor the opinions they are upholding.