abortion
STATISTICS: Facts including “49 percent of pregnancies among American women are unintended,” “two out of every 100 women aged 15-44 have an abortion,” and “Catholic women are 29 percent more likely than Protestants to have an abortion” are part of a report published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
culture of death
CHOICE and PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE: The AARP magazine Modern Maturity interviewed Bill and Judith Moyers of PBS regarding their recently broadcast special on dying, which was funded by a $2.75 million grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Bill described one woman interviewed in Oregon who found it “an enormous psychological relief to know that this choice [physician assisted suicide] was available” and another sufferer of ALS who lived in another state and “did not have that choice and suffered a great deal because of it.”
COMMENT: Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical letter, “The Gospel of Life,” clarifies such choices this way: The “negative moral precepts … [10 Commandments] make it clear that the choice of certain ways of acting is radically incompatible with the love of God and with the dignity of the person created in his image. Such choices cannot be redeemed by the goodness of any intention or of any consequence; they are irrevocably opposed to the bond between persons; they contradict the fundamental decision to direct one’s life to God” (Section 75).
(Reading: The Last Taboo, Modern Maturity, 9-10/00; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation news release; for a critique of the pro-death PBS special, request “Euthanasia Propaganda Wave” from “>Alex Shadenberg)
fetal pain
TRUE OR FALSE: Recent news reports indicate that a preborn baby does not actually feel pain from abortion until perhaps the 24th or 25th week of life in the womb. That report is woefully inaccurate. The actual time of such experience can be as early as seven weeks gestational age, according to the experts. See the following for documentation: “Fetal Pain: An Agonizing Reality“; “Fetal Pain,” Chapter 14 of “Love them Both,” by Dr. and Mrs. Jack Willke; Pro-Life Activists Encyclopedia, Chapter 75, quoting Vincent Collins, M.D., John T. Noonan and Sir A. William Liley, M.D.
health care
DECLARATION 2000: Get involved in reforming health care; join 15 Catholic bishops, the Family Research Council, American Life League and others. Contact “>Mike O’Dea of the Christus Medicus Foundation for document copies.
human cloning
BRITAIN: While the British government has sanctioned the cloning of human embryos for alleged “therapeutic” reasons, the European Union has resoundingly condemned the practice.
(Reading: “European Deputies Slam British Embryo Cloning Call“; for further information contact LIFE of Britain; details on Resolution B5-0710, 9/7/00 available from European Parliament)
imposed death
NEW YORK: Former doctor Michael Swango “will admit” that he murdered three patients while working at Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island. News reports indicate that as early as 1982, questions came up regarding Swango’s possible involvement in taking the lives of patients.
COMMENT: Nancy Valko, R.N., writes: “If it’s this hard and takes this long to get rid of a doctor who kills without a cause, what in the heck are we doing even discussing euthanasia and assisted suicide?”
(Reading: “Man to Admit to Murdering Three Long Island Patients,” New York Times, 9/6/00; “‘Doctor Death’ to Cop a Plea,” Court TV, 9/6/00)
personhood
WHEN PERSONS ARE NOT: Tyler Medical Clinic’s Jaroslav Marik, M.D., reported progress in genetic testing that enables the doctor to evaluate the embryo prior to implantation, describing the testing as “preventive medicine … it reduces the danger of someone suffering unnecessarily from a devastating disease.” And, he said, the preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) testing prevents the “transplantation of abnormal embryos.” The testing involves an embryologist who extracts a single cell from the embryo and a geneticist who use techniques to examine the cell. Such diseases as Down’s Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis are screened out.
COMMENT: The problem is that these tiny boys and girls who are “examined” are people who will die if they are deemed unfit for further development. This is abortion. This is murder.
(Reading: “New Breakthrough Genetic Testing,” Business Wire, 9/5/00; Tyler Medical Clinic news release)
politics
PROFESSOR CHARLES RICE ON HISTORY: “The 1992 and 1996 presidential elections confirm that a pro-life strategy of compromise contributes to the institutionalization of the abortion ethic. Bill Clinton took the totally pro-abortion position. The ‘pro-life’ candidates, George Bush and Bob Dole, backed by the establishment pro-life movement, supported legalized abortion in the life of the mother, rape and incest cases. The Washington Post/ABC News, Gallup election day exit polls and others indicate that those campaigns reinforced the trend toward public acceptance of legalized abortion. Only about twenty percent believed abortion should not be legal.
“The political pro-life movement is not taken seriously, perhaps because it does not take its own rhetoric seriously. The advocates of the ‘practical’ approach proclaim the sanctity of life. They urge support for limited abortions as the best we can get … But it is fair to ask whether they will ever demand that abortion be totally prohibited by the law?”
(Reading: Charles Rice, “The Winning Side,” pp. 238-239)
MURDER? The Vatican Declaration on Procured Abortion, agreeing completely with God’s Law, clearly states: “From the moral point of view this is certain: even if a doubt existed concerning whether the fruit of conception is already a human person, it is objectively a grave sin to dare to risk murder. ‘The one who will be a man is already one.'” Therefore, one wonders if the politician understands the gravity of favoring even one abortion.
stem cell research
NAZI HISTORY REPEATED: Life Advocacy Briefing reports: “Seeing the scars left on our generation by Nazi atrocities, it is surprising that a reminder should be necessary, yet with Senators like Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and presidents like Bill Clinton locking arms to promote utilitarian medical experimentation, this timely reminder does come from Colleen Parro of the Republican National Coalition for Life: ‘Basic biology … tells us that a unique, individual human being is in existence at conception. As such, he or she is a human subject as defined in the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics, which has guided scientists around the world ever since the end of World War II. The Code demands … that medical experiments may not be conducted on humans unless they are for the benefit of the human subject and would not cause injury or death. Clearly legitimate under the Nuremberg Code is the promising research into extracting stem cells from consenting adults for their own relief from serious diseases. Clearly falling outside the standard — as a throwback to those mid-20th-century days of horror — is the embryonic stem cell harvesting and manipulation being pushed by Sen. Specter in S. 2015 and by the Clinton regime through research grant ‘guidelines’ issued late last month by the National Institutes of Health in violation of federal law.”
COMMENT: Elected officials need to know the fact that a person exists at conception and no violent destruction of said innocent person is licit. To view S2015 visit the Library of Congress site, enter bill number and search.
(Reading: E-mail “>Life Advocacy Briefing for subscriptions available by fax or postal service; RNCLife FAX NOTES, from which the above quotation is taken, can be requested by visiting Republican National Coalition for Life)
vaccines
CHIRON PHARMACEUTICALS: Children of God for Life researcher Debi Vinnedge reports that Chiron Pharmaceuticals produces an ethical rabies vaccine called RabAvert. Vinnedge describes Chiron as “the only vaccine manufacturer that is not producing immunizations derived from abortion.” The company is being urged to pursue the ethical production of childhood vaccines.
(Reading: 9/11/00 letter to Chiron from Children of God for Life)
web news
CLEAR THINKING: Visit LifeIssues.Net, a site full of great news and principled information.
wrongful life
OHIO: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a disabled girl cannot sue the doctors who delivered her rather than providing her parents the option of aborting her prior to birth. Her parents argue they would have aborted the seven year old had they known she would be born with spina bifida.
(Reading: “Disabled Girl Cannot Sue Doctors,” Cincinnati Post, 9/6/00; “Parents Wish Spina Bifida Child Had Been Aborted,” Baptist News; “Ohio Couple Sues for Compensation Because Doctors Did Not Recommend Abortion,” Zenit News)
you
CHASTITY PROGRAMS? For a critique of “The New Corinthians” send $3.00 (New Yorkers add $.15) to Aletheia Press, P.O. Box 577, Massena, NY 13662.
FAST FOR LIFE: Pro-lifers are organizing a nine-day Fast for Life project to touch the hearts of Americans. An outline for the project is available from James Hamilton, M.D., of Georgia. Dates: September 22-30. For your copy, call 706-754-7485 or request via e-mail from “>ALL. Be sure to include a mailing address. Organizers do not have a web site.
zinger
LOUISIANA: A judge blocked enforcement of the “Choose Life” license plate legislation recently based in part on the plaintiff’s argument that public money shouldn’t be used to support a specific religious viewpoint.
(Reading: “Judge Blocks ‘Choose Life’ Plates,” The [Baton Rouge] Advocate, 8/30/00)
reflection for prayerDo not put your trust in men in power,
or in any mortal man-he cannot save,
he yields his breath and goes back to the earth he came from,
and on that day all his schemes perish.
Happy the man who has the God of Jacob to help him,
whose hope is fixed on Yahweh his God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and the sea, and all that these hold.
-Psalm 146:3-6 (Jerusalem Bible)
STATISTICS: Facts including “49 percent of pregnancies among American women are unintended,” “two out of every 100 women aged 15-44 have an abortion,” and “Catholic women are 29 percent more likely than Protestants to have an abortion” are part of a report published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
culture of death
CHOICE and PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE: The AARP magazine Modern Maturity interviewed Bill and Judith Moyers of PBS regarding their recently broadcast special on dying, which was funded by a $2.75 million grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Bill described one woman interviewed in Oregon who found it “an enormous psychological relief to know that this choice [physician assisted suicide] was available” and another sufferer of ALS who lived in another state and “did not have that choice and suffered a great deal because of it.”
COMMENT: Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical letter, “The Gospel of Life,” clarifies such choices this way: The “negative moral precepts … [10 Commandments] make it clear that the choice of certain ways of acting is radically incompatible with the love of God and with the dignity of the person created in his image. Such choices cannot be redeemed by the goodness of any intention or of any consequence; they are irrevocably opposed to the bond between persons; they contradict the fundamental decision to direct one’s life to God” (Section 75).
(Reading: The Last Taboo, Modern Maturity, 9-10/00; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation news release; for a critique of the pro-death PBS special, request “Euthanasia Propaganda Wave” from “>Alex Shadenberg)
fetal pain
TRUE OR FALSE: Recent news reports indicate that a preborn baby does not actually feel pain from abortion until perhaps the 24th or 25th week of life in the womb. That report is woefully inaccurate. The actual time of such experience can be as early as seven weeks gestational age, according to the experts. See the following for documentation: “Fetal Pain: An Agonizing Reality“; “Fetal Pain,” Chapter 14 of “Love them Both,” by Dr. and Mrs. Jack Willke; Pro-Life Activists Encyclopedia, Chapter 75, quoting Vincent Collins, M.D., John T. Noonan and Sir A. William Liley, M.D.
health care
DECLARATION 2000: Get involved in reforming health care; join 15 Catholic bishops, the Family Research Council, American Life League and others. Contact “>Mike O’Dea of the Christus Medicus Foundation for document copies.
human cloning
BRITAIN: While the British government has sanctioned the cloning of human embryos for alleged “therapeutic” reasons, the European Union has resoundingly condemned the practice.
(Reading: “European Deputies Slam British Embryo Cloning Call“; for further information contact LIFE of Britain; details on Resolution B5-0710, 9/7/00 available from European Parliament)
imposed death
NEW YORK: Former doctor Michael Swango “will admit” that he murdered three patients while working at Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island. News reports indicate that as early as 1982, questions came up regarding Swango’s possible involvement in taking the lives of patients.
COMMENT: Nancy Valko, R.N., writes: “If it’s this hard and takes this long to get rid of a doctor who kills without a cause, what in the heck are we doing even discussing euthanasia and assisted suicide?”
(Reading: “Man to Admit to Murdering Three Long Island Patients,” New York Times, 9/6/00; “‘Doctor Death’ to Cop a Plea,” Court TV, 9/6/00)
personhood
WHEN PERSONS ARE NOT: Tyler Medical Clinic’s Jaroslav Marik, M.D., reported progress in genetic testing that enables the doctor to evaluate the embryo prior to implantation, describing the testing as “preventive medicine … it reduces the danger of someone suffering unnecessarily from a devastating disease.” And, he said, the preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) testing prevents the “transplantation of abnormal embryos.” The testing involves an embryologist who extracts a single cell from the embryo and a geneticist who use techniques to examine the cell. Such diseases as Down’s Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis are screened out.
COMMENT: The problem is that these tiny boys and girls who are “examined” are people who will die if they are deemed unfit for further development. This is abortion. This is murder.
(Reading: “New Breakthrough Genetic Testing,” Business Wire, 9/5/00; Tyler Medical Clinic news release)
politics
PROFESSOR CHARLES RICE ON HISTORY: “The 1992 and 1996 presidential elections confirm that a pro-life strategy of compromise contributes to the institutionalization of the abortion ethic. Bill Clinton took the totally pro-abortion position. The ‘pro-life’ candidates, George Bush and Bob Dole, backed by the establishment pro-life movement, supported legalized abortion in the life of the mother, rape and incest cases. The Washington Post/ABC News, Gallup election day exit polls and others indicate that those campaigns reinforced the trend toward public acceptance of legalized abortion. Only about twenty percent believed abortion should not be legal.
“The political pro-life movement is not taken seriously, perhaps because it does not take its own rhetoric seriously. The advocates of the ‘practical’ approach proclaim the sanctity of life. They urge support for limited abortions as the best we can get … But it is fair to ask whether they will ever demand that abortion be totally prohibited by the law?”
(Reading: Charles Rice, “The Winning Side,” pp. 238-239)
MURDER? The Vatican Declaration on Procured Abortion, agreeing completely with God’s Law, clearly states: “From the moral point of view this is certain: even if a doubt existed concerning whether the fruit of conception is already a human person, it is objectively a grave sin to dare to risk murder. ‘The one who will be a man is already one.'” Therefore, one wonders if the politician understands the gravity of favoring even one abortion.
stem cell research
NAZI HISTORY REPEATED: Life Advocacy Briefing reports: “Seeing the scars left on our generation by Nazi atrocities, it is surprising that a reminder should be necessary, yet with Senators like Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and presidents like Bill Clinton locking arms to promote utilitarian medical experimentation, this timely reminder does come from Colleen Parro of the Republican National Coalition for Life: ‘Basic biology … tells us that a unique, individual human being is in existence at conception. As such, he or she is a human subject as defined in the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics, which has guided scientists around the world ever since the end of World War II. The Code demands … that medical experiments may not be conducted on humans unless they are for the benefit of the human subject and would not cause injury or death. Clearly legitimate under the Nuremberg Code is the promising research into extracting stem cells from consenting adults for their own relief from serious diseases. Clearly falling outside the standard — as a throwback to those mid-20th-century days of horror — is the embryonic stem cell harvesting and manipulation being pushed by Sen. Specter in S. 2015 and by the Clinton regime through research grant ‘guidelines’ issued late last month by the National Institutes of Health in violation of federal law.”
COMMENT: Elected officials need to know the fact that a person exists at conception and no violent destruction of said innocent person is licit. To view S2015 visit the Library of Congress site, enter bill number and search.
(Reading: E-mail “>Life Advocacy Briefing for subscriptions available by fax or postal service; RNCLife FAX NOTES, from which the above quotation is taken, can be requested by visiting Republican National Coalition for Life)
vaccines
CHIRON PHARMACEUTICALS: Children of God for Life researcher Debi Vinnedge reports that Chiron Pharmaceuticals produces an ethical rabies vaccine called RabAvert. Vinnedge describes Chiron as “the only vaccine manufacturer that is not producing immunizations derived from abortion.” The company is being urged to pursue the ethical production of childhood vaccines.
(Reading: 9/11/00 letter to Chiron from Children of God for Life)
web news
CLEAR THINKING: Visit LifeIssues.Net, a site full of great news and principled information.
wrongful life
OHIO: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a disabled girl cannot sue the doctors who delivered her rather than providing her parents the option of aborting her prior to birth. Her parents argue they would have aborted the seven year old had they known she would be born with spina bifida.
(Reading: “Disabled Girl Cannot Sue Doctors,” Cincinnati Post, 9/6/00; “Parents Wish Spina Bifida Child Had Been Aborted,” Baptist News; “Ohio Couple Sues for Compensation Because Doctors Did Not Recommend Abortion,” Zenit News)
you
CHASTITY PROGRAMS? For a critique of “The New Corinthians” send $3.00 (New Yorkers add $.15) to Aletheia Press, P.O. Box 577, Massena, NY 13662.
FAST FOR LIFE: Pro-lifers are organizing a nine-day Fast for Life project to touch the hearts of Americans. An outline for the project is available from James Hamilton, M.D., of Georgia. Dates: September 22-30. For your copy, call 706-754-7485 or request via e-mail from “>ALL. Be sure to include a mailing address. Organizers do not have a web site.
zinger
LOUISIANA: A judge blocked enforcement of the “Choose Life” license plate legislation recently based in part on the plaintiff’s argument that public money shouldn’t be used to support a specific religious viewpoint.
(Reading: “Judge Blocks ‘Choose Life’ Plates,” The [Baton Rouge] Advocate, 8/30/00)
reflection for prayer
Do not put your trust in men in power,
or in any mortal man-he cannot save,
he yields his breath and goes back to the earth he came from,
and on that day all his schemes perish.Happy the man who has the God of Jacob to help him,
whose hope is fixed on Yahweh his God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and the sea, and all that these hold.-Psalm 146:3-6 (Jerusalem Bible)