in this issue:
hot button issues: NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY / PLANNED PARENTHOOD SLEAZE / SIGN THE PETITION
abortion: KANSAS / MIFEPRISTONE (RU-486) / RAPE AND INCEST
birth control pill: BREAST CANCER
culture of death: LIES, DARNED LIES
euthanasia: IMPOSED DEATH
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT
politics: DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE
zinger: ROBOTIC PHARMACISTS
reflection for prayer: HOPE IN CHRIST
hot button issues
NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY: It’s Tuesday! American Life League is sponsoring National Pro-life T-shirt Day for the fourth year. On April 25, ALL is asking pro-life students to wear a pro-life message to class. Other details are available online.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD SLEAZE: Planned Parenthood’s latest television commercial “is beyond disgusting,” said Jim Sedlak of American Life League’s STOPP International.
(Reading: “TV commercial raises the bar for the depths of depravity,” American Life League news release, 4/19/06)
SIGN THE PETITION: American Life League is leading a major petition effort designed to cut all tax funding directed to Planned Parenthood. In its most recent fiscal year, Planned Parenthood received more than $265 million from federal, state and local government sources. Petitions may be signed online.
abortion
KANSAS: In a tragic setback for pro-life Attorney General Phill Kline, “a federal judge ruled Tuesday that abortion clinic doctors and other professionals are not required under Kansas law to report underage sex between consenting youths.” Current law gives “health care providers” the discretion to discern whether or not sexual abuse has been perpetrated against a female minor child.
(Reading: “Judge rules against Kline in teen sex case,” Wichita Eagle, 4/19/06)
MIFEPRISTONE (RU-486): Etienne-Emile Baulieu, who developed RU-486, writes, “Since its approval in 1988, a regimen of mifepristone (RU-486) and a prostaglandin has been used to terminate more than 1.2 million pregnancies of up to seven weeks of gestation.” Further, in addressing recent deaths, Baulieu recommends that if mifepristone is used with vaginal administration of a prostaglandin, prophylactic antibiotics should also be administered.
(Reading: “Deaths from Clostridium sordellii after medical abortion,” New England Journal of Medicine, 4/13/06, pp. 1645-1646)
RAPE AND INCEST: In light of current battles over whether pro-life groups should support legislation containing exceptions for rape and incest, viewed by some to be a compassionate position for the pro-life movement to take, David Reardon, author of Victims and Victors, reports, “in a survey of 192 women who became pregnant through rape or incest, nearly 80 percent said that they regretted their abortions, while none of the women who carried to term said that they wished they had not done so or that they had chosen abortion instead.”
(Reading: “Most women pregnant from sexual assault don’t want abortions,” Elliot Institute News, 4/17/06; “Victims and Victors,” Elliot Institute)
birth control pill
BREAST CANCER: In a recent letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors point out that a prospective study of more than 100,000 women between the ages of 30 and 49 demonstrated that current or recent use of oral contraceptives is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
(Reading: “Estrogens and breast cancer,” New England Journal of Medicine, 4/13/06; “Use of oral contraceptives and breast cancer risk: the Norwegian-Swedish lifestyle and health cohort study,” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, 11/02)
culture of death
LIES, DARNED LIES: Senators Harry Reid and Hillary Rodham Clinton are busy telling the public that the solution to “unintended pregnancies” and abortions is more and better birth control for the poor and the downtrodden.
COMMENT: Insisting that the morning-after pill does not cause an abortion seems to be the new mantra of the culture of death.
(Reading: “Abortion debate shuns prevention,” Albany Times Union, 4/18/06)
euthanasia
IMPOSED DEATH: The updated version of Human Life Alliance’s excellent newspaper supplement, “Imposed Death,” is available online.
personhood
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT: This bill (HR 552) states, “The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” See RightToLifeAct.org for details.
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? If not, ask!
politics
DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE: On April 26, Democrats for Life is sponsoring the second annual “Real Women’s Voices” pro-life women’s lobbying day in Washington, D.C.
zinger
ROBOTIC PHARMACISTS: Cleveland Clinic bioethicist Katrina Bramstedt recently wrote that a way to get around the idea that pharmacists have moral objections to filling prescriptions or the birth control pill and the morning-after pill is the use of robots. “Robots would not have moral objections to certain drugs and would complete the orders written by doctors,” she said. Bramstedt claims this idea is not science fiction and that many pharmacies already use “robotic dispensing.”
COMMENT: Beam us home, Lord!
(Reading: “When pharmacists refuse to dispense prescriptions,” The Lancet, 4/15/06)
reflection for prayer
HOPE IN CHRIST: “Like the disciples of Emmaus, whose hearts were kindled by the words of the Risen One and enlightened by his living presence recognized in the breaking of the bread, who hurriedly returned to Jerusalem and became messengers of Christ’s Resurrection, we too must take up the path again, enlivened by the fervent desire to witness to the mystery of this love that gives hope to the world” (Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Conclusion of the Year of the Eucharist, Oct. 23, 2005).
“The love of Christ urges us on” (2 Corinthians 5:14): These words of St. Paul should be words that spur us onto battle as well. After receiving Christ into our hearts, we too should feel the desire to spread his kingdom and offer this tremendous gift of Christ’s friendship to all the souls Christ has placed in our path.
(Reading: “The real presence,” Regnum Christi, 4/19/06)