in this issue
activism: ALL CONFERENCE
brave new world: WASHINGTON POST
courts: LOUISIANA
imposed death: NETHERLANDS
media: HEROES?
personhood: NOW
the pill: BREAST CANCER / CERVICAL CANCER
planned parenthood: CHAPLAIN / MAGGIES
quote of the week: ANTI-LIFE / PRO-LIFE
reflection for prayer: ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN
activism
ALL CONFERENCE: Sign up before April 10 and receive a 15-percent discount for American Life League’s pro-life conference in New Orleans from July 10-14. You may register online. Speakers will include Judie Brown, Fr. Tom Euteneuer, Dr. Jack Willke, Archbishop Elden Curtiss and Pastor Johnny Hunter. Ambassador Alan Keyes will be the Friday luncheon speaker. Full information on the conference is available at Celebration of Life World Family Conference.
brave new world
WASHINGTON POST: The paper’s Sunday magazine profiled a lesbian couple who conceived children through artificial insemination. Both women are deaf, and insisted on using a deaf sperm donor in order to increase the chances of having deaf children. Their project resulted in a 5-year-old daughter who is deaf, and an infant son whose hearing is extremely limited.
(Reading: “A world of their own,” Washington Post, 3/31/02, p. W22)
courts
LOUISIANA: A federal appeals court has thrown out a challenge to Louisiana’s “choose life” specialty license plates. The court says the plaintiffs in the case simply had no standing to sue. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “the plaintiffs said they were being cheated because no license plates supporting abortion rights are available. The 5th Circuit rejected that argument and said blocking the plates would not give the opponents a place to express their view.”
(Reading: “Suit against ‘Choose Life’ plates thrown out,” Times-Picayune, 3/30/02)
imposed death
NETHERLANDS: The Dutch law permitting assisted suicide took effect April 1. According to the BBC, “The Netherlands Voluntary Euthanasia Society is also debating whether elderly people should be prescribed a suicide pill to be able to end their own lives when they feel the time is right.”
(Reading: “Dutch legalise euthanasia,” BBC News, 4/1/02)
media
HEROES? The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s health section published a fluff-filled feature about Jill Sheffield of Family Care International, which the paper described as “a group that addresses women’s health issues.” The article speaks of “reproductive health” among Third World women and also profiles Eleanor Smithwick, who made a career of distributing Depo-Provera, an abortifacient birth control chemical, “so that women could limit their families to two or three children.”
(Reading: “In many parts of the world, girls face limited choices, life-threatening conditions,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, 3/27/02)
personhood
NOW: The National Organization for Women is campaigning against a Bush administration proposal for expanding prenatal healthcare programs. The proposal uses the term “unborn child.” NOW is incensed that “the move is clearly intended to advance the right wing’s ideological notion of ‘fetal personhood.’ It is an anti-abortion ploy disguised as a health care proposal.” A NOW action alert also complains that “endowing a fetus with more rights than a pregnant woman is more than a back-door attempt to restrict abortion rights — it’s an offense to women everywhere.”
(Reading: “Activists: Send comments on ‘fetal personhood’ by May 6,” NOW action alert, 4/1/02)
the pill
BREAST CANCER: A report released in Spain recently has received little attention in North America. Researchers studied 100,000 women. Those who used the pill increased their chances of developing breast cancer by 26 percent. The greatest risk was for women over 45 who are on the pill.
(Reading: “Study confirms link between breast cancer, pill,” Cybercast News Service, 3/25/02)
CERVICAL CANCER: According to new research, women who have taken birth control pills for more than five years have a higher risk of developing cervical cancer if they are infected with the common sexually transmitted human papilloma virus.
(Reading: “Study suggests pill increases cervical cancer risk in some women,” Associated Press, 3/26/02; “Effect of oral contraceptives on risk of cervical cancer in women with human papillomavirus infection: the IARC multicentric case-control study,” The Lancet, 3/30/02)
planned parenthood
CHAPLAIN: Planned Parenthood has appointed Rev. Monica Corsaro, a Methodist minister, as its state chaplain in Washington. She told the Seattle Times that Planned Parenthood clients have “already made the decision to have an abortion but believe God will send them to hell. I try to focus on telling them ‘God loves you, too.'” The paper reports Rev. Corsaro is Planned Parenthood’s first full-time state chaplain.
(Reading: “Planned Parenthood gets full-time chaplain,” Seattle Times, 3/30/02)
MAGGIES: While Hollywood handed out Oscars, Planned Parenthood handed out Maggies — awards named for founder Margaret Sanger. NBC’s “Law and Order” received a Maggie for a drama about “threats posed to family planning workers by anti-choice extremists.” The daytime soap “Days of Our Lives” was cited for showing couples “contemplating having sex for the first time and discussing contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections.” The cable program “Sex in the City” was honored because it “consistently deals frankly discussions about sex and sexuality (sic).” Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman received a special Maggie “for her mastery of her medium and her insightful body of work, including women’s reproductive rights and policies.”
(Reading: “Stars of Just Shoot Me, Saturday Night Live, E!Fashion Emergency, Ali and Days of Our Lives, Glamour Editor and Elected Leaders To Celebrate 85th Anniversary of Planned Parenthood March 21,” Planned Parenthood news release, 3/22/02)
quote of the week
ANTI-LIFE: “A woman’s right to choose must never be held up by red tape,” said California Gov. Gray Davis, as he ordered HMOs to cover morning-after abortion pills. No other state has issued such a requirement.
COMMENT: It’s noteworthy that Davis used the popular pro-abortion slogan, “a woman’s right to choose.” Proponents insist the morning-after pill is not abortifacient. Yet with one sentence, Davis proved that the morning-after pill and abortion are certainly linked. His statement came three days after the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and its California affiliate endorsed his re-election.
(Reading: “Morning-after pills covered in California,” Associated Press, 3/29/02; “NARAL-PAC and CARAL-PAC endorse Governor Gray Davis,” NARAL news release, 3/26/02)
PRO-LIFE: “I am so grateful when I was an embryo that I wasn’t killed, for whatever reason,” said Kentucky State Sen. Elizabeth Tori (R-Radcliff). “I believe that an embryo is a baby. A baby. And I do not believe in killing babies.” Sen. Tori was speaking in favor of a bill that would ban human cloning. However, a legislative stalemate has scuttled its chances for passage this year. Too many senators were reluctant to “outlaw a promising field of medical research that might yield cures to paralysis and diseases.”
(Reading: “Senate vote goes against cloning ban,” Lexington Herald Leader, 3/30/02)
reflection for prayer
ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN: We must sacrifice ourselves to God, each day and in everything we do, accepting all that happens to us for the sake of the Word, imitating His passion by our sufferings and honoring His blood by shedding our own. We must be ready to be crucified.