in this issue:
hot button issues: ALITO / PETITION / SUICIDE
abortion: FETAL PAIN
birth control pill: 84-DAY REGIMEN / RISKS I / RISKS II
conscience: WHEN CHOICE IS BAD
culture of death: PETER SINGER
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT
pharmacists: ILLINOIS / MISSOURI
schiavo: GOVERNMENT NO-NO
web news: CHRIST-CENTERED EFFORT
zinger: HUMANS AS A TESTING GROUND FOR ANIMALS
reflection for prayer: ST. AUGUSTINE
hot button issues
ALITO: American Life League thanks all those who signed the organization’s petition in favor of Samuel Alito’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. “His record suggests that he will help to ensure justice for all Americans,” said ALL’s David Bereit, “born and pre-born.”
(Reading: “ALL applauds Alito confirmation,” American Life League news release, 1/31/06)
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.
SUICIDE: American Life League’s Judie Brown looks at the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon, and examines the options for federal oversight of physician-assisted suicide.
(Reading: “Legitimizing murder — again,” American Life League commentary, 1/31/06)
abortion
FETAL PAIN: The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a series of letters on fetal pain; moral relativism entered into the various opinions. Rather than discussing the reality of what clinicians can see via 4D ultrasound, thus enabling them to know precisely what a preborn baby feels or does not feel, writers argued irrelevant points. One wrote, “we do not know for certain whether a fetus has the capacity to feel pain prior to 29 weeks’ gestation.” Another noted that the failure to use specific psychology databases suggests that “research on prenatal consciousness, behavior and stress” was not considered in a previous article. A third writer said, “there are pain issues for the 1.4% of the abortions that occur at or after 21 weeks gestational age.”
COMMENT: Such obfuscation only goes to prove that when it comes to addressing facts, including the humanity of the preborn child, the culture of death is loaded with euphemisms and rather short on logic.
(Reading: “Fetal pain,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 1/11/06)
birth control pill
84-DAY REGIMEN: Researchers point out that the latest creation in the birth control industry, continuous birth control pills, “not only prevent monthly uterine bleeding but also reduce commonly associated pain, headaches and premenstrual symptoms.”
COMMENT: Of course, the most dramatic aspect is “improved contraception,” which really means more efficient chemical killing of human preborn children during their first week of life.
(Reading: “Attitudes and prescribing preferences of health care professionals in the United States regarding use of extended-cycle oral contraceptives,” Contraception, 73 (2006) 41-45)
RISKS I: The unimaginable may be attributed directly to using the birth control pill. In this sexually saturated society, who would have thought that researchers would determine that using the birth control pill could actually negatively impact sexual libido for years after the pill is finally stopped?
COMMENT: Perhaps it is time to take a chastity break?
(Reading: “Libido problems linked to the pill may be long-term,” 1/3/06, HealthDay)
RISKS II: Researchers report that even if a battery of tests could be done on women to determine whether they might be susceptible to blood clots if they take the pill, “none of these tests, alone or in combination, have the specificity to predict which individual woman will develop thrombophlebitis. Such a widespread use of these tests could result in the failure to initially prescribe or discontinuation of use of effective contraception for a considerable percentage of the population.”
(Reading: “Should coagulation tests be used to determine which oral contraceptive users have an increased risk of thrombophlebitis?” Contraception, 73 (2006) 4-5)
conscience
WHEN CHOICE IS BAD: Those who oppose the latest “right of refusal” laws — which would protect health care workers from involving themselves in acts they find morally abhorrent such as abortion and delivery of abortive chemicals — are being chastised by Planned Parenthood, among others. “Women all over the country are being turned away from obtaining valid and legal prescriptions. …These kinds of laws would only make the situation worse. It’s shameful.”
COMMENT: There is nothing shameful about refusing to provide pills that kill to women who may well already be mothers.
(Reading: “Health workers’ choice debated — proposals back right not to treat,” Washington Post, 1/30/06)
culture of death
PETER SINGER: “When the traditional ethic of the sanctity of human life is proven indefensible at both the beginning and end of life, a new ethic will replace it. It will recognize that the concept of a person is distinct from that of a member of the species Homo sapiens, and that it is personhood, not species membership, that is most significant in determining when it is wrong to end a life. We will understand that even if the life of a human organism begins at conception, the life of a person — that is, at a minimum, a being with some level of self-awareness-does not begin so early. And we will respect the right of autonomous, competent people to choose when to live and when to die.”
(Reading “The sanctity of life,” Foreign Policy, 09/05)
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 www.RightToLifeAct.org for details.
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? If not, ask!
pharmacists
ILLINOIS: Four Illinois pharmacists have sued the Walgreen Company, charging that the company violated the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which allows health care providers to opt out of procedures they object to on moral grounds. The four pharmacists refused to dispense the abortive morning-after pill.
COMMENT: The headline on the referenced article is incorrect; the pharmacists are objecting to abortifacients.
(Reading: “U.S. Pharmacists sue Walgreen over contraceptives,” Reuters, 1/28/06)
MISSOURI: Pharmacist Heather Williams was fired at Target after Planned Parenthood threatened to boycott the chain because Williams objected to being required to dispense the morning-after pill. Americans United for Life has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint on her behalf, alleging that Target discriminated against her based upon her religious beliefs and desire to exercise her conscience.
(Reading: “Target fires pharmacist in Missouri over morning after pill; Americans United for Life files EEOC complaint,” Americans United for Life news release, 1/26/05)
schiavo
GOVERNMENT NO-NO? Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a man with presidential aspirations, is saying that while he did not agree “morally” with the final outcome in the Terri Schiavo case, he now “understands that Americans do not want the government involved in such end-of-life decisions.”
COMMENT: Perhaps the senator, who is a doctor, failed to realize that Terri was not facing the “end of life” decision. She was never dying. It was her husband who wanted to see an end to her life. Senator, what are you thinking?
(Reading: “Frist: Gov’t unwanted in end-of-life cases,” Conservative Voice, 1/30/06)
web news
CHRIST-CENTERED EFFORT: To learn more about a new book focused on the preborn Christ, please visit Unborn Jesus Our Hope.
zinger
HUMANS AS A TESTING GROUND FOR ANIMALS: Researchers comment that “humans serve as a model for developing contraceptive approaches for wild species. Population control by traditional methods is increasingly unacceptable to the public, making human studies even more valuable for finding solutions to overabundant wild populations.”
(Reading: “Fertility control in wildlife: humans as a model,” Contraception, 73 (2006) 6-22)
reflection for prayer
ST. AUGUSTINE: He came to us and was despised among us, first by us, afterward with us; he taught us to be despised because he was despised; taught us to endure because he endured; taught us to suffer because he suffered.