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Communique – Jan. 14, 2000

adolescent sexuality

ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH (AFY): Formerly the Center for Population Options, AFY has announced the results of an international study which found that rates of HIV/AIDS, teen births and abortions are higher in the United States than in the Netherlands, France and Germany. It should be noted that Advocates for Youth specializes in programs focused on “sexual and reproductive health” to “help young people make safe, responsible decisions.”

(Reading: “U.S. Found to Have Highest Teen Birth and Abortion Rates of All Industrialized Nations,” Advocates for Youth media advisory, 12/14/99)

CHASTITY: The National Abstinence Clearinghouse (NAC) reports the birthrate to unmarried adolescents declined by 4.2 percent, the first drop in 25 years.

(Reading: NAC Network News Update, 12/14/99)

PILLS and PARENTS: A recent survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation discovered that “about half of respondents did not know that a minor can obtain the pill without parental permission, and a similar proportion of young women did not know about emergency contraception.” One thousand high school students participated in the survey.

(Reading: “Teenagers May Be, Like, Clueless,” Family Planning Perspectives, 11-12/99, p. 263; Kaiser Daily Health Report, 10/19/99)

culture of death

GLORIA FELDT: In her welcome to the millennium message, Feldt claims, “The revolutionary value now placed on planned and wanted children represents one of the most successful social marketing ideas ever in human history.”

(Reading: “Welcome the New Millennium,” 12/30/99, Planned Parenthood Federation of America)

STERILIZATION: A recent study refers to this surgical procedure as “voluntary surgical contraception.”

(Reading: “Fourteen Years’ Experience in Voluntary Female Sterilization Through Minilaparotomy in Jos, Nigeria,” Contraception, 1999, pp. 249-252)

emergency (morning after pill) contraception

UNITED NATIONS+IPPF: The International Consortium on Emergency Contraception includes among its promoters: UNFPA, World Health Organization, World Bank Special Program of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (Geneva), International Planned Parenthood (IPPF London) and the Population Council in New York among others. The group is “committed to making a dedicated product for emergency contraception a standard part of reproductive health care around the world.”

(Reading: Life Site News Special Report, 12/10/99; background information on the consortium can be found on the PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) web site. Note that former PATH President Dr. Gordon Perkin is now with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is in charge of the Global Health Programs.)

WAL-MART: The company continues the policy of not stocking Preven though they do stock abortive pills of other types. “>Letters to the firm are encouraged.

good news

WESTIN HOTELS: We are advised that as of December 31, 1999, the hotel chain has discontinued their UNICEF program, meaning that $1.00 extra will not be added to hotel customer’s bills upon checkout. To thank them for this wise decision, contact “>Gretchen Kloke, Public Relations-Westin Brand.

personhood

CALIFORNIA: Raylene Garcia was eight months pregnant when a drunk driver hit her car, injuring her, her three-year-old child and her preborn child. The baby was delivered by emergency Caesarian section, lived for four hours on life support and then died. Prosecutors in Rancho Cucamonga charged the driver with manslaughter, but Judge Mary Fuller dismissed that charge because “the baby was never legally alive.” Ortiz was convicted on three counts of drunken driving.

(Reading: “Driver Sentenced in Fetus Death,” Associated Press, 12/21/99)

HAWAII: Ann Hose, an inmate at Oahu Community Correctional Center, was pregnant until a “nurse injected the birth control drug Depo-Provera into the woman’s abdomen knowing she was pregnant” and the preborn child died. A lawsuit was filed seeking damages. Prison medical records are said to support Ms. Hose’s version of events.

(Reading: “Inmate Sues Over Death of Her Fetus in Prison,” Star-Bulletin, 12/3/99)

OKLAHOMA: The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that damages can be collected for the death or injury of a nonviable fetus — a fetus not capable of surviving outside the mother’s womb.

(Reading: “Court Rules for Nonviable Fetus,” Tulsa World, 12/10/99; see Nealis v. Baird at No. 88653, ___P.2d___,1999 OK 98, Decided December 7, 1999, Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma)

politics

BUSH: Barbara Bush told ABC’s This Week there was “nothing any president could do about abortion and that the volatile issue should not be part of the presidential campaign.” Earlier the same week on Larry King Live, G.W. Bush said that abortion “ought to be rare.” And, he explained that mothers who seek abortion should not be held criminally liable.

(Reading: “Barbara Bush Says Keep Abortion Off Party Platform,” Reuters news service, 12/20/99; “George W. Bush: Tells Larry King that Americans Need to Be Led Toward Life,” CNN, 12/16/99)

school-based clinics

FACTS: A recent report indicates a 230 percent increase in facilities in schools between 1992 and 1998. Further, the numbers break down: 37 percent in high schools, 34 percent in elementary schools, and 16 percent in middle and junior high schools — a number that has been steady for the past several years.

(Reading: “The Growth of School-Based Health Centers and the Role of State Policies: A National Survey,” Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 11/99)

sexually transmitted diseases

FUTURE: Improved “epidemiological methods have identified more than 25 organisms transmitted by intimate human sexual contact,” says Willard Cates. He opines: “For too long we have tended to focus on avoiding the adverse consequences of human sexuality — STDs and unplanned pregnancy.”

COMMENT: A baby is an “adverse consequence.” Cates’s recipe for success is NOT chastity before marriage and fidelity within marriage.

(Reading: “The Staying Power of Sexually Transmitted Disease,” The Lancet, 12/99, p. 62)

web news

CHOOSE LIFE: The promoters of the Choose Life license plate now have a web site in the hopes that the idea will catch on nation-wide.

reflection for prayer

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee. For behold thou wert within me, and I outside and in my unliveliness fell upon those lovely things that thou has made. Thou wert within me and I was not with thee.

-St. Augustine, 354-430 A.D.

ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH (AFY): Formerly the Center for Population Options, AFY has announced the results of an international study which found that rates of HIV/AIDS, teen births and abortions are higher in the United States than in the Netherlands, France and Germany. It should be noted that Advocates for Youth specializes in programs focused on “sexual and reproductive health” to “help young people make safe, responsible decisions.”

(Reading: “U.S. Found to Have Highest Teen Birth and Abortion Rates of All Industrialized Nations,” Advocates for Youth media advisory, 12/14/99)

CHASTITY: The National Abstinence Clearinghouse (NAC) reports the birthrate to unmarried adolescents declined by 4.2 percent, the first drop in 25 years.

(Reading: NAC Network News Update, 12/14/99)

PILLS and PARENTS: A recent survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation discovered that “about half of respondents did not know that a minor can obtain the pill without parental permission, and a similar proportion of young women did not know about emergency contraception.” One thousand high school students participated in the survey.

(Reading: “Teenagers May Be, Like, Clueless,” Family Planning Perspectives, 11-12/99, p. 263; Kaiser Daily Health Report, 10/19/99)

culture of death

GLORIA FELDT: In her welcome to the millennium message, Feldt claims, “The revolutionary value now placed on planned and wanted children represents one of the most successful social marketing ideas ever in human history.”

(Reading: “Welcome the New Millennium,” 12/30/99, Planned Parenthood Federation of America)

STERILIZATION: A recent study refers to this surgical procedure as “voluntary surgical contraception.”

(Reading: “Fourteen Years’ Experience in Voluntary Female Sterilization Through Minilaparotomy in Jos, Nigeria,” Contraception, 1999, pp. 249-252)

emergency (morning after pill) contraception

UNITED NATIONS+IPPF: The International Consortium on Emergency Contraception includes among its promoters: UNFPA, World Health Organization, World Bank Special Program of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (Geneva), International Planned Parenthood (IPPF London) and the Population Council in New York among others. The group is “committed to making a dedicated product for emergency contraception a standard part of reproductive health care around the world.”

(Reading: Life Site News Special Report, 12/10/99; background information on the consortium can be found on the PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) web site. Note that former PATH President Dr. Gordon Perkin is now with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is in charge of the Global Health Programs.)

WAL-MART: The company continues the policy of not stocking Preven though they do stock abortive pills of other types. “>Letters to the firm are encouraged.

good news

WESTIN HOTELS: We are advised that as of December 31, 1999, the hotel chain has discontinued their UNICEF program, meaning that $1.00 extra will not be added to hotel customer’s bills upon checkout. To thank them for this wise decision, contact “>Gretchen Kloke, Public Relations-Westin Brand.

personhood

CALIFORNIA: Raylene Garcia was eight months pregnant when a drunk driver hit her car, injuring her, her three-year-old child and her preborn child. The baby was delivered by emergency Caesarian section, lived for four hours on life support and then died. Prosecutors in Rancho Cucamonga charged the driver with manslaughter, but Judge Mary Fuller dismissed that charge because “the baby was never legally alive.” Ortiz was convicted on three counts of drunken driving.

(Reading: “Driver Sentenced in Fetus Death,” Associated Press, 12/21/99)

HAWAII: Ann Hose, an inmate at Oahu Community Correctional Center, was pregnant until a “nurse injected the birth control drug Depo-Provera into the woman’s abdomen knowing she was pregnant” and the preborn child died. A lawsuit was filed seeking damages. Prison medical records are said to support Ms. Hose’s version of events.

(Reading: “Inmate Sues Over Death of Her Fetus in Prison,” Star-Bulletin, 12/3/99)

OKLAHOMA: The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that damages can be collected for the death or injury of a nonviable fetus — a fetus not capable of surviving outside the mother’s womb.

(Reading: “Court Rules for Nonviable Fetus,” Tulsa World, 12/10/99; see Nealis v. Baird at No. 88653, ___P.2d___,1999 OK 98, Decided December 7, 1999, Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma)

politics

BUSH: Barbara Bush told ABC’s This Week there was “nothing any president could do about abortion and that the volatile issue should not be part of the presidential campaign.” Earlier the same week on Larry King Live, G.W. Bush said that abortion “ought to be rare.” And, he explained that mothers who seek abortion should not be held criminally liable.

(Reading: “Barbara Bush Says Keep Abortion Off Party Platform,” Reuters news service, 12/20/99; “George W. Bush: Tells Larry King that Americans Need to Be Led Toward Life,” CNN, 12/16/99)

school-based clinics

FACTS: A recent report indicates a 230 percent increase in facilities in schools between 1992 and 1998. Further, the numbers break down: 37 percent in high schools, 34 percent in elementary schools, and 16 percent in middle and junior high schools — a number that has been steady for the past several years.

(Reading: “The Growth of School-Based Health Centers and the Role of State Policies: A National Survey,” Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 11/99)

sexually transmitted diseases

FUTURE: Improved “epidemiological methods have identified more than 25 organisms transmitted by intimate human sexual contact,” says Willard Cates. He opines: “For too long we have tended to focus on avoiding the adverse consequences of human sexuality — STDs and unplanned pregnancy.”

COMMENT: A baby is an “adverse consequence.” Cates’s recipe for success is NOT chastity before marriage and fidelity within marriage.

(Reading: “The Staying Power of Sexually Transmitted Disease,” The Lancet, 12/99, p. 62)

web news

CHOOSE LIFE: The promoters of the Choose Life license plate now have a web site in the hopes that the idea will catch on nation-wide.

reflection for prayer

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee. For behold thou wert within me, and I outside and in my unliveliness fell upon those lovely things that thou has made. Thou wert within me and I was not with thee.

-St. Augustine, 354-430 A.D.