in this issue:
urgent / terri schiavo: BULLETIN / VATICAN NEWSPAPER / WENSKI
hot button issues: FLORIDA / LOVING WILL
bioethics: CATHOLIC?
catholic bishops: PHILIPPINES / REALITY CHECK
morning-after abortion pill: FDA / WISCONSIN
planned parenthood: COLORADO
population implosion: JAPAN
reminders: ALL’S NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY / RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2005
reflection for prayer: PSALM 31:2-3
urgent / terri schiavo
BULLETIN: Despite the efforts of many who wish to reverse the situation, it has now been almost a full week that Terri Schiavo has gone without food and water. Please pause right now, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, and pray that God will act in some fashion to spare the life of this innocent woman.
VATICAN NEWSPAPER: Regarding the “right” to disconnect Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, L’Osservatore Romano asks, “Who can, before God and humanity, pretend with impunity to claim such a right? Who – and on the basis of which criteria – can establish to whom the ‘privilege’ to live should be given?”
(Reading: “Vatican calls for keeping Schiavo alive,” Associated Press, 3/21/05)
WENSKI: Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando writes of the “passion of Terri Schiavo,” the ordeal playing out during Holy Week: “The crisis of our age is rooted in the presumption that we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil without reference to God. Yet, the Decalogue, while certainly an expression of divine positive law, is nonetheless more than a religious code: It is a reflection of natural law — of the law written on the heart of man. In other words, we cannot not know that it is wrong to kill innocent human life.”
(Reading: “Passion of Terri Schiavo,” Orlando Sentinel, 3/20/05)
hot button issues
FLORIDA: American Life League’s youth outreach team will lead Stations of the Cross in the Miami area today, stopping to pray at 13 South Florida abortion facilities.
(Reading: “American Life League leads Way of the Cross,” American Life League news release, 3/24/05)
LOVING WILL: With all of the interest in the Schiavo case, American Life League’s Loving Will project is getting additional attention. The Loving Will is an alternative to the living will that allows you to specifically tell your doctor and other health care personnel how to take care of you should you become so sick that you are unable to communicate your wishes. In short, it instructs health care personnel to do nothing intentionally, by act or omission, to cause your death.
(Reading: “The Loving Will: An ethical alternative to ‘living will’ documents,” American Life League)
bioethics
CATHOLIC? Paul McHugh is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a member of President Bush’s bioethics panel. He is also a Catholic. McHugh supports human cloning for purposes of stem cell extraction, a practice he is “well aware” the Catholic Church opposes. “I have had no discussions with the bishops on this,” he said in a Catholic News Service interview. “I consider myself a Catholic in good standing.”
(Reading: “Catholic on bioethics panel says he favors cloning for stem cells,” Catholic News Service, 3/17/05)
catholic bishops
PHILIPPINES: Government workers who publicly support a population control bill have been told they may not receive Holy Communion. The bill would restrict families to two children, authorize distribution of birth control and put sex education classes in public schools. Monsignor Jesus Dosado of the Diocese of Ozamiz said Catholics cannot support such anti-life policies.
(Reading: “Diocese tells government workers who promote contraception not to receive Communion,” LifeSiteNews.com, 3/17/05)
REALITY CHECK: The U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee is starting a new effort to dispel myths about Roe v. Wade. Information cards will be distributed to Congress and the media. One “myth” cited was a statement that Roe v. Wade authorized abortions in the first three months of pregnancy. In fact, abortion is permitted at any time up to and including birth.
(Reading: “Bishops’ committee launches Roe v. Wade ‘reality checks,'” Catholic News Agency, 3/16/05)
morning-after abortion pill
FDA: The man nominated to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says he expects the FDA to approve over-the-counter sales of the “emergency contraceptive” Plan B without a prescription, though the final word is not likely to come before April 13. That is the date a Senate committee is expected to vote on Lester Crawford’s appointment as FDA commissioner.
COMMENT: Why did the White House nominate as FDA commissioner a person who does not object to over-the-counter sales of an abortifacient?
(Reading: “FDA expects to ease Plan B availability,” Washington Post, 3/18/05, p. A10)
WISCONSIN: Following up on last week’s criticism of a “public service” ad for the morning-after abortion pill in the University of Wisconsin student newspaper, Pro-Life Wisconsin (an American Life League associate group) is working with state legislators to prohibit distribution of so-called emergency contraception on state college campuses.
(Reading: “Bill will try to bar UW from giving out pills,” Wisconsin State Journal, 3/21/05)
planned parenthood
COLORADO: Planned Parenthood is no longer being invited to Colorado Springs high schools. Local pro-lifers displayed graphic abortion images outside high schools where Planned Parenthood representatives were scheduled to speak. Organizer Mike Gamble said he just showed people the truth. The communications director of the Diocese of Colorado Springs said, “Planned Parenthood represents everything the Church condemns when it comes to sexual morality.”
(Reading: “Colorado Springs school district ousts Planned Parenthood,” Catholic News Agency, 3/17/05)
population implosion
JAPAN: Yamatsuri, Japan, will pay couples who have a third child one million yen (about $9,600 US). The town’s population has dropped from 7,400 to 7,000, and the local government wants to reverse the trend. It’s a national problem, as Japan’s population is projected to drop from 127 million to around 100 million over the next 50 years. The country’s birth rate is 1.29.
(Reading: “Japan town will pay women who have third kid,” Associated Press, 3/14/05)
reminders
ALL’S NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY: American Life League’s third annual National Pro-life T-shirt Day is April 26. All pro-life Americans, especially students, are encouraged to wear pro-life apparel that day to show support for the preborn. The official shirt of ALL’s National Pro-life T-shirt Day is available online at www.NationalProLifeTshirtDay.com. The cost is $5 plus shipping and handling.
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2005: This bill (which will be identical to the previous version) 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.”
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? He or she should be. Ask!
reflection for prayer
PSALM 31:2-3: In you, Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your justice deliver me; incline your ear to me; make haste to rescue me! Be my rock of refuge, a stronghold to save me.