in this issue:
abortion: CATHOLIC HOSPITALS / PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS / RISK / UNICEF
alzheimer’s association: TUBE FEEDING
church and state: FIRST AMENDMENT COALITION
cloning humans: WILMUT AGAIN?
culture of death: ABORTION
eugenics: HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING
lifelines: THOUGHT
pharmacists: WISCONSIN
politics: PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS / PENNSYLVANIA
prayer: ROSARY NOVENA
stem cell research: FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL / JUVENILE DIABETES / SUCCESS
terri schiavo: IT’S ABOUT WHERE YOU LIVE
ultrasound: SAVING LIVES
reflection for prayer: SUFFERING
abortion
CATHOLIC HOSPITALS: As Loyola University Health System defends its “early induction” procedures, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops provided pro-life leader Jill Stanek with the following: “Early induction of labor before term (37 weeks) to relieve emotional distress hastens the death of the child as a means of achieving this presumed good effect and unjustifiably deprives the child of the good of gestation… Induction of labor before term performed simply for the reason that the child has a lethal anomaly is direct abortion.”
(Reading: “Loyola and USCCB at odds over early inducement of disabled unborn,” LifeSiteNews, 10/4/04)
PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS: From the archive: The American Academy of Physician Assistants joined forces with pro-abortion organizations seeking to overturn the Partial Birth Abortion law.
(Reading: “AAPA joins forces with health organizations to overturn federal ban,” AAPA News, 4/15/04)
RISK: Researchers examined 2,938 preterm births and 4,781 controls in an effort to determine if any relationship exists between abortion and subsequent preterm births: “Previous induced abortions significantly increased the risk of preterm delivery after idiopathic preterm labor, preterm premature rupture of membranes and ante-partum hemorrhage, but not preterm delivery after maternal hypertension.”
(Reading: “History of induced abortion as a risk factor for preterm birth in European countries: results of the EUROPOP survey,” Human Reproduction, 3/04, pp. 734-740)
UNICEF: The UN agency is opposing a parental notification law in New Zealand. Under the proposal, doctors would be required to tell parents if a girl is seeking an abortion. UNICEF said telling the parents could present problems, “and in some circumstances the young women may be at additional risk from violence.”
(Reading: “UN group defends girls’ rights,” New Zealand Herald, 10/11/04)
alzheimer’s association
TUBE FEEDING: Quoting an association e-mail, “The Alzheimer’s Association is not a proponent of life extension for persons in the late stages of Alzheimer’s.” The message lists technologies that should be avoided, including tube feeding. The official policy of the Alzheimer’s Association on tube feeding can be found online.
church and state
FIRST AMENDMENT COALITION: Bill Beckman has written a letter addressing the question of religious freedom in an effort to persuade Catholic priests to expose the pro-abortion tendency among so many politicians. In part it states, “The animosity toward religion reflected by some candidates, including some who claim to be Catholic, is appalling.” To get a copy of the letter for distribution to Catholic priests, e-mail .
cloning humans
WILMUT AGAIN? Dolly creator Ian Wilmut has applied for a license to clone human embryos in search of a cure for motor neuron disease.
(Reading: “Dolly scientists’ human clone bid,” BBC News, 9/28/04)
culture of death
ABORTION: Connie Lynne Carrillo writes that abortion “isn’t an issue of political or religious persuasion, the Left or the Right. This is an issue of being irresponsible members of the human family. Anytime an innocent member of our human family, born or unborn, must sacrifice his or her life, safety, health or happiness to advance our sexual agenda, rid us of our consequences and make life easier for us, that is an immoral act, no matter what your political or religious affiliation. That is a crime against humanity. Such self-serving behavior violates our family and deifies the culture of sexual hedonism.”
(Reading: “Abortion may drag us to history’s grave,” American Daily, 6/22/04)
eugenics
HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING: Dianne N. Irving, Ph.D., writes, “‘Transhumanism’ as a political movement was the creation of futurist writers and technophiles in Southern California and Europe in the early 1990s. Most transhumanists embrace libertarian social and political values and reject explicitly racist eugenic philosophies. Some transhumanists distance themselves from ‘eugenics’ by defining that practice as authoritarian and thus unacceptable. Others seek to recast the term in a positive light and to portray Nazi eugenics and genocide and perversions of an otherwise commendable practice. Transhumanists and traditional eugenicists share an obsession with the use of genetic and reproductive technologies to create superior forms of human beings.”
(Reading: “Analysis: Stearns’ Congressional human cloning fairy tale ‘ban,'” LifeIssues.Net, 9/8/04)
lifelines
THOUGHT: Nothing else ruins the truth like stretching it.
pharmacists
WISCONSIN: A pharmacist who refused to dispense the birth control pill may lose his license. Neil Noesen said his Catholic faith tells him it would be a sin to either fill a prescription for contraception or refer the customer to another pharmacist. Noesen is accused of “unprofessional conduct” by engaging in a “pharmacy practice that constitutes a danger to the health, welfare or safety of a patient.”
(Reading: “Rx license on the line in abortion fight,” Madison Capital Times, 10/13/04)
politics
PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS: Pro-life Democrats are routinely scorned by members of their own party, according to writer Sean Higgins, who reports, “The pro-choice [to kill a preborn child] position has been electoral suicide for the Democrats.”
(Reading: “The forsaken pro-life Democrat,” Doublethink, Summer 2004)
PENNSYLVANIA: U.S. Senate candidate Jim Clymer has a one hundred percent pro-life position. To learn what a 100% pro-life organization is doing in Pennsylvania, see Pro-Life PAC.
prayer
ROSARY NOVENA: Rosaries for Life is encouraging participation in the Rosary Novena to End Abortion, Nov. 29 through Dec. 7. The prayer intention is an end to both the surgical and non-surgical killing of preborn children.
(Reading: “Rosary novena to end abortion to begin Nov. 19, 2004,” Rosaries for Life news release, 9/30/04)
stem cell research
FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: A comprehensive fact sheet listing some of the advances being made using adult stem cells is online.
JUVENILE DIABETES: A promising therapy involves the use of adult spleen cells to “retrain” the body’s immune system to stop attacking its own insulin-producing islet cells.
(Reading: “Support needed for promising adult cell therapy to treat juvenile diabetes,” Iacocca Foundation news release, 8/20/04)
(Background: Join Lee Now)
SUCCESS: Researchers report that stem cells taken from bone marrow and administered after angioplasty and stent may improve the recovery of heart attack patients.
(Reading: “Could extra fat help your heart?” WPXI-TV, 10/1/04)
terri schiavo
IT’S ABOUT WHERE YOU LIVE: Claiming that no state officials have a right to interfere with Michael Schiavo’s decision to have his wife’s nutrition and hydration withdrawn, a New Jersey Law Journal editorial opines, “Fortunately in New Jersey both the judiciary and the legislature have demonstrated respect for patient’s wishes and for the separation of powers … We are confident that the unwarranted intrusion of the Florida legislative and executive branches in one of the most intimate decisions imaginable will not occur in New Jersey.”
(Reading: “Self-determination,” New Jersey Law Journal, 10/4/04, p. 22)
ultrasound
SAVING LIVES: Darlene Norberg, administrator of the Option Ultrasound program for Focus on the Family, cites one Texas pro-life pregnancy center that converted to a medical clinic and is now using ultrasound as having amazing results. “We saw a 66% increase in client visits once we became a clinic, a 74% increase in pregnancy tests administered, and a 151% increase in abortion-vulnerable women coming into the clinic, and a 243% increase in women who chose life for their babies.”
(Reading: “Machines that save lives,” San Diego News Notes, 4/09)
reflection for prayer
SUFFERING: We could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world, is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s “I” on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in his heart and actions.
(Reading: “In conversation with God,” Vol. 4, p. 85)