chemical abortion
LUNELLE: Pharmacia Corporation has received approval for its once-a-month injectable birth control — Lunelle — which is expected to serve as an alternative to the pill, according to company spokesmen. The product efficacy is being compared to Ortho-Novum 7/7/7, a leading oral contraceptive that also acts as an early abortion chemical.
(Reading: Pharmacia news release, 10/5/00)
RU-486 IN MANILA? Manila Mayor Lito Atienza warns that he will not allow the drug in his city. “I will personally lead the raid of any DOH [Department of Health] warehouse in Manila and any importing company found maintaining stocks of this abortion pill, assuming they can bring it out of the port area because I will use my powers as mayor to stop any shipment of this abortion pill from even being brought out of the piers,” Atienza proclaimed. Additionally, two pro-life Filipino congressmen say they’ll file bills that would block both importation of RU-486 and DOH approval of the drug. One representative even threatens to block the entire DOH budget if the department okays RU-486.
(Reading: e-mail to Communique from Pro Life Philippines)
imposed death (euthanasia)
AARP SURVEYS AMERICANS: The AARP magazine, “Modern Maturity,” conducted a national survey on death and dying. 1,815 interviews were conducted with Americans 45 years of age and older. Younger people are more afraid of dying than older ones; 71 percent believe there is a point when expensive medical treatment should be stopped, and the older Americans get, the less supportive they are of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
(Reading, “Their Final Answers,” Modern Maturity, 9-10/00)
personhood
BORN ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION ACT: Due to the unwieldy, misunderstood, dangerous definition of “person” in this legislation, American Life League is concerned about the prudence of even introducing such a bill. The bill equates “person” as including “every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.” Such language accommodates the 1973 Roe and Doe Supreme Court decisions that avoided defending the personhood of the child at fertilization — or at any point thereafter — prior to the moment of birth.
(Reading: H.R. 4292, go to Library of Congress and search by bill number; Roe v. Wade; “Personhood: What Is It?“)
politics
A CANDIDATE’S OBLIGATION: Tom Droleskey, noted author, lecturer and columnist: “A candidate for public office has a positive obligation to speak the truth plainly, being ever conscious of the fact that his articulation and defense of objective justice founded in truth might just plant seeds that could result in the changing of hearts and minds over the course of the long term. Indeed, even the founders of this nation expected that individuals who ran for elected office would run the risk of electoral rejection in order to challenge the voters with ideas and beliefs that might defy popular opinion. This is called statesmanship. And the practice of statesmanship in electoral politics requires individuals who aspire to the public trust to be ambitious first and foremost about what they know to be true, eschewing all temptations to practice political expediency. Indeed, expediency is the opposite of statesmanship.”
(Reading: “Expediency and Sentimentality Triumph Once More,” “>Thomas A. Droleskey, 10/6/00)
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COALITION FOR LIFE: Details on the coming elections and analyses of pro-life posturing are available on this site.
reproductive technology
MAYHEM: The Times of London called the explosion of choosing the perfect embryo a “Pandora’s box of medical issues.” The Independent reported, “the head of a leading British fertility clinic said … that he planned to apply for permission to create children whose cells might be used to treat existing members of their family.” And Scotland’s courts are facing a family from Monifieth willing to sue to obtain the right to select a female embryo because they lost their daughter in an accident some months ago. Dr. Nancy Dickey of the American Medical Association claims, “Ethically speaking, we would have substantial concerns about conceiving a child then determining whether to continue a pregnancy based solely on gender.”
COMMENT: To murder or discard; it depends on the way you look at a person whose life begins at conception/fertilization. Is she a baby or a commodity?
(Reading: “We’ve Opened a Pandora’s Box of Medical Issues,” The Times, 10/4/00; “Top UK Clinic Applies to Create ‘Spare Parts’ Babies,” The Independent, 10/5/00; “Baby Sex Choice Battle,” BBC News, 10/4/00)
rhetoric
PRO CHOICE? Nancy Valko, RN, whose Down syndrome daughter passed away at the age of 5 months, saw the real meaning of pro-choice: “Choice says it doesn’t really matter if a particular child loves or dies. Choice says the only thing that really matters is how I feel about this child and my circumstances.”
(Reading: “Who Wants a ‘Defective’ Baby?” Voices, Summer 2000)
sterilization
PERMANENT BIRTH CONTROL: Conceptus, a company that makes a device known as STOP (an acronym for Selective Tubal Occlusion Procedure), has focused on the fact that this metal coil, “inserted into a woman’s fallopian tubes, caus[es] tissue to grow into a ‘plug’ that prevents the egg from descending into the uterus to be fertilized,” is an advance in irreversible methodologies for those never wishing to bear children.
(Reading: “New Option on the Horizon for Permanent Birth Control,” Reuters Health, 10/3/00; STOP facts from Conceptus)
vaccines
CATHOLIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION RESOLVES: An October 2000 resolution from the CMA resolves that the CMA promote “any available vaccines grown on tissues not acquired from aborted humans,” and that “American vaccine manufacturers be encouraged to develop alternative vaccines grown on cell lines which are not by products of abortion.” For details on this and other childhood vaccine-related news, see Children of God for Life.
web news
RIGHTGRRL: October 2000 Rightgrrl News provides insights from columnists and reporters on a variety of topics including the FDA, the Born Alive Infants Act, two holocausts and prenatal testing.
reflection for prayer
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission — I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it — if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore, I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me — still He knows what He is about.
-Cardinal Newman