in this issue:
hot button issues: ANNIVERSARY / CONTRACEPTION / ROCK FOR LIFE / SOUTH DAKOTA
ballot initiatives: MISSOURI
campus journalism: LSU / TEXAS
conscience: CARDINAL GEORGE / MUSLIM PHARMACIST
culture: GRANNY IS BABY’S MOMMY / PRO-ABORTION GRANDMA / THE MARRIED MINORITY?
dark side: PLANNED PARENTHOOD
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT
population control: 300 MILLION AND COUNTING
reflection for prayer: PSALM 33:1-2
hot button issues
ANIVERSARY: Planned Parenthood trumpeted its 90th birthday this week. American Life League’s Jim Sedlak says the organization’s record is nothing to celebrate: “Over the past 90 years Planned Parenthood has managed to kill millions of preborn children through abortion, push dangerous contraceptives on women and teens, and saturate our culture with sexual promiscuity.”
(Reading: “Planned Parenthood marks 90th anniversary,” American Life League news release, 10/17/06)
CONTRACEPTION: In noting pro-abortion efforts to push contraception as a means of presenting abortions, Anita Crane, editor of American Life League’s Celebrate Life magazine, writes: “This is a stab at shifting the blame for abortion onto pro-lifers. It’s a devious tactic to win elections and pass bills that would provide millions more in tax dollars to businesses like Planned Parenthood for abortifacient chemicals.”
(Reading: “Welcome to the contraception games,” American Life League, 10/18/06)
ROCK FOR LIFE: American Life League’s youth outreach has posted two new videos on the popular YouTube site. The first offers a recap of Pro-life Memorial Day activities in Washington, D.C. The second takes a look ahead to Rock for Life’s annual training and activism weekend, January 20-22.
SOUTH DAKOTA: “It is tragic that opponents of the [South Dakota abortion] law say the measure is too ‘extreme.’ That is the farthest thing from the truth,” said American Life League’s Jim Sedlak. “Extremism is exactly what this law is trying to defeat: the killing of innocent children through abortion.”
(Reading: “South Dakota: a pro-life victory is critical,” American Life League news release, 10/18/06)
ballot initiatives
MISSOURI: The stem cell referendum on the November 7 ballot is presented as a cloning ban, but Cara Cook of Concerned Women for America points out, “the measure would allow the creation of human embryos for experiments which would involve their destruction, as long as the embryos are not implanted in a uterus.” The deceptive language of Amendment 2 is also explained online at the Life Communications Fund web site.
(Reading: “Missouri’s cloning initiative: Your state could be next!” Concerned Women for America, 10/16/06)
campus journalism
LSU: Columnist Emily Byers, writing on the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood’s founding, notes: “Humans are indeed sexual beings, but our sex lives cannot define us. Embrace that notion, and its eventual, inescapable conclusion is that humans are nothing more than highly civilized animals. Sex is no longer sacred. Tragically, many of us are stunned to hear anyone claim it ever was.”
(Reading: “PPFA hiding from ideas of its roots,” Daily Reveille, 10/16/06)
TEXAS: Columnist Katy Pine writes about curbing the spread of the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus. She notes, “The only guaranteed way to stop the virus from spreading is for infected couples to avoid genital contact with other people for the rest of their lives.” However, she then adds, “abstinence and monogamy are not realistic methods to prevent the spread of HPV.”
(Reading: “Preventing papillomas,” Daily Texan, 10/17/06)
conscience
CARDINAL GEORGE: In his weekly column, Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, writes: “Conscience is not an excuse for doing something irrational…. The first and most essential principle of Catholic social teaching is the dignity of every human person and one’s basic right to life from conception to natural death. Respect for human dignity is the basis for the fundamental right to life. This is a non-negotiable principle…”
(Reading: “Religion, reason, voting,” Catholic New World, 10/13/06)
MUSLIM PHARMACIST: A British woman complained to the media because a pharmacist, citing his Muslim faith, refused to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill. A spokesman for the Lloyd’s pharmacy chain showed no support for the druggist: “We would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the customer.”
(Reading: “Muslim pharmacist refuses to give morning-after pill ‘on religious grounds,'” Daily Mail, 10/13/06)
culture
GRANNY IS BABY’S MOMMY: A doctor acknowledges that a Japanese woman in her 50s, through in vitro fertilization, has given birth to her own granddaughter. The woman’s daughter, who could not have children of her own, served as egg donor, and the daughter’s husband was the sperm donor. The grandmother was the legal parent, but the biological parents have legally adopted the child.
(Reading: “Woman gives birth to grandchild,” BBC News, 10/15/06)
PRO-ABORTION GRANDMA: Carol Cohan of the Women’s Emergency Network writes that the birth of her grandson “strengthened my beliefs and commitment” to assist poor women who “need” abortions. She backs up her position by citing a woman, married to an unemployed, abusive alcoholic and pregnant with a sixth child, as a reason why abortion must remain available.
(Reading: “A grandmother’s commitment to abortion rights,” Miami Herald, 10/17/06)
THE MARRIED MINORITY? Fewer than half of American households now include a married couple. The New York Times reports, “A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.” Brookings Institution demographer William Frye notes, “This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the last century.”
(Reading: “To be married means to be outnumbered,” New York Times, 10/15/06)
dark side
PLANNED PARENTHOOD: The group’s Cecile Richards outlines the latest version of the group’s agenda in a new online posting. An excerpt: “There are powerful, broadly supported ideas at the heart of the Planned Parenthood agenda. Protecting women’s health. Educating teens. Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies. Groups that stand in opposition to those objectives are the ones that are out of touch with mainstream values.” The document mentions American Life League’s Judie Brown and the Pro-Life Action League’s Joe Scheidler by name in a section about “extreme anti-choice groups.”
(Reading: “A strategy for moving forward,” Planned Parenthood, 10/18/06)
personhood
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT: With the addition of the 100th Congressional sponsor to the Right to Life Act, the pro-life movement has reached an important milestone in its quest to end the slaughter of innocent preborn children by abortion.
COMMENT: Are your members of Congress co-sponsors? If not, ask them to get on board.
population control
300 MILLION AND COUNTING: Amid all the anguished commentaries on the U.S. population hitting 300 million comes a voice of encouragement. Jonah Goldberg quotes Julian Simon, who often noted that people are the “ultimate resource.” Goldberg adds, “Productivity matters more than other statistical measures because it demonstrates we’re doing more with less. That’s why, for example, starvation is a political disaster, not a natural one. There’s literally too much food in the world. There’s also plenty of land left.”
(Reading: “Let it grow,” National Review Online, 10/18/06)
reflection for prayer
PSALM 33:1-2: Exult, you just, in the Lord; praise from the upright is fitting. Give thanks to the Lord on the harp; with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.