Illinois Federation for Right to Life
Monday, May 10, 2004
US Bishop Aquila Warns Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians They "Risk the Possibility of Hell"
US Bishop Aquila Warns Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians They "Risk the Possibility of Hell"
(LifeSiteNews www.LifeSiteNews.com) The scandal of U.S. Catholic pro-abortion politicians defying Catholic teaching and receiving Communion despite their grave sin of supporting abortion has caused several bishops to speak out forcefully on the issue. The latest is Fargo Bishop Samuel J. Aquila Bishop of the diocese of Fargo in North Dakota.
In a four-page homily delivered Sunday and posted on the diocesan website, Bishop Aquila said, "In the light of the last few days and all of the media coverage regarding John Kerry's unambiguous support of abortion rights, his personal opposition to abortion, and his insistence on the separation of his Catholic faith from his professional life, I, as a successor of the apostles, cannot remain silent. I, as an apostle, must speak with the apostles and obey God rather than man and present to you the teaching of the Church on the proper relationship between our faith and professional life."
Addressing all Catholics and especially "'pro-choice' Catholics," and "'Catholics for a free choice,'" the bishop said, "Jesus Christ has warned clearly within the Gospel that hell is a reality and that we are free to choose it. Catholics who separate their faith life from their professional and social activities are putting the salvation of their souls in jeopardy. They risk the possibility of hell"
"The grave error that has come about, the grave error that the Father of Lies has planted in the hearts of many is the lie of thinking that we can have one foot with God and one foot with the world. . . . We must always put the law of God above the law of man, especially as it concerns the dignity of the human person and the life of the unborn," said the Bishop.
On the point of reception of Communion, Bishop Aquila said: "In regard to the question of sanctions for Catholics who are 'pro-choice', who say that they are personally opposed to abortion but whose words and actions speak otherwise in their support of abortion rights, I would share with them the words from St. Justin Martyr in today's Office of Readings. This was in 165 A.D. They shared the same problems we do today. 'No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.'"
Read Bishop Aquila's full homily online at:
http://www.fargodiocese.org/Bishop/Homilies/homily4-24-04.pdf
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 7, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/6
White House Representative To Meet With House Members on Expanded Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research
White House Representative To Meet With House Members on Expanded Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research
(Kaisernetwork www.kaisernetwork.org) The Bush administration has promised that an administration official this week will meet with members of the House of Representatives who support relaxing President Bush's policy on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, the Washington Post reports (Weiss, Washington Post, 5/9).
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research say it could lead to treatments or cures for diseases such as cancer, juvenile diabetes and Alzheimer's, while opponents say the research is immoral because it requires the destruction of human embryos. A bipartisan group of 206 House members at the end of last month sent a letter to Bush asking him to loosen his restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Bush's policy -- which he announced on Aug. 9, 2001 -- limits federally funded embryonic stem cell research to stem cell lines created on or before that date (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 5/6).
Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Michael Castle (R-Del.) and others in charge of circulating the House letter are scheduled to meet on Capitol Hill with Kristin Lee Silverberg, who serves as special assistant to Bush on stem cells. The meeting is the first face-to-face meeting between legislators and the Bush administration on the issue of stem cell research in more than two years, according to several observers, the Post reports. However, Bush administration spokesperson Trent Duffy said that the meeting does not suggest the administration "is reconsidering its stance" on the issue, the Post reports. Duffy also said that the House members can expect to receive a response to their letter soon, according to the Post.
Bipartisan Pressure
The scheduled meeting comes as "pressure is growing on several fronts to allow federal funding of research on embryos slated for disposal at fertility clinics," the Post reports. "People on both sides of the aisle are realizing that [Bush's] policy is not working," DeGette said. She added that there is a "solid majority" in the House that would legislate a change if the Bush administration does not alter its stem cell policy. In addition, the Senate is currently circulating a letter similar to the House letter, and Nancy Reagan -- wife of former President Reagan, who has Alzheimer's -- on Saturday at a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation fundraiser for stem cell research publicly spoke in favor of embryonic stem cell research for the first time (Washington Post, 5/9).
Fundraiser Details
Reagan at the fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif., made an "impassioned call" for expanding embryonic stem cell research and "lent a powerful conservative Republican voice" to the debate, Reuters reports (Reuters, 5/9).
Reagan said that Alzheimer's has taken her husband "to a distant place where I can no longer reach him," adding, "Because of this I'm determined to do whatever I can to save other families from this pain" (Associated Press, 5/9).
Reagan continued, "Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that for so long have been beyond our grasp. ... We have lost so much time already. I just really can't bear to lose any more." Actors Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart read letters of support written by former Presidents Clinton, Carter and Ford for Reagan's efforts on stem cell research (Reuters, 5/9).
Actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's, said, "For someone like Mrs. Reagan to step outside of political or ideological groupings and just speak to what she believes ... can help people is tremendously valuable" (Washington Post, 5/10).
Also at the fundraiser, JDRF President Peter Van Etten announced that the organization is creating a Stem Cell Development Fund with the goal of raising $20 million for stem cell research (JDRF release, 5/8).
The $500-per-plate event was expected to raise about $2 million, according to the Los Angeles Times (Chavez, Los Angeles Times, 5/9).
Source: Kaisernetwork
Publish Date: May 10, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/5
ACLJ Won't Give Up on “Terri's Law”
ACLJ Won't Give Up on “Terri's Law”
(ACLJ www.aclj.org) Firm is Disappointed with Florida Court Decision Declaring “Terri's Law” Unconstitutional
Clearwater, Fla., May 6, 2004—The American Center for Law and Justice, specializing in constitutional law won’t give up fight to reverse a Florida court decision declaring “Terri’s Law” – legislation that cleared the way for Florida Governor Jeb Bush to restore life-saving measures to Terri Schindler Schiavo – unconstitutional.
The decision was made by Pinellas Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird who twice rejected legal efforts by the ACLJ on behalf of Terri’s parents – Robert and Mary Schindler – to intervene directly into the case to defend the constitutionality of “Terri’s Law.”
“We are extremely disappointed with the decision of the court,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which represents the Schindlers in the state case. “The legislature and Governor acted appropriately and constitutionally in passing and implementing ‘Terri’s Law.’ The decision declaring the law unconstitutional is disappointing but not surprising. It was the same court that repeatedly denied Terri’s parents permission to intervene directly into this case to defend the constitutionality of the law on behalf of their daughter. We applaud the Governor for taking quick action to keep ‘Terri’s Law’ in place through the appeals process. We strongly support the Governor’s position in this case and are now examining all legal avenues to ensure that the interests and concerns of Terri’s parents are represented in this appeals process.”
The ACLJ filed its latest appeal on a motion to intervene on behalf of the Schindlers with the Second District Court of Appeal on April 29th after Judge Baird denied for a second time a motion to intervene. Judge Baird denied the ACLJ’s first motion in November 2003. In March 2004, the appeals court ruled that Judge Baird did not follow judicial rules and said Baird’s order should be reversed and sent the case back to him "for further proceedings." One week later, Judge Baird again denied the second motion to intervene.
The ACLJ is representing the Schindlers in Schiavo v. Bush - the legal challenge to the constitutionality of the actions of the Governor and state legislature. Patricia Fields Anderson, an attorney in St. Petersburg, serves as ACLJ local counsel in Schiavo v. Bush and represents Terri's parents in all other aspects of the Schiavo case.
The American Center for Law and Justice specializes in constitutional law and the protection of human life. Based in Washington, D.C., the ACLJ web site address is www.aclj.org.
Source: The American Center for Law and Justice
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/4
Related News: Judicial Activism vs. Terri Schiavo
(FRC www.family.org) In the latest chapter in the fight over the life of Terri Schiavo, a circuit court judge has struck down a law approved by the Florida Legislature last year allowing Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) to have doctors reinsert a feeding tube that provides Terri with food and water. But in yet another example of judicial activism, Judge Douglas Baird yesterday ruled the law unconstitutional. The Florida courts are tormenting Terri Schiavo and her family with the cruel and unusual punishment of imposing a death sentence on her through starvation.
What is not reported is that Terri's estranged husband is aggressively pushing to have the state withdraw food and water from Terri so he can collect an inheritance and carry on with another relationship without the shadow of Terri haunting his conscience.. And, he does this even though Terri's parents have repeatedly said they will care for her and want nothing more than to do just that. FRC's former president, Ken Connor, is representing Gov. Bush in this case and has pledged to appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
FDA Official Rejected OTC Status for EC Plan B Against Advice of Own Staff, Says Decision Not Based on Politics
FDA Official Rejected OTC Status for EC Plan B Against Advice of Own Staff, Says Decision Not Based on Politics
(Kaisernetwork www.kaisernetwork.org) Steven Galson, acting director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, on Friday during a teleconference said he made the decision to reject Barr Laboratories' application for over-the-counter status for its emergency contraceptive Plan B based on the data provided and against the recommendations of two advisory panels and his own staff, the Washington Post reports (Kaufman, Washington Post, 5/8).
A joint meeting of two FDA advisory panels in December 2003 voted 23-4 to recommend that Plan B -- which can significantly reduce the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse -- be sold without a prescription. However, FDA on Thursday issued a "not approvable" letter to Barr, citing inadequate data on Plan B use among girls under age 16. The letter was unusual in that it was signed only by Galson and not by members of the FDA review team, as is routine (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 5/7).
Galson said that after consulting with his staff and the FDA commissioner's office, he determined that the agency did not have enough scientific data to determine whether broader access to EC would increase the rates of sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls. Galson said, "From (ages) 11 to 14, where we know there are substantial amounts of sexual activity, there were no data in the application, and that really concerned me" (Kemper, Los Angeles Times, 5/8).
He added, "The worst-case scenario is that you've got a young couple and they would normally use a condom when they were having intercourse, but since they know they can run to the CVS to get Plan B, are they going to worry about that?" (Harris, New York Times, 5/8).
Political Connection?
Although Galson's concerns about making EC available without a doctor's prescription "echoed" concerns raised by some members of Congress in a letter to President Bush, Galson said that Bush administration officials did not influence his decision to reject Barr's application, the Los Angeles Times reports (Los Angeles Times, 5/8).
Forty-nine House Republicans in January sent a letter to Bush urging him to order FDA to reject Barr's application, saying that the FDA advisory panels only considered information on Plan B's safety and effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and did not consider the "significant impact" that wider EC availability will have on the "sexual health of adolescents and young people." The House members wrote that making Plan B available without a prescription could lead to more risky sexual behavior among adolescents and could result in an increased incidence of STDs. They concluded that easier access to EC "may ultimately result in significant increases in cancer, infertility and HIV/AIDS" (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 1/14).
However, Galson said he made the decision himself and was not aware of any meetings the Bush administration held to discuss the issue, according to the Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times, 5/8). Galson said his decision "had to do with looking at all the data and reading all the transcripts" (Washington Post, 5/8).
A Bush administration spokesperson confirmed that FDA scientists alone made the decision to reject Barr's application, Reuters reports (Richwine, Reuters, 5/7).
Unusual Move
FDA observers said that it is "extremely uncommon if not unprecedented" for an agency to overrule its staff and advisory panels, the Post reports (Washington Post, 5/8).
Dr. Robert Fenichel, who worked for FDA for 12 years and left the agency in 2000, said that it is "simply unheard of" for the director of the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to issue a "not approvable" letter. Most such letters are issued at a "much lower level" than that of the director, according to the New York Times. Galson said he knew of just one instance in the past 10 years in which the director overruled the conclusions of the center's staff. He said, "This isn't common, but it's not unheard of" (New York Times, 5/8).
FDA follows the advice of its advisory panels about 90% of the time, according to the Boston Globe (Dembner, Boston Globe, 5/8).
Advisory Panel Members' Reaction
Some members of the advisory panels said they have considered resigning following the rejection of Barr's application, USA Today reports. Michael Greene, a Harvard OB/GYN who is a member of the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, said, "E-mails suggesting mass resignations are already flying around among people who were on this committee." He added, "People are just hopping mad. The decision is blatantly contrary to the science and the facts and so blatantly politicized." Frank Davidoff, editor emeritus of the Annals of Internal Medicine who is a member of the Non-Prescription Drugs Advisory Committee, said he has considered resigning but likely will not do so. "There's always an issue: Can you do more good by hanging in there?" he asked (Rubin, USA Today, 5/10).
Other Reaction
A bipartisan group of 37 members of Congress who support abortion rights on Friday wrote a letter to FDA protesting its decision to reject OTC status for Plan B, the Post reports (Washington Post, 5/8).
In addition, women's rights advocates and reproductive health groups on Friday continued to denounce the agency decision. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists President Vivian Dickerson called the decision "morally repugnant" (Los Angeles Times, 5/8).
She added that it "is a tragedy for American women and a dark stain on the reputation of an evidence-based agency" (Reuters, 5/7).
Members of the Wish List, a fundraising group supporting Republican female candidates for Congress who support abortion rights, said that the decision represents a "lost opportunity to narrow the divide over the abortion issue," according to the Post. Wish List Chair Karen Judd Lewis said, "This is a bridge issue; one in which reasonable people on both sides, those who support abortion rights as well as those who oppose, can find common ground because Plan B can reduce the number of abortions in this country" (Washington Post, 5/8).
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes EC because of concerns that it can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman's uterus, supported the decision. Cathy Cleaver Ruse, planning director of the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said, "A drug which can destroy human embryos and increases health risks to women and girls does not belong on the drugstore shelf" (Los Angeles Times, 5/8).
Next Steps
Galson said that FDA would "quickly" review any new proposals submitted by Barr, Reuters reports. "We're not shutting the door" on OTC EC, Galson said, adding, "Wide availability of safe and effective contraceptives is important to public health" (Reuters, 5/7).
In its letter to Barr, FDA said that the drug maker could submit an alternative proposal to market Plan B over the counter to women over 16 and require a doctor's prescription for younger girls to access the drug. In that case, Barr would be required to show how the age restriction would work. Although Barr CEO Bruce Downey on Thursday said that the company was disappointed by FDA's decision, he added that Barr plans to do whatever is necessary to make Plan B available without a doctor's prescription. In addition, Barr spokesperson Carol Cox said that the company will pursue the age restriction option and provide FDA with additional information about the drug's safety for girls under age 16 (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 5/7).
Source: Kaisernetwork
Publish Date: May 10, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/3
Republican National Coalition for Life Chairman Phyllis Schlafly Responds to Cardinal George's "GOP never had a soul" Comments
Republican National Coalition for Life Chairman Phyllis Schlafly Responds to Cardinal George's "GOP never had a soul" Comments
(RNC www.rnclife.org) The Chicago Sun Times (4/8/04) reported that Cardinal Francis George, in an appearance before the City Club of Chicago, addressed the subject of abortion politics. During his remarks, he said, "One could say, as I have, that the Democratic Party has lost its soul. . . One could also argue that the Republican Party never had a soul."
Below is Mrs. Schlafly's response to those comments.
To His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. Archbishop of Chicago, 155 East Superior Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611
Your Eminence,
Press reports of your appearance at the April 7, 2004 City Club of Chicago luncheon where, in commenting on abortion politics, you said: "One could say, as I have, that the Democratic Party has lost its soul. . . . One could also argue that the Republican Party never had a soul," have caused considerable consternation among Catholic pro-lifers who have worked for the past 34 years to promote pro-life public policy and to create, protect and defend the pro-life platform plank in the Republican National Platform and also in state Republican platforms throughout the nation.
Having organized hundreds of thousands of pro-life Republicans into a force sufficient to repel attacks on our principled pro-life plank by the abortion industry and its allies in the media, I can assure you that every single one of our people has a heart and soul full of unselfish commitment to the cause of life. While some wealthy and prominent individuals and groups in our Party are anti-life, the big majority of grassroots Republicans and Republican public officials are pro-life. We work hard to hold all Republican officials accountable to the Republican Party’s pro-life principles, and we rejoice that every Republican Platform since Roe vs. Wade has taken a strong pro-life stand.
Page 26 of the 2000 Republican National Platform called "Renewing America’s Purpose Together" says, in part, "We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life."
This is official Republican Party policy. It is in striking contrast to the Democratic Party’s Platform which states that abortion should be legal at any time, for any reason, performed by any one, paid for by the taxpayers. In compliance with this policy, the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate has resorted to extraordinary procedures to prevent the confirmation of any federal judge who might be suspected of being critical of Roe v. Wade.
On the issue of abortion, there is no moral equivalency between the official positions of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party adopted in national conventions.
Our work is not easy, especially because of the hundreds of so-called Catholic politicians who support pro-abortion public policies and laws and do so with impunity, without criticism from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, with a few notable exceptions. But we remain steadfast in our pursuit of justice for the unborn, and we work persistently as best we can through the Republican Party which, after all, proved it had a soul when it was founded a century and a half ago on the principle that no human being should be considered the property of another.
Despite the "belly laughs and applause" of many Democrats attending the City Club luncheon, your comment was hurtful to the thousands of pro-life Republican volunteers, all with a soul, who read about them in the April 8, 2004 edition of the Chicago Sun Times and then through numerous e-mails and faxes.
We are currently preparing for the 2004 Republican National Convention Platform hearings in New York where every pro-abortion advocate both inside and outside of the Republican Party is expected to demonstrate and promote their agenda. Perhaps you and others among your fellow bishops would like to learn more about the history of the pro-life movement within the Republican Party. I enclose a copy of the RNC/Life brochure, "The Republican Party is the Pro-Life Party," for your review.
Respectfully, Phyllis Schlafly, National Chairman, Republican National Coalition for Life,
By: Phyllis Schlafly
Source: Republican National Coalition for Life
Publish Date: May 7, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/2
Woman Dies as a Result of In Vitro Fertilization Treatment
Woman Dies as a Result of In Vitro Fertilization Treatment
(LifeSiteNews www.LifeSiteNews.com) A woman has died from complications arising from her in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment.
Jacqueline Rushton, a 32 year-old Dublin woman, died in January as the result of Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome arising as a complication of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS), which arose during IVF treatment at the HARI (Human Assisted Reproduction Ireland) unit of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital in December. Following an inquest, Rushton's death was ruled "medical misadventure" early this week.
Rushton isn't the first casualty of IVF -- the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a death from intra-cranial hemorrhage (a type of stroke) in a woman following IVF-induced OHSS, in 1996. A Medline search revealed that a death also occurred in New Zealand in 1995 resulting from an OHSS-triggered blood clot to the brain. Two cases of non-fatal stroke were also reported, with both women left with paralysis, following IVF treatment. Two heart attacks are reported in the literature, as were 20 cases of thrombosis (a life-threatening blood clot) of the internal jugular vein in the Medline search results. The formation of blood clots is a major cause of strokes and heart attacks. One such blood clot resulted in the necessary amputation of a woman's forearm.
The Medline search also revealed that IVF results in a higher rate of miscarriage than regular pregnancies, at eight percent of established pregnancies, and that "ectopic pregnancies are regular occurrences." Risk of premature births are also much greater, especially for multiple babies.
Fifteen case reports of ascites, a dangerous retention of fluid within the abdomen, were reported. In most cases, several liters of fluid had to be drained surgically. Fluid retention was also reportedly the reason why one woman went into shock, a second developed pleurisy, an acute inflammation of the lung, and three others had potentially fatal hydrothorax, or water on the lung.
Two cases of liver failure resulting from IVF treatments were detailed. Adult respiratory distress syndrome was also reported.
A study from France revealed a significantly increased trend for women undergoing IVF to require hospitalization for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.
An Israeli study warned that IVF caused "Increased rates of perinatal mortality [death of baby] and morbidity result from prematurity, and higher rates of maternal diseases in pregnancy (preeclampsia, diabetes mellitus, bleeding, anemia) contribute to fetal intra-uterine growth restriction and maternal morbidity [death of mother]."
Read local coverage, at:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2004/0427/860245582HM3INQUEST.html
Also read the CDC report of the IVF death at:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00052611.htm
To perform a Medline search, go to:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=Display&DB=pubmed
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 7, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040510/1
Friday, May 07, 2004
Italian Physician Claims Three Babies He Cloned are now Born
Italian Physician Claims Three Babies He Cloned are now Born
(LifeSiteNews.com) Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori claims three babies he cloned have been born. Antinori said the cloned babies are the product of an experiment that they were allowed to live until term.
Antinori, who gained notoriety as an in-vitro fertilization specialist for impregnating a 65-year-old, announced in 2002 that three women had been impregnated with cloned embryos. Experts dismissed Antinori's claims, insisting that the technology was not yet available to pull off a successful human clone.
Antinori has always distanced himself from his own announcements -- refusing to explain his role in the experiments or to reveal the nationality or whereabouts of the alleged mother(s), and saying other unnamed doctors would be delivering the clones in an unknown jurisdiction. Antonini has been called to task for failing to produce any evidence of his claims for peer review.
The rogue fertility specialist maintains he acted only as an "advisor" in this case. "I confirm the facts. I have had information that it happened and I am repeating it," he said at a press conference in Rome.
Read the Yahoo news account: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&u=/nm/20040505/hl_nm/science_clone_antinori_dc_1&printer=1
Also see the Interim article "Don't Send in the Clones," which describes the disastrous health consequences for cloned animals, at: http://www.theinterim.com/2002/july/16dontsend.html
Source: (LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/6
Shocking Forced Abortion Case at the U.S. Supreme Court
Shocking Forced Abortion Case at the U.S. Supreme Court
(LifeSiteNews.com) The United States Supreme Court has docketed the case Jane Roe II vs. Aware Woman Center for Choice, Inc. as Case No. 03-1447. In this case Jane Roe II, alleges that an abortionist at Aware Woman violated the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) law when he had her restrained during an unsuccessful abortion, even though she loudly and repeatedly demanded that he stop the procedure and let her leave.
According to reports, the woman was pinned down for an abortion at the Aware Woman Center for Choice in Melbourne, Florida while she screamed 'Stop!, Stop!, Stop!'. The abortionist did finally stop once the baby was dead and he had perforated her uterus and pulled part of her intestines out.
Jean Sapp, director of the Counselor Corps, an organization which trains reproductive health service providers said, "Forced abortions as well as non-consensual abortions of all kinds, are being done non-stop across America. These atrocities against mothers are our country's blackest unspoken secret."
The United States District Court in Orlando ruled against the victim. She appealed to the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. The judges there held that the abortionist should be exonerated because he claimed to be helping the mother and acting in her best interest.
Her appeal to the Supreme Court was filed by prominent attorney, Michael Hirsh of Atlanta, Georgia.
"Please pray," asks Mrs. Sapp, "for God to provide the wisdom and courage needed by the Supreme Court and also that they use this God-given wisdom and courage to protect all mothers from unwanted abortions."
One concession granted by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was the reference to Jane Roe II, an abortion patient, as a "mother" in their written opinion.
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/5
Fla. judge rules that 'Terri Schiavo Law' is unconstitutional; gov. says he will appeal
Fla. judge rules that 'Terri Schiavo Law' is unconstitutional; gov. says he will appeal
(BP www.bpnews.net)--A Florida judge struck down “Terri’s Law” May 5, ruling the measure violated the state’s constitution by allowing Gov. Jeb Bush to order the nutrition and hydration tube of a disabled woman to be reinserted.
Pinellas County Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird made the ruling the day before Bush’s attorneys initially were scheduled to depose their first witness. Bush’s office said he would appeal.
Terri Schiavo, 40, is the Clearwater, Fla., woman at the center of a legal battle over the so-called “right-to-die.” Some doctors say she is in a "persistent vegetative state" and will never improve or recover from a brain injury she received in 1990 after collapsing under unusual circumstances at home.
Michael Schiavo, her husband and guardian, has long advocated the removal of her feeding tube, a move with which her parents, devout Catholics Mary and Bob Schindler, disagree.
In October, the case received international attention after the Florida legislature empowered Bush to issue an executive order, dubbed "Terri’s Law," which provided for the reinsertion of her feeding tube. It was predicted she would die of starvation and dehydration within 7-10 days if her only source of nutrition and hydration was not re-established. Michael Schiavo filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Bush’s actions.
In his May 5 ruling Baird asserted the law violates the Florida constitution on two primary grounds: it hinders Schiavo’s right to privacy and it infringes upon the constitutionally-mandated separation of powers.
The Florida constitution, Baird argued, provides a greater right to privacy than does the U.S. Constitution.
“The Act, in every instance, ignores the existence of this right and authorizes the Governor to act according to his personal discretion,” he wrote. “By substituting the personal judgment of the Governor for that of the patient, the Act deprives every individual who is subject to its terms of his or her constitutionally guaranteed right to the privacy of his or her own medical decisions.”
The state’s interest “in preserving life,” Baird wrote, does not override “an individual’s personal choice regarding his or her own medical treatment decisions.”
“Moreover, the state’s interest in preserving life is strengthened or weakened based upon whether the person’s affliction is curable or incurable,” he wrote.
In addition, Baird said the law violates the separation of powers by infringing upon the right of the court to decide cases.
“Thus among other things, under the separation-of-powers doctrine, a final judgment of a court cannot be undone by legislation as to the parties before the court,” he wrote. “Any legislation that hampers judicial action or interferes with the discharge of judicial functions is unconstitutional.”
Kenneth L. Connor, the governor’s attorney, who immediately filed a notice of appeal, told the Florida Baptist Witness that the governor and his attorneys were “not surprised” by Baird’s ruling.
“Judge Baird had made a public pronouncement before the case was filed that the law was unconstitutional,” Connor said. “He telegraphed his views of the statute before the governor even was permitted to plead.”
Connor said the courts don’t have an “exclusive monopoly” when it comes to protecting people like Terri Schiavo, and the legislature’s and governor’s actions were necessary after Michael Schiavo, “a man with a clear conflict of interest,” was granted his wish to pull her feeding tube from her.
Connor cited Michael Schiavo’s involvement with another woman with whom he fathered two children, his apparent financial gain from a civil case stemming from medical malpractice in relation to Terri’s condition and his continual insistence that she not be given antibiotics for illnesses. Connor said the governor was interested in affording Terri Schiavo with another “layer of protection.”
“The circuit court didn’t even afford her the benefit of a guardian ad litem,” Conner said. “We think the judge is dead wrong in his assessment that the state doesn’t have a compelling interest that outweighs the encroachment on the so-called privacy right. We couldn’t disagree more.”
Connor said the action of Baird in relation to Terri Schiavo might have implications about how the legal system functions.
“The courts are quick to slap down the other branches of government any time that they are perceived to be encroaching on the judiciary’s authority,” Connor said. “But the other two branches of government frequently are slow to exercise their checks and balances as it relates to the judicial branch.
“The judicial activism that we have seen has been breathtaking. The governor has rightly thought to exert himself as the chief executive of the state.”
Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, told The New York Times: "It's a very strong affirmation of the privacy rights of the people of Florida and an equally strong rebuke to politicians who interfere with decisions that should be left to each of us."
Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, told Reuters that he will not attempt to have the feeding tube removed until the governor's appeals are exhausted.
"The last thing any of us wanted to see is Terri Schiavo's feeding tube being removed, put back in, being removed, etc., as has been done before, which is really an affront to her dignity," Felos said at a news conference, according to Reuters.
An attorney for the Schindlers, Pat Anderson, said she is not surprised at the judge’s decision, given the roller coaster of rulings she’s experienced thus far in the case.
“The saga continues,” she told the Florida Baptist Witness. “I make no predictions about what will happen now.”
Anderson filed her most recent motion challenging Michael Schiavo’s fitness as Terri’s guardian April 26 in the same court where Baird presides. Her latest complaint includes information about the Schindlers having been barred from visiting their daughter since March 29, after they were involved in an ongoing investigation about unfounded allegations against them involving Terri’s physical condition.
Since that time, Anderson said Terri Schiavo has been kept in “isolation” and has been prevented from receiving communion on Easter and has not been allowed to see her priest.
Referring to a recent statement issued by Pope John Paul II saying that it is “morally obligatory” to continue artificial nutrition and hydration for people in a persistent vegetative state, Anderson said she is mulling over the implications of that statement for Terri Schiavo.
“The Pope did everything but put her name on that speech,” Anderson said. “If we have the legal fiction that Terri would want to die, let’s also consider the proposition that Terri, as a practicing Catholic, would not want to sin in the eyes of the church. I don’t think we can quickly assume that she would go against the Pope’s statement on this.”
Terri Schiavo’s father agreed.
“We totally respect the Pope’s opinions,” Bob Schindler told the Florida Baptist Witness. “Although we don’t need the Pope to tell us that we have to respect life, we listen to what the Pope says.
“This is very important for Terri as a practicing Catholic. With the priest barred from her room and not able to offer her religious counsel and support, she’s 100 percent isolated.”
Schindler said he and his wife have only one thing they can do at this point.
“Really, we are back on our knees again and haven’t been off them,” Schindler said. “These Pinellas County judges have displayed an utterly cavalier attitude and complete disregard for the law. They are aiding and abetting Michael Schiavo to commit homicide.”
Connor said the implications of the case are far-reaching.
“There is a tremendous amount at stake in this case,” Connor said. “Are we going to be able to dispose of the weak and the frail and vulnerable because they are inconvenient and their quality of life is diminished?
“Are we going to be sure that we can provide adequate safeguards for their protection? This case not only is about the sanctity of human life but about the role of various branches of government in protecting the right to life.”
By: Joni B. Hannigan
Source: Baptist Press News
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/4
FRC Praises FDA Decision to Keep Morning-After Pill from Going Over-the-Counter
FRC Praises FDA Decision to Keep Morning-After Pill from Going Over-the-Counter
(FRC www.family.org) Citing a concern that young teenagers may not safely use the morning after pill without a doctor's guidance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) late today officially rejected a plan to make the pill available over-the-counter in America's pharmacies. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to the FDA's decision:
"FRC applauds the FDA for putting the safety of American women and girls above the wishes of the pro-abortion lobby and we encourage them to hold their ground.
"Women taking the birth control pill consult with their doctors once a year for medical check-ups. The morning-after pill is 50 times stronger, and yet over-the-counter access would have allowed women and girls to take this dangerous drug without any medical oversight.
"It is worth noting that the self-described 'protectors of women's health', the pro-abortion lobby, repeatedly calls for such decisions to be made between 'women and their doctors.' But in this case, they were asking for these decisions to be made between young girls and a pharmacy counter, with no accountability or safeguards in place. We are glad the FDA saw it differently."
View this Press Release online at:
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR04E04&f=PR04E04&t=e
Source: Family Research Council
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/3
Higher Death Rate of Abortion Discussed in New England Journal of Medicine
Higher Death Rate of Abortion Discussed in New England Journal of Medicine
(Elliot Institute www.afterabortion.info) More physicians are now aware of the new studies proving that death rates associated with abortion are far higher than death rates associated with childbirth, thanks to a letter from the Elliot Institute's director, Dr. David Reardon, that was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The letter was published as one of three critical responses to an article the journal had previously published regarding partial birth abortions.
The original commentary claimed that partial birth abortions would pose fewer health risks to the woman than childbirth, particularly if a woman faced concurrent health problems. In such cases, doctors should be free to recommend the abortion to protect the woman's health, the authors argued. In making their claims, the authors used dissimilar studies regarding death rates from abortion and childbirth to assert that abortion is associated with a lower mortality rate.
Reardon's response documented the newest record-based research proving that the risk of death associated with abortion is actually higher than that associated with childbirth, miscarriage, or not being pregnant. These are the only studies to examine pregnancy-associated mortality related to abortion and childbirth using a common standard and methodology. He also documented that women face higher risk of psychiatric illness following an abortion and noted the lack of any evidence that couples who abort a baby due to fetal anomalies experience any psychological benefit. He concluded his remarks with the observation that proponents of abortion have failed to document any benefits of abortion that outweigh the known risks, either in general or specifically for those women who face a concurrent illness.
Citing: Reardon DC, Hoeldtke NJ, Marchetti P, Greene MF, Ecker JL. "Abortion, Health, and the Law," N Engl J Med 2004; 350:1908-1910, Apr 29, 2004. Correspondence
Source: Elliot Institute News Vol 3, No 5
Publish Date: May 6, 200
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/2
Talking Points on The Morning-After Pill (MAP)
Talking Points on The Morning-After Pill (MAP)
(CWFA www.cwfa.org) Why the Morning-After Pill should not be available without a prescription
Facts:
The morning-after pill (MAP) lacks testing for safety to women. Access to the drug over-the-counter, or without a prescription, would prompt use among consumers who, unknowingly, have medical conditions that put them at high risk of life-threatening complications. It could be slipped to women without their knowledge, and statutory rapists would rely on it to cover up their abuse of adolescents. In areas that allow easy access, the sexually transmitted disease rates have skyrocketed. The drug owner encourages multiple sex partners (putting women at risk of sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs), and endorses frequent use of the drug, though it has not conducted studies on multiple use. Morning-after pill promoters have been found guilty of overstating the efficacy of the drug and understating the risks to women.
(Documentation is available at http://www.cwfa.org/hot-topics.asp)
Potential Risks to Women
Over-the-counter access would extend the availability of the MAP to a broader population than any study has included — females who have not been counseled or screened for contraindications.
Easy access allows someone other than the consumer to buy it and then slip it to a woman without her knowledge or consent. Unlike other drugs like aspirin, there is more potential for abuse by someone who, contrary to or unaware of the woman’s wishes, does not want her pregnant. Drugs less easy to administer have been used against women:
In one example, Gary Bourgeois’ girlfriend refused to have an abortion. During sexual relations, he inserted misoprostol, used in the RU-486 abortion regimen. Later she experienced violent cramps then felt a partly dissolved pill drop from her vagina. Her baby died. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance in Canada in September, 2003.
In another incident, Dr. Stephen Pack pleaded guilty to injecting Joy Schepis with an abortion-inducing drug in April 2000. The Bronx, New York, doctor jabbed his former lover with a syringe filled with methotrexate, which causes abortions, because she refused to have one.
It will be difficult for doctors to treat complications when the woman’s medical history is unknown or hidden.
The morning-after pill is a high dose of the birth control pill, which requires a medical exam, a prescription, and physician oversight. Birth control pills can cause significant or life-threatening conditions such as blood clots, stroke and heart attacks. Birth control pills are contraindicated for women with diabetes, liver problems, heart disease, breast cancer, deep vein thrombosis, and for women who smoke and are over 35. Physician oversight is necessary to ensure that none of these contraindications exists. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1.85 million women of reproductive age (18 – 44) have diabetes; approximately 500,000 do not know that they have the disease.
The World Health Organization has warned: “There may be a higher percentage of ectopic pregnancies among emergency contraceptive pill failure cases than among a normal pregnant population.”
Nurses at the Royal College of Nursing warned that pharmacists in the United Kingdom (where the drug is available behind the counter) were failing to warn customers of possible complications or carry out routine medical assessments.
Lack or Absence of Scientific Studies on The long-term effects
The high dosage. A drug’s safety at one dose or range of doses does not mean that the drug is equally safe at a much higher dose. Yet proponents stake their arguments on decades of use of the birth control pill, a lower dose – which is not available over-the-counter.
Repeated usage. In the United Kingdom, one in seven of all women used the morning-after pill repeatedly in the same year.
Females not screened for medical contraindications.
Adolescents.
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the morning-after pill with a prescription was not based on controlled scientific studies, but on unscientific, anecdotal evidence. All studies (including those cited in the over-the-counter approval application of Plan B, a brand of the MAP) focus on the drug’s relative reliability in decreasing the expected birth rate, not on the effect on the women who have taken the drug regimen.
Reasons Not to Trust Morning-After Pill Proponents
The FDA found Plan B’s promoters guilty of false advertising, for overstating efficacy (claiming greater effectiveness in prohibiting pregnancies than the evidence shows) and understating the medical risks to women. The FDA stated the “ads raise significant public health and safety concerns.” Yet proponents continue to make similar claims.
Plan B’s promoters make the contradictory claim that the MAP inhibits implantation but does not end a pregnancy. Nearly half of Americans (46 percent) believe life begins at fertilization. Knowledge that the MAP can terminate a pregnancy could affect a woman’s decision to use it; withholding such information violates the principle of informed consent.
Promoters have relied on junk science to claim it does not affect sexual behaviors. At least one study (from the University of Pittsburgh) included only teenagers already engaged in risky sexual activity, and then concluded that easy access to MAP did not change their behavior.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that low-dose oral contraceptives be available only with a prescription from a licensed health-care provider. Yet it is recommending that Plan B and other higher-dose hormone regimens be available over-the-counter.
ACOG did not poll its members. Its recommendation is not representative of its members. MAP proponents had complained that doctors have not been willing to hand out the drug to anyone (apparently a driving reason for them to seek over-the-counter status – to bypass medical intervention intended to protect women).
MAP promoters demonstrate a disturbing lack of concern for women’s health:
Plan B’s Web site responds to the question, “How often can Plan B be provided,” by stating, “Plan B can be provided as frequently as needed.”
The Web site acknowledges the need for intervention and oversight. “Providers can help a client determine whether Plan B treatment makes sense given the timing of unprotected intercourse and her level of concern about an unwanted pregnancy.” However, over-the-counter access would eliminate “providers,” thereby eliminating the opportunity for counsel, caution, and the screening out of women with contraindications.
The Web site encourages unnecessary use of the MAP for women already taking oral contraceptives — even though women are only fertile within days of ovulation: “Women taking oral contraception do not have true menstrual cycles and are at risk of pregnancy. … [E]mergency contraception may be indicated.”
Advertisements for Plan B include:
One ad portraying 13 young men with the caption, “So many men. So many reasons to have back up contraception.”
Another pictures a fraternity, with the words, “Delta Delta Thi. 27 upstanding young men. 34 billion sneaky little sperm.”
Another is designed like a poster for adolescents, describing “Damian” as “A Renaissance Guy, a Deep Thinker, an Ancient Soul, a Walking Sperm Factory.”
Potential Effect on Public Health
Regions that allow easy access to the MAP experience a significant increase in sexually transmitted diseases. In the United Kingdom, chlamydia cases rose from 7,000 in 1999 to 10,000 cases last year. Gonorrhea cases climbed nearly 50 percent, to nearly 3,000 cases last year, up from 2,000 in 1999. The highest increases were among 16-19 year olds.
Contrary to proponents’ claims, the number of surgical abortions has not declined with easy access to MAP. In some areas, the number of abortions increased.
In a UK study of users of MAP, four out of the 12 women interviewed said their choice to have unprotected sexual intercourse was influenced by the knowledge that they could obtain the pill from a pharmacy.
In response to concern that providing the morning-after pill through pharmacists would lead to more unprotected sex, a user of the pill disclosed: “To be honest, in a way, that is what happened to me. I did previously know that X chemist was just over the road and I think, I think if I hadn’t have known … if I hadn’t have known I could have got it so easily, I would have been more careful, to be honest.”
Risk to Adolescents
Many teenagers would be less confident in resisting sexual pressure, particularly if easy access to the pill is in the aggressor’s arsenal of coercion. It will increase the likelihood of sexual abuse of girls, and that sexual perpetrators will prolong their rapes undetected.
Adolescents are unlikely to recognize if they have medical contraindications, less likely to follow directions for administration or to fully understand a medication label. They are less prone to seek medical help if they suffer symptoms of complications after secretly taking the MAP, and would not be aware that it lacks adequate testing.
Rather than reducing the core problem of young people engaging in sexual activity (which carries life-long consequences), it encourages sexual activity. An official survey revealed that MAP use among teenage girls in the United Kingdom more than doubled since it became available in pharmacies, increasing from one in 12 teen-agers to one in five. Among them were girls as young as 12. A girl who said she was 10 years old told the pharmacist “she had already used it four times.”
Even morning-after pill proponents agree that sexually active girls are likely victims of sexual abuse, and interaction with medical professionals is an important defense.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute reported: “The younger women are when they first have intercourse the more likely they are to have had unwanted or nonvoluntary first sex, seven in 10 of those who had sex before age 13, for example.”
“The possibility of sexual abuse should be considered routinely in every adolescent female patient who has initiated sexual activity,” stated Dr. Joycelyn Elders in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The rush to choose “pregnancy outcome options” may preempt efforts to rule out sexual abuse. “Sexual abuse is a common antecedent of adolescent pregnancy, with up to 66% of pregnant teens reporting histories of abuse…. Pregnancy may also be a sign of ongoing sexual abuse…. Boyer and Fine found that of 535 young women who were pregnant, 44% had been raped, of whom 11% became pregnant as a result of the rape. One half of these young women with rape histories were raped more than once.”
Tool for Abusers
The Bangkok Post reported disturbing consequences of easy availability of the morning-after pill for the past 15 years, including:
Random studies showed that men are the most frequent buyers. “They buy the pills for their girlfriends or wives so that they don’t have to wear condoms and feel they’re at no risk of becoming a father afterwards. Some women I’ve spoken to said that they didn’t even know what they were taking; that the guy just said it was a health supplement,” said Nattaya Boonpakdee, program assistant at the Population Council (an agency dedicated to promoting and developing contraception and abortion methods).
“Although many feminists believe that the morning-after pill gives them more control over their own bodies, it would seem, judging from the few studies conducted so far, that it is actually being used by men to exploit women.”
FDA Advisory Committee
The FDA Advisory Committee chairman declared the label comprehension study a “failure” – a full one-third of the women did not understand that the morning-after pill is not to be used as a regular form of birth control.
The committee was presented limited or incomplete information.
Some committee members displayed a disturbing lack of interest in the potential abuse of women, and of practical reality. These members advocated that the morning-after pill should be placed in stores outside the line of vision of pharmacists, so customers would not be embarrassed about obtaining it. The committee members did not say how they expect customers to pay for it without anyone seeing.
The FDA has rejected advisory committee recommendations in the past, most recently regarding silicone breast implants. It is only one of the FDA’s multiple levels for evaluation
By: Wendy Wright
Source: Concerned Women by America
Publish Date: May 6, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040507/1
Friday, April 30, 2004
Pro-Family Lobby Wins at U.N.
Pro-Family Lobby Wins at U.N.
(FNIF - www.family.org/cforum/fnif) A United Nations committee refuses to declare homosexuality and abortion international human rights.
Family advocates are celebrating a major victory from a recent meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights: the defeat of a resolution declaring homosexuality and abortion international human rights.
Several nations lobbied for classifying "alternate lifestyles" and abortion as protected rights, but in the end morality prevailed.
"The overall impression was that the immoral agenda of the deviants was not a good thing for humanity and for human beings generally," said Dr. Farooq Hassan, a U.N. diplomat and former member of the commission. "I think President Bush's personal intervention in this matter has been a great help, and there's no doubt that the weight the Untied States has put behind this entire agenda (helped)."
The victory is important, Focus on the Family United Nations representative Thomas Jacobson said, because the commission's decisions carry a lot of weight.
"If sexual orientation became an international human right," he explained, "then there would be pressure applied through the U.N. upon nations to remove their laws prohibiting sodomy."
In fact, it's already happening in the United States.
"Even the Supreme Court . . . based the decision in Lawrence v. Texas (which struck down a Texas sodomy statute) on a European Human Rights court decision that was a bad decision," Jacobson said.
Both sides in the debate, he added, are preparing to renew the battle over the status of homosexuality and abortion at next year's Commission on Human Rights meeting.
By: Steve Jordahl
Source: Family News in Focus
Publish Date: April 29, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/6
Sounds of Silence
Sounds of Silence
Pro-lifers in peaceful protest.
(FRC www.family.org) To get people to attend this past Sunday's "pro-choice" march, the organizers had to rename the march...twice. First, it was the Choice March. Then it became the Freedom of Choice March. In a final effort, they came up with the winning "March for Women's Lives." While it isn't accurate or honest, it was certainly effective. Still, they needed more people. Not enough people would march for abortion alone; so supporters issued a widespread invitation that encompassed anyone with an anti-Bush gripe or who simply doesn't like pro-lifers.
Say what you may about pro-life organizations, they never offer their opponents as moving targets to satisfy the fetishes of so-called supporters.
After more than 30 years of legalized abortion, pro-choicers can now only gather the public support they need to keep the abortion question alive by confusing the issue. Their message is as mixed up as it was 30 years ago — perhaps even more so. They can offer no convincing argument because women themselves, while willing to identify themselves as pro-choice, believe that most abortions should not be legal. Many of these women believe there's more to women's health than the abortion issue. But while they may be more interested in HIV/AIDS, healthcare, jobs, or even the election, they allowed themselves to be duped into marching for abortion on Sunday.
Other marchers came apparently because the World Bank protests were over and they had nowhere left to go. Or they were angry. Or (and?) they don't like President Bush. At the March, Erica Quest, a pro-lifer from Virginia, noticed, "There was no unified message. [It was] everything from 'We hate Bush' to lesbian rights. Everything crass and violent. Nothing feminine. Nothing dignified. You're just taken back by the anger. I was almost embarrassed to be a woman."
Bevlin Lyons, also a pro-lifer from Virginia, attended the march with her husband, Joe, and their infant son, Sebastian. Holding her son and a pro-life sign she witnessed what she calls "the sadness of it all. They're angry about something. There was no sign of joy at anything."
But wait — pro-choice marchers should be excited about their "choices," and the fact that any pregnant woman can get an abortion at any time for any reason in the United States.
While gay activists have become more and more public about their beliefs, scarcely any women come out with pride — no pun intended — when it comes to talking about their abortions. If the Alan Guttmacher Institute is right in its estimate that about 40 percent of American women have had an abortion, that's a lot of women who have kept quiet. Some of them may have been at the march on Sunday. They'll talk about "choice" in general, then, but not about any particular "choice" they may have made.
The abortion agenda has only been able to offer women freedom from — from a difficult situation, from an annoyance, from the responsibility of a child. Yet, this type of freedom doesn't appear to be a major issue for most women.
Last year, the pro-choice Center for Advancement of Women issued what they titled a "groundbreaking survey of over 3,300 American women." The survey participants identified 12 priority issues. "Keeping abortion legal" ranked eleventh barely beating out "increasing the number of girls who participate in organized sports."
A Zogby poll released last week shows that 49 percent of Americans consider themselves pro-life, compared to 45 percent who consider themselves pro-choice. Overall, upwards of 60 percent of those polled support restrictions on abortion. Perhaps more important, only 13 percent support legal abortion at any time, for any reason — hardly a majority opinion. But this is an extremely vocal minority.
Now that 40 million unborn children have died and abortion has become one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States, a growing voice is emerging. This is the voice of the woman who's had an abortion, who regrets it, and who feels she was never empowered with adequate information to make a real choice. Some of these women and their supporters countered the march with a silent, peaceful protest.
And the silence worked in at least a few cases. Janet Morana, co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign stood at Constitution and Seventh Streets with a group of about a hundred post-abortion women and their supporters. In the midst of their silence, a woman from D.C. named Shirley came up to two of them. She was holding a Planned Parenthood "Stand Up For Choice" sign and she said, "I can't hold this sign and march with them anymore." She explained that she had lost a child to crib death and then she broke down sobbing. She saw the reality of the "choice" for which she had been marching.
Susan Pine, executive director of F.A.C.E. Life, came to the march from Florida. Armed with the experience of her own abortions and subsequent years of pro-life activism, she came to stand in silent witness to the effects of her "choices." Before the march, she spoke with a group of college pro-choicers there. They told her that although they didn't believe in abortion for themselves, as a form of birth control, or after the first trimester, they attended the march to "represent poor stupid women with six babies." Apparently, having six children is a sign of stupidity. So much for personal choice.
Rory Conway, a pro-lifer from Washington, D.C., saw women standing with "I regret my abortion" signs confronted by angry marchers. He commented, "The crowded scene was not so unlike the angry mobs of Jerusalem on Good Friday, and I recall that Christ, in the midst of his detractors, kept his silence. In the midst of a war of words, perhaps only silence can provide the seedbed of peace."
Susan Pine also saw the quiet effects of silent protest. "Some women," she said, "would see our signs, start to cry, drop everything, and leave."
Undoubtedly, most of those who came to march for the so-called right to abortion left with the same convictions that they brought. But they were unable to present a cohesive and peaceful voice. Their anger was frustrated by the few pro-lifers who attended in silence.
The experiences of women who have had abortions, if we are willing to listen, will determine the future of the culture of life in the United States.
- Pia de Solenni is the director of life and women's issues at the Family Research Council.
By: Pia de Solenni
Publish Date: April 29, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/5
National Study Reveals Pro-Abortion, Related Activity At US Catholic Colleges Since 1999
National Study Reveals Pro-Abortion, Related Activity At US Catholic Colleges Since 1999
56-Page Report Documents Scandals in Catholic Higher Education
(LifeSiteNews.com) - The Cardinal Newman Society has issued a shocking new report on scandals at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities that is certain to reignite concerns about the colleges' religious character.
The 56-page report, "The Culture of Death on Catholic Campuses: A Five-Year Review," documents inroads made by advocates of abortion, contraception, premarital sexual activity, and physician-assisted suicide onto Catholic college campuses since 1999. It is the most extensive evidence of problems in Catholic higher education ever compiled in a single source-and yet it only scratches the surface, relying primarily on media reports and college websites.
"'Pro-choice' is no choice for a Catholic institution, which by its Catholic mission must be courageously pro-life," said Erin Butcher, lead researcher and co-author of the report. "Cardinal Newman Society has responded to scandal after scandal on Catholic campuses, but many Catholics still fail to appreciate the scope of the problem."
The report, which can be downloaded free of charge at www.cardinalnewmansociety.org identifies the problems and suggests solutions to ensure that Catholic colleges uphold their Catholic, pro-life mission. Highlights include:
* Pro-abortion presidential candidates at Catholic colleges. In January, St. Anselm College (N.H.) hosted seven pro-abortion candidates for their final debate before New Hampshire's Democratic primary. Other campaign appearances have included John Kerry at Georgetown in January 2003, Dennis Kucinich at Sacred Heart University last June, Howard Dean at St. Anselm last September and at Georgetown last October, Dick Gephardt's daughter at Boston College last November, Gephardt and Kerry at Clarke College (Iowa) in January, Wesley Clark at Rivier College (N.H.) in January, and Kerry at Georgetown again in April.
* Nearly 200 instances of campus speakers and honorees who have been public advocates of abortion or otherwise contributors to the "Culture of Death". These include at least 17 visits and lectures by President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University, researchers engaged in human cloning and embryonic cell research at Assumption College and the College of the Holy Cross, NARAL Pro-Choice America president Kate Michelman at Boston College law school, radical feminist Gloria Steinem at Fairfield University, pornographer Larry Flynt at Georgetown University, and National Organization for Women (NOW) president Kim Gandy at Loyola University of New Orleans.
* "Emergency contraception," an abortifacient, provided to students by the College of Santa Fe and Rockhurst University.
* College officials and faculty with ties to pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia organizations, * Pro-abortion politicians serving as college officials and faculty,
* Pro-abortion student clubs
* Internships and service opportunities offered by Catholic colleges, including service as a Planned Parenthood "clinic escort" promoted by Nazareth College's campus ministry and internships with Planned Parenthood offered by Villanova University.
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 29, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/4
The mall of shame
The mall of shame
(WorldNetDaily www.WorldNetDaily.com) A pro-abortion marcher in Washington on Sunday said, "I just had to be here to fight for the next generation and the generation after that." I'd like to ask her which generation aborted babies belong to.
This woman was just one of many converging on Washington's Mall to rally for "abortion rights" and "global reproductive freedom." Sadly, her statement, just like the broader "pro-choice" movement, is shrouded in deception and euphemism.
I mean no offense here, but the more you examine the pro-aborts' claims and distortions of language, the less sympathetic their cause becomes. Consider certain statements of the rally's supporters and participants.
Actress Lynda Carter said, "There is a religious and moral superiority and arrogance that so many, not all, Republicans have. It is the ultimate intrusion by government to tell a woman when she can have children, if she has them at all."
No pro-life advocates I know are trying to tell women when they can have children. They can have them any time they want. They just shouldn't be allowed to "terminate" them in the womb.
And if the pro-life position is grounded in religious convictions, on what do pro-abortionists base their casual disregard for life? Aren't they saying the mother's "right to choose" is a moral right? If not, why all the moral outrage?
And if it is arrogant for pro-lifers to stand up for innocent life, how arrogant is it for pro-aborts to ignore the dignity, rights and even existence of the unborn? As for "ultimate intrusion," I wish Ms. Carter would tell us how she justifies intrusions on the baby's body and life.
Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, "The march is about the totality of women's lives and the right to make decisions about our lives." Other pro-aborts insist that women's health is their great concern.
But their zeal has little to do with choice or women's health. If they truly cared about choice, they wouldn't favor government-funded abortion on demand without restriction, including partial-birth abortion.
They'd want pregnant women to make informed choices. They would make sure they were aware of the latest research suggesting that large percentages of women who've had abortions experience emotional or psychological problems. They'd tell them about their babies' possible sensitivity to physical pain.
They'd tell them of the suspected linkage between abortion and breast cancer, even if the evidence is inconclusive. And they'd quit exaggerating concerns over the mother's health as a justification for partial-birth abortions.
Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said, "Anti-choice extremists are not just against abortion – they also oppose contraception and comprehensive medically accurate sex education." Oh? I wonder if by that she means the routine suppression of the abstinence message and facts about the failure rate of condoms for both pregnancy and HIV transmission? And they lecture us about safe sex?
Another marcher invoked the specious pro-abort battle cry "Stop the violence." What about violence toward the babies? And what about the violence of some of the marchers themselves?
I received an e-mail from a lady who went to the march as a "ProtestWarrior." She said the marchers desecrated her sign, screamed insults and made profane gestures and that one man physically hurled her to the ground. She said, "These tolerant, inclusive, choice liberals were the most hateful 800,000 people the 12 members of PW ever encountered."
Another pro-abort said pro-lifers have no respect for the Constitution. By "Constitution" I don't think she meant the document signed in 1787 that British Prime Minister William Gladstone described as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."
More likely, she was referring to the penumbra-and-emanation-laden "living document" that unelected, unaccountable, lifetime-appointed, activist judges often mold to fit their ideologies by inventing such fictions as the constitutional right to privacy.
The "pro-choice" movement is based on the lie that an unborn human being is not a human being. If pro-aborts had nothing to hide, would they use such misleadingly innocuous words as "choice," "reproductive rights" and "family planning" when they mean the act of terminating life?
If "choice" were so popular with the public, would the pro-aborts' presidential candidate of "choice," Sen. Kerry, feel compelled to dissemble, saying he is personally against abortion but opposed to the government regulating it? That's like saying he's personally opposed to shoplifting but against the government interfering with the thief's choice. Actually, it's much worse than that.
As scientific and technological advances continue to shed light on the darkness of their position, pro-aborts will become increasingly desperate. The marchers treated us to just a little bitter foretaste of that Sunday.
© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
By: David Limbaugh
Source: WorldNetDaily
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/3
Woman Who Gave Birth to Stillborn Infant After Allegedly Refusing C-Section Sentenced to 18 Months of Probation
Woman Who Gave Birth to Stillborn Infant After Allegedly Refusing C-Section Sentenced to 18 Months of Probation
(Kaisernetwork www.kaisernetwork.org) Salt Lake County District Judge Dennis Fuchs on Thursday sentenced Melissa Rowland, who in March was charged with criminal homicide for giving birth to a stillborn infant after allegedly refusing to consent to a caesarean-section delivery of her twins, to 18 months of probation for two counts of child endangerment, the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News reports (Thomson/Reavy, Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 4/30). According to court documents, Rowland showed "depraved indifference to human life" by failing to seek immediate medical treatment, including a recommended c-section. Rowland consented to a c-section delivery only after a hospital staff member told her that the female fetus was in distress and the male fetus was dead, according to the documents. The female infant was delivered alive and tested positive for cocaine and alcohol, and the male infant was stillborn. State Medical Examiner Dr. Edward Leis determined that the male infant did not have any congenital problems and would have been born alive if Rowland had consented to a c-section earlier. In a plea agreement, Utah prosecutors earlier this month announced they were dropping murder charges against Rowland, and she pled guilty to two third-degree felony counts of child endangerment for using cocaine during pregnancy (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 4/9).
Sentencing Details
Fuchs officially sentenced Rowland to two concurrent terms of zero to five years in prison, but he suspended the sentence and put Rowland on "good behavior" probation instead (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 4/30). If Rowland does not fulfill the requirements of her probation -- which include an order to do 100 hours of community service -- she will have to serve her prison sentences, Reuters reports. Fuchs also ordered Rowland, who has a history of mental health problems, to move to Indiana, where she has family and friends and where she will undergo mental health treatment. Fuchs also ordered Rowland to undergo parenting classes, according to Reuters (Nelson, Reuters, 4/29). However, Fuchs denied the prosecution's request that Rowland be banned from making contact with her infant daughter, who was adopted by another family after birth, according to the AP/San Diego Union-Tribune (Sage, AP/San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/29).
Reaction
Rowland, who served 105 days in prison, said she is "happy to be free," adding that she hopes to attend college, become a legal secretary and "get off Social Security" after undergoing mental health and drug treatment, the Salt Lake Tribune reports (Hunt, Salt Lake Tribune, 4/30). However, Rowland -- who maintains that she did not refuse a c-section -- added that she "should not have been charged with criminal homicide" (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 4/30). Rowland also said she does not intend to have any more children, the Tribune reports (Salt Lake Tribune, 4/30). Prosecutor Robert Stott said he agreed with the sentence, adding that the district attorney's office was glad that Rowland had "taken responsibility for her actions," according to the Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 4/30). The National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have criticized the prosecution for charging Rowland with murder, alleging that their efforts were an attempt to undermine abortion rights in the state (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 4/9). Stott said that the decision to drop the murder charges against Rowland was not because of political pressure but came after the prosecution learned of Rowland's "long history of psychological and mental health and drug addiction problems" (Salt Lake Tribune, 4/30). Andrea Moore Emmett, president of the Utah chapter of NOW, said that Rowland's case could lead other women with mental health or substance abuse problems to avoid seeking help for fear of being prosecuted. Susan Vogel of the social justice organization CodePink said, "We feel this case was an incredible waste of money for the state of Utah," adding, "I'd like to see the wages of the Salt Lake prosecutors garnished to pay for this" (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 4/30).
Source: Kaisernetwork
Publish Date: April 30, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/2
American Nurses Association Endorses Kerry for President
American Nurses Association Endorses Kerry for President
Comment: With National Nurses week coming up May 6-12, this news is disappointing but not surprising. In 1996, the ANA issued a press release opposing a ban on partial birth abortion saying that "Registered nurses have worked for decades to make real the goal of every birth being planned and wanted. These late-term abortions are rare and tragic, and they occur when something has gone terribly wrong with a pregnancy," said ANA President Virginia Trotter Betts, JD, MSN, RN...This protection of a woman's right to choose safe, reproductive care is the essence of Roe v. Wade."
(source: http://www.nursingworld.org/pressrel/1996/veto.htm)
The latest statistics I found on membership in the ANA is from 2000: 180,000 out of 2.2 million nurses or 8% of all nurses even though the ANA purports to represent the entire profession.
Years ago, I joined ANA to try to make a difference and after a successful idea, I was approached by a national ANA person who told me that I had the potential to go far in the organization-if I would drop the pro-life "stuff." I told her that, if I was indeed considered a good nurse, it was BECAUSE I was pro-life.
- Nancy V.
(Nursing World - www.nursingworld.org) American Nurses Association Endorses Kerry for President Nurses Say Change is Needed to Improve Health Care for All Washington, DC - The American Nurses Association (ANA) will announce today, at a Town Hall meeting in Ohio, its endorsement of U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for president in the 2004 election. Citing the need for dramatic improvements in the nation's health care system, as well as continued support for registered nurses and their role in health care, ANA president Barbara A. Blakeney, MS, APRN,BC, ANP, on behalf of the ANA Board of Directors, declared Sen. Kerry the best candidate to lead health care reform efforts.
"Health care is at a crossroads in the United States," Blakeney said. "Too many Americans are without accessible, affordable, quality health care and nurses can play a critical role in turning that around," she added. "We pledge our support to help Sen. Kerry become the next president because, as president, we can count on him to continue his support for issues that are high on the agenda of nurses."
In the Senate, Kerry has been a consistent advocate for increased funding for the Nurse Reinvestment Act and other nursing workforce development programs. He supported the ANA-backed mandatory overtime bill known as the Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act (S. 373); and opposed the repeal of strong ergonomic protections that were passed during the Clinton Administration.
Sen. Kerry was, in fact, co-author of both the Nurse Reinvestment Act and the Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act and has been a strong advocate on behalf of nurses throughout his entire senatorial career.
"For ANA, each election is a powerful opportunity to advance nursing's perspectives on health care," said Greer Glazer, RN, CNP, PhD, FAAN, Chair of ANA-PAC. "More than 2.7 million strong, registered nurses represent the largest group of health care professionals. We are acutely aware of the changes that need to be made to improve health care for all and we will use our power at the ballot box to make health care a priority," she added.
ANA has been making presidential endorsements since 1984. The endorsement process included sending a questionnaire on nursing and health care issues to all of the democratic and republican candidates, an invitation to all of the democratic and republican candidates for a personal interview and an online survey of ANA's membership.
The American Nurses Association is the only full-service professional organization representing the nation's 2.7 million registered nurses (RNs) through its 54 constituent member associations. The ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting apositive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
Source: Nursing World
Publish Date: February 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040430/1
News Links:
News Links:
Tennessee Senate Committee Approves Bill With Amendment To Create 'Pro-Choice' License Plate
(Kaisernetwork www.kaisernetwork.org) The Tennessee Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday approved an amendment to a license plate bill (SB 3323) that would allow for the creation of a "pro-choice" specialty license plate, the Tennessean reports. The committee voted 4-3 to add the amendment to NASCAR license plate legislation, which the committee approved 5-2
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2796.l3.G.D.Hv7LcD
Louisiana House Committee Endorses Contraceptive Coverage Bill
(Kaisernetwork www.kaisernetwork.org) The Louisiana House Insurance Committee on Wednesday approved 8-7 a bill (HB 732) that would require health insurance plans that include prescription drug coverage to provide coverage for prescription contraception
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2796.l3.D.D.Hq3rKv
Pro-Life group protests school's ban on T-shirts
(Richmond Times Dispatch - www.timesdispatch.com) A Pro-Life group is protesting a school principal's decision ordering students to remove their anti-abortion T-shirts. Erik Whittington, co-founder of Rock for Life, said a 14-year-old Spotsylvania County middle school student was initially permitted to wear the shirt on Tuesday, a day the group had chosen for its "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day" campaign. The girl also distributed about 40 of the shirts at Battlefield Middle School.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031775181033&path=!news&s=1045855934842
Abortion march is ugly
(Citizen Online www.citizenonline.net) All the slogans, chants, posters, stickers, gestures, speeches and slurs from Sunday’s “pro-choice” march congeal in my mind as this single image:
A young woman in requisite belly-baring jeans is crab-walking sideways down Pennsylvania Avenue pointing defiantly toward her baby-bearing parts in graphic retort to three men dressed as grim reapers and bellowing thanks for marchers’ generous support:
“We’re pro-death!” the reapers shout. “We’re with you! 1.2 million more this year!”
Forget gravitas. Forget anything you ever thought about the beauty of free assembly or the power of free speech. We have taken our gravest contemporary concern — the sanctity of human life — and reduced it to a carnival of the grotesque.
http://www.citizenonline.net/citizen/archive/articleD8DB8656387C4D96BCBFF9BF396705B4.asp
Canada OB/GYNs Propose Abortions in Schools via Morning After Pill
(LifeSiteNews.com) - In a pamphlet issued last month, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada advocates early abortions to be available to students in schools with the use of the morning after pill.
The pamphlet entitled Contraception Consensus Guidelines, says that "Hormonal emergency contraception should be available without a prescription in pharmacies, family planning clinics, emergency rooms, walk-in clinics, and school health programs."
See the pamphlet online at:
http://www.sogc.org/SOGCnet/sogc_docs/common/guide/pdfs/ps143_1_3.pdf
Abortion lawsuit bill passes House
(Kansas City Star - subscription - www.kansascity.com) - Kansas City,MO,USA ... of Missouri's parental consent law, the House passed legislation Thursday allowing lawsuits against anyone who helps a minor secretly get an abortion.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8550945.htm
Quick Note:
Quick Note:
On April 27, James Ridgeway in his Mondo Washington column for the liberal New York newspaper The Village Voice made this scenario. It began, "With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon..." and referred to the "Democratic establishment" as "arrogant and out of touch." It didn't get better for Kerry or the Democrats: "With growing issues over his wealth (which makes Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry ... Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that a candidate who starts each morning having to explain himself is a goner." Again, this appeared in a liberal newspaper inclined toward Democrats, not a conservative publication like National Review or The Weekly Standard.
Ridgeway urged "Democrat biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike."
This is remarkable stuff. While Ridgeway suggested the possibility of resurrecting John Edwards, that isn't about to happen. The only possible candidate who could replace Kerry - should delegates pledged to him abandon his sinking ship - is (drum roll) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (presumptuous-N.Y.).
-Cal Thomas
You can read the entire column at:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/ct20040428.shtml
You can read related news in the New York Post at:
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/19818.htm
Reader's Feedback:
Reader's Feedback:
I disagree with all the recent announcements that most Americans are pro-life. If they were truly pro life, they wouldn't be voting for pro-choice candidates. They're sheep in wolves clothing. Our battle will continue until the people match their actions with the words they speak.
God bless you for your work. I can't wait until the day we're all "out of business".
- Christine (Murphysboro)
Thursday, April 29, 2004
National Contest Gives Platform to Pro-Life Teens
National Contest Gives Platform to Pro-Life Teens
(AgapePress - www.agapepress.org) In many states around the U.S., high school students are getting a chance to speak up for the unborn and others affected by sanctity-of-life issues as the teens participate in competitions designed to help them learn to voice their pro-life convictions.
National Right to Life is again sponsoring its annual youth speech competition, the Jane B. Thompson National Oratory Contest, which is scheduled to be held in Arlington, Virginia, in July at the National Right to Life Convention.
The student competition, which is open to public, private, and home-schooled teens, requires the participants to research, write, and present their own pro-life speech on abortion, euthanasia, or infanticide. Eliminations proceed from local and regional speech contests and progress to contests at the state and national levels, with a grand prize of $2,500 awarded to the national winner.
Emerging Pro-Life Voices
The competition attracts a dynamic kind of youth. Tabitha Worrell of Hot Springs, Arkansas, is a 14-year-old high school junior who has been home-schooled for eight years and who keeps busy with her church youth group, debate club, 4-H, her home-school group, and volunteering at a local hospital. After she graduates, the teen plans to pursue a nursing career. In the meantime, the statewide winner will be representing Arkansas at the national competition this summer.
Last year's winner in Colorado was Kristi Burton, another home-school student, who said competing in the oratory contest sponsored locally by Colorado Right to Life was one of the best experiences she had during her high school years. She says the contest was for her "a great opportunity to learn how to speak in a comfortable environment," and that it "also gave me a chance to stand up for what I believe in."
Burton compares the slaughter of the innocent unborn children in America to the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Nazi holocaust. She encourages other youths to get involved in saving babies' lives. And Burton says the Right to Life oratory contest is a great way for teens to learn to speak out on moral issues, a skill that will "be a wonderful asset for you in the years to come."
Regional winner Danielle Parker of LaVergne, Tennessee, agrees that the experience of competing is valuable. The 16-year-old LaVergne High School student, who aspires to be an attorney and an actress -- and maybe to run for public office one day -- placed third in last year's regional contest. But she says she feels a lot more poised this time around. She recently took first place in the Rutherford County division and will go on to contend at the state level on May 22 for a chance to represent Tennessee at the national competition.
Parker's division-winning speech described the parallels between abortion and chattel slavery. She feels it is important for people to realize how allowing the U.S. courts to deny the humanity -- and thereby the rights -- of the unborn threatens the civil rights of all. "Abortion truly does affect everyone," she says, "and it's something we should all be concerned about."
Parker says her father, a pastor and a member of Black Americans For Life, inspired her to learn more about the pro-life movement and to get involved in public speaking about the issue. "There are a lot of things I'd like to change, like ending abortion and improving education. I'd like to be able to influence things for the better," she says.
Last year, Katie Beebe of Cabot, Arkansas, won both her state contest and the national contest. In her winning speech she spoke of the importance of recognizing that life truly does begin at conception. And where a human being's life begins, so, Beebe implied, should their rights.
The teen noted that those rights which the Founding Fathers set forth in the Declaration of Independence were acknowledged as inalienable and given by God, the same "higher power" that gives life and creates human beings in His own image. "It is not up to an unprepared mother or an abortion doctor to take away the precious gift that was given to us when we were conceived," Beebe stated.
The Future Is Now
Through local Right to Life chapters nationwide, impassioned pro-life youth are learning to speak out for the rights of the unborn. And as Bianca Hovey of Human Life of Seattle noted a few years ago when her group organized a youth oratory contest for the first time, the young people are filling their adult counterparts with immediate pride and long-term hope.
Hovey commented that such teenagers are not merely the future of the pro-life movement, but "they are a very important part of it right now. They are on the 'front line,' since many of their peers are the ones seeking abortions. In a unique way, teenagers can be very effective pro-life advocates by supporting and educating their friends."
Meanwhile, contest organizers report seeing tremendous positive effects on the young people themselves as a result of their participation. Many say in preparing competitive speeches the contestants gain the ability to articulate their beliefs while coming to understand the imperative of protecting vulnerable life, whether in the womb, the intensive care unit, or a nursing home. The experience can help form a basis for their immediate influence of peers as well as a foundation for their lifelong involvement in the pro-life movement.
By: Jenni Parker
Source: AgapePress
Publish Date: April 28, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/1
Women's Group Tells Cancer Establishment: You're Responsible for Women's Deaths
Women's Group Tells Cancer Establishment: You're Responsible for Women's Deaths
(CABC www.abortionbreastcancer.com) The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer accused the cancer establishment of causing women to die by concealing research dating to 1957 that linked abortion with increased breast cancer risk (ABC link). [1]
The Coalition said cancer fundraising groups deceive women by denying a cause-effect relationship. For several decades, their fact sheets have recognized the risk increasing effects that every common sense person knows can result from abortion - childlessness, reduced childbearing, little or no breastfeeding, and late first full term pregnancy (FFTP). Scientists say these childbearing patterns more than double the number of breast cancer cases in developed nations. [2,3]
The Coalition's accusations came after yesterday's article by Donna Jackel in the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York). [4] The article discussed presentations on the ABC link planned for tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Rochester Academy of Medicine by Professor Joel Brind of Baruch College and breast cancer surgeon, Angela Lanfranchi, MD of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) falsely claims that research up until the mid-1990's was "inconsistent," with some studies reporting "slightly" increased risk and others reporting no risk elevation.
"If the evidence was 'inconsistent' and abortion 'might' increase risk, then why didn't they feel obligated to warn women?" asked Karen Malec, president of the group. "The NCI's claim contradicts a lie on its Web site in 1999 which said, 'The scientific rationale for an association between abortion and breast cancer is based on limited experimental data in rats and is not consistent with human data.'"
By 1999, 26 out of 32 studies reported risk elevations. Seven reported a more than twofold increase in risk.
Government scientists recognized a cause-effect relationship in 1986. Bruce Stadel of the National Institutes of Health, Phyllis Wingo of the Centers for Disease Control and two others wrote in unambiguous terms, "Induced abortion before first full term pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer." [5]
"They didn't warn women then. Why believe their ABC denials now?" asked Mrs. Malec.
An American Cancer Society (ACS) spokesperson said the latest research doesn't report risk increases and falsely claimed it's of the "best quality." That research includes three studies whose authors misclassified thousands of post-abortive women as not having had abortions [6,7,8], and research on Chinese women who are forcibly aborted after one childbirth.
[9,10]
"Americans, by contrast, overwhelmingly choose abortion to delay a first birth. There's no comparison here. ACS scientists know Chinese women gain considerable protection by having an early first birth before aborting," declared Mrs. Malec. "Early childbirth is the effect they're picking up in the Chinese studies, not a protective effect from abortion, and they know it."
Professor Leslie Bernstein claimed abortion provides protection from the disease, but didn't offer a biological explanation for it. A medical text used by breast disease specialists cited her research to support a cause-effect relationship. [11,12] Her research shows that childbearing women have significantly lower levels of estrogen in comparison to childless women. [13]
"Dependence on funding from pharmaceutical companies and governments compromises the integrity of the cancer establishment," said Mrs. Malec. "They've allowed themselves to be used for a population control agenda."
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women's organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.
References
1. Segi et al. (1957) GANN 48 (Suppl.):1-63.
2. Graham Colditz, MD, "Relationship Between Estrogen Levels, Use of Hormone Replacement Therapy and Breast Cancer," JNCl (1998) 90:814-823.
3. Beral V et al. (July 20, 2002) The Lancet 360:187-95.
4. Donna Jackel, "Abortion, breast cancer are focus of talk," Democrat and Chronicle, April 27, 2004.
5. Lancet (Feb. 22, 1986) p. 436.
6. Melbye et al. (1997) N Engl J Med 336:81-5.
7. Goldacre M et al. (2001) J Epidem Community Health 55:336-7.
8. Erlandsson G et al. (2003) Int J Cancer 103:676-679.
9. Sanderson M, Shu X-O, Jin F, Dai Q, Wen W, Hua Y, Gao Y-T, Zheng W. Abortion history and breast cancer risk: results from the Shanghai breast cancer study. Int J Cancer 2001;92:899-905
10. Ye et al. (2002) Br J Cancer 87:977-981.
11. Robert B. Dickson, Ph.D., Marc E. Lippman, MD, "Growth Regulation of Normal and Maglignant Breast Epithelium," The Breast: Comprehensive Management of Benign and Malignant Diseases, edited by Kirby I. Bland MD and Edward M. Copeland III, MD; (1998) W.B. Saunders Company; 2nd edition; Vol 1, p.519.
12. Hendersen BE, Ross R, Bernstein L. "Estrogen is a cause of human cancer: The Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award Lecture. Cancer Res (1988) 48:246-53.
13. Bernstein L, et al. "Estrogen and Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin Levels in Nulliparous and Parous Women." J Natl Cancer Inst (1985) 74:741-745.
By: Karen Malec
Source: Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
Publish Date: April 28, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/2
A Study in Contrasts
A Study in Contrasts
(NRLC www.nrlc.org) Remember the old Wrigley Spearmint Gum "Double Your Pleasure" ads? John Kerry, the Abortion Establishment's newest best friend, apparently figured he could double the impact of his fawning tribute to Planned Parenthood's Gloria Feldt and NARAL's Kate Michelman at Sunday's "March for Women's Lives" by running a pro-abortion ad in the same time frame.
The following is the script of Kerry's 30-second "Choice" ad:
ANNOUNCER: The Supreme Court is just one vote away from outlawing a woman's right to choose. George Bush will appoint anti-choice, anti-privacy justices. But you can stop him.
Help elect John Kerry and join the fight to protect our right to choose. Contribute now at JoinJohnKerry.com. Call or log on now.
(On screen: JoinJohnKerry.com; call 1-800-523-5293)
JOHN KERRY: I promise to take the fight to George Bush every single day. I'm John Kerry, and I approved this message.
ANNOUNCER: Log on, call, contribute for a new direction.
I hadn't actually seen this ad until someone was kind enough to tell me that it can be read (and seen) at the National Journal website. (Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to log on.) As it happened, I clicked it on just before a friend e-mailed to tell me about an encouraging story in the May issue of Redbook magazine, to which I shall turn in a second.
Kerry's appearance and his ad tells us two things. First, he is not at all shy about advertising his cozy relationship with the Abortion Establishment.
What Kerry did "amounted to an unapologetic line in the sand," to borrow the description the New York Times offered when reporting on pro-life Vice President Richard Cheney's speech last week at the NRL Educational Trust Fund's Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner. In each instance, the rival campaigns for President were demonstrating their allegiances, not only to the pro-and anti-life movements, but also to the entire world.
Second, Kerry is also demonstrating that he is a willing participant in the Big Lie perpetrated by the pro-abortion movement. Not one, but two pro-Roe justices must be replaced before this ghastly decision is history.
"The True Story of a Teen Mom" appears on page 124 of the May Redbook, amid a sea of semi-sleazy stories that dominate so many women's magazines today. The subhead neatly captures the message of the piece written by Lu Hanessian: "Think a young mother's life always heads downhill? Rachael Gordon, who gave birth at 14, proves the answer is 'no way'--and offers hope to others struggling to succeed."
The story does not glorify unwed teen parenthood; we learn in considerable detail the many obstacles Rachael, as a single mom, had to overcome. But it is a tribute to her indomitable spirit
We learn that from the moment of her son Felix's birth, "rather than marvel at his tiny hands and wide brown eyes, Rachael wasn't sure how she felt. 'All I could think was that this person was 100 percent dependent on me,' she recalls."
When her 17-year-old boyfriend abandoned her, what got Rachael through was her mother's support and a steely determination to "prove everyone wrong." Later, at her lowest point, two acts of generosity provided her with that little extra she needed to finish her college education.
In some ways the most important idea in Rachael's story came at the very end. "By telling her story, Rachael hopes to help other young mothers--and the public at large--realize that teen moms can succeed. All they need is a little encouragement and a lot fewer judgments."
Contrast her courage and her steadfast loyalty to her baby with John Kerry's abortion-as-a-first-and-every-resort. Rachael and Felix and Rachael's husband prove that in a crisis pregnancy, there IS "a better way" than taking the child's life.
Too bad John Kerry is to busy cutting commercials to realize that.
By: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: April 29, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/3
Planned Parenthood's Triumph: UN Reports 61% of Planet's Reproductive Age Women Using Contraception With 133 Million Permanently Sterilized
Planned Parenthood's Triumph: UN Reports 61% of Planet's Reproductive Age Women Using Contraception With 133 Million Permanently Sterilized
(LifeSiteNews.com) The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs' (DESA) Population Division, has issued a report on April 20 showing the statistics around the world for women's use of artificial methods of contraception among those aged 15-49 "who are married or in union." The United Nations has been working for decades, with a core group of other organizations to promote or coerce a massive campaign of contraception, sterilization and abortion; the report gives a concrete appraisal of their success.
In a press release the DESA boasts that 90% of women using contraception are using "modern methods," the most common of which is mostly irreversible female sterilization. The report also states that 7 percent of the world's childbearing-age women are using contraceptive pills which have been shown to be abortifacient. Of the approximately 6 billion people in the world, only one billion are women capable of bearing children. Of these, 635 million are contracepting with 133,350,000 being permanently sterilized. No statistics are given for the number of men who have been surgically sterilized.
The influence of the eugenic policies of Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood is exposed when the report clarifies that the "longer acting," that is permanent, "clinical contraceptive methods" are more commonly used in developing countries. Such "clinical" methods can include surgical or, more commonly chemical sterilization. Some of these methods, which involve the use of dangerous chemicals to burn away reproductive organs, are banned in the developed nations as being too dangerous for women.
No mention is made of international anxiety over the demographic plunge most countries are entered into since the global introduction of artificial contraception. On the contrary, the report complains that in developing countries even more "family planning" needs to be made available. This despite dire warnings of a multitude of organizations and nations that are watching their populations age and birth rates plummet.
To read the DESA press release:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/dev2469.doc.htm
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 22, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/4
Pro-Life Medical Student at University of Manitoba Reinstated after More than a Year of Trials
Pro-Life Medical Student at University of Manitoba Reinstated after More than a Year of Trials
(LifeSiteNews.com) A medical student in his last year at the University of Manitoba Medical School who was threatened for years with failure for his unwillingness to partake in any abortion-related activity has finally been reinstated in good standing.
The Christian student, who wishes to remain unnamed, has for years lost successive appeals on a failing grade in an Obstetrics and Gynecology portion of his program for his refusal to perform or refer for any abortive procedure. Prior to this reversal, three separate appeals to the Medical School beginning in October last year all failed to correct the matter.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Medical Student Being Failed at University of Manitoba for Not Providing Abortion Option
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/mar/04031801.html
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 28, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/5
Light from the North
Light from the North
Canada Comprehensively Bans Human Cloning
(Wilberforce Forum - www.wilberforce.org) Though most Americans have not heard, there is great biotech news from Canada. After years of debate, a bill covering many aspects of reproductive technology has just been passed and awaits the formality of the royal assent. It contains many other good things too, like a ban on selling embryos and gametes and a ban on commercial surrogacy contracts. It also contains some provisions that are less good, such as the regulation of experiments on "spare" embryos from in vitro fertilization (this has been taking place without regulation; as most of my readers will agree, it would have been much better to ban it altogether).
But the cloning ban lies at the heart of the legislation, and addresses in the right way the central question confronting the human race as we face the technology of the 21st century.
This has raised a difficult issue for pro-life groups in Canada. They generally opposed the bill (C-6), although the Catholic bishops took a neutral position (they were criticized by some pro-lifers for doing that). Pro-life opposition to the bill was chiefly grounded in a desire for a comprehensive ban on using human embryos for research, and it would certainly have been better to handle that in a separate bill. But pro-lifers also critiqued the way in which the bill addressed human cloning, and suggested that it was inadequate. So, one pro-life commentator concluded that the "only" good thing in the bill is the ban on selling gametes and embryos.
That is misleading. The ban on cloning is comprehensive, forbidding both the cloning of live-born babies (so-called "reproductive" cloning) and the use of cloned embryos for research (so-called "therapeutic" cloning). The language in which it does so is at least as strong as that contained in the Weldon/Brownback bill before the United States Congress. It also parallels that in the resolutions that have been considered by the United Nations General Assembly. Listen to the language of the bill:
5. (1) No person shall knowingly
(a) create a human clone by using any technique, or transplant a human clone into a human being or into any non-human life form or artificial device;
''human clone'' means an embryo that, as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo, contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single -- living or deceased -- human being, foetus or embryo.
To those who have been immersed in the debates on Capitol Hill and in state capitols around the nation, the language here is strong and refreshingly honest. "Human clone" is actually defined as a cloned embryo. In the dishonest terms of the Hatch-Feinstein bill, "cloning" is defined as implantation. In the terrible language of the New Jersey law, "cloning" is defined as the live birth of a cloned embryo. Three cheers for the Canadians. They have joined Mexico, Germany, Norway, and a host of other countries in passing legislation that closely parallels the Weldon/Brownback bill. In Francea parallel law is close to completing its way through the parliamentary process, with support from the government, and we look forward to its final passage.
We need to get this good news out, and to use it to show that the demand for a comprehensive cloning ban is not just coming from pro-life Republicans. It is coming from all sectors of society, from centers of conscience all across culture, from thinking people who want to ensure that the wonders of biotechnology sustain human dignity and do not subvert it. The international community is acting, nation by nation, and we can take courage from the fact that on the biotech agenda of the 21st century these nations are ahead of us.
Yours for ethical biotech,
Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Director, Council for Biotechnology Policy
Dean, Wilberforce Forum
By: Nigel M. de S. Camero
Source: Wilberforce Forum
Publish Date: April 28, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040429/6
News Links:
News Links:
Adoption advocates angered by reality show offering baby as prize
(South Florida Sun-Sentinel - www.sun-sentinel.com) Television, in the past few years, has given us reality shows in which average men and women battle for a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a job with Donald Trump or a $1 million ticket off a deserted island.
Now, the industry is taking the genre to a new level.
According to recent promotional ads and releases, an episode of the ABC news magazine show 20/20 airing at 10 p.m. Friday will feature five couples "competing" and "vying" to adopt a baby boy.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cadoption28apr28,0,6411444.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla
Mary Tyler Moore Letter Stem Cell Letter
(Yahoo News - story.news.yahoo.com) Actress Mary Tyler Moore says she opposes abortion, but she also doesn't like President Bush (news - web sites)'s reluctance to expand research using stem cells from human embryos to achieve medical breakthroughs.
Moore, diagnosed more than 30 years ago with juvenile diabetes, likened the harvesting of stem cells from unused, donated fertilized eggs to organ donations.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040428/ap_on_go_co/moore_stem_cells_1
Speaker Uninvited for Abortion Comments
(Yahoo News - story.news.yahoo.com) The University of St. Francis has told former ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman that it no longer wants her as commencement speaker because of comments she made about abortion seven years ago.
In a letter faxed Tuesday to Snyderman, the Roman Catholic university's president cited comments Snyderman made on ABC's "Good Morning America" in 1997 as its reason for rescinding her invitation to speak Saturday to the graduating class.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040429/ap_on_re_us/uninvited_speaker_1
The aborted baby is "put out" of life forever
(Enquirer - www.enquirer.com) I am a mother of a 4-year-old son, of a full-term baby girl who lived one week, and of five babies who miscarried. I am saddened by women claiming they are entitled to an abortion if they so choose. Wouldn't choosing a form of birth control to prevent pregnancy be the wise choice? Shouldn't women choose to be responsible? There are so many parents whose lives would be enriched by loving, raising and caring for an adopted baby. The birth mother may be "put out" for nine months, but the aborted baby is "put out" of life forever.
-Julie Reynolds, Symmes Township
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/04/29/editorial_what.html
Michigan Senate Approves Bills That Would Strengthen Abstinence Requirements for Sex Education Classes
(Kaisernetwork - www.kaisernetwork.org) The Michigan Senate on Thursday approved a package of two bills (SB 943, SB 944) that would require schools to emphasize abstinence in sex education classes in order to obtain or maintain their current level of state funding
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2780.l3.F.D.FqNwDM
Missouri House Tentatively Approves Bill That Would Strengthen Parental Consent, Clinic Regulations
(Kaisernetwork - www.kaisernetwork.org) The Missouri House on Tuesday tentatively approved by voice vote a bill (HB 1339) that would allow a person who helps a minor obtain an abortion without following state parental consent laws to be sued by the minor or her parents or guardians
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2780.l3.G.D.FqnlQk
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Tell Congress 'NO' on Harvesting Embryos
Tell Congress 'NO' on Harvesting Embryos
(FRC - www.family.org) More than 200 members of Congress have jumped onto the stem cell bandwagon, and are asking President Bush in a bipartisan letter to expand the federal stem cell policy beyond the initial 78 lines made available through the President's 2001 executive order. Favoring corporate interests over good science, these members have ignored adult stem cell science, which does not kill life and has proven to provide significantly more potential in finding cures for deadly and disabling diseases.
These members of Congress must understand that life is sacred, not a means to an end, and that embryos should not be created, only to be destroyed. FRC has lobbied Congress on this issue, but your Representatives need to hear from you, so that taxpayer dollars are never used to create and destroy life. Contact your Representatives via the link below and tell them you oppose embryonic stem cell research.
To find your legislators follow this link:
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/dbq/officials/
By: Tony Perkins
Source: Family Research Council
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/6
Cost Cutting Leads to Abortion Clinics Failing to Screen Women for Risk Factors for Abortions
Cost Cutting Leads to Abortion Clinics Failing to Screen Women for Risk Factors for Abortions
SPRINGFIELD, IL, (LifeSiteNews.com) A law review article published in the latest issue of The Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy concludes that the number of women suffering abortion-related injuries can be dramatically reduced through better pre-abortion screening. The study includes an analysis of 63 medical studies identifying predictive risk factors for negative psychological reactions to abortion.
According to the review's author, biomedical ethicist Dr. David Reardon, most abortion clinics fail to screen for even the best known risk factors. He prefaces his explanation for this failure with a citation to a New York Times article examining how tough competition in the abortion industry has led to extreme cost-cutting measures. Times reporter Gina Kolata found that if the cost of abortion had kept pace with the cost of other health care services, a typical first-trimester abortion would cost around $2,250 today. Instead, the cost is around $300-about the same as was charged in 1973.
"It appears that the cost of providing abortions has been kept low because individualized pre-abortion screening and counseling has been eliminated," Reardon said. "Instead of receiving personalized counseling, women face a brief, 'one-size-fits-all' intake process. By means of this 'assembly-line' processing, women are more efficiently slotted into tight surgical schedules. But it also means that those women who would otherwise be identified as poor candidates for abortion are being exposed to unsafe abortions."
Reardon is the author of numerous medical studies linking abortion to higher rates of substance abuse, suicide, depression, and psychiatric illness. While he believes more research into abortion complications should still be done, he says that the existing research has identified the key risk factors for reliably identifying those women who are at greatest risk of the most severe negative reactions.
One of the most important risk factors is when women feel pressured by others-parents, male partners, employers, or others-to abort against their own moral beliefs or maternal desires. Research indicates that as many as that 30 to 60 percent of all women having abortions fit into this category. Better screening and counseling would help provide these women with the information they need to resist pressure from others. In many cases, counselors could help intervene to help explain to those pushing for the abortion why abortion is contraindicated and why they should support the woman's desire to carry her baby to term.
Better pre-abortion screening may provide the least controversial means of reducing abortion rates. "I can't imagine how the courts could oppose these efforts to protect women from unnecessary, unwanted, and unsafe abortions," Reardon said. "No doctor has a right, much less a duty, to perform a contraindicated abortion, especially when the woman hasn't even been told that she is at a much greater risk of suffering negative reactions. Any court that upheld such a distorted right would set a precedent that would undermine the basis of all medical ethics. Even those judges who are most protective of easy access to abortion are unlikely to put the profit margins of the abortion industry ahead of the welfare of women."
See more of Reardon's research at:
http://www.afterabortion.info
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/5
Department of Justice Surrenders Demand for Partial-birth Abortion Medical Records
Department of Justice Surrenders Demand for Partial-birth Abortion Medical Records
(LifeSiteNews.com) The US Department of Justice has rescinded its request for redacted medical files from New York-Presbyterian hospital.
The files were subpoenaed last November by the Department of Justice when the constitutionality of the partial-birth abortion ban was challenged by the National Abortion Federation and seven Planned Parenthood abortionists. The files were necessary for the Justice Department's defence of the ban, because the lawsuit challenging the ban argues that partial-birth abortions are sometimes necessary for the health of the mother. The only proof of this assertion, other than from expert testimony, lies in the medical files themselves.
Department of Justice lawyer Sheila M. Gowan told federal judge Richard Conway Casey of the Southern District of New York, that the subpoena was being withdrawn to expedite a decision from Judge Casey. "The government has believed from Day 1 that the medical records were relevant," Ms. Gowan said, as reported by the New York Times. "We believe that."
Last week Judge Casey fined the New York-Presbyterian hospital $500 for contempt of court. The hospital appealed; an appeals court would have heard oral argument in the case in two weeks.
Judge Casey, in response to the Justice Department decision Monday, called the move, "an interesting change in position," adding, "I don't know if I agree."
In Kansas, the only state where medical records reveal the reason for partial-birth abortion, the mental health of the mother "is the main or only reason why these procedures are performed," Jay Sekulow, in his Trial Notebook covering the partial-birth abortion ban trials, said. Sekulow quotes Kansas Senator Mike DeWine, who criticizes Kansas state's "mental health" provision for the practice of partial-birth abortion, "…we have a real-life example of just how this power to define a mother's health would be used. Kansas is currently the only State...that requires partial-birth abortions to be reported...separate from other abortions. In 1999…Every single one of these partial-birth abortions, 182 out of 182, were reported by the abortionist as being performed on viable children for mental as opposed to physical health reasons."
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage, "Kansas' Partial-Birth Abortion Law Gutted By Mental Health Provision," at:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1998/aug/98082401.html
"Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Trials Continue to Shock and Dismay," at:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04040705.html
See the New York Times coverage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/politics/27ABOR.html
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/4
Washington Pro-Abortion March Characterized by Naked Anti-Christian Bigotry
Washington Pro-Abortion March Characterized by Naked Anti-Christian Bigotry
(LifeSiteNews.com) First-hand accounts are being published online of the behavior of the marchers in Washington's "March for Women's Lives" that show the undisguised hatred of Christians that characterizes such events. Websites and personal weblogs are carrying accounts of abuse and vitriol hurled at Christian counter demonstrators who attended the march to witness the value of life.
The Free Republic website carries a first hand account that highlights a priest who prayed for the conversion of the marchers as they marched past. "Father Reynolds stood for hours this afternoon on Pennsylvania Avenue…Almost nonstop, he made the sign of the cross with his right arm…Father Reynolds was cursed at and flipped off by hundreds of marchers, many of whom sported Kerry stickers. Many other marchers mocked the sign of the cross…He was repeatedly accused of being a child molester by those who support the murder of children."
One report is published on a weblog, "After Abortion," by a woman who works with the organization, Silent No More. Annie, who does not give her surname on her website, attended the march wearing black as a symbol of mourning for her lost child. Her group of about five hundred stood in silence for the entire five hours of the event. She writes, "…nothing prepared me for literally mobs of livid people screaming the most hateful vicious snide things at me personally. We were spit on, and had an egg hurled at us from the marchers. There were two groups of Satanists…"
One particularly moving part of her account, however, shows that the contradiction of abortion rhetoric is not always lost even on abortion activists. "A woman…caught my eye from the crowd as I'd been crying. She gazed at me, and called out, 'I regret my abortion too!' … suddenly she broke free and ran back, past the riot cop, and threw her arms around my neck to hug me, to console me! I was stunned, but I hugged her back and wept hard again, whispering to her, 'WHY are you out here in this? HOW can you still believe it's OK??'…
"She didn't say anything, because I could hear her start crying too. She hugged me tight for what seemed like very long minutes. The whole crowd beyond her stopped and stared. No one spoke or made a sound… We just cried on each other's shoulders in the midst of all this madness and hate… when she finally pulled back, I thanked her, and we just looked at each other a moment, feeling each other's pain, but then she ran back into the crowd and disappeared."
Read the full account of Fr. Reynolds
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1124410/posts
Annie's personal account:
http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2004_04_25_afterabortion_archive.html#108304137944458162
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/3
White House Dumps Health Conference
White House Dumps Health Conference
(FNIF - www.family.org/cforum/fnif) The Bush administration has pulled its sponsorship of an event featuring abortion advocates.
After weeks of criticism from the pro-life community, the White House has pulled its funding from a controversial global health conference in Washington, D.C.
The conference, which features participation from the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations Population Fund, is scheduled for June — and the Department of Health and Human Services had planned to contribute $170,000 to it.
But conservative members of Congress and other pro-lifers protested loudly, and, apparently, those objections were noticed, according to reporter Charles Hurt of The Washington Times.
"The folks up on Capitol Hill just went ballistic about it," he said, "and apparently called the administration on the carpet about it."
Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., said the administration should never have signed on to the event in the first place, because "all you had to do was look at the organizers who were political advocates, who advocated the defeat of President Bush, the defeat of every pro-life, pro-family, pro-responsible 'sex-inside-marriage' organization and issue there is."
In another positive sign, as pressure mounted on Capitol Hill, organizers agreed to include conservative speakers like Shepherd Smith, president of the Institute for Youth Development; and Edward Green, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at Harvard University's Center for Population and Development Studies.
Read Washington Times coverage at:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040426-011659-1653r.htm
By: Keith Peters
Source: Family News in Focus
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/2
Kerry’s abortion view clashes with Catholic church, his past
Kerry’s abortion view clashes with Catholic church, his past
(BP - www.bpnews.net) Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s support for abortion rights is at odds with his own church, his own statements of three decades ago and the American public, recent reports indicate.
Kerry, who has a long record of pro-choice advocacy since his first election to the Senate in 1984, reaffirmed that commitment April 23 in Washington, telling a rally of abortion-rights supporters the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision “has never been more at risk than it is today. We are going to have a change in leadership in this country to protect the right of choice,” according to a report on LifeNews.com.
At the rally, held two days before the massive March for Women’s Lives, Kerry gained the endorsement of one of the country’s leading abortion-rights organizations. Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, announced the first presidential endorsement by her organization’s political action fund. She called the Massachusetts senator “a consistent and passionate advocate for women's rights.”
On the same day, however, the disparity between Kerry and the Roman Catholic Church gained in intensity. Cardinal Francis Arinze, a leading official at the Vatican, said priests should refuse communion to pro-abortion politicians.
In presenting a new document on the Mass, Arinze was asked at the news conference about “unambiguously pro-abortion” Catholic politicians such as Kerry. Those politicians, Arinze said, are “not fit” to receive communion, LifeNews reported. “If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given,” Arinze said.
When asked earlier whether Kerry should be served communion, Arinze said according to LifeNews, “The norm of the church is clear. The Catholic Church exists in the United States, and there are bishops there. Let them interpret it.”
The new document on worship says a person “conscious of a grave sin” should go to confession before receiving communion.
From the Vatican’s perspective, Arinze’s comments would appear to disqualify Kerry from being eligible for communion. That has not prevented him from continuing to receive communion at the Paulist Center in Boston. He partook of communion there on Easter Sunday, and LifeSite News reported he also received communion there the day after Arinze made his comments. The Paulist Center has a reputation for controversy, having welcomed practicing homosexuals, according to the report.
A controversy over Kerry’s support of abortion rights despite being a Roman Catholic has been mounting. He is not alone in disagreeing with the church’s pro-life stance. Many Catholic members of Congress vote in support of abortion rights.
A team of Catholic bishops is pondering how to handle politicians who violate church teaching but is not expected to issue a report until after the November elections, The Washington Times has reported.
Some pro-life Catholics have been urging their leaders to discipline pro-choice office holders who are members of the church.
“Imagine, just a few short days after meeting with Cardinal McCarrick [of Washington] and trumpeting the fact that he’s a Catholic ‘in good standing’ who received the Eucharist at Easter, he’s now a major speaker” at a gathering of abortion activists, Crisis magazine editor Deal Hudson said of Kerry, according to LifeNews. “Bill Clinton, certainly no friend to the pro-life cause, never once addressed an abortion rally in all his years as president. If Clinton wouldn’t even attend these events, what does it say that Kerry will?”
When Kerry unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives in 1972, however, he opposed abortion. LifeNews reported. In October, three months before the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the Roe v. Wade ruling, Kerry told the Lowell (Mass.) Sun, “It’s a tragic day in the lives of everybody when abortion is looked on as an alternative to birth control or as an alternative to having a child. I think that’s wrong. It should be the very last thing if it has to be anything, and I say that not just because I’m opposed to abortion but because I think that’s common sense.”
Kerry also said he thought the issue “should be left for the states to decide.”
Kerry’s wife, Teresa, apparently has moved on the abortion issue as well. Newsweek reported in its May 3 issue she said five years ago she was “not 100 percent pro-choice.” Teresa Kerry told Newsweek she no longer is able to use such qualifiers. “Ultimately you’re either for choice or you’re not, so I am,” she said, according to the magazine.
She also told Newsweek, “I don’t view abortion as just a nothing. It is stopping the process of life.”
The presumptive Democratic nominee’s position on abortion sharply contrasts with the majority of Americans, according to a new poll.
According to a Zogby International survey conducted April 15-17, 56 percent of Americans believe abortion should never be legal or legal only when the mother’s life is endangered or in cases of pregnancy from rape or incest. Of the 42 percent of those surveyed who disagree with the majority, 25 percent say abortion should be legal for any reason the first three months, 4 percent for any reason the first six months and 13 percent for any reason at any time during a pregnancy.
Based on Kerry’s voting record, which includes opposition to a ban on the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure, it appears only 13 percent of Americans hold his position on the issue.
Opposition to abortion is even stronger among young people and ethnic groups. Among 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed, 60 percent oppose abortion except to protect the mother’s life and in cases of rape or incest. Among African Americans, 62 percent oppose abortion with those limited exceptions. Among Hispanics, 78 percent oppose abortion with such limited exceptions.
Source: Baptist Press
Publish Date: April 27, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040428/1
News Links:
News Links:
Abortion Foes Expand Campaign to Cut Planned Parenthood Funding
(Yahoo News - story.news.yahoo.com) "Concerned citizens across the state are demanding Planned Parenthood's public records to know who is footing the bill for the abortion operation's harmful activities," said David Bereit, executive director of the Coalition for Life.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20040427/pl_usnw/abortion_foes_expand_campaign_to_cut_planned_parenthood_funding141_xml
Cardinal Weighs Sanctions for Politicians
(Yahoo News - story.news.yahoo.com) Roman Catholic politicians who advocate policies contrary to church teaching on abortion and other issues may risk sanctions that fall short of denial of Holy Communion, the head of a U.S. bishops task force examining the problem said Tuesday.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040427/ap_on_el_pr/vatican_mccarrick_kerry_1
Abortion issue is presented with too much bias
(St. Petersburg Times - www.sptimes.com) Again and again the public is given editorials as news. The article here was no different. From the pictures to the prose, the news media continue to press their agenda and politics on the American people. There have been prolife gatherings in Washington that have been in the thousands also. Thousands of women gathering because they have had abortions and regret the decision and the lies that were told to them. They want others to know the truth. Why have these gatherings not been reported as front-page news?
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/28/Opinion/Abortion_issue_is_pre.shtml
Specter Wins Pennsylvania Senate Primary
(Citizen Link - www.family.org/cforum) U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, often criticized by pro-family groups for his liberal views on abortion and other traditional-values issues, appeared to eke out a win this morning in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary.
In unofficial results, the 24-year incumbent garnered 51 percent of the more than 1 million votes cast, compared to 49 percent for his challenger, U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey. With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Specter led 512,124 to 495,494.
House advances tougher rules for minors to get abortion
(Kansas City Star - Subscription Required) The legislation would require abortion doctors to have obstetrical or gynecological privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion is performed.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8534163.htm
Thousands of Teens Expected To Participate in Second Annual 'National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day'
(Kaisernetwork - www.kaisernetwork.org) Tens of thousands of teenage abortion-rights opponents on Tuesday were expected to participate in the second annual Rock for Life "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day," the Washington Times reports. The day is intended as a response to "repeated acts of violence, bigotry and discrimination against students wearing pro-life t-shirts to school," according to Rock for Life officials. According to Rock for Life, the event allows "pro-life students nationwide, speaking in one voice, [to] exercise their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech in defense of the sanctity and intrinsic dignity of all human life." The group has issued a commemorative t-shirt for the event that includes a color image of a fetus in utero at four months gestation with the question, "Do you really believe this isn't a baby?" and the phrase, "Abortion is Homicide."
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2767.l6.D.D.GP99xV
Illinois Legislative Update
Illinois Legislative Update
"An amendment to House Bill 3589 has been introduced. Although the amendment does not improve the bill, it will make it harder to defeat.
ALERT: VOTE "NO" ON House Bill 3589, WITH OR WITHOUT AMENDMENT #1
There is about one month remaining in this legislative session so it's imperative that we make our voice heard when many key decisions will be made.
There has been an amendment filed to House Bill 3589, the Stem Cell Research Act, that could be added to the bill as early as next week.
Proponents will argue that Amendment #1 bans human cloning. IT DOES NOT! The amendment would still allow for human cloning as long as the cloned embryo or fetus is destroyed before birth.
Please call your State Senator as soon as possible and tell them to vote "No" on House Bill 3589 with or without amendment #1.
To find and contact your legislators follow this link:
http://www.elections.state.il.us/dls/pages/DLSAddresscrit.asp
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
News Links
News Links:
Sending a Message to Pro-Abortion Celebrities
(Mens News Daily) Patricia Heaton, star of the hit comedy series "Everybody Loves Raymond," said it best when she stated, "I find it impossible to subscribe to a philosophy that believes that the destruction of human life is a legitimate solution to a problem that is mostly social, economic, and psychological. In reality, most women 'choose' abortion because they believe they have no other choice."
I applaud Patricia Heaton for being one of the few pro-life celebrities to take a stand and giving insightful comments. It indeed causes more problems for women to have an abortion than it does to fix it, but do not expect pro-choice activists or celebrities to admit to that. After all, when a pro-life group came to counter the abortion march, they showed pro-choice demonstrators pictures of a fetus at eight weeks while screaming, ''Look at the pictures, look at the pictures!'' The marchers countered with denials, claiming that the pictures were full of lies. I guess these left-wing radicals do not care about looking at the facts because it was never about facts, but about choice.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mullenax/2004/mullenax042604.htm
U.S. Congress Members Protest Romanian Adoption Ban
(Yahoo News) About two dozen members of the U.S. Congress have written to the Romanian parliament requesting the reversal of a law effectively banning foreign adoptions, U.S.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040426/pl_nm/romania_us_adoption_dc_1
U.S. to Drop Fight for Hospital Abortion Records
(Yahoo News) The U.S. government said on Monday it planned to drop its fight to obtain patient abortion records from a Manhattan hospital so a widely watched trial challenging a 2003 federal abortion ban could conclude.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040426/us_nm/rights_abortion_dc_13
Adult Stem Cells Proven to Benefit Heart Patients
(LifeSiteNews.com) A team of American and Argentinian researchers has proven that adult stem cells can significantly improve damaged heart tissue. In findings presented April 25, to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in Toronto it was shown that the patients' own stem cells injected into the damaged areas dramatically improved heart function after surgery.
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04042601.html
Abortion Protester Arrested for Displaying Remains of Aborted Baby
(MTTU) Pro-life advocate Jeff White, formerly of Operation Rescue, was arrested and jailed outside the Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. for holding a two-inch vial containing the remains of a first trimester aborted baby, just little more than 24 hours before the March for Women's Lives is due to step off in our nation's capital. "If those remains were not a baby, why is it illegal to possess and display them? On the other hand, if it is a baby, why is abortion legal?" -Troy Newman, Operation Rescue West
http://www.mttu.com/Articles/Abortion%20Protester%20Arrested%20for%20Displaying%20Remains%20of%20Aborted%20Baby.htm
Government Agencies To Withdraw Support From Global Health Council Conference
(Kaisernetwork) The Bush administration has announced that it is withdrawing support of the Global Health Council's "Youth and Health: Generation on the Edge" conference, which is expected to include representatives of several groups that have been critical of the administration's policies on reproductive health and AIDS education,
http://cme.kff.org/Key=2756.l8.D.D.xfgmS
Students Take Pro-Life Message Into Public Schools With Legal Backing
Students Take Pro-Life Message Into Public Schools With Legal Backing
(Thomas More Law Center) ANN ARBOR, MI Marking the second annual “National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day,” thousands of students across the country are preparing to bring the pro-life message to America’s public schools on Tuesday. In addition to the pro-life messages on their clothing, students will also bring the legal backing of the Thomas More Law Center.
The Law Center has pledged to defend the free speech rights of these pro-life students from any attempt by school officials to force them to remove their t-shirts. According to Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, “Abortion advocates are losing their grip on the American public, and are turning increasingly to public schools to indoctrinate our children into accepting abortion.
Pro-life students from across the country are standing up for the rights of the unborn, and are bringing this message to their schools. We are proud to defend these courageous pro-life students.”
Each year the Thomas More Law Center receives numerous calls from students across the country whose rights have been violated by public school officials. This past February a student at Denbigh High School in Newport News, Virginia was censored for his sweatshirt that read, “Abortion is Homicide” and on the back stated, “You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation. Rock for Life.” The student was prevented from wearing the shirt because, according to the Assistant Principal, it violated school policy prohibiting profane or obscene language. The Law Center immediately sent a letter to the school demanding that the student be permitted to wear his pro-life sweatshirt, threatening a federal lawsuit if necessary. Within two days, attorneys for the school agreed that the student had a constitutional right to wear his pro-life sweatshirt. The Law Center has defended students in similar cases in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, New Hampshire, New York, and Maine. “We anticipate that during this year’s National Pro-Life T-shirt Day that some school officials will again attempt to silence the pro-life messages of students. And again, we will assist these students and their families without charge,” continued Thompson.
Source: Thomas More Law Center
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/6
Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus Introduces Bill Aimed at Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Improving Women's Health
Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus Introduces Bill Aimed at Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Improving Women's Health
(Kaisernetwork) Members of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus on Wednesday introduced the Putting Prevention First Act (HR 4192
Family Planning State Empowerment Act (S 1429
Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act (HR 2727
Emergency Contraception Education and Information Act (HR 1812
Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act (HR 2527
Family Life Education Act (HR 3469
Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act (HR 3581
'Too Little Action'
Slaughter said, "Improving women's health and reducing unintended pregnancies are goals that everyone in Congress can agree on. This measure provides sensible solutions that we know will work" (The Hill, 4/22). Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, said that the act would "empowe[r] women to make educated decisions," adding, "Only by improving education, by increasing access to contraception, by bettering prenatal health care and by expanding health care options for women can we reduce the number of unintended pregnancies" and STD cases. DeGette said, "We have introduced this bill to promote these vital issues that get paid too much lip service and see too little action" (DeGette release
Reaction
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
Source: Kaisernetwork
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/5
Adoption Information Bill Introduced
Adoption Information Bill Introduced
(FNIF) Congress moves to ensure that women considering abortion are told about adoption alternatives.
A new bill in Congress would help get information about adoption into the hands of abortion-minded women.
HR 1229, the Adoption Information Act, would require all family planning clinics that receive Title X money to provide detailed information about adoption and adoption centers, according to Rep. JoAnn Davis, R-Va., who authored the bill.
"It just educates women so that when they're making their choice about what they want to do, they have everything in front of them," she explained.
The bill also would benefit couples that want to have children but are unable to, because it will increase the number of children available for adoption.
Dr. Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, said the bill is important because too often women struggling with an unplanned pregnancy think their only options are keeping the baby or aborting it.
"This Adoption Information Act will make sure that they have the information they need to know that adoption is an option for them, and that this is the best thing they can do for their child," she said.
"Then, in the future, instead of thinking of her child as a dead baby, something that was a mistake, she can think, 'I brought joy into a young couple's life and that child is going to be somebody who is loved, somebody who is a productive member of society.' "
By: Keith Peters
Source: Family News in Focus
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/4
Choosing Death Over Life, Abortion Advocates Rally in Nation's Capitol
Choosing Death Over Life, Abortion Advocates Rally in Nation's Capitol
Marchers Elevate 'Right' to Choose Over Unborns' Right to Live
(AgapePress) Media reports differ as to how many people were in Washington, DC, on Sunday to participate in the pro-abortion "March for Women's Lives." But no one disputes why they were there: to demonstrate their belief that a woman's "right" to choose an abortion takes precedence over the life of an innocent, unborn child.
It may have been the largest pro-abortion demonstration in the nation's history -- but no one knows for sure. Planned Parenthood, one of the organizers of the march, predicted that "more than one million women, men, and children" would be on the National Mall and on Pennsylvania Avenue. But estimates following the actual event ranged from "tens of thousands" (the New York Times) to "hundreds of thousands of protesters" (Reuters and Associated Press) to "1,150,000" in a post-march press release from the organizers. There are no officials estimates of the crowd size as the National Park Service no longer offers crowd counts.
Regardless of the number, pro-life supporters along the route report they witnessed demonstrators -- who screamed obscenities and spit at them as they stood on the sidewalk -- jubilantly celebrating legalized abortion and the deaths of millions of babies killed since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
Smaller in number than the marchers, the pro-lifers endured jeering, taunts, cursing, yelling, and obscene gestures in order to make their statements for the unborn. Most of the counter-demonstrators stood in silence, holding their signs, as the marchers passed. One pro-life advocate, a man named Anthony from Alexandria, Virginiz, summed up what many of the defenders of the unborn felt.
"I'm very sad -- I am extremely sad. I'm a historian and I know that any society that repudiates its past and slaughters its young is doomed -- and that's what we're doing," he said. "World War II was regarded as one of the greatest tragedies of the human race; and we are celebrating the murder of 43 million people. God help us when the butcher's bill comes in -- God help us all."
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, was on hand with a bullhorn, challenging the marchers as they passed. "Why are you supporting the murder of innocent children?" he asked. "You're supporting murder. You're supporting murder. Shame, shame on you!"
Afterward, Terry talked about the mental state of the pro-abortion participants. "They don't think, they don't reason -- and they don't want to think or reason -- because in their heart of hearts, they know that they're supporting the murder of an innocent human being," he said. "This is a death march. It's very scary. They're supporting the killing of children, so they shut off their ability to reason."
The pro-abortion marchers were supplemented by demonstrators from several other groups, including the IMF-World Bank crowd, anti-Bush forces, anti-war activists, homosexuals, and environmentalists. There were even pro-Martha Stewart people marching along with a group called "Anarchists for Sex and Cheap Abortions."
Associated Press reports that police arrested 16 people from the Christian Defense Coalition for demonstrating without a permit. Last week, that group's application for a permit was rejected by the National Park Service, which said the group's planned silent demonstration involving women who have been harmed by abortion would have been too disruptive.
A Hollywood Pro-Lifer
Pro-abortion speakers for Sunday's march included the usual line-up: Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood of America; California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer; ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero; media mogul Ted Turner; and a bevy of Hollywood feminists, including Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and Ashley Judd.
But one member of the Hollywood crowd was taking a stand for unborn children. Patricia Heaton, best known for her role on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, says "every woman deserves better than an abortion, and every child deserves a chance at life."
Heaton, a two-time Emmy-winning actress who is honorary chair of the group Feminists for Life, explains that it is impossible for her to subscribe to a philosophy that believes the destruction of human life is the answer to a problem that is mostly social, economic, or psychological. The actress also says that women who experience unplanned pregnancy "also deserve unplanned joy" -- and that abortion is the result of society failing women.
By: Bill Fancher, Mary Rettig, and Jody Brown
Source: AgapePress
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/3
Politically Incorrect Grief
Politically Incorrect Grief
(PFL) Abortion is the direct and deliberate destruction of a human being at any time, and by any method, from fertilization through birth. The establishment of surgical abortion centers, legalized by Roe vs. Wade, has focused the problem on one set of specific methods by which babies are killed.
Yet a special challenge facing our movement at this time is this question: If a baby is killed by a chemical method, or killed at an earlier age than surgical abortion can be done, is that a real child, and is that a real abortion? Morally and philosophically, it is not difficult for us to answer "Yes." Psychologically and emotionally, however, we may find it more difficult.
One reason is that a lot of people are aborting their children without realizing it, because of the way birth control pills work. These drugs do not always prevent fertilization. If a new life is conceived, these drugs are designed to make the uterine lining inhospitable to the child, causing the body to expel that child rather than implant and nourish her. In the end, the mother does not even realize that she conceived a child. Yet, in reality, she both conceived and aborted one.
A fascinating thing happens here among some people who are otherwise opposed to abortion, and it is the same thing that happens to many others who only oppose late-term abortions but cannot bring themselves to comprehend that the destruction of a child at eight weeks is every bit as grievous. Denial takes over. Somehow, this is "not really a child." Somehow, this is different.
The hard question, however, is "Precisely how is it different?" After all, human life begins at fertilization. Then, either that life is implanted in the uterus where it continues to grow, or is expelled from the body, stops growing, and dies. If the reason the new life cannot implant is because of something we did, then we are the ones who killed that unborn child. That's an abortion.
The only difference between this and a surgical abortion at eight weeks -- or any other time -- is the age of the child and the method by which that child is killed.
It is understandable that many find it emotionally and psychologically difficult to acknowledge all this. What, for example, does this say about their friends or relatives who are using birth control pills? Are they now to be viewed as baby-killers? But then again, isn't this the same reason that many cannot bring themselves to admit that surgical abortion kills babies, even in the first trimester?
Is this emotionally and psychologically difficult? Yes. Nor do we condemn anyone involved in either abortion method. But it is morally incoherent to say that abortion is wrong at some stages, and by some methods, but acceptable in others. Human life is indivisible in its moral value. Either it is always and everywhere sacred, or it is always and everywhere disposable. There can be no middle ground.
By: Fr. Frank Pavone
Source: Priests for Life
Publish Date: April 25, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/2
Screening for Risk Factors will Lower Abortion Rates
Screening for Risk Factors will Lower Abortion Rates
Study Backs New Legal Tactic to Prevent Unsafe Abortions
(Elliot Institute) Springfield, IL -- A law review article published in the latest issue of The Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy concludes that the number of women suffering abortion-related injuries can be dramatically reduced through better pre-abortion screening. The study includes an analysis of 63 medical studies identifying predictive risk factors for negative psychological reactions to abortion.
According to the review's author, biomedical ethicist Dr. David Reardon, most abortion clinics fail to screen for even the best known risk factors. He prefaces his explanation for this failure with a citation to a New York Times article examining how tough competition in the abortion industry has led to extreme cost-cutting measures. Times reporter Gina Kolata found that if the cost of abortion had kept pace with the cost of other health care services, a typical first-trimester abortion would cost around $2,250 today. Instead, the cost is around $300--about the same as was charged in 1973.
"It appears that the cost of providing abortions has been kept low because individualized pre-abortion screening and counseling has been eliminated," Reardon said. "Instead of receiving personalized counseling, women face a brief, ‘one-size-fits-all' intake process. By means of this ‘assembly-line' processing, women are more efficiently slotted into tight surgical schedules. But it also means that those women who would otherwise be identified as poor candidates for abortion are being exposed to unsafe abortions."
Reardon is the author of numerous medical studies linking abortion to higher rates of substance abuse, suicide, depression, and psychiatric illness. While he believes more research into abortion complications should still be done, he says that the existing research has identified the key risk factors for reliably identifying those women who are at greatest risk of the most severe negative reactions.
One of the most important risk factors is when women feel pressured by others--parents, male partners, employers, or others--to abort against their own moral beliefs or maternal desires. Research indicates that as many as that 30 to 60 percent of all women having abortions fit into this category. Better screening and counseling would help provide these women with the information they need to resist pressure from others. In many cases, counselors could help intervene to help explain to those pushing for the abortion why abortion is contraindicated and why they should support the woman's desire to carry her baby to term.
This new law review article may help support a new Missouri law that requires abortionists to evaluate patients "for indicators and contraindicators, risk factors, including any physical, psychological, or situational factors which would predispose the patient to or increase the risk of experiencing one or more adverse physical, emotional, or other health reactions." Similar legislation has previously been introduced in Mississippi and Illinois.
Better pre-abortion screening may provide the least controversial means of reducing abortion rates. "I can't imagine how the courts could oppose these efforts to protect women from unnecessary, unwanted, and unsafe abortions," Reardon said. "No doctor has a right, much less a duty, to perform a contraindicated abortion, especially when the woman hasn't even been told that she is at a much greater risk of suffering negative reactions. Any court that upheld such a distorted right would set a precedent that would undermine the basis of all medical ethics. Even those judges who are most protective of easy access to abortion are unlikely to put the profit margins of the abortion industry ahead of the welfare of women."
Citing:
David C. Reardon, "The Duty to Screen: Clinical, Legal and Ethical Implications of Predictive Risk Factors of Post-Abortion Maladjustment," The Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy, 2003; 20(1):33-114.
Gina Kolata, "As Abortion Rate Decreases, Clinics Compete for Patients," New York Times, Dec. 30, 2000, A13.
Source: Elliot Institute
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040427/1
Monday, April 26, 2004
News Links
News Links:
The science of evil
(Baltimore Sun) The Holocaust Museum's exhibit on Nazi medical practices raises frightening issues.
While Deadly Medicine does not lift its eyes much beyond the end of World War II in 1945, the exhibit's continued relevance is unmistakable as present-day bioethicists wrestle with the policy implications of startling genetic research and the possibilities it presents. The essential question is the same now as it was then: How will the science be used?
"The United States certainly pioneered the establishment of those laws on the books," said Garland Allen, a professor of the history of science at Washington University. In 1907, Indiana passed the first sterilization law in the United States; by 1933, 34 other states had followed suit. Most never acted on their laws, but some - California, Virginia and North Carolina - did. By the time sterilizations ended in the United States in the 1970s, the procedure had claimed an estimated 60,000 victims, most of them institutionalized and poor.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bal-to.eugenics22aapr22,0,561190.story?coll=bal-features-headlines
Abortion debate raging in Assembly
(The Tullahoma News) Much of the focus in recent weeks has been on a resolution that would put abortion access to a popular vote in November 2006. The measure sponsored by Sen. David Fowler, R-Signal Mountain, states that nothing in the constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or the funding thereof. The legislature would then determine whether to make exceptions for cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is endangered.
Fowler's resolution passed in the Senate last month after an amendment viewed as hostile by pro-life advocates was removed.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1614&dept_id=161058&newsid=11380090&PAG=461&rfi=9
Vatican Weighs in as Kerry Backs Abortion Rights
(Yahoo News) Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry vowed on Friday to champion abortion rights if elected, even as the Vatican signaled its disapproval of the position of the senator, who is a Roman Catholic.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040424/ts_nm/campaign_kerry_dc_1
Vatican Cardinal Arinze Says Pro-Abortion Politicians Must be Denied Holy Communion
(LifeSiteNews.com) - Today at a press conference in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, presented a new Vatican document aimed at stemming abuses connected to the reception of Holy Communion entitled "Redemptionis Sacramentum."
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04042301.html
PRI Says USAID-funded Contraceptive Program Largely Responsible For African HIV/AIDS Epidemic
USAID promotes sexual promiscuity with OTC Depo and other OTC injectables
(pop.org/LifeSiteNews.com) - The Population Research Institute (PRI), in Friday's Weekly Briefing, points out serious misinformation about a recent US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded study. The study, which seemingly condemns promiscuity as the reason for the African HIV/AIDS epidemic, fails to mention, according to PRI, the fact that the epidemic has been largely the result of USAID-funded, over-the-counter distribution of injectable contraceptives.
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04042303.html
European Parliament Human Rights Report Hijacked by Pro-Abortion Agenda
(LifeSiteNews.com) - A so-called human rights report adopted yesterday by the European Parliament in a vote of 189 votes to 111 (with 29 abstentions) pushes abortion as a fundamental human right. Drafted by pro-abortion MEP Veronique De Keyser, the report was heavily influenced by pro-abortion organizations such as Marie Stopes International, the UN Population Fund and the German Foundation for World Population
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04042304.html
Anti-abortion stance makes LI woman marchers' target
(Newsday) After hours of holding aloft a sign, "Abortion Kills Children," to protest a massive abortion rights rally in Washington, D.C. yesterday, Marie Mawn of Ronkonkoma realized she had been tagged by the opposition.
"Someone slapped a pro-choice sticker on my back," she said sheepishly. Still, she stressed, "I'm very glad that we're here to give people a chance to read our signs."
Mawn was among hundreds of anti-abortion activists who faced hundreds of thousands of marchers rallying near the Capitol to preserve federal abortion laws. She and similar activists -- who came from throughout the country -- said they attended the rally to counter what they regarded as generous press coverage of the abortion rights activities, to offer an alternate perspective to those who may be struggling over a decision about an abortion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/26/politics/26RALL.html?ex=1083556800&en=a9ee72dc33edefcc&ei=5062
Abortion may drag us to history's grave
(Kansas City Star) While I sipped my tea and listened to the rain patter, the History Channel dug up a dead civilization and found a large sewer that held thousands of baby bones, victims of infanticide, a common practice of this ancient, forgotten society.
Anthropologists tell us two of the biggest indicators of a doomed civilization are the practice of infanticide and human sacrifice. In other words, cultures and species that kill their own young do not survive. If history really does repeat itself, then American society may also be doomed to extinction.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8506578.htm
Anti-abortion bill defeated
(The State) Rep. Gary Simrill, R-York, had hoped an anti-abortion measure he backed in the state Legislature could lead South Carolina to the U.S. Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade.
But the bill died last week in a controversial vote that illustrates how State House Republicans are divided on the issue.
Some say abortion is a messy, emotional issue they neither have the time nor the money to deal with this year.
Others including Simrill say they had wanted the chance at least to debate the issue before the full House. “I think it’s important we keep on the path of trying to get this type of legislation passed,” he said.
The bill, one of a handful pending in the Legislature that deal with abortion, defines life as beginning at fertilization, making killing a fetus a crime.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/8514725.htm
Weekend Rally Was Pro-Abortion and Anti-Bush
Weekend Rally Was Pro-Abortion and Anti-Bush
(CNSNews.com) Sunday's abortion rights march has morphed into a voter registration effort -- to round up more people who will vote against President Bush.
NARAL Pro-Choice America, which describes itself as the leading national advocate for personal privacy and a woman's right to choose, has announced plans for "a series of efforts to turn the March's passion into grassroots action to protect reproductive freedom."
Those efforts include a "major new voter registration effort." Forms were handed out to busloads of people leaving the march on Sunday.
On Monday, on-line activists will get emails "urging them to recruit 10 new activists who might have been inspired by the March," NARAL Pro-Choice America said.
And in the next two weeks, the abortion rights group said it would launch a grassroots effort to support the Patient Privacy Protection Act being introduced in Congress by New York Democrats Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
The bill would clarify that the doctor-patient privilege is protected under federal law. It stems from the Justice Department's recent subpoena of medical records of women who had partial-birth abortions at several hospitals.
Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said those who gathered in Washington over the weekend demonstrated their concern "for the direction of our nation."
And as they left, Michelman said the marchers will "carry this inspiration out of Washington, back to our homes to continue the spirit of the day."
Betsy Cavendish, who will become NARAL Pro-Choice America's interim president on May 1, called the weekend march "an incredible outpouring of energy, concern and dedication -- which must harnessed to beat back the growing attack on our fundamental freedoms.
"Over the next few months, we'll be working to sign up 250,000 pro-choice precinct captains to make our grassroots presence more vital and powerful than ever. And throughout the next few years, we'll be working in Congress and in the states to promote our pro-active agenda of expanded access to birth control, emergency contraception, honest sex education and all the other tools to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion."
Not just abortion
Several pro-life groups said that attendance at the weekend march (the estimates vary widely) was not as high as organizers hoped it would be. They said march organizers invited other liberal groups to participate, simply to swell the crowd.
For example, members of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force attended the march. The group says it has considered reproductive freedom a 'gay' issue for nearly 30 years.
"The enemies of reproductive freedom are the very same people we battle every day in trying to win equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the GLBT Task Force.
"Our right to have private, consensual sex -- won in last summer's U.S. Supreme Court Lawrence v. Texas decision -- will be lost if Roe v. Wade falls under the right's persistent onslaught," Foreman said in a statement issued before Sunday's march.
Foreman said the Bush administration's "war on gay America" -- including President Bush's support for a federal marriage amendment - "is inextricably tied to the administration's assault on reproductive freedom."
Foreman mentioned 'abstinence only' programs, 'marriage promotion' plans, and Bush's 'every child deserves a mother and a father' mantra as examples of the administration's "assault on reproductive freedom."
According to some estimates, several thousand pro-life demonstrators also turned up at the march to counter the liberals' message.
Pro-life groups such as Concerned Women for America say polls show more Americans are becoming pro-life -- and feminists know that, and worry about it.
Also see:
Majority of Americans Don't Support Abortion, Pro-Family Group Says
Includes Zogby poll findings and reaction from the National Right to Life Committee
(CNSNews.com) On the eve of this weekend's pro-abortion "March For Women's Lives" rally set for the nation's capital, a new poll released Friday shows the majority of Americans reject the pro-abortion agenda.
According to a poll conducted by Zogby International and released Friday by the National Right to Life Committee, 56 percent of respondents agreed with one of the following views: that abortion should never be legal (18 percent), legal only when the life of the mother is in danger (15 percent) or legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest (23 percent).
Only 42 percent of those surveyed agree with one of the following statements about legal abortion: legal for any reason in the first 3 months (25 percent), legal for any reason during the first 6 months (4 percent) or legal for any reason at any time during the woman's pregnancy (13 percent).
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200404\CUL20040423c.html
By: Susan Jones
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: April 26, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/6
Pro-Life Investors Eye Huge Impact
Pro-Life Investors Eye Huge Impact
(FNIF) Shareholders in several major corporations will have the chance to vote on pro-life resolutions this year.
Shareholders in a record number of corporations will vote on pro-life resolutions this year, giving them the opportunity to counter the pro-abortion mind-set of some of the nation's largest companies.
Pro Vita Advisors has helped get nine resolutions before the shareholders of corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America and Prudential. Pro Vita chief Tom Strobhar said most of the resolutions seek to end corporate contributions to Planned Parenthood.
"We as shareholders don't like it," Strobhar said, "and want to tell the corporations so."
Other companies voting on pro-life resolutions include Textron, Loews, Phelps Dodge and JP Morgan Chase. The shareholder meetings will be conducted from now through June.
The resolution for pharmaceutical giant Merck concerns the use of fetal tissue from abortions in the development of vaccines.
"The main thing is, it reminds the corporation of this controversial issue," Strobhar said. "Just last year, Berkshire Hathaway, one of the (wealthiest) corporations, discontinued giving approximately $9 million a year to anti-life causes, because, in part, of one of our shareholder resolutions."
This year, a Berkshire Hathaway resolution will address the full disclosure of political contributions. The company is run by Warren Buffett, who has long supported abortion.
Carrie Gordon Earll, bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family, praised the efforts of the pro-life stockholders.
"Despite odds, despite opposition, these groups are there in these corporate meetings," she said. "They are being a voice for life, and they're helping to hold corporate America responsible."
It's important to remember, though, that groups like Planned Parenthood, she added, are also actively lobbying.
"It's important for us to balance that information not only with the truth that we have to offer about the value of life and sexual integrity and responsibility," she explained, "but also to say there is another view out there."
By: Stuart Shepard
Source: Family News in Focus
Publish Date: April 23, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/5
'WMDs' in Nation's Capital! 'Women of Mass Deception' Descend on Washington DC While ORW's Truth Trucks Expose Their Lies
'WMDs' in Nation's Capital! 'Women of Mass Deception' Descend on Washington DC While ORW's Truth Trucks Expose Their Lies
(ORW) As pro-abortion supporters began arriving yesterday (Thursday April 22) in the nation's capital in preparation for Sunday's "March for Women's Lives," Operation Rescue West's fleet of Truth Trucks wove their way through the congested District traffic exposing the lies of the radical abortion lobby.
Adorned with billboard-sized photos of the broken bodies of aborted babies in all three trimesters of pregnancy, the Truth Trucks encircled the City Museum where pro-abortion democratic presidential candidate John Kerry addressed a group of supporters.
As the trucks passed, the small bands of Kerry supporters booed and jeered, while pro-life supporters waved, and gave the drivers the "thumbs up."
The Truth Trucks also made appearances at Kerry's campaign headquarters, and the National Educational Association, which is sponsoring a rally for the radical abortion group NARAL.
Although threats of violence were made against the Truth Trucks yesterday, they were able to travel peacefully along the streets of Washington without incident.
Today (Friday April 23), the Truth Trucks will continue to expose the horrific nature of abortion-on-demand at a local abortion mill, the National Geographic Society, and various events sponsored by Planned Parenthood.
"The large images of dismembered baby boys and girls that are displayed on the panels of the Truth Trucks unmask the rhetoric of the 'women of mass deception' in town for the 'March for Women's LIES.' Abortion is not good for women, it certainly is fatal to the pre-born babies, and is devastating to families and society. The WMDs want us to believe that abortion helps women. Nothing could be further from the truth," said. Troy Newman, president, Operation Rescue West.
"If one can look at the horrifying photos on the Truth Trucks and still remain pro-abortion, then God help that individual! Only a cold-cruel heart could hold no compassion for the unjust plight of abortion's defenseless victims. Thank God that the Truth Trucks are here to convict the conscience of our nation at such a time as this," said Cheryl Sullenger, ORW event coordinator.
Also see:
March for Women's LIES Will Leave Trampled 'Fetuses' in Wake; ORW Staff Will 'Die-In' At Parade Starting Line
(Yahoo News) When the March for Women's Lives steps off today, participants will be marching over the chalked outlines of Operation Rescue West Staff members and other pro-lifers, who will lie down in the fetal position in the street at the starting point of the march. Their images will be chalked onto the pavement in the same way that the bodies of murder victims are outlined during homicide investigations. The outlines will symbolize the 43 million innocent pre-born babies that have died as a result of decriminalized abortion.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20040425/pl_usnw/orw__march_for_women_s_lies_will_leave_trampled__fetuses__in_wake__orw_staff_will__die_in__at_parade_starting_line109_xml
Source: Operation Rescue West
Publish Date: April 23, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/4
Pro-life Activists to Risk Arrest by Holding Signs on Public Sidewalk of the Nat'l Mall During the March for Women's Lives Today
Pro-life Activists to Risk Arrest by Holding Signs on Public Sidewalk of the Nat'l Mall During the March for Women's Lives Today
(CDC) Pro-life activists to risk arrest by peacefully holding signs on public sidewalk of the National Mall during the March for Women's Lives on Sunday April 25.
The Christian Defense Coalition had their permit to demonstrate on the public sidewalks of the Mall revoked by the National Park Service last week.
The group also lost a bid in federal court seeking a restraining order.
Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states, "It is tragic that the Park Service and Judge Kessler have crushed and trampled the First Amendment. We will not be bullied into surrendering our free speech rights. Even if we have to go to jail, we will be there on Sunday celebrating the First Amendment and speaking out against the violence of abortion."
The group will gather on Sunday, April 25th, at 2:30 p.m. at the corner of Madison and 4th St. NW to pray and demonstrate.
Activists also plan to conduct a "die-in" on the parade route to remember the 45,000,000 children who have died from abortion.
Source: Christian Defense Coalition
Publish Date: April 25, 2005
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/3
Pro-Aborts Terrorize April 7 Campus Truth Day
Pro-Aborts Terrorize April 7 Campus Truth Day
(PLAL) The Pro-Life Action League's second Campus Face the Truth was met with hostile and even violent opposition from pro-abort counter-protesters, especially at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The day began relatively peacefully at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where the pro-abortion harrassment was concentrated on League National Director Joe Scheidler and his son, Comunications Director Eric Scheidler, who was organizing the event. Several pro-lifers were able to engage in fruitful conversation about the life issues with a group of IIT students who came out to hold signs mocking the very idea of public protest.
Pro-Aborts Turn Violent at UIC
At UIC, the counter-protest turned ugly. The counter-demonstrators, many of them dressed in black masks holding signs with slogans like "I'm Pro-Choice and I RIOT!" grew increasingly hateful and violent, kicking signs, blocking the sidewalk, screaming, swearing and issuing threats of violence. At least two pro-life women were battered by one pro-abort man, who pushed them in the chest, and a police report was filed.
Joe and Eric Scheidler were splashed with black ink when they walked away from the main demonstration area followed by three pro-aborts. The masked woman who splashed them took off running and could not be apprehended. Joe Scheidler had to leave the demonstration to seek medical attention for his left eye, which took a direct hit from the ink.
The UIC and Chicago Police were out in great numbers, but for the most part gave the pro-abort radicals free rein. One of them even laughed when he saw Joe Scheidler's blackened face shortly after the ink incident.
Pro-Aborts Show True Colors
With signs and chants the pro-abort radicals called us "racist," "sexist" and "bigotted," and yet our group represented a far more diverse cross section of American society. And while the majority of the pro-aborts were men, our group was more than half women. They described our peaceful protest as "spreading hate," while exemplifying true hatred in all their words and actions.
A repeated refrain was that we are "anti-woman," yet the pro-aborts expressed no concern for the suffering that women undergo from abortion. Though claiming to respect women, they treated the women in our group with contempt, screaming and yelling in their faces, even pushing and threatening them. Not even the children in our group were spared their attacks; at one point a ten-year-old homeschooled girl was reduced to tears by the taunts and threatening presence of a group of pro-aborts.
Campus Tour Continues in May
The pro-abortion campaign of intimidation will not deter us from continuing our Face the Truth on Campus campaign. Please join us for our next Campus Truth Day, May 5, when we will visit Columbia College of Chicago and Roosevelt University.
Source: Pro-Life Action League
Publish Date: April 11, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/2
FRC: Pro-Abortion Agenda Has Been Rejected by Majority of Americans
FRC: Pro-Abortion Agenda Has Been Rejected by Majority of Americans
(FRC) "The pro-abortion activists marching in Washington represent the extreme, not the consensus," says FRC's Genevieve Wood.
At a press conference in Washington today (April 23), Family Research Council (FRC) Vice President for Communications Genevieve Wood spoke out against the large pro-abortion rally planned for Sunday:
"The pro-abortion activists marching in Washington this weekend do not represent the majority of women in America," said Wood. "Rather, with the passing of each year the views espoused by groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL become more and more extreme, while the nation becomes more and more pro-life.
"Several pieces of pro-life legislation that have been passed or at least introduced in Congress over the past several years have had the support of between 70 and 90 percent of Americans, but these pro-abortion groups have opposed them all. Americans want partial-birth abortion banned, but Planned Parenthood is fighting to keep it legal. Americans wanted the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, but NARAL opposed it. And today, Americans want laws passed to require parental consent for a minor to have an abortion, but yet again, these groups are fighting to stop it.
"The pro-life bills that FRC has fought for over the past few years were not only supported by pro-lifers, or by religious Americans, as the other side contends. Rather, regardless of whether they are pro-life or pro-abortion, Americans have been nearly unanimous on issues like partial-birth abortion. This speaks volumes about who the extremists in this debate truly are. The organizations claiming to represent the interests of all women, on these issues, have the support of a diminishing minority of women."
Source: Family Research Council
Publish Date: April 23, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040426/1
