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Families
Really do Matter for Canada - As the family goes, so too goes the
nation!
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Have
faith - Prayer, Fasting
& Alms Giving will
end Abortion
See Matthew 21:21-22; Mark 11:23-25 & Luke 17:5-6
(Jerusalem Bible ©1968)
The Word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart..."
Jeremiah 1:4-5 (New International Version ©1978)
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Information
updated October 20th, 2008
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News Ticker provided by LifeSiteNews.Com
News Items
- A Post Turtle – October 8, 2008
- A Pro-Life Free-Speech Heroine Walks Free – October 8, 2008
- Bad Science vs. Beautiful Babies – October 8, 2008
- Buying Halloween Treats – October 8, 2008
- EFC Comments On Unheralded Pro-Life Victory – October 8, 2008
- In Russia 64% Of Pregnancies End In Abortion – October 8, 2008
- Layton Insult - Daycare Reduces Violence – October 8, 2008
- Lifeissues.Net Newsletter 391 – October 8, 2008
- Real Life Lesson In Demographics – October 8, 2008
- Skin Cells Turned Into Stem Cells - Breakthrough Is Step Toward Regenerative Medicine – October 8, 2008
- This Election - What Churches Can And Cannot Do – October 8, 2008
- Tragic Story - Mom Acquitted In Baby's Death – October 8, 2008
- US Government Cuts Off Supplies To Marie Stopes International – October 8, 2008
- Video Catches Planned Parenthood Covering Up Statutory Rape – October 8, 2008
- Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #392 – October 12, 2008
- Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #393 – October 19, 2008
- National Updates – Oct 19, 2008
- News From CLC NS – October 20, 2008
Newsletter
Archive
TOP
1. A Post Turtle – October 8, 2008
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Stéphane Dion and his bid to become our Prime Minister.
The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Dion is a 'Post Turtle'".
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.
The old rancher said:
"When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'Post Turtle'".
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain:
"You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb jerk put him up there to begin with!"
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2. A Pro-Life Free-Speech Heroine Walks Free – October 8, 2008
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=e80513cc-f872-4f2b-909b-255dd94c3bec&p=2 - A pro-life free-speech heroine walks free
Nigel Hannaford
Calgary Herald
Saturday, October 04, 2008
This could be a free speech story, or a pro-life story, or just a story about plain old perseverance. You decide. Earlier this year, abortion provider Henry Morgentaler got his Order of Canada. A lot of people hated the idea, but whether or not one approves of what he was doing – full disclosure, I do not – one has to concede he believed in it strongly enough to go to jail, rather than yield. If you agree with him, he's a brave man. If you don't agree with him, you should still allow he has the courage of his convictions, and this martyr factor is part of what makes him so appealing to his supporters.
What then shall we say of pro-life activist Linda Gibbons, who has spent 75 months of the last 14 years in jail for protesting Morgentaler's trade? After all, it's a mirror image. When abortion was against the law, one man challenged it and in the end, was acclaimed for it. Then the law changed. Not only did abortion on demand become legal, it also became illegal in many places to stand outside clinics where they were done, to say, 'this is wrong.' In Toronto, it became illegal to stand near the door, whether you said anything or not. Responding to this obvious limitation of free-speech rights, pro-lifers refer to these bubble zones as speech-free zones.
But, Gibbons was just as sure abortion was wrong, as Morgentaler was that it was right. So she kept showing up, being arrested, going to jail, and because she wouldn't promise not to go back to her spot on the sidewalk, stayed there for years.
It is important to understand Gibbons, a frail woman of 60 who reportedly weighs all of 100 lbs, is totally non-violent. On none of the dozen occasions she was arrested, did she resist. She would, however, speak to women entering the clinic.
The need to care for elderly parents took her off the front line for a few years, but eventually she was back, silently walking up and down outside a Toronto abortion clinic. As on other occasions, she was charged with obstructing a peace officer.
This past Tuesday though, and unlike former occasions, she was acquitted. A Toronto provincial court judge decided her non-violence and non-resistance could not be construed as obstructing a peace officer in the performance of his duties.
The judge added that a charge of disobeying a court order might have stuck, but as that wasn't the charge, home she went. That's an interesting development by the way: Should she be so charged, she could have a jury trial.
Who knows what 12 of her peers might make of it? After all, even if they were not pro-lifers, they would have to consider some of the ironies here.
There's the free speech aspect, for instance. If she was a union militant involved in a strike, she could be as shrill as she liked.
In this country, police stand back while truckers get their windows smashed. So what exactly is the problem if she quietly approaches a woman heading to an abortion clinic? Ah, says the other side, nobody should interfere with another's health care.
True. But the woman is pregnant, not sick. Given the bloody reality of abortion, asking somebody if they really know what they're up to seems fair.
In fact, it should be the law. In a piece he wrote about Gibbons several years ago, columnist Michael Coren spoke of meeting a woman with a beautiful little girl, who Gibbons had talked out of an abortion right at the clinic. That three-year-old sweetie owes her life to one thing that Linda Gibbons spoke to her mother.
Then there's the penalty.
Whenever the peaceable Gibbons was sentenced, she'd get six months. Then, she'd end up in a cell with a woman doing half that for a violent assault.
How smart is that? Or just? Gibbons then, as much as Morgentaler, has the courage of her convictions. The difference between her courage and Morgentaler's though, is that he was swimming with a changing tide that would sweep him ashore.
She is not. That she goes on, without the comfort of a cheering section in press and Parliament, says a lot about her faith.
As occasional Herald contributor Andrea Mrozek puts it, for all the pro-choice fear mongering about pro-lifers wanting to send women to jail, there's only one woman in jail in this country on this issue – and it's because she's pro-life.
Well, for now she's out. I don't know her, but I think I like Linda Gibbons. Talk about sticking to your guns: 14 years, no less.
No Order of Canada for her, of course. They're just for people who swim in the right direction.
But, whether as a pro-lifer, or a free-speecher, she deserves one.
(nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com)
© The Calgary Herald 2008
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3. Bad Science vs. Beautiful Babies – October 8, 2008
World Net Daily
Bad science versus beautiful babies
Posted: September 22, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008
The outright loathing often displayed for Todd and Sarah Palin's refusal to abort Trig Palin and to welcome their surprise grandchild begins, in many ways in the 1950s.
After winning World War II, Americans saluted life, babies, pregnancy and large families. Other, more urbane nations often mocked us as a "child-centered" society. We were.
Children in big families generally had to learn to share and work, was the idea. These youngsters would become adult taxpayers, men and women who would build, support and protect America.
By the late 1950s however, women who saw motherhood as service to society and who dreamed of scores of little kids to nurture, were suddenly caught in the crosshairs.
A new wind had blown in from academe. Chic "mental health" professionals were suddenly sneering at homemakers, even part-time working moms, accusing them of "momism" and "smother love," that was producing weak sons and aggressive daughters.
I had been ignoring the sneering columns in the press and ladies magazines about motherhood being parasitical and wasting women's talent. I had four great daughters and worked part time as a songwriter and television performer.
Wherever my "little women" and I wandered, we were greeted by admiring glances and benevolent looks. That changed so suddenly I can remember the day I saw motherhood mutate from reverence to resentment.
It was August 1963. I had dismissed the doomsday warnings in the press that overpopulation was going to cause starvation and famine. As I walked down a grassy slope holding my littlest child's hand, an irate voice behind me shouted, "Don't you know how to prevent that?"
I turned and knew those glaring eyes and spiteful words were meant for me. I should have "prevented" one, or all of my four daughters.
Almost overnight I started to hear censure of my reproductive behaviour. Even the public body language subtly changed. Few folks smiled upon my happy little troupe any longer.
Continued... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75863
TOP
4. Buying Halloween Treats – October 8, 2008
Please read the packages carefully if you are buying Halloween candy at your local supermarket. UNICEF has cancelled its trick or treat boxes for children but many candy manufacturers are supporting UNICEF through their sales. UNICEF does much good work in developing countries but unfortunately, it also supports the pro-abortion agenda of many United Nations organizations and International Planned Parenthood. Go to http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.604/pub_detail.aspto read about their most recent involvement promoting abortion. Many of the bags of chocolate bars and other treats available now in stores for Halloween have a small UNICEF logo on the package. See the September issue of The Rose for a sample of the logo. (It is online at http://www.albertaprolife.com.
See story on page 9.) Please avoid these treats and if you might want to write the manufacturer and tell them why you did not buy their product. Also, many schools will be doing UNICEF projects for Halloween so you might want to keep tabs your school’s Halloween projects over the next few weeks.
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5. EFC Comments On Unheralded Pro-Life Victory – October 8, 2008
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
EFC COMMENTS ON UNHERALDED PRO-LIFE VICTORY
EFC Vice-President Don Hutchinson, responsible for the Centre for Faith and Public Life, and the EFC’s general legal counsel, comments in his webitorial on the recent media release announcing settlement of the lawsuit in the case of First Place Pregnancy Centre vs. Planned Parenthood Ottawa.
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6. In Russia 64% Of Pregnancies End In Abortion – October 8, 2008
250,000 Women/Year Left Infertile From Abortion Complications
Alarmingly high abortion rates in Russia are leaving an increasing number of women infertile, said Marina Tarasova, deputy head of the St. Petersburg Research Institute For Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at an international conference on Monday. The St. Petersburg Times reported that with 64 percent of Russian women procuring abortions, 200,000 to 250,000 women each year are stripped of their biological ability to procreate because of permanent effects from the procedure.
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7. Layton Insult - Daycare Reduces Violence – October 8, 2008
FROM THE Montreal Gazette ON NDP DAYCARE FUNDING ANNOUNCEMENT:
He also said it would offer support for children at key moments and serve as a preventive measure against violence.
"Good child care (and) after-school programs give our children the help that they need, identify the problems that they face, so that they can make choices that don't lead them down the wrong path, for example violence in the school yard," Layton said.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f8cbaba2-1a15-4589-be56-ab70cae2b0ce
As I write I am breastfeeding my peaceful baby.
The Montreal Gazette reports the NDP's Jack Layton saying that daycare centre care will reduce violence, clearly implying that parental care leads to violent kids.
Layton's sentiments echo the 2006 statement by Liberal MP Carolyn Kennedy: that we will need to build more prisons if we don't build more daycare centres.
This flies in the face of the mounting evidence: more time spent in daycare centres leads to more children having higher levels of behaviour problems – including "cruelty". The extremely rigorous childcare study by the NICHD in the US found that this negative behaviour continues at least until grade 6, and happens regardless of the quality of the care.
A peer-reviewed study of Quebec found more reported behavioural problems there after the $5-a-day daycare program started.
After over 30 years of near-universal institutional childcare in Sweden, domestic violence against women is increasing, contrary to the goal of greater 'gender equity' children's stress (cortisol) level increase with time in daycare centre.
Layton's statement is profoundly insulting to the parents of the 90% of children 0-12 not in daycare centres.
This is even worse than last week's insult. Last Friday, Layton's press secretary, Ian Capstick, retorted, "That's poppycock and you know it!" when I said, "every mother is a working mother". He twice claimed that it was "just semantics" when I said the definition of childcare must include parental childcare.
Helen Ward,
President
Kids First Parent Association of Canada
www.kidsfirstcanada.org
604-291-0088
TOP
8. Lifeissues.Net Newsletter 391 – October 8, 2008
http://lifeissues.net/newsletters/mojo.cgi?flavor=archive&id=20081002173729&list=lifenews
TOP
9. Real Life Lesson In Demographics – October 8, 2008
Real Life Lesson in Demographics – so important with inflation about to hit big time.
Demographics are destiny... Take a look at this article from today's National Post. The Ontario Teachers' Federation's pension fund is in major deficit situation and they only have 1.6 teachers today for every person taking a pension, and schools are closing as people have less children and other people move out of the public system – HOME SCHOOLERS and PRIVATE SCHOOLERS – which means they will have to fire more teachers, which means even less people paying into the pension plan. I'd be watching this trend so nobody is caught by surprise by a possible new impetus to ban home-schooling in order to try to pad the # of students needing government edyukashun.
Financial Post – Oct. 2, 2008
Teachers alter index formula; $12.7B Deficit; Cost-of-living increases to be reduced – By Karen Mazurkewich
Ontario teachers can no longer expect full inflation protection on their pensions by 2010. Faced with a huge deficit, the Ontario Teachers' Federation (OTF) and the government of Ontario have decided to change the way their pension fund is indexed. Currently, Ontario teachers' pensions are fully protected against any cost-of-living changes. Now the partners of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan – the union and the government – have decided to alter the indexing formula in an effort to eliminate their $12.7-billion deficit. Instead of giving retirees automatic cost-of-living increases, future increases for pension credit earned after 2009 could drop to 50%, depending on the status of OTPP's assets.
The partners decided to modify the fully indexed pensions after it became clear that increasing contributions could not keep the pension fund out of the red. Despite raising contributions in 2007, 2008 and 2009, the new $6.1-billion infusion was simply used to wipe out OTPP's 2005 shortfall. The hike did not make a dent in the current deficit, which is estimated at $12.7-billion.
"The current state of the market had nothing to do with this," said Jim Leech, president and chief executive of OTPP. The liabilities are due to the maturation of the plan. The main driver is a drop in interest rates, which has reduced bond yields. In the early 1990s, real-return government bonds, the backbone of the plans, generated a fixed 4.5% return plus inflation. These rates of return are down to 1.6% – closer to historic averages – which means the plan needs more money today to pay out in the future. Every decrease of one percentage point in interest rates increases the cost of a pension plan by 20%. Adding to OTTP's woes is the fact that there are only 1.6 working teachers for every retiree, and higher life expectancies. Earlier actuarial models had predicted liabilities were distorted and the liabilities had to be recalibrated.
"As a result, [our partners] came to the conclusion that the prudent thing to do was to take some of the risk out of the plan by introducing conditional inflation protection," Mr. Leech said.
OTPP is not the only pension fund facing tough choices. Defined-benefit pension plans with fully indexed funds are becoming an endangered species. At one time, more than 70% of all companies supported such plans, but increasingly, private companies have moved toward defined-contribution plans that do not offer guaranteed benefits. "We are calling this the shifting burden," said Randy Ambrosie, president of AGF Funds Inc. "Individual Canadians are now left with the responsibility of managing their retirements... and that has created an uncertainty." Even public pension funds are morphing. In addition to OTPP, more public pension funds have embraced conditional indexing, including the British Columbia Teachers' Federation, the Nova Scotia Teachers' Union, Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan and the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Pension Plan.
Mr. Leech said the introduction of conditional inflation protection could mean possible changes to how the fund is managed. "Right now, the equity component of our asset mix is probably down to 42% to 43% today, which is one of the most conservative asset mixes of funds today," he said. "Now that they've taken some of the risk out, it allows us to have a less conservative asset mix."
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10.
Skin Cells Turned Into Stem Cells - Breakthrough Is Step Toward Regenerative Medicine – October 8, 2008
Reuters
Friday, September 26, 2008
Researchers have developed a safer way to make powerful stem cells from ordinary skin cells, taking one more step toward so-called regenerative medicine.
They used a common cold virus to carry transformative genes into ordinary mouse cells, making them look and act like embryonic stem cells.
If the same can be done with human cells, it may offer a safe way to test cell therapy to treat diseases such as sickle cell anaemia or Parkinson's, according to a report by Konrad Hochedlinger of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the journal Science on Thursday.
Stem cells are the body's master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kinds of stem cells, as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.
But they are difficult to make, requiring the use of an embryo or cloning technology. Many people also object to their use and several countries, including the United States, limit funding for such experiments.
In the past year, several teams of scientists have reported finding a handful of genes that can transform ordinary skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which in turn look and act like embryonic stem cells.
Retroviruses have been used to get these genes into the cells because they integrate their own genetic material into the cells they infect. This can be dangerous and can cause tumours and other effects.
Hochedlinger's team used a much more harmless virus, called an adenovirus, to carry the required transformative genes into the cells.
"The nice thing about adenoviruses . . . is they deliver proteins inside the cells but they will never, ever integrate their DNA into the cells," Hochedlinger said.
As the cells divide, they dilute the virus until it disappears, he said. But the genetic changes remain.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
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11. This Election - What Churches Can And Cannot Do – October 8, 2008
In an effort to encourage congregations to become active this election and correct misconceptions regarding church involvement in political activity the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) www.evangelicalfellowship.ca –
http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/sendstudionx/link.php?M=351512&N=58&L=278has prepared a helpful “Election Kit” with guidelines for church engagement.
The complete kit can be downloaded here:
http://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=6101
http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/sendstudionx/link.php?M=351512&N=58&L=276
(Including information on holding an all candidates meeting.)
Here are some of the key points from the kit:
“Churches are charities that serve the common good. The government has specific guidelines that outline the allowable political activities of charities” which do not threaten their charitable status.
The key principle is that “as a charitable institution, a church must be non-partisan.”
“In other words, a church may not endorse a particular candidate or political party, or use its resources to support a candidate or party (even if they attend your own church).”
What Churches Can Do
1. “Churches are free to provide information on issues of interest or concern that flow from Biblical teaching, as long as the church does not link its views to any party or candidate.”
2. “A church is also allowed to publish how all Members of Parliament voted on a given issue.”
3. “Churches may invite all candidates to speak at the same event or service where the church meets. Churches can also organize an all-candidates debate.”
(Download the EFC All Candidates Meeting Kit here:
http://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=6100
http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/sendstudionx/link.php?M=351512&N=58&L=277)
4. “Church members are encouraged to get to know the candidates, pray for them, and ask about issues of interest or concern. It is highly beneficial for members to become involved in the electoral process and to vote.”
5. “Church staff, volunteers or members of a church are free to engage in political activity outside the church, on their own time or with their own money.”
6. Churches may “share information about all-candidates meetings and encourage people to vote!”
What Churches May Not Do:
- “Invite candidates to speak at different times, or at separate events or services.
- Highlight or publish how /one/ particular party or candidate voted on a given issue.
- Promote or oppose /any one/ candidate or party.
- Post signs for a candidate or political party on church property.
- Encourage its members to vote for a particular candidate or party.
- Endorse a candidate or party from the pulpit.
- Link its views on issues of concern with those of a particular party or candidate.”
To view the Government Guidelines regarding charities and political activities see:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/chrts/plcy/cps/cps-022-eng.html
http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/sendstudionx/link.php?M=351512&N=58&L=281
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12. Tragic Story - Mom Acquitted In Baby's Death – October 8, 2008
Toronto Star
Mom acquitted in baby's death TheStar.com - GTA - Mom acquitted in baby's death
Charged with concealing dead infant, woman cleared after judge alters word in Criminal Code
September 26, 2008
Bob Mitchell, Staff Reporter
A Toronto woman has been acquitted of a charge of concealing a dead baby after a judge struck down a single word in a section of the Criminal Code.
Ivana Levkovic, 26, a former Mississauga stripper, had been scheduled to stand trial Monday in a Brampton courtroom.
"Thank God ... the truth is finally out," a happy Levkovic said yesterday outside court.
She was charged under a section that states it's a criminal offence to give birth to a baby, and then conceal its birth, regardless if it died "before, during or after" birth.
Lawyer Michael Moon challenged the law, under the view the section "criminalized" a woman's decision to conceal the fact she was pregnant and either had a stillborn baby, a miscarriage or an abortion.
Crown prosecutor Scott Latimer never alleged the baby had ever been alive. "No finding was made as to whether the child died before, during or after birth" during the autopsy and the cause of death was listed as "undetermined," Latimer told the court in requesting that Justice Casey Hill acquit the defendant.
He told Justice Hill he would not be able to produce evidence to "support" the indictment.
Latimer said the Crown believes it could establish all of the essential elements of the case "save for one."
"Given the decomposition of the body at the time of the discovery, we cannot establish the child died during or after birth," he told court.
Justice Hill's decision to remove the word "before" from the offence isn't binding on the rest of Canada or even Ontario although judges faced with similar cases would examine his ruling carefully.
His decision would only become law in Ontario, and not necessarily in other provinces, if the Ontario Court of Appeal rules similarly.
At this stage, no decision has been made as to whether the ruling will be appealed by the Crown.
"The Crown Law office of the Attorney General ministry is carefully reviewing the trial judge's earlier decision to determine whether there is a legal basis upon which to launch an appeal," ministry spokesperson Brendan Crawley said.
Levkovic turned herself in four days after Peel police revealed a superintendent had found a badly decomposed baby's body in a duffle bag on a balcony of a Mississauga apartment in April 2006. The discovery was made two days after Levkovic and other tenants moved out of the unit, court heard.
Levkovic admitted to police the dead baby was hers, and forensic testing confirmed it, Latimer said.
"She was in the apartment alone when she fell and had the baby there in the apartment," Latimer said. "She placed the child in a bag and put it on the balcony."
Levkovic has been on bail since October 2006 and could have faced a sentence of up to two years in jail had she been convicted at trial.
She remains before the Toronto courts on charges of concealing a body and neglecting to obtain assistance in childbirth in a separate incident. Toronto Police laid the charges after her arrest in Peel.
In the Toronto case, police said Levkovic gave birth to a live baby in 2002 or 2003. They alleged the infant was stored in a freezer until being dumped in the Humber River in January 2005.
The body has never been found. The person who contacted police with the allegation and who is alleged to have dumped the body in the river, has since died.
Moon hopes the Toronto charges will also soon be withdrawn.
"There is no evidence there ever was a baby, never mind that it was disposed of," Moon said.
Levkovic denies ever having a child in Toronto. She had been working as an exotic dancer at the Million Dollar Saloon when she delivered the baby in Mississauga.
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13. US Government Cuts Off Supplies To Marie Stopes International – October 8, 2008
By Samantha Singson
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) According the news reports, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has issued a new directive requiring several African countries to stop providing United States-funded contraceptives to Marie Stopes International (MSI), one of the world’s leading abortion providers.
USAID decided to take action and pull support for MSI in Africa because of the organization’s collaboration with China’s draconian population program.
Under US law, any organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” is prohibited from receiving American foreign aid. This law, also known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment, has been used since 2002 to deny funding to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The possibility that other complicit groups would also be affected was hinted at by the US State Department a few weeks ago when it once more withheld funds from UNFPA.
The US government informed Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe that it did not want any USAID-funded contraceptives to be provided to Marie Stopes International.
The AP reports that the US does not give any direct assistance to MSI, but that the organization is a leading family planning health provider in Africa and one of several distributors of US-donated contraceptive commodities, like condoms and intrauterine devices.
MSI chief executive Dana Hovig denied the allegations of cooperating with forced abortions in China, stating, “To the contrary, MSI is one of the few organizations that has worked over the past decade to increase the availability of voluntary, client-centered family planning services in China.” He blasted the USAID decision as “purely political and dangerous to the lives of women.”
The US State Department and USAID have said that the directive only affects MSI and that the same amount of US-donated contraceptives would be distributed in the African nations by other groups.
Marie Stopes has been a long-time advocate for abortion rights worldwide. For the past year, MSI has been collecting signatures for their “Global Safe Abortion” campaign, which demands “for women’s access to legal, safe abortion to be recognized as a fundamental human right.” Pro-life initiatives to counter MSI’s campaign have also been launched.
For more news, visit us at: http://www.c-fam.org/.
Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
Editor in Chief – Austin Ruse
Managing Editor – Piero Tozzi
Assistant Managing Editor – Hannah Russo
Chief Correspondent – Samantha Singson
Contributor – Susan Yoshihara
© Copyright 2008 Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.
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14. Video Catches Planned Parenthood Covering Up Statutory Rape – October 8, 2008
ARLINGTON, VA, October 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Students for Life of America (SFLA) has released a video exposing two Planned Parenthood clinics in Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina covering up statutory rape of young girls. To view the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkakpcWSyWY
In June of 2008, two college women volunteering for Students for Life of America entered two clinics in North Carolina posing as underage girls, 15 and 14, who just had unprotected sex with their mother's live-in boyfriend who was in his 30s. Each girl told the clinic workers that he suggested she come get the morning the Morning After Pill. According to N.C. Gen. Statue 7B-301 and 7B-101, this information was enough to trigger North Carolina statutory rape reporting laws, obligating any person who learned of this story to report the crime to authorities.
In both visits, Planned Parenthood staffers acknowledged that what was happening to the girls was statutory rape and in one case even repeatedly admitted that they were required to report the incident.
However, after the visits, Students for Life of America filed North Carolina Public Records Requests to find out if the Planned Parenthood locations had reported the crimes. SFLA has obtained and posted documents, which show that the crimes were not reported to authorities in either Charlotte or Winston-Salem. To view the reports from police department authorities, go here:
http://www.studentsforlife.org/index.php/plannedparenthoodinvestigation/
In addition to covering up the statutory rape of these young girls by failing to report, both Planned Parenthoods were willing to help them get on birth control without their parents' knowledge, which would prolong the abuse while covering evidence. One staffer in Charlotte even said to the girl, "You can do it now," and set an appointment for the minor to obtain birth control the following week.
Further, both clinics told the girls that anyone over the age of 18 could simply go to a drug store and buy the Morning After Pill for them, giving the girls' rapists a tool to further cover their crime of rape.
SFLA's Executive Director, Kristan Hawkins commented on the videos today saying, "These videos are simply shocking. That Planned Parenthood staffers acknowledged the girls were being raped and then did not report the crime is horrific. They allowed these girls to go home to their rapists and even confirmed that their rapists could get the Morning After Pill for them to cover their crimes."
Tom McClusky, Vice President of Government Affairs for the Family Research Council, responded to the investigation, "As long as Planned Parenthood puts their fealty to abortion on demand above protecting young girls from statutory rapists then investigations such as the ones done by SFL will be needed."
To view the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkakpcWSyWY
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15. Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #392 – October 12, 2008
Greetings from LifeIssues.net (www.lifeissues.net)
Dear Friends for Life,
Canada's National Center for Health Statistics has released new statistics. Babies born too small, and too soon, now account for one-third of all infant deaths. Premature babies die more often than full-term babies. Thirty-two per cent of U.S. births under 32 weeks, it states, are due to the mother having had a prior abortion, and overall, previous aborted women are one and a half times more likely to deliver babies less than 33 weeks gestation, who then have a higher death rate.
IPS Cells Now to Treat ALS? Researchers at Harvard and Columbia Universities have used the new pluripotent stem cells to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). This was done using the new technique of transforming skin cells into these IPS cells without having to kill five-day old embryos. Watch this one closely; it may be a landmark advance.
This year's Canadian March for Life was the largest ever. Aggregating over 10,000 attendees across the country, it was noted that with each passing year there is a higher percent of enthusiastic young people attending.
God Bless, Jerry Novotny, OMI
Quote of the Week – "Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral "indication" that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life – which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit in itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit..." – (Pope Pius XII, Allocution to Italian Midwives, 10/29/51)
Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #392 – October 12, 2008
Table Of Contents:
1. Pope Benedict Renews Catholic Opposition To Birth Control, Contraception
2. Canadian Prelates Give Clues On Love
3. Rights Begin With Human Life
4. Which Girl Would You Have Chosen?
5. In Defence Of The Unborn
6. The Case Against Physician-Assisted Suicide: For The Right To End-Of-Life Care
7. Assisted Suicide: Conspiracy And Control
8. Depression And Physician Assisted Suicide
9. Teen Sex: The Parent Factor
10. Baby Born At 22 Weeks Alive And Well At Home
11. "Safe Injection Sites" And Tackling IV Drug Abuse
12. Sexually Active Teenage Girls "Twice As Likely" To Suffer From Depression
Focus On Children: "Customs officers foil attempt to smuggle in drug worth Rp6.1 Billion" - Customs and Excise officers at Soekarno-Hatta International airport have foiled an attempt to smuggle in 340 grams of crystal methamphetamine and 5,780 grams of amphetamine worth Rp6.1 billion.
http://www.worldpress.org/link.cfm?http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2008/10/5/customs-officers-foil-attempt-to-smuggle-in-drug-worth-rp61-billion
Item #1. Pope Benedict Renews Catholic Opposition To Birth Control, Contraception
Pope Benedict XVI renewed the position of the Catholic Church on Friday against the use of birth control and contraception. The position is part of the panoply of Catholic pro-life teachings that also include opposition to abortion, euthanasia and bioethics practices like human cloning and embryonic research.
View full article at LifeNews.com: http://www.lifenews.com/int947.html
Item #2. Canadian Prelates Give Clues On Love
For those bewildered by the mysteries of love, Canada's bishops have a suggestion: reread "Humanae Vitae." ... Though the '68 encyclical is most known for its rejection of artificial contraception, the bishops affirmed that it is much more than that.
"This encyclical is in reality a major reflection on God's design for human love. It proposes a vision of 'the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called ... both its natural, earthly aspects, and its supernatural, eternal aspects. It is an invitation to be open to the grandeur, beauty and dignity of the Creator's call to the vocation of marriage," they wrote.
View full article at Zenit.org: http://www.zenit.org/article-23757?l=english
Item #3. Rights Begin With Human Life
Scientific, biological, and medical textbooks state that life begins at conception. This life can only grow as human life, not developing into anything other than a human. Believe what you wish, or not believe at all, the humanity of the unborn at the moment of conception is a fact, and their lives aren't irrelevant. Human Rights begin when human life begins.
View article at The Evening Sun: http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_10640009
Item #4. Which Girl Would You Have Chosen?
It struck me in that moment that nearly 90 percent of babies born with Down’s Syndrome are now aborted. Most Johnnys never get the chance to delight a crowd or bring deep, abiding joy to their parents – because they never get a chance to live.
It was a Down syndrome baby that nurse Jill Stanek cradled until death at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, denied of food or medical treatment. Another imperfect baby, unwanted by its parents, starved out of existence.
View full article at onenewsnow.com:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=264844
Item #5. In Defence Of The Unborn
In a booklet soon to be circulated locally, the Fellowship presents the following facts on the foetus and abortion: – The DNA of the foetus is not identical with the mother's DNA. At conception, the embryo has 23 chromosomes from the father and 23 chromosomes from the mother. Therefore, the 46 chromosomes in the foetus are not identical to the 46 chromosomes in the mother - they are two different individuals since their DNA is not alike...
To learn more see Newsday: http://lifeissues.net/control_panel/news_info.php
Item #6. The Case Against Physician-Assisted Suicide: For The Right To End-Of-Life Care
Compassion for suffering patients and respect for patient autonomy serve as the basis for the strongest arguments in favour of legalizing physician-assisted suicide. Compassion, however, is no guarantee against doing harm. A physician who does not know how to relieve a patient's suffering may compassionately, but inappropriately, agree to end the patient's life.
Patient autonomy is an illusion when physicians are not trained to assess and treat patient suffering. The choice for patients then becomes continued agony or a hastened death. Most physicians do not have such training. We have only recently recognized the need to train general physicians in palliative care, training that teaches them how to relieve the suffering of patients with serious, life-threatening illnesses. Studies show that the less physicians know about palliative care, the more they favour assisted suicide or euthanasia; the more they know, the less they favour it.
See the full article at Psychiatric Times:
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54071
Item #7. Assisted Suicide: Conspiracy And Control
We must comment on two realities: first, the group controlling assisted suicide in Oregon is also the group controlling what the public is told; second, the claim that Oregon is a leader in improved end-of-life care because of assisted suicide is inaccurate.
Full article at The Oregonian:
http://lifeissues.net/control_panel/news_info.php?newsID=00023092
Item #8. Depression And Physician Assisted Suicide
The recently published study by Ganzini et al proves that 26% of people in Oregon who requested assisted suicide were experiencing depressive disorders. Even though many of those people were incompetent or unable to "freely choose" assisted suicide that in fact they were given a prescription for lethal drugs and died by ingesting those drugs.
Full Article at Alex Schadenberg:
http://lifeissues.net/control_panel/news_info.php?newsID=00023091
Item #9. Teen Sex: The Parent Factor
The statistics on teen sexuality in the United States are troubling. About 7 percent of high school students report having had sex before the age of 13. By ninth grade, one-third of high school students have engaged in sexual activity, and by 12th grade, two-thirds. Yet the majority of these teens, 60 percent overall and 67 percent among younger adolescents, regret their first experience and wish they had waited longer.
Teen Sexual Activity and Outcomes: Early sexual activity is associated with a host of negative outcomes that can have lasting physical, emotional, social, and economic impacts on the lives of young people, particularly teenage girls and young women.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases:
View entire text at The Heritage Foundation:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/bg2194.cfm
Item #10. Baby Born At 22 Weeks Alive And Well At Home
A UK baby born after just 22 weeks has finally arrived home after spending more than a year in hospital. When Sienna Elizabeth Alice Francis came into the world she weighed just 500g (1lb 2oz) and her parents were told to expect the worst. But after five operations and successfully seeing off the super bug MRSA, 14-month-old Sienna now tips the scales at 7kg (15lb 8oz).
"It has been a real rollercoaster for us," said Sienna's mother Clare, 38. 'For every step forward it felt like two steps back. "When we first saw her it was so hard to imagine she could make it. She hadn't opened her eyes and her ears hadn't formed properly, she just had little flaps." Sienna was delivered at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath after Mrs Francis of Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, went into labour four months early.
View entire text at Family and Life:
http://www.familyandlife.org/Abortion-and-Embryo/672/9/14.html
Item #11. "Safe Injection Sites" And Tackling IV Drug Abuse
Public funding should be directed towards rehabilitation programs rather than safe injection sites. Some argue that safe injection sites may themselves, on occasion, afford the opportunity to lead addicts towards rehabilitation. Yet there is a contradiction between enabling the addiction on the one hand and promoting rehabilitation on the other.
View entire text at CERC:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0122.htm
Item #12. Sexually Active Teenage Girls "Twice As Likely" To Suffer From Depression
Research which appeared recently in the Journal of Health Economics has found that young girls who are sexually active often experience feelings of guilt, low self-esteem, regret and shame, and are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain chaste.
View entire text at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08092306.html
You Can Change Society:
1. Be Informed: "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6. Visit Lifeissues.net Website for insights into current Life Issues www.lifeissues.net.
2. Pray Daily: for the courage to be God's presence in society and to strongly support those who are deemed "unworthy of life". "If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
3. Become Involved: "Journey for Life into the Heart of Asia" is a project, which appeals for donations to help finance plane travel for lectures and seminars to developing countries in Asia. Strong focus is placed on reaching Asian Catholic Major Seminaries, Universities, Parishes, Hospitals and Family/Pro Life related groups. The lectures place emphasis on "The Asian Family at Crossroads: Life Issues' Trends and Challenges". For inquires about no-cost Pro Life Talks to your group in Asia: contact Fr. Jerry at jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp . To become a supportive Missionary participant for this project in Asia, kindly send your donations directly to: Fr. Jerry Novotny, OMI; LifeIssues.net, Editor; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072; (or transfer donation directly to ProLife bank account: Jerome Novotny, Shikoku Bank, Asakura Branch, No. 102-1-0080824).
Contact Editor: Jerry Novotny, OMI; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072; Tel/Fax: 088-843-0406; E-Mail:jerry@lifeissues.net.
Websites by Editor:
English LifeIssues Site:http://www.lifeissues.net,
Japanese LifeIssues Site:http://www.japan-lifeissues.net,
OMI Site:http://www.omijapankorea.net/index.html.
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16. Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #393 – October 19, 2008
Greetings from LifeIssues.net (www.lifeissues.net)
Dear Friends for Life,
Stem Cell Treatment for Eyes? In animal experiments, adult stem cells have shown a remarkable ability to target and repair damaged blood vessels in the eye. This is a key problem in diabetic eye disease and in macular degeneration. Now the Pfizer Company will be funding a new adult stem cell treatment by funding the creation of a San Diego biotech company named EyeCyte. It will be developing stem cell treatments. Researcher Martin Freelander stated, "It is unbelievable, these cells know where to go and they target the site of injury."
IPS Cells Now to Treat ALS? Researchers at Harvard and Columbia Universities have used the new pluripotent stem cells to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). This was done using the new technique of transforming skin cells into these IPS cells without having to kill five-day old embryos. Watch this one closely; it may be a landmark advance.
God Bless, Jerry Novotny, OMI
Quote of the Week – "If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either." – C.S. Lewis
Lifeissues.Net Newsletter #393 – October 19, 2008
Table Of Contents:
1. Vaud Debates Assisted Suicide In Nursing Homes
2. Down On The Transplantations
3. Poll: 85 Percent Say Negative Problems After Abortion Common For Women
4. "You'll Kill Patient Trust If You Let Doctors Help Suicides"
5. The Messy, Messy Business Of Birth Control
6. The Epidemic Of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
7. Scranton Diocese Priests Read Abortion Position Letter To Parishioners
8. Young Prison Population A Serious Concern
9. 'Eugenic Abortion': With Pre-Natal Testing, 9 In 10 Down’s Syndrome Babies Aborted
10. Woman Says No To Aborting Down Syndrome Baby: 'He's A Human Being'
11. OK To Rent Womb In India
12. Church Reiterates Position About Political Issues, Not Candidates
Focus On Children: "Global Hunger: Some Progress, Serious Concerns" – Despite significant progress in global efforts to reduce poverty, hundreds of millions of people across the world are still going to sleep hungry at night, according to a new study by a group of international food policy think tanks... The report identifies as many as 33 countries that have levels of hunger that are "alarming or extremely alarming." Most of those countries are located in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. http://us.oneworld.net/article/357974-global-hunger-some-progress-serious-concerns
Item #1. Vaud Debates Assisted Suicide In Nursing Homes
The assisted suicide organisation Exit, which already helps terminally ill patients in a number of nursing homes, has launched a people's initiative to force a local debate on the issue – a Swiss first.
Swiss law tolerates assisted suicide when patients commit the act themselves and helpers have no direct interest in their death. Switzerland has five assisted suicide organisations, which help around 350 people each year.
In 2007 Exit carried out 245 assisted suicides by Swiss or foreign nationals living in Switzerland. Exit assists only Swiss residents and usually goes to them in their own homes.
But Lausanne and Geneva university hospitals and several nursing homes also allow assisted suicide on their premises. Out of the 66 assisted suicides in French-speaking Switzerland last year, five took place in old people's homes.
View full article at swissinfo.ch:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Vaud_debates_assisted_suicide_in_nursing_homes.html?siteSect=106&sid=9827035&cKey=1223561854000&ty=st
Item #2. Down On The Transplantations
In a remarkably candid article about organ donation in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a doctor and a bioethicist make the unnerving observation that, in cases involving vital organs, many "donors" may not actually be dead at the time their organs are taken from them. While this statement corroborates the view of many pro-life groups, scientists, and physicians, it is likely to be news to the general public.
View full article at Touchstone:
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-08-046-c
Item #3. Poll: 85 Percent Say Negative Problems After Abortion Common For Women
A new poll conducted by a research institute that surveys how abortion affects women finds 85 percent of Americans say negative emotional problems after an abortion are common or very common. Several post-abortion researchers discussed the poll at a recent forum.
View article at The LifeNews.com: http://www.lifenews.com/nat4431.html
Item #4. "You'll Kill Patient Trust If You Let Doctors Help Suicides"
Physician-assisted suicide as a means of ending chronic illness and suffering threatens to destroy the relationship between doctors and patients, and would cause a moral crisis in the National Health Service, a leading specialist in palliative care has declared.
View full article at Times Online:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4923128.ece
Item #5. The Messy, Messy Business Of Birth Control
Today, about 70 percent of all teenagers have sex at least once before they turn twenty, resulting in more than 820,000 teenage pregnancies a year, just under a third of which end in abortion. These figures are down from their peak in the late 1980s, but they are still shockingly high. Meanwhile, casual sex and "serial monogamy" have become the cultural norms among college students and twenty-somethings, among whom the abortion rate remains above 30 percent. Only 59 percent of the adult population is now married; only 35 percent consider children an important component of marriage; and fewer than a third of all marriages reach their 25th anniversary.
To learn more see Ignatius Insight: http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/10/the-messy-messy.html
Item #6. The Epidemic Of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (or STDs) are at unprecedented and epidemic proportions. Thirty years of the sexual revolution is paying an ugly dividend. While a few STDs can be transmitted apart from sex acts, all are transmissible by the exchange of bodily fluids during intimate sexual contact. I want to discuss the severity of the problem as well as what must be done if we are to save a majority of the next generation from the shame, infertility, and sometimes death, that may result from STDs.
The information I am about to share is from data gathered by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health out of Austin, Texas. All of these statistics are readily available from reputable medical and scientific journals.
Today, there are approximately 25 STDs. A few can be fatal. Many women are living in fear of what their future may hold as a result of STD infection. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans between the ages of 15 and 55 are currently infected with one or more STDs, and 12 million Americans are newly infected each year. That's nearly 5% of the entire population of the U.S. Of these new infections, 63% are in people less than 25 years old.
See the full article at Human Life Alliance:
http://www.humanlife.org/abstinence_epidemic_std.php
Item #7. Scranton Diocese Priests Read Abortion Position Letter To Parishioners
In a statement, Mr. Genello wrote that Bishop Martino is directing pastors to read the letter aloud and circulate it in bulletins this year "because of the confusion and public misrepresentations about Catholic teaching on the life issues, particularly abortion, that have surfaced in the last few months" – an apparent reference to comments made by Catholic Democrats about the history of the church's position on abortion.
Full article at TheTime-Tribune.com:
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/09/30/news/sc_times_trib.20080930.a.pg1.tt30bishop_s1.1980663_top.txt
Item #8. Young Prison Population A Serious Concern
Almost all Pacific Island countries have a very young prison population where the majority of prisoners are between the ages of 19 to 20 years.
Full Article at radiofiji.com.fj: http://www.radiofiji.com.fj/fullstory.php?id=15180
Item #9. 'Eugenic Abortion': With Pre-Natal Testing, 9 In 10 Down's Syndrome Babies Aborted
In 1972, a year before the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion on demand nationwide, virtually all children with Trisomy 21, or Down's syndrome, were born. Less than a decade later, with the widespread availability of pre-natal genetic testing, as many as 90 percent of women whose babies were pre-natally diagnosed with the genetic condition chose to abort the child.
View entire text at CNSNews.com:
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=37421
Item #10. Woman Says No To Aborting Down Syndrome Baby: 'He's A Human Being'
Although Amanda Clarke was only 22 when she became pregnant with her first child, her obstetrician said she could be screened to see if her baby was at risk for Down syndrome and other genetic conditions. She said she agreed, feeling certain that a woman her age would bear a child free from disabilities.
View entire text at CNSNews.com:
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=37509
Item #11. OK To Rent Womb In India
Ever since her birth on July 25, the baby has been in a legal limbo because the Japanese couple – Mr Ikufumi Yamada, 45, and his wife Yuki Yamada, 41 – who had paid for the services of the surrogate mother, had divorced by then. While Mr Yamada wanted to keep the baby, his ex-wife did not want her any more.
View entire text at Straits Times:
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_286442.html
Item #12. Church Reiterates Position About Political Issues, Not Candidates
The church identifies abortion as intrinsically evil, along with destruction of embryos, euthanasia, racism, torture, genocide, terrorism and war against innocent civilians.
"With the Iraq war, we had a debate and we didn't think it met criteria for a just war," Dixon said.
Dixon said on immigration, the church advocates a path to citizenship with a guest worker program.
View entire text at Post-Tribune: http://www.post-trib.com/news/lake/1219538,gvote.article
You Can Change Society:
1. Be Informed: "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6. Visit Lifeissues.net Website for insights into current Life Issues www.lifeissues.net .
2. Pray Daily: for the courage to be God's presence in society and to strongly support those who are deemed "unworthy of life". "If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
3. Become Involved: "Journey for Life into the Heart of Asia" is a project, which appeals for donations to help finance plane travel for lectures and seminars to developing countries in Asia. Strong focus is placed on reaching Asian Catholic Major Seminaries, Universities, Parishes, Hospitals and Family/Pro Life related groups. The lectures place emphasis on "The Asian Family at Crossroads: Life Issues' Trends and Challenges". For inquires about no-cost Pro Life Talks to your group in Asia: contact Fr. Jerry at jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp . To become a supportive Missionary participant for this project in Asia, kindly send your donations directly to: Fr. Jerry Novotny, OMI; LifeIssues.net, Editor; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072; (or transfer donation directly to ProLife bank account: Jerome Novotny, Shikoku Bank, Asakura Branch, No. 102-1-0080824).
Contact Editor: Jerry Novotny, OMI; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072; Tel/Fax: 088-843-0406; E-Mail: jerry@lifeissues.net
Websites by Editor:
English LifeIssues Site: http://www.lifeissues.net,
Japanese LifeIssues Site: http://www.japan-lifeissues.net,
OMI Site: http://www.omijapankorea.net/index.html.
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17. National Updates – Oct 19, 2008
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/nationalupdates/081016ottawa.html
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18. News From CLC NS – October 20, 2008
The election is over and not much has changed. In Nova Scotia we did get rid of Robert Thibault who has been rated as a voice against the unborn and the protection of marriage, although he did vote in favour of C484. He has been replaced by Greg Kerr a former finance minister in the Buchanan cabinet. (John Buchanan was premier for a time and served on the Canadian senate) as a conservative. We do NOT know the views of Greg Kerr. So for the moment we likely do NOT have one pro-life MP from NS that is going to be in Ottawa. They need our prayers to govern wisely and to recognize the supremacy of God in our lives. Please keep them in our prayers along with the unborn and those connect with life and for the conversion of those associated with the abortion industry.
What happens south of the border sometimes spills over into Canada, like PET once said living close to the USA is like being in bed with an elephant, one move and we all feel the shock, or something to that affect. The last debate between McCain and Obama could very well end up being a very telling story about abortion future in the USA. Please consider viewing this link from lifeissues.org.
http://www.lifeissues.org/breakingnews/2008/debatetranscript.htm.
40 Days for Life is still going on until November and prayer warriors are still wanted for some time slots on the weekend, if you are interested contact Ellen at ellenchesal@accesscable.net. Visit their website at http://40daysforlife.com/halifax/ for an update on activities etc.
Campaign Life Coalition is now reviewing the results of the election and it does appear that we have a healthy number of confirmed MPs that are pro-life and that we will be able to work with. To keep up to date on world reports on family and life issues try visiting www.lifesite.net.
October 15, 2008
Media Release
Campaign Life Coalition will Work Closely with Elected Pro-Life MPs
Election 2008 is now history and political pundits are scanning numbers to see where they stand with the newly elected government.
“We too are counting numbers,” said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). “We are looking for candidates who are truly winners, that is, those who have committed themselves to take a stand for life,” he continued. “So far we are confident that we have a large number of returning pro-life MPs in both major parties and some new ones to work with as well.”
“Before we can advance the common good, the fundamental respect for life must be present. All other issues pale in comparison to the protection of all human life,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC National Organizer.
Campaign Life Coalition calls on pro-life people in all ridings to “adopt their MP”, pray for them, keep educating them on pro-life issues and keep in close contact between elections.
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LifeSiteNews.com – Thursday October 16, 2008
From Tim Bloedow, Christiangovernment.ca
Election analysis – God's judgment on the Liberals?
You can read my election analysis column at the No Apologies website. It begins:
It’s hard to look at this week’s Canadian election results and not reflect on the possibility of God’s judgment against the Liberal Party of Canada. Certainly they deserve it. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that it fell on Stephane Dion rather than those who enforced barbarianism on this country – but if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
The Liberals lost 19 seats, leaving them with only 76; they lost 16 seats in Ontario; they received 26.3% of the popular vote, down 4% from the last election, and the lowest in the party’s history.
The Liberals are the party of homosexual radicalism, which is also the agenda of replacing democratic liberty with totalitarianism.
The Liberals are the party of murder – dissecting living babies in their mother’s wombs.
The Liberals are the party of idolatry with a crackpot agenda of pantheistic earth worship with their Green Shift centrepiece agenda – even going so far as refusing to run a candidate in the riding where Green Party leader Elizabeth May was running...
You can read the rest of the column here.
From C-FAM
(These two ambassadors must feel very lonely in such an environment hostile to a culture of life?)
Strong Statements in Defence of the Unborn and the Family Voiced at UN – By Piero Tozzi
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) At the United Nations (UN) this week the nations of Malta and Fiji issued forceful interventions in defence of the unborn and the traditional family, respectively, as the Third Committee of the General Assembly (GA) began to address agenda items for the current session.
The permanent representative of Malta, Ambassador Saviour F. Borg, stated that abortion remains illegal in his country, and “Malta firmly continues to maintain that any position taken or recommendations made regarding women empowerment and gender equality should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights.”
The ambassador implicitly rebutted the claim, made by abortion rights activists and members of certain UN treaty bodies, that UN documents and treaties – specifically, the Convention of on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Malta acceded to in 1991 – require member states to allow abortion. He pointed out that terms like “reproductive rights” and “control of fertility” have consistently been interpreted by Malta not to include abortion, a position the Ambassador reiterated.
Ambassador Berenado Vunibobo of Fuji likewise put forward a strong defence of the family. Pointing to pro-family language that exists in both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he asserted the “primacy of the family structure” as the fundamental social unit and “the right of mothers and fathers to raise their children in accordance with their values and mores.”
The Fijian Ambassador criticized those “who would look at children’s ‘rights’ in isolation from the familial context, or seek to weaken the role of mothers and fathers in the care and upbringing of children.” He called on governments to be supportive of families but not to dictate policies from above, allowing decisions affecting the family to be made by parents, specifically referencing the principle of “subsidiarity” in that regard.
In so doing, Malta and Fiji gave voice to sentiments often expressed in private by representatives of member states, though not always articulated so forcefully in public settings. Belarus was also lauded for making a strong pro-natalist statement and emphasizing the important role of mothers.
In contrast with the statements made in defence of traditional mores, Brazil emphasized its support for “sexual and reproductive rights” and the eradication of “lesbian-phobia,” a term that it did not define. Brazil also praised the work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a UN agency that the United States has defunded on the ground that the group is complicit in China’s “coercive abortion” and “involuntary sterilization” programs.
Malta made its statement in connection with the topic “Advancement of Women,” whereas Fiji’s remarks were made with respect to the “Rights of the Child.” Both are areas that the GA’s Third Committee, which deals with social issues, will take up in the current session, expected to run through the end of November.
For more news, visit us at www.c-fam.org.
Pro-Abortion UN Petition Falters; Pro-Life Initiative Numbers Surging – By Samantha Singson
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) A month after the campaign was first reported in the Friday Fax, pro-abortion group Marie Stopes International has removed the ticker keeping track of names for their web-campaign calling for “Global Safe Abortion.”
The Friday Fax reported last month that after a year of campaigning the Marie Stopes abortion petition had garnered fewer than 600 signers. A month later, a count of campaign signatures reveals that only 50 more people have added their signatures to the Marie Stopes petition.
Conversely, a pro-life initiative that began less than two weeks ago as a counterpoint to the Marie Stopes campaign has yielded more than 26,000 signatures. The “International Call for the Rights and Dignity of the Human Person and the Family,” launched by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), has generated a massive response from concerned pro-lifers from around the globe.
The Marie Stopes campaign was launched at the International Global Safe Abortion Conference last October in London, an event held in conjunction with the Women Deliver conference, which was sponsored by various United Nations agencies including UNICEF. Both the conference and the campaign seek to bolster international commitment to abortion and call “for women’s access to legal, safe abortion to be recognized as a fundamental human right.”
The Marie Stopes call to action says that it is “intolerable” that restrictive laws, lack of resources and “politically and ideologically-motivated interference” remain obstacles for women to access “contraceptive and abortion technologies to save women’s lives.”
Campaign organizers plan to continue to collect signatures online and will seek institutional endorsement of the safe abortion call to action. They hope the call to action will be used at the international level as a tool to influence policy and generate funding to tackle the issue of unsafe abortion.
The C-FAM petition urges UN member states to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to give proper consideration to the right to life and the family.
The petition stresses that “the right to life of every human being, from conception to natural death, each child having the right to be conceived, born and educated within the family, based on marriage between a woman and a man, the family being the natural and fundamental group unit of society.” The petition also stresses the right of parents to choose how their children should be educated.
The petition is being circulated globally in French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch and Slovenian. The C-FAM campaign will run until the end of November and partner organizations from around globe will be running similar campaigns to bolster support for the right to life and family at the international level.
Both Marie Stopes and C-FAM plan to present their petitions to the UN community on December 10, when the UN commemorates the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational international human rights document.
C-FAM President Austin Ruse said, "We have known all along that support for radical abortion rights is supported mostly by elites. Ask everyday citizens around the world about abortion, and they are against it."
www.c-fam.org
October 2008
An Unheralded Victory for the Pro-Life Cause
The joint media release by First Place Pregnancy Centre and Planned Parenthood indicates to the trained eye that Goliath lies face down in the dust. – By Don Hutchinson
Sometimes today's Goliaths fail to take seriously the much smaller Davids of the world who do not display the indicia of being a warrior (see 1 Samuel 17:32 to 51 for the Biblical account of the giant warrior, Goliath, defeated by the young shepherd boy, David).
The ... media ... reported swiftly and fully on Planned Parenthood's assertion that First Place was an "anti-choice organization." Such is the situation announced in a press release concerning the recent settlement of a court case between Planned Parenthood – an international pro-abortion and pro teen sex Goliath and recipient of funding from several governments, including $18 million from Canada's federal government (under their new name "Canadian Federation for Sexual Health") – and the First Place Pregnancy Centre of Ottawa – a pro-life, pro-woman counseling centre that offers peer counseling and support services to pregnant women, including advising them of their full range of options (parenting, adoption, abortion) but does not make referrals to abortion centres.
In November 2007, Planned Parenthood Ottawa launched a media attack against First Place Pregnancy Centre, a charity selected by the Ottawa Senators' hockey player wives (The Sens' Better Halves) as one of several intended to benefit from a Christmas fundraising drive. The Ottawa media and the CBC reported swiftly and fully on Planned Parenthood's assertion that First Place was an "anti-choice organization." The Senators' foundation and management were pressured to remove First Place from the charity drive and, in the best interests of the team and their own reputation, First Place voluntarily withdrew. In so doing, First Place forfeited an estimated $25,000 dollars that would have come their way through the pre-Christmas effort and suffered serious damage to their reputation.
Rather than cower before Goliath, this David grabbed some stones and decided to do battle. First Place filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Ottawa. Again, the media picked up the story.
However, I haven't seen any media coverage of the recent settlement. But I did see a copy of the September 16, 2008 media release that announced it. The joint media release - and I stress "joint" because it was issued by both First Place and Planned Parenthood - appears to the untrained eye to mean the battle has ended because David was only posturing with Goliath. To the trained eye, however, Goliath lies face down in the dust.
Here is a sampling of the language used in the press release. (I know nothing more than what appears in the press release as a "no comment" confidentiality agreement accompanied the settlement and the folks at First Place are honouring that.)
First, the media release describes First Place and Planned Parenthood as meeting together for discussion "in a spirit of mutual respect." Mutual respect is not how one would generally characterize the history of Planned Parenthood's dealings in regard to crisis pregnancy centres. These words alone are a giveaway that whatever was determined in the settlement discussions was strongly in favour of First Place.
The next sentence states that Planned Parenthood "did not intend any harm to First Place." This is as close to "we were wrong" as most legal settlements ever get.
The release goes on to state, "Each of them acknowledge that the other represents an organization acting in good faith in accordance with its own mission to provide support services for people facing unintended pregnancies." It is unheard of that Planned Parenthood, or any self-described pro-choice organization, would describe a pro-life crisis pregnancy centre as acting in good faith in its provision of support for pregnant women. Until this press release, it was only those in the pro-life movement that would admit to such an assertion.
The next sentence describes First Place as "a respected community organization." Nowhere in the press release is Planned Parenthood described in such words.
The release concludes by noting that "First Place and PPO will have no further comment with respect to the allegations raised in the legal proceedings." The only allegations raised in this process were that Planned Parenthood had called First Place untrue names and defamed them. The wording of the press release, taken as an entirety, tells me that Planned Parenthood is no longer permitted to criticize the work of First Place as being anti-choice or otherwise inappropriate so long as First Place is conducting itself in accordance with its current stated mission.
Unfortunately, caught in the crossfire were the Sens' Better Halves, a group of women who stood by their cause even after the publicity broke nearly a year ago. Like the army of Saul before Goliath, the Ottawa Senators management and foundation shook in fear and have determined that the Sens' Better Halves will no longer have the privilege extended other NHL team wives and girlfriends. The Sens' Better Halves have been told that their fundraising days with the team are over. Apparently, the team's management hasn't taken to heart the lesson that King Saul might have learned in order to prevent the kingdom being taken from him. We commend the Sens' Better Halves for their courage.
This is an unheralded, unreported (until now) victory for First Place and for crisis pregnancy centres generally. This is deserving of celebration in the pro-life community.
Don Hutchinson is Vice-President, Centre for Faith and Public Life and General Legal Counsel with The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
Copyright (c) 2007 The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, All Rights Reserved.
http://archdioceseoftoronto.blogspot.com/
Oct 9, 2008
Statement from Archbishop Collins re: October 10 Order of Canada Ceremony Recognizing Henry Morgentaler
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_J0lbf096k5E/SO50hWzxZ-I/AAAAAAAAAkM/vRPth9nISyA/s1600-h/archbishop_collins.jpg] Official statement from His Grace, Archbishop Thomas Collins
October 9, 2008
Tomorrow, our Governor General will preside at a ceremony in which Henry Morgentaler will formally be received into the Order of Canada. This is a sad moment in Canadian history.
The Order of Canada was created to recognize the outstanding achievements of citizens who have desired and helped to create a better country. Is a country made better when those who are most vulnerable are not allowed to continue their brief experience of the precious gift of life itself?
He is being received into the Order of Canada despite the opposition of hundreds of thousands of Canadians. This action divides our country. It does not unite.
This ceremony is taking place as we are entering into the celebration of Thanksgiving, when loved ones will gather with their families across this nation. Around dining room tables this weekend, let us reflect deeply, and remember that while no one of us was ever a mere part of another's body, each one of us was, at one time, the precious unborn baby in our mother's womb. Let each of us thank God that our personal journey was not terminated. This is no abstract issue. Nothing affects you or me more profoundly. After all, you and I are here to give thanks on this Thanksgiving Day.
As I stated when this announcement was first made in July, I appeal to all of those who have suffered through an abortion, or who feel pressured to seek this path. The Archdiocese of Toronto website www.archtoronto.org continues to offer information which will guide you along a path that leads to life and inner peace. There are many people who are eager to listen to you, to love you, and to help you.
I ask that this Sunday be a day of special prayer throughout the Archdiocese of Toronto. We will, once again, offer this prayer at every Sunday Mass:
"That the scourge of abortion be lifted from our land, that those who promote it may be brought to a change of heart, that all who are tempted to abortion may be lovingly helped to protect the precious gift of life, and that all who have experienced an abortion may be comforted with the healing gift of love."
Morgentaler's shallow victory
On this day of INFAMY in Canada as our nation bestows its highest award on the man responsible for the deaths of more than 500,000 Canadian children, we would all do well to refresh our memory by reading this column from July 7, 2008. Shame on us.
Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post Published: Monday, July 07, 2008
Leave aside the merits of the case, well-debated elsewhere. Of course it's odious. Yet at the same time it has been highly instructive.
It turns out that abortion is not quite the settled issue it was supposed to be. Awarding the Order of Canada to Henry Morgentaler was intended to confer just that, a sense of settled legitimacy to the publicly funded unlimited abortion license. After all, if the old abortionist could be thrown in the mix with French fry magnates and heraldic experts and promoters of amateur sports and a smattering of superannuated politicians, well then it would seem that abortion is just another one of those soothing things that Canadian officialdom smiles upon, like producing documentary films or preserving indigenous languages.
That's why the abortion party lusted so long and so desperately after the OC for Morgentaler. Every so often one runs across informal campaigns to get the snowflake for this or that putative worthy, and invariably one hopes for a positive result, even if it seems, well, unseemly to be chasing after honours. But the Morgentaler campaign, stretching back over many years and involving several attempts, was an altogether different matter. The abortion party lathered itself up every so often with passionate public calls to let it snow upon the eminence grisly of abortion politics. In the end, it turned out that the customary selection procedures had to be modified in order to ram it through for Morgentaler, but finally it was done, and the grasping hands will soon clutch his prize.
Yet if Morgentaler's award was supposed to put the vice-regal seal of ordinariness upon unlimited abortion in Canada, his snowflake turned out to be unique indeed. It provoked widespread revulsion in some quarters, but more noteworthy, Rideau Hall conducted itself as if the matter left an embarrassing stench in the air.
"For his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations."
That's the brief citation explaining what Morgentaler's qualifications are. Notice anything missing? The man's name is synonymous with abortion; one doesn't drop into a Morgentaler clinic for a bad back. He does one thing, and one thing only, and yet Rideau Hall could not bring itself to even mention it.
They slotted him into the "health care" category, even though any doctor will tell you that vacuuming children out of the womb is not ground-breaking medicine, or even particularly respectable in the medical profession. There were other clinicians on the list this time, and the citations were not so circumspect. One was a researcher in the "study of stroke and dementia," another a nurse providing "readjustment services for people suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction" and a third "for leadership in prosthodontic dentistry, notably for introducing dental implantology to North American dentists."
Why not tell us what Morgentaler did? Even in his moment of triumph, the eyes need to be averted. That's the instructive lesson of the episode, not so much that Morgentaler was finally dragged across the threshold of Rideau Hall, but that it was so distasteful for all concerned. Canada, due to the lawlessness of Morgentaler, the connivance of the courts and the pusillanimity of federal parliamentarians, has the most libertine abortion regime on the planet – anytime, any reason, with the taxpayer writing the cheque. Canadians don't like to be reminded that we are extremists on abortion, and giving Morgentaler the snowflake is a reminder that we are seriously adrift when it comes to common sense on abortion policy.
It's even worse than that: Lauding Morgentaler for services to "health care" stains that proudest boast of Canadian public policy – the health care system. If you don't want to mention abortion, then Morgentaler's great achievement was to operate freestanding for-profit abortion clinics across the land, sending the bill to the government for every abortion performed.
The same governments who heroically labour to prevent for-profit hip replacements and MRI scans happily write millions in cheques for private clinic abortions.
That calls for eyes closed, not merely averted. Morgentaler not only bloodied his own hands, but he gave abortion pride of place in the Canadian health care system. The Order of Canada was supposed to make Morgentaler and the hyper-extremism of the abortion party seem normal.
The protest of opponents and the obfuscation of supporters have ensured that hasn't happened. Honouring Morgentaler has only served to remind us of something embarrassing we would prefer to forget.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
From Terry On'Neills
Western Report story on Morgentaler and Order of Canada has finally made it on line, at http://www.reportmagazine.ca/web/index.php. Please feel free to spread the good news!
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