4/25/01
in this issue:
bush watch: REPORT CARD bush watch
REPORT CARD: Since George W. Bush took office in January, the
following facts remain true:
QUESTION: What's wrong with this picture?
(Reading: "Thompson
Ignores Documented Risk of RU-486 Death and Injury," ALL news release,
4/19/01; "Despite
Researchers' Slave-owner Mentality, Embryonic Humans Are Persons, Not
Property," ALL news release, 4/18/01; "RU-486 Medicaid Abortion
Funding: The Lie Continues," ALL news release, 4/6/01; "Bush Could Reduce Abortions
Overnight by Banning the 'Morning-after' Pill," ALL news release,
2/7/01;; updates on various Bush Administration antics are also available
from Republican Coalition for Life FaxNotes, issued weekly)
congress
UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT: Planned Parenthood's Choice Action
Network points out, "By defining 'unborn child' as 'a member of the
species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the
womb,' this bill could give separate federal protection to a fertilized
egg, embryo or fetus."
COMMENT: Amazing how truth escapes the architects of the culture
of death. For example, the term "fertilized egg" is inaccurate and
dehumanizing to the tiniest human person.
(Reading: "Stop the So-called 'Unborn Victims of Violence' Act,"
Responsible Choices Action Network, 4/20/01, e-mail alert. Updates on the
status of the bill, HR 503, can be found at US Congress)
fetal tissue research
PARKINSON'S DISEASE: Recent studies have shown that not only have
fetal tissue transplants (tissue taken from 7- to 8-week-old embryos)
failed to help victims of Parkinson's disease, but such transplants have
exacerbated problems for the victims and made the disease much worse.
In a commentary on the study, Fischbach and McKhann opine "It is
unlikely, for both practical and biologic reasons, that transplantation of
fragments of embryonic tissue will be the therapy of the future. In the
present study, tissue from the midbrain of two embryos was injected on
each side of the brain in each patient. Parkinson's disease is not a rare
disorder: estimates of prevalence in the United States range between
700,000 and 1 million. The number of fetuses required would be staggering,
even if only a small proportion of the patients were to receive
transplants. Moreover, heterogeneity within tissue fragments is a major
barrier to reproducibility."
(Reading "Doubts Over Cell Therapy for Parkinson's Disease," The Lancet, 3/17/01, p. 859, search
by title of editorial, text free after registration completed; "Transplantation
of Embryonic Dopamine Neurons for Severe Parkinson's Disease," New
England Journal of Medicine, 3/8/01, pp. 710-718, abstract free; full text
requires paid subscription; "Cell Therapy
for Parkinson's Disease," New England Journal of Medicine, 3/8/01, pp.
763-765; "Fetal Tissue Transplants Cripple Patients," National Catholic Register, 3/25/01)
former abortion providers
SOCIETY OF CENTURIONS OF AMERICA: Former abortion clinic nurse Joan
Appleton has been instrumental in bringing the Society of Centurions,
founded by Canadian Philip Ney, M.D., to the United States. To learn more
about the members and their stories, see "Abortion
Providers Share Their Stories"; to contact them directly, as they do
not have a web site, write Society of Centurions of America, P.O. Box
75368, St. Paul, MN 55175 or call 651-771-1500.
human cloning
CLONAID: The Raelian Religion cult leader, Rael, founded the first
human cloning company, Clonaid, and has also supported the idea of human
brain transplants, as currently being researched by Professor Robert White
of Cleveland, Ohio. The chief human cloning researcher for Clonaid, Dr.
Brigitte Boisselier, "resigned as a visiting chemistry professor" at
Hamilton College so that she could devote full time to concentrate on
cloning a human baby.
(Reading: "Upstate
Prof Quits to Clone Humans," New York Post, 4/5/01; "Rael Supports
Brain Transplants," PR Newswire,
4/10/01, and search "Rael"; also see Raelian web site)
morning-after abortion pill
MODE OF ACTION: Sister Paula Vandegaer, LCSW, founder of
International Life Services, writes about the birth control treatment for
rape victims: "The currently used hormonal treatment is Preven which is
basically a high dosage birth control pill given within 12 hours and
repeated. The 'rationale' given for prescribing Preven is 'to prevent a
pregnancy.' However, if a woman is in the fertile phase of her menstrual
cycle, the sperm may reach the egg in the fallopian tube within 15 minutes
and fertilize the egg, (conception). If conception has occurred, Preven
will interfere with implantation of the embryo in the uterus, thus acting
as an abortifacient. If the rape occurred either before or after the
woman's fertile phase, taking Preven is useless since, outside the fertile
phase, no egg is available for fertilization, and pregnancy is
impossible."
(Reading: "Introduction to Pregnancy Counseling," Chapter 11, p. 113;
to learn more, see International
Life Service)
SURVEY: Of more than 100 pro-life groups surveyed by American
Life League, the vast majority understand that the morning after pills can
cause early abortion and explicitly condemn them for that reason; many
affiliate groups of National Right to Life Committee, and the NRLC itself,
do not.
(Reading: "Why Won't NRLC
Specifically Oppose Morning-after Abortion Pills?" ALL news release,
4/20/01)
personhood
FETAL PROTECTION: Earlier this year in Arkansas a jury convicted a
man of "capital murder" for hiring others to beat his pregnant girlfriend
and kill her fetus. The case marked the first time the state Fetal
Protection Act was tested. The 1999 law allows "murder charges if a fetus
is at least in the 12th week of gestation" and dies as the result of a
violent crime.
QUESTION: Abortion is a violent crime, why does it exist? What
about all those preborn Arkansans who are already alive but are NOT twelve
weeks old? Does anyone care?
(Reading: "Man Who Got Others to Kill Fetus Convicted," Pro Life
Education Association of Maine News, 3/01; "Arkansas
Man Gets Life in Prison for Killing Unborn Child," Daily Catholic,
2/12/01; for similar stories that have been in the news, see People for Life of Erie,
Pennsylvania)
siamese twins
ENGLAND -- JODIE and MARY REVISITED: Bioethicist George Annas has
analyzed the legal questions regarding the court decisions which overrode
parental rights in Britain and gave doctors permission to take the life of
one twin in the hope of saving the other twin. He opines, "The case seems
to have been decided not on the basis of the law (which most of the judges
found of little help) but on an intuitive judgment that the state of being
a conjoined twin is a disease and that separation is the indicated
treatment for it, at least if such treatment affords one of the twins a
chance to live. The judges identified strongly with the physicians and had
little empathy with the parents or their religious beliefs. I think all
these factors led each judge to make problematic legal statements." Annas
defends the rights of parents to make the final decision even though he
sees the taking of the life of one twin to allegedly benefit the other as
"the lesser of two evils."
A second ethicist comments, "The parents were neither incompetent nor
negligent - the standard justifications for depriving parents of such
authority - and their reasoning was not eccentric or merely religious, but
was widely acceptable moral reasoning - as was the contrary moral
reasoning justifying an operation. The court should thus have declined to
deprive the parents of their normal responsibilities and rights in order
to impose its own preferred resolution of the moral dilemma, and should
have allowed the parents to refuse medical intervention - while still
ruling as it did, that such separation would not have been unlawful had
the parents consented."
QUESTION: When is killing an innocent person a debatable
question? When there are no moral absolutes universally respected by a
civilized people.
(Reading: "Conjoined Twins
-- the Limits of Law at the Limits of Life," New England Journal of
Medicine, 4/5/01, pp. 1104-1108; "Imposed Separation of Conjoined Twins:
Moral Hubris by the English Courts?" Journal of Medical Ethics, 2001:27,
pp. 3-4)
reflection for prayer
POPE GREGORY THE GREAT (540-604AD): Commenting on how to acquire
virtue, he writes, "Hence Paul warns his disciples, saying, 'I want you to
be wise in what is good but guileless in evil.' And again, 'do not be like
boys in your thinking, but be like infants in evil.' Thus the Truth
himself bids his disciples, 'Be wise as serpents and simple as doves.' In
this command he has deliberately joined the two ideas together: the
serpent's cunning compliments the dove's simplicity, and the dove's
simplicity moderates the serpent's cunning. This is why the Holy Spirit
reveals his presence to men not only as a dove but also as fire. For the
dove symbolizes simplicity, and the fire, intense dedication. Thus the
dove and the fire, taken together, have a special significance: whoever is
filled with the Spirit becomes so dedicated to this gentle simplicity that
he is also aflame with the zeal of righteousness against the faults of
sinners."
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