http://www.humanlife.net Pro-life resources for HumanLife en-us Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:06:04 PST Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:06:04 PST http://backend.userland.com/rss092 info@familyed.info (Mister Smith) webmaster@familyed.info (Mister Jones) http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=761 Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:06:04 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=761 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=760 IN CASE YOU FORGOT THAT NO PLANNED PARENTHOOD EVER OFFERED MAMMOGRAMS Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:35:35 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=760 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=759 HUMAN LIFE OF WASHINGTON JOINS IN CONGRATULATING THE SUSAN G. KOMEN FOUNDATION. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.,/Christian Newswire/ -- Leaders of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign (SNMAC) today hailed the Susan G. Koman for the Cure Foundation's announcement that it will no longer give money to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, or any other organization under Congressional investigation. "This is more than welcome news, especially to the post-abortive women of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign who are breast cancer survivors," said Janet Morana, co-founder of SNMAC. "Of the 70 epidemiological studies that have been conducted worldwide since 1957, 80% report a risk increase of breast cancer for women who have had abortions. The Susan G. Komen Foundation's donations to Planned Parenthood were as nonsensical as would be the American Lung Association donating to a tobacco manufacturer." "No one is more anxious to find a cure for breast cancer than the women of Silent No More," added Georgette Forney, also a co-founder of SNMAC. "This is a plague that affects us personally and deeply. We recently lost a dear co-worker to breast cancer; the disease is all too familiar to our membership. On behalf of the breast cancer victims and survivors of Silent No More, I can't thank the Susan G. Komen Foundation enough for this decision." The Silent No More Awareness Campaign and other pro-life women's groups have worked for years to disseminate the facts on the abortion/breast cancer link. Eve Sanchez Silver, a former Susan G. Komen medical research analyst and Hispanic outreach director, deserves special thanks for her tireless efforts to educate women, especially Latinas, on the breast cancer risk caused by abortion. Ms. Sanchez Silver, a two-time breast cancer survivor who left the Komen Foundation because of its donations to Planned Parenthood, appeared on Priests for Life's Defending Life television program as part of those efforts. Alveda King, fulltime Priests for Life associate and a spokeswoman for SNMAC, added today, "There are abortion clinics across the United States located on or near boulevards named after my uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They have been dealing death to babies and, according to objective scientific research, breast cancer to women for decades. The Susan G. Komen Foundation's new policy will save lives by making abortion, and therefore breast cancer, less prevalent in all communities." Since the launching of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign in 2003, 4,845 women and men have shared their testimonies publicly at over 865 gatherings in 48 states and ten countries where more than 110,830 attendees have heard the truth about abortion's negative aftereffects. More than 10,100 people representing 57 countries are registered to be Silent No More. Raising awareness about the hurtful aftermath of abortion and the help that is available to cope with the pain are two of the Campaign's goals. The Campaign has over 1,300 testimonies posted here, with over 120 that are shared via video! Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:28:44 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=759 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=758 THE ABORTION EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Illegal, unconstitutional, and hypocritical. Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:31:14 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=758 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=757 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:14:26 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=757 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=756 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:41:56 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=756 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=755 by Michael Paulsen "I will not here belabor the question of whether the intentional killing of innocent, dependent, vulnerable human children is a grave moral wrong. My concluding point concerns the lengths to which we will go to deny the reality of this holocaust, because it is almost unbearable to contemplate and still go on living life as if nothing is terribly wrong. The cognitive dissonance is simply too great. And so we have become, in effect, a nation of holocaust deniers. Here is the problem, undressed: If human embryonic life is morally worthy of protection, we have permitted sixty million murders under our watch. Faced with this prospect, many of us,maybe even most,flee from the facts. We deny that the living human embryo is "truly" or "fully" human life, adopt a view that whether the embryo or fetus is human "depends," or can be judged in degrees, on a sliding scale over the course of pregnancy; or we proclaim uncertainty about the facts of human biology; or we proclaim moral agnosticism about the propriety of "imposing our views on others"; or we throw up our hands and give up because moral opposition to an entrenched, pervasive social practice is not worth the effort, discomfort, and social costs. The one position not on the table,the one possibility too hard to look at,is that abortion is a grave moral wrong on a par with the greatest human moral atrocities of all time and that we passively, almost willingly, accept it as such." MORE... Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:59:36 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=755 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=754 LifeNews.com Planned Parenthood will use this continued corruption of science to deceive lawmakers... Here's the truth: Evangeline Jones of Americans United for Life says, "Recent analyses of large medical databases that link to death certificates ("record linkage studies") show that pregnancy-associated deaths are between two and four times higher for women who abort than for women who deliver." She noted, "These studies represent, according to one researcher, "the best available medical evidence on the issue," in contrast to "prior comparisons of mortality rates…crudely constructed on the basis of an incomplete and inaccurate reporting system." For example, deaths from abortion often go unreported to cover up the abortion or, perhaps, the abortionist. Substitute terms, such as "uncontrolled hemorrhage," might be listed as the cause of death." The Reuters news agency is pushing a biased study claiming that abortion is safer than childbirth , a study conducted by abortion advocates and a Reuters report void of any comments or rebuttal from pro-life organizations. The day after the March for Life, Reuters promoted a study conducted by Elizabeth Raymond and David Grimes. "Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion," Reuters reported. "Experts say the findings, though not unexpected, contradict some state laws that suggest abortions are high-risk procedures. In their report, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, Raymond and Grimes write that the findings aren't surprising given that women are pregnant for a lot longer when they decide to have a baby and so have more time to develop complications." But Paul Wilson of the Culture and Media Institute says "Reuters failed to include vital information about the study and the people it quoted - namely, that the authors of the study and both of the experts it cited were either abortion doctors or had strong ties to the abortion industry." Wilson notes: "Grimes was described by the Los Angeles Times in 1990 as "North America's best-known researcher on RU-486, the French-made abortion drug that opponents call "the death pill," "the chemical coat hanger," "the human pesticide" and "the Dalkon Shield of the '90s." Grimes also protested against restrictions on partial birth abortion in 2007." "Raymond works for Gynuity Health Projects, which states that it "works globally to ensure that reproductive health technologies are available at reasonable cost." Raymond's bio notes that she considers abortion to be a "centerpiece of health issues for women,'" he indicates. "In other words, avowed pro-abortion advocates did the study. How surprising it turned out favorable to abortion." Wilson also says the two so-called "outside experts" Reuters used to verify the study also have abortion ties. "Anna Davis, who was described as a doctor "who studies obstetrics and gynecology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York," writes for the pro-abortion blog RH Reality Check - and is a former board member of the pro-abortion supporting Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. And Bryna Harwood, the other expert quoted by Reuters, was associated with the same group as Davis, and is an abortion doctor herself," Wilson said. "Needless to say, pro-life sources were nowhere to be found in the Reuters article." But other studies show childbirth is safer than abortion and Evangeline Jones of Americans United for Life says, "Recent analyses of large medical databases that link to death certificates ("record linkage studies") show that pregnancy-associated deaths are between two and four times higher for women who abort than for women who deliver." She noted, "These studies represent, according to one researcher, "the best available medical evidence on the issue," in contrast to "prior comparisons of mortality rates…crudely constructed on the basis of an incomplete and inaccurate reporting system." For example, deaths from abortion often go unreported to cover up the abortion or, perhaps, the abortionist. Substitute terms, such as "uncontrolled hemorrhage," might be listed as the cause of death." In late 2009, the World Economic Forum issued its annual Gender Gap Report. According to its data, maternal mortality is lower in nations with pro-life laws restricting abortions. Countries with permissive abortion law have higher maternal death rates. Ireland, which has constitutional protection for the unborn, has the lowest maternal mortality rate in Europe: 1 maternal death per 100,000 live births. Poland, another country with restrictive laws on abortion, has 8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In contrast, the United States, with permissive laws on abortion, has 11 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Figures for other areas in the world confirmed the pattern: countries with the most restrictive abortion laws had the lowest maternal morality rates. In early 2010, a study in Chile shows that bans on abortion do not increase maternal deaths. Their research found that maternal mortality peaked in Chile in 1961, at a time when abortion was legal. Abortions caused 34 percent of maternal deaths that year. In contrast, in 2007, after Chile banned abortion, maternal mortality rates had been lowered 97.9 percent. Hence, greater access to abortion does not result in lower maternal mortality. The "reproductive justice movement" fails to realize this in its demand for cheaper and more convenient abortion service. "Real reproductive justice calls for full disclosure. In addition to comparative mortality figures, other risks of abortion must be made known: increased risks of pre-term births and placenta previa; increased incidence of depression, suicide, substance abuse, and psychiatric admission; loss of the protective effect of a first full term pregnancy against breast cancer; and increased risk of death and injury from violent assaults," Jones concludes. "Real reproductive justice relies on accurate, up-to-date, and complete information about all the risks of abortion and childbirth." Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:48:49 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=754 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=753 by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com "In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences," said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The nation's Catholic bishops called "literally unconscionable" a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. MORE ... Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:07:35 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=753 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=752 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:10:05 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=752 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=751 Were you there last year... Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:21:30 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=751 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=750 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:54:47 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=750 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=749 Narrated by Governor Mike Huckabee. You can purchase a dvd here: http://thegiftoflifemovie.com/trailer.aspx See The Gift of Life with Mike Huckabee FREE West Coast Movie Premiere - Cedar Park Church "Life Sunday" January 22nd - 6 PM Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:22:51 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=749 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=748 Gee, what a shocker, huh... From LifeNews.com While ABC, CBS and NBC kept its scandals quiet, abortion group raked in 34 percent more federal money in 2011. Less than 8 percent (4 out of 55) of stories on three major networks about Planned Parenthood in 2011 mention scandals Media focus on trivial stories about celebrities (38 stories on Charlie Sheen, 10 stories on Mila Kunis' Marine Corps Ball invite), bury Planned Parenthood-related scandals with just four mentions 61 percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in "only a few" or no circumstances, yet Planned Parenthood, nation's largest abortion provider, receives $487 million in federal funding. keep reading... Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:40:27 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=748 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=747 By E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil., Senior Fellow And Director, Fellows Program Culture of Life Foundation In the September 2011 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, Priscilla K. Coleman, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, published an influential statistical analysis of the existing research on the question of abortion and mental health (reported to be the "largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature"; see my Sept. 14 Zenit article ). Her study concludes that women who have induced abortions because of unwanted pregnancies suffer an incredible 81% increased risk of mental health problems across a variety of categories. keep reading... Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:40:03 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=747 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=746 Colleen Carroll Campbell is a St. Louis-based author, former presidential speechwriter, and television and radio host of "Faith & Culture" on EWTN. I most often encounter her work by reading her columns from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She is as eloquent as she is indignant in denouncing ugly behavior. The title of her latest piece is "Don't Call Them Vegetables." Keep reading Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:54:41 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=746 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=745 By MARGARET SOMERVILLE Editor's note. Dr. Somerville's article is in response to an article in a Danish newspaper headlined "Plans to make Denmark a Down syndrome-free perfect society." She is the founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University in Quebec. Margaret Sommerville According Danish news paper Berlingske, "Denmark has decided not listen to people who may complain of human selection and have put their foot on the ground to promote increased abortion of foetuses suspected of having Down syndrome." As such, if progress continues at this rate, the last case to be born with the illness will be around the year 2030. Aarhus University bioethicist, Niels Uldbjerg, "describes it as a "fantastic achievement" that the number of newborns with Down syndrome is approaching zero." The report continues: "What's next? Is the child born with diabetes…[to] be discarded?" asks Ulla Brendstrup, the mother of a child with Down syndrome." Lillian Bondo, a member of the Denmark Ethics Committee is, who is also chairman of the association of midwives, told Berlingske she "wants to help as many people as possible to discuss how society should draw the line. I do not want a society in which sorting by [testing] is the norm." At least the Danes are bringing this issue into the open and are being more honest about it than we are in Canada. The current estimates are that in North America over 90 percent of unborn babies with Down syndrome are aborted. Importantly, the Danes are also recognizing that "deselecting" Down syndrome children-or any other group who are likewise selected for elimination-raises issues for society and is not just a matter of private decision-making by individuals. And this issue will only become more prevalent as prenatal tests for genetic and other conditions expand, become cheaper and easier to use, and are presented to pregnant women as routine precautions in medically managing a pregnancy. Widespread, publicly endorsed and paid for pre-natal screening implicates among other values, those of respect for human life, both individual human life and human life in general ; respect for "disabled" (differently abled) people, both as individuals and as a group; and respect for the rights to autonomy and self-determination of pregnant woman. It also raises issues of the ethics of society's support for and complicity in any breach of values involved, and, likewise, of medicine's complicity in such breaches. We cannot afford just to consider the impact of screening decisions at the level of individual decision-making; we must consider also the impact of these decisions as a collective reality, that is, as a cumulative whole. As harsh as the language is, we must ask ourselves, "Are we on a "search and destroy" mission to wipe out certain groups of people?" If we don't want Down syndrome children, for example, in our society, what are our reasons and justifications? Are those reasons and justifications ethically acceptable? We must also place this proposal in another wider context, that of no legal restrictions on abortion in Canada. Is it ethically acceptable to abort a Down syndrome child at eight months of gestation? Are we implementing a new eugenics? To respond we need to take heed of history - to look back seven generations - to inform ourselves of the possible consequences of doing so, and use our imaginations to look forward seven generations to try to imagine where endorsing this screening might lead. We have unprecedented new technoscience powers - history teaches us that the use of science in the search for human perfection has been at the root of some of our greatest atrocities in terms of respect for human life, individual humans and human rights. We humans have always used a shared story to bind us together as a society. Norms and values are a central part of that story and in both creating and maintaining them, we have always focused on the two great events in every human life - birth and death. Consequently, when we change the norms and values surrounding birth, we change our societal norms and values, in general. Offering prenatal screening as a routine procedure radically alters the basic presumption on which the traditional norm has been founded, that pregnancy results in the birth of a child, unless some natural events frustrate that outcome. It communicates a message that a woman is conditionally pregnant, until she is told there is "nothing wrong" with the baby. That is a major change from needing an ethical justification to end the pregnancy, to holding affirmation of the pregnancy in suspense until the fetus is certified as "normal". How does this approach impact on our concept of parental love - that it is unconditional - that we love our children just because they are our children? I suggest that it constitutes a condonnation of negative eugenics. And quite apart from the ethics of doing that, what does it mean in terms of approving and promoting positive eugenics, that is, genetically designing or enhancing our children? If parental love is conditional, will we only love them if they have certain positive traits that we have chosen? And what about the "everyday ethics" involved in this situation? If, as has been proposed in Quebec, all pregnant women should be offered screening for Down syndrome, are all physicians competent to obtain informed consent to these tests and carry out follow up genetic counseling? The answer in many cases is "no". And what about physicians who have conscientious objections to offering such tests? What range of tests will be offered and how rapidly will this increase? How will women who refuse screening be regarded? Some research shows they worry that physicians disapprove of their decision as unreasonable and that that will adversely affect the physician-patient relationship. The physician-patient relationship is also one of unequal power, which means it is difficult even for highly educated, confident patients, let alone the average person, to go against their physician's recommendations. Those conditions, in themselves, create a climate of coercion not to refuse the screening. What will be the impact on families who "choose" not to abort when "abnormalities" are discovered, that is, they "choose" to have a disabled child? Many of these people believe that they will be seen as socially irresponsible. That belief, in itself, creates a climate of coercion not to proceed with the pregnancy. What will be the impact on people with disabilities of the same or similar nature to those screened for and the elimination of unborn children who have them? The message, whether we like it or not, that we will be delivering at the societal level is that "We don't want you in our society unless you measure up to a certain genetic or other standard. You are only a potential member, until you've passed the admission test that we are willing to pay for with our tax dollars and implement". The argument that only individual decision making is involved in carrying out pre-natal screening is disingenuous, even now, and will become impossible if screening were implemented as the norm. The unavoidable collective impact of these screening-based decisions is the resulting fact of implementing negative eugenics with respect to disabled people. The conditions these tests screen for are not treatable; the only recourse that is possible or intended is to eliminate the fetus with them. Instead of being seen as a unique human, who never existed before and never will again (cloning aside), the child becomes replaceable: "We will get rid of this one and try again". Societally approved and supported screening endorses that mindset. There is a radical difference ethically and in the values upheld or breached, between screening as an exceptional intervention that needs ethical justification and screening as a normalized routine intervention. And so far I haven't mentioned the ethical issues raised by the tests themselves, for instance, false positive results and, often, difficulties in their interpretation, and the crude nature of our predictive abilities as to what certain identified "abnormalities" mean in terms of the person's functioning. For many reasons, including defensive medicine (fear of legal liability) physicians on the whole err on the very pessimistic side in predicting the impact on the child of the abnormalities detected and usually see no possible benefits from having such a child - for instance, unless they themselves have a Down syndrome child, they can be astonished to learn of the joy, bonding and love such a child can bring to a family. There is a truism "you can't have it both ways" that is relevant here. The justification used to argue that prenatal screening is ethically acceptable is respect for the right to autonomy and self-determination of the pregnant woman and, sometimes in practice, those same rights of the father - that is, these are rights of the parents with respect to the characteristics of the children they are willing to rear as members of their family. The same argument - that these are only decisions by individuals that they have a right to make - is used to refute the argument that these decisions, at least cumulatively, constitute a new 21st Century eugenics. The introduction of routine, widespread screening approved by society and supported by taxpayers dollars makes this argument - whether or not one accepts it, which I do not - completely untenable, which means such an approach to screening should be ethically unacceptable to everyone. Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:39:48 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=745 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=743 It's still hard for me to fathom that hardcore abortion activists rejoice, that what only a few decades ago in World War II was considered a war crime, is now considered a "right." - This evolving genocide is the scientizing of barbarity. Why can't we see it? People view with suspicion almost anything an undemocratic government does, but people in liberal democracies have difficulty comprehending malevolent and tyrannical policies by their own government: attacks on rights of conscience, genocide against the unborn, attacks on religious freedom. Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:55:19 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=743 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=742 WRITTEN BY MARY MEEHAN Why does the warm heart of liberalism turn to ice on the subject of unborn children? Why do so many liberals support abortion and Roe v. Wade? These are not easy questions to answer, given liberal convictions that should instead lead them to oppose abortion. As someone with an early background in antiwar politics, and who lived through the legalization of abortion, I will suggest reasons why so many liberals support it. Then I will offer many reasons why they should, instead, defend the unborn. Most of those reasons should also appeal to radicals and libertarians. I hope that all will consider my case, both in their personal lives and in thinking about public policy. keep reading Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:46:37 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=742 http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=741 Local pro-life advocates have obtained more details concerning a woman who was recently victimized by a botched abortion at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Everett, Washington. The facility sent a woman in to the hospital in late March and local pro-life advocate Mary Emanuel was at the abortion facility at the time and snapped pictures of the ambulance that whisked the woman away. John Hubert of the blog Abortion in Washington, obtained the tapes of the phone call from Planned Parenthood staff to emergency personnel requesting the ambulance. keep reading Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:15:29 PST http://www.humanlife.net/view_onenews.htm?nid=741