Greetings from LifeIssues.net (www.LifeIssues.net)
Dear Friends for Life,
Due to the New Year holidays, there will be no LifeIssues.net newsletter for January 3, 2010. The first issue for the New Year will begin January 10th. With that, I share a thought with you for the coming year: "Every moment of our life is most precious. We should not fritter it away in useless pursuits, but devote it in the search of self and God, of the deep meaning of human life and its application to our surrounding culture."
God Bless
Jerry Novotny, OMI
(Quote) If people contemplate and really see the sanctity of life, their "quality of life" arguments fall away and they will understand that we are here to care for each other, not to kill each other. Caring, and not convenience, is the sign of a civilized and just society! -Ron Panzer
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Lifeissues.net NEWSLETTER #455
December 27, 2009
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(TABLE OF CONTENTS):
1. a little boy's cry for help
2. Women have a right to the truth on abortion
3. Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules
4. Doctors allowed to destroy embryos
5. Madrid schools teaching 13 year-olds how to use condoms
6. No Human Rights for Fetuses because of Undeveloped Nervous System: Ethicists
7. Euthanasia Advocate Attacks Bishops' Bioethics Revision
8. Majority in US Opposed to Homosexual "Marriage"
9. Commentary: Christmas with Congress, A Seat for Aborted Souls
10. New Paper Links UN Promotion of "Safe" Abortion to Maternal Deaths
11. People as Pollution? Using Environment to Push Pro-Abortion Population Control
12. 'Vegetative State' Often Misdiagnosed
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(FOCUS ON ASIA): "Restaurateur's passion is aiding others" - Eight years ago, he read a newspaper article in the Philippines that changed his life. It was about a baby born with heart disease who needed a very expensive operation to survive. The parents were very poor and couldn't afford the operation, so they were looking for donations. http://www.worldpress.org/link.cfm?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/japantimes/~3/mnEoWhH_J3o/fl20091219a1.html
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ITEM #1. a little boy's cry for help
Yesterday brought the news that an 8-year-old boy in Taunton, Massachusetts, had been sent home from school because he drew a picture of Christ on the cross.
View full article at Catholic Culture:
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=571
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ITEM #2. Women have a right to the truth on abortion
The nurse was adamant that a fetus is not a baby "until birth," while the abortionist suggested it "may be seven or eight months." The nurse was equally strong in her assertion that a fetus has no heartbeat until 17 to 18 weeks. So much for medical accuracy and professional ethics. Equally stunning was the response by Planned Parenthood: "Our standard is to provide honest, medically accurate information, and that is what the physician in this case did." Really?
Embryologist Dr. Dianne Irving of the National Institutes of Health and professor of medical ethics at Georgetown University, and Dr. Ward Kischler, professor emeritus of cell biology and anatomy with a specialty in embryology at the University of Arizona, have publicly denounced the "absurd and scientifically erroneous" information by Planned Parenthood.
View full article at JSOnline:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/79561242.html
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ITEM #3. Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules
Unable to have a baby of her own, Amy Kehoe became her own general contractor to manufacture one. For Ms. Kehoe and her husband, Scott, the idea seemed like their best hope after years of infertility.
View full article at NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/us/13surrogacy.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=building%20a%20baby%20with%20few%20ground%20rules&st=cse
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ITEM #4. Doctors allowed to destroy embryos
The Irish Medical Council has issued new guidelines on fertility treatment which doctors say will allow them to destroy surplus human embryos for the first time in Ireland.
View full article at The Sunday Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6954660.ece
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ITEM #5. Madrid schools teaching 13 year-olds how to use condoms
The Spanish organization Professionals for Ethics has slammed the president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, who despite her promises to the contrary, has allowed schools to teach 13 year-olds how to use condoms.
View full article at CNA:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/madrid_schools_teaching_13_yearolds_how_to_use_condoms/
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ITEM #6. No Human Rights for Fetuses because of Undeveloped Nervous System: Ethicists
While the unborn child could be considered a "patient," such a status should not be confused with having human rights - something the child would only gain later thanks to a more developed nervous system, insist the authors of a new report justifying the ethics of abortion. In a response to the article, however, a director at the National Catholic Bioethics Center said that the authors "really ought to learn to pick on those their own size," saying that "human fetuses or newborns do not need to be able to balance a checkbook or have a nervous system" before being given human rights.
See the full article at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09122206.html
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ITEM #7. Euthanasia Advocate Attacks Bishops' Bioethics Revision
One leading national euthanasia advocate has attacked the U.S. Bishops' revision of bioethics rules to protect cognitively disabled individuals from being starved and dehydrated to death.
Article is located at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09122207.html
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ITEM #8. Majority in US Opposed to Homosexual "Marriage"
A newly released Angus Reid poll shows that the majority of Americans are opposed to same-sex "marriage."
Article can be found at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09122208.html
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ITEM #9. Commentary: Christmas with Congress, A Seat for Aborted Souls
In Bethlehem, Herod killed all male children under 2 years of age because he felt threatened. On Capitol Hill, battles are raging to keep the abortion mills running. Who threatens you, Pelosi? Why are you determined to murder our children, Reid?
View entire text at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09122202.html
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ITEM #10. New Paper Links UN Promotion of "Safe" Abortion to Maternal Deaths
A recent submission to the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) provides evidence of the potentially fatal consequences of "safe" abortion promoted by UN agencies, and includes a list of 113 studies linking abortion dangerous complications such as pre-term birth in subsequent pregnancies.
View entire text at C-FAM:
http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1536/pub_detail.asp
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ITEM #11. People as Pollution? Using Environment to Push Pro-Abortion Population Control
Pesticides, oil spills, litter - everyone agrees that these pollute the environment. But what about babies?
Environmental groups have long argued that population growth causes a host of environmental problems, but many of these groups have traditionally avoided the controversial promotion of birth control as a solution.
Recently, though, a brazen new group of environmentalists has become more vocal in their promotion of birth control as the most efficient and cost effective means of reversing the degradation of the earth's resources, the pollution of our water and air, and even global "warming." People are seen as the threats to the environment instead of stewards of creation.
View entire text at LifeNews.com :
http://www.lifenews.com/int1418.html
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ITEM #12. 'Vegetative State' Often Misdiagnosed
For two decades, car-crash victim Rom Houben lay paralyzed and voiceless in what his doctors thought was a vegetative state. He appeared to be awake, but showed no signs of awareness.
But three years ago, a hi-tech brain scan revealed Houben was, in fact, fully conscious and alert inside a paralyzed body -- a condition known as "locked-in syndrome" or "pseudocoma."
View entire text at NCRegister.com:
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/vegetative_state_often_misdiagnosed
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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. All prior email Newsletters Archives are located online at http://lifeissues.net/newsletters/mojo.cgi?flavor=archive&list=lifenews&start=0
3. 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
4. BECOME INVOLVED: Several years ago Fr. Jerry created a project entitled, "Journey for Life into the Heart of Asia". It 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". In October, Fr. Jerry will be in Pakistan for 2 weeks. November in Malaysia.
For information about no-cost Pro Life Talks to your group in Asia: contact Fr. Jerry at jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp.
