Dear Friends for Life,
Europe's "Demographic Winter" is a shocking reality. The Institute for Family Policies has said, "The aging population, critically low birth-rate, escalating abortions, the collapse of marriage, the explosion of family break ups, and the emptying of homes are the main problems for Europeans. It is at a historic crossroads. It either must make a real pledge for the family, maternity and childhood, or continue with the present bleak outlook which has catastrophic prospects for the near future. People over 65 now outnumber children under 14 by over 6,000,000. Because of the collapse of marriages, fewer marriages, and more broken homes, two out of every three European homes no longer have children."
Japan - Population decline is worsening day by day. Reported births in Japan in 2009 were 1,069,000 while deaths were 1,144,000, resulting in an estimated population shrinkage of 75,000 last year. Predictions are that the decline will intensify and will increase.
God Bless,
Jerry Novotny, OMI
(Quote) "We are bound by an inescapable garment of mutuality: Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1962
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Lifeissues.net NEWSLETTER #467
March 28, 2010
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(TABLE OF CONTENTS):
1. Canadian Personhood Website Launched
2. War on Baby Girls in China Killing Millions
3. Push to allow sex selection in Australia
4. India: Grim window on kidney theft
5. IVF doctors to raffle human egg
6. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis oversold, say IVF experts
7. Ethics Committees: Are "Death Panels" Already Here?
8. Rescuing Frozen Embryos: Is Adoption a Valid Moral Option?
9. *Reflections on Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan A (Part 1)
*Personal Reflections on Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan (Part 2)
10. Human Rights Versus the Right to Murder
11. Nicaragua under UN pressure to liberalize abortion law
12. House to Consider Bill Incentivizing Embryo Destruction
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(FOCUS ON ASIA): "Students rally against Asian Homosexual Conference in Surabaya" - Indonesia - Hundreds of college students held a rally in front of Surabaya`s City Council (DPRD) building here on Thursday against a homosexual conference planned to take place here next March 26-28. http://www.worldpress.org/link.cfm?http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/1269513284/students-rally-against-asian-homosexual-conference-in-surabaya
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ITEM #1. Canadian Personhood Website Launched
Alliance for Life Ontario has launched a new Canadian Pre-born Personhood initiative with the creation of a Personhood website ( http://www.personhood.ca/). The site provides information about abortion in Canada and encourages visitors to sign a petition asking the Canadian government to extend full legal protection to every Canadian, from their biological beginnings to their natural death.
View full article at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10031903.html
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ITEM #2. War on Baby Girls in China Killing Millions
By 2020, China will have 30 to 40 million more boys, and young men aged nineteen and under, than it has girls and young women in the same age group - which means 30 to 40 million men will never find a wife. So says the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
View full article at Family and Life:
http://www.familyandlife.org/Abortion-and-Embryo/1566/10/23.html
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ITEM #3. Push to allow sex selection in Australia
Australian couples may soon be able to choose the gender of their children for purely cultural reasons or just to balance their family.
View full article at Daily Telegraph:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/parents-push-for-unnatural-selection/story-e6freuy9-1225840201633
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ITEM #4. India: Grim window on kidney theft
Two years ago Salim was lured to Delhi from his hometown of Meerut by the promise of a job. Instead, he was taken in a "big black car" to Kumar's clinic. He was forced to give a blood sample and then sedated. When he woke up 15 hours later he had acute pain in his side and was missing a kidney.
View full article at theage.com.au:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/promise-of-work-that-led-to-kidney-theft-20100312-q485.html
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ITEM #5. IVF doctors to raffle human egg
A fertility clinic is raffling a human egg in London to promote its new "baby profiling" service, which circumvents British IVF (in vitro fertilisation) laws.
The winner will be able to pick the egg donor by racial background, upbringing and education. Payment for profit is illegal in Britain, but the δΊ½13,000 of free IVF treatment will be provided in America.
View full article at TimesOnline:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7061155.ece
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ITEM #6. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis oversold, say IVF experts
Preimplanation genetic diagnosis (or genetic screening) has become a standard service in IVF clinics around the world. In Europe, the number of cycles soared from 116 in 1998 to 3900 in 2007. PGD (or PGS) guarantees that a baby will not have a particular disease or will be of the right sex. But its rapid take-up by the clinics is due to the fact that it is being sold as a surer way to pregnancy for older would-be mothers or as a solution for repeated miscarriages. Is this true?
View full article at Human Reroduction:
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/4/821
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ITEM #7. Ethics Committees: Are "Death Panels" Already Here?
Government tends to revolve around issues such as regulations, taxes, and spending for various programs. Medical ethics, on the other hand, is about caring for a patient's health and well-being. It is not surprising then that when government economics and medical ethics collide in something as momentous as health-care reform, there is bound to be trouble. In the case of the recent US health-care-reform proposals, one of the most contentious issues has been the specter of "death panels" - government committees that have the power to decide whether we live or die. I am no alarmist but especially as a nurse, I do believe there is cause for serious concern about the push for euthanasia "rights", whether or not some form of health-care reform eventually passes.
Article is located at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/val/val_39deathpanels.html
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ITEM #8. Rescuing Frozen Embryos: Is Adoption a Valid Moral Option?
Embryo adoption chosen to save the life of an endangered human being has as its end the rescue of the threatened human person (which is good) and as a means an act of uterine nurture, which given a iusta causa (a serious reason) can be morally legitimate. Although it may be wrong to choose in particular cases, chiefly if a woman has good reason to believe that adopting the burdens of pregnancy will compromise her ability to fulfill well her already existing duties, the act cannot be intrinsically evil.
Article can be found at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/bru/bru_10rescue_embryos.html
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ITEM #9. Reflections on Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan A (Part 1)
Marriage in the Order of Creation: The Natural Institution of Marriage considers the nature of marriage, male-female complementarity as essential to marriage, the ends or purposes of marriage and their interrelationship, and fundamental challenges to marriage today.
View entire two files at LifeIssues.net:
1. Reflections on Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan A (Part 1)
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/may/may_01marriagepart1.html
2. Personal Reflections on Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan (Part 2)
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/may/may_02marriagepart2.html
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ITEM #10. Human Rights Versus the Right to Murder
The quest for personhood for all people, born and preborn, is an effort seeking justice for all, equal rights for all, human rights for all. For these reasons, it will prevail. If it does not, the liberties of this nation will never for sure. Of that, there is no doubt.
View entire text at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/brown/brown_32humanrights.html
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ITEM #11. Nicaragua under UN pressure to liberalize abortion law
N leaders continue to press the government of Nicaragua to end a ban on abortion that the Latin American country enacted 4 years ago, despite a promising drop in maternal mortality rates there. In a review of human-rights issues, Nicaraguan representatives defended the abortion law as a matter of national sovereignty.
View entire text at Catholic Culture:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=5851
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ITEM #12. House to Consider Bill Incentivizing Embryo Destruction
A bill has been introduced to the House of Representatives that would set in stone guidelines developed for the National Institute of Health's embryo-destructive stem cell research. Pro-life sources on Capitol Hill warn, however, that the bill's wording goes farther than the NIH guidelines, providing broad authorization for research on stem cells taken from cloned embryos, and embryos conceived solely to be destroyed in research.
View entire text at LifeSiteNews.com:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/100316.html#6
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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". The project appeals for donations to help finance plane travel for lectures and seminars to developing countries in Asia. Strong focus centers 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 information 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 Asian project, kindly send your donations 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)
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Contact EDITOR:
Jerry Novotny, OMI
Akebono-cho 1-15-9
Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072
[tel/fax: 088-843-0406]
[email: jerry@lifeissues.net (or) jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp]
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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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