Friday, August 13, 2010

Lifeissues.net Newsletter 487

life on Mars

Life is not a mirage; we are our brothers keepers!


Dear Friends for Life,

China: "Almost No Little Girls" - We quote here a report from the American Life League. "It is now not at all uncommon to find Chinese towns with populations of more than 10,000 persons where little girls are almost non-existent. One mayor claimed 'there is no infanticide here'... However there are no girl children at all under the age of 12 in his village which has a population of 7,500."

The India Parliament speaks: "Sex education has absolutely no place in our schools." According to the government, a sex education curriculum prepared from the UNICEF had, "Shocked the consciences of the country, and was quite frightening." The government reported, "That if implemented it would promote promiscuity of the worse kind." Accordingly, it recommended, "That the introduction of sex education in India's school should be delayed." It further stated "that the program would corrupt Indian youth and lead to collapse of the education systems ..." that such programs are "nothing more than an education to sell condoms ... and would lead to the creation of an immoral society and an increase in single parent families."

God Bless,
Jerry Novotny, OMI

(Quote) It is now understood that women and girls are disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS as a result of unequal gender relations and sexually related violence. -- Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela, head of SADC's Gender Programme said.

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Lifeissues.net NEWSLETTER #487

August 15, 2010

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(TABLE OF CONTENTS):

1. My Life My Death My Choice

2. Britain's IVF free-for-all

3. Mexican States Ordered to Honor Gay Marriages

4. 'When Is a Life Form Worthy of Life?'

5. Flawed evidence about gay marriage

6. Here come the Death Clinics we've been warning about!

7. Scots patients left to starve

8. Ageing with HIV: The hidden side of world's AIDS crisis

9. Cost burden improved for pediatric patients with HIV

10. Marie Stopes selling male vasectomies in Ireland via beer-mat ads

11. Big BioTech Meets the Vatican: A Fruitful Union?

12. Hundreds of IVF embryos donated 'without consent'

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(Focus on Asia): "Human rights, HIV and a role for the private sector" - Stigmatizing attitudes in the general population and discriminatory treatment by health providers, local officials and the police, among others, intensify the marginalization of vulnerable groups at highest risk, driving them further from the reach of health services and desperately needed prevention, treatment, care, and support services. Daily harassment and abuse also cause health problems and affect mental health, thereby leading to depression, social isolation, and an array of adverse socioeconomic outcomes related to HIV, according to the report.
http://csr-asia.com/weekly_detail.php?id=12097

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ITEM #1. My Life My Death My Choice

Despite the clear differences in political tactics, both the moral outlaws and professional advocates pose a similar danger to the weak and vulnerable. Indeed, once society accepts the fundamental ideological premise that killing is a legitimate method of eliminating human suffering, the death remedy continually expands to ever growing categories of despairing people. After all, if the time, manner, and place of "my death" is merely a matter of "my choice," simple logic dictates that "the right to die" will expand beyond the terminally ill―and as we shall see, even beyond "choice."

View full article at
tothesource.org:
http://www.tothesource.org/8_4_2010/8_4_2010.htm

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ITEM #2. Britain's IVF free-for-all

Britain's National Health System just may lift a controversial age limit on free in-vitro fertilization (IVF). As it is, all infertile women between the ages of 23 and 39 can receive three free cycles of treatment through the national service -- and the potential change would extend those services to women over the age of 40. The move is catalyzed by the Equality Act, which passed in the U.K. last year and broadly expands anti-discrimination laws.

View full article at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/06/28/ivf_britain/

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ITEM #3. Mexican States Ordered to Honor Gay Marriages

The Mexican Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that each of the country's 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages registered in Mexico City, potentially giving gay and lesbian couples full matrimonial rights nationwide.

View full article at NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/world/americas/11mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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ITEM #4. 'When Is a Life Form Worthy of Life?'

Many worry that screening embryos pre-implantation, during fertility treatments, opens the door to gender selection and designer babies. But a German court on Tuesday decided to allow the practice. Commentators say that the ruling throws up more questions about genetic selection than answers.

View full article at Spiegel Online:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,705167,00.html

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ITEM #5. Flawed evidence about gay marriage

It's easy enough to establish an apparent equality of outcomes for different types of couples, but if their inputs in terms of risks are unequal and their contributions to society in terms of jointly biological children are unequal, have you really established an equality or actually an inequality? That is why I have argued (Schumm, 2009) that making same-sex relationships socially and morally equivalent to heterosexual relationships creates an injustice rather than correcting one.

View full article at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/sch/sch_02gaymarriage.html

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ITEM #6. Here come the Death Clinics we've been warning about!

The move to "normalize" medical killing is gaining momentum worldwide as we see being done in the Netherlands. There is a drive to promote research that seeks to justify the withholding of formerly routine treatment (like providing food to Alzheimers patients) from the elderly and severely disabled. Another treatment they are trying to increasingly withhold from dementia patients is antibiotic treatment for pneumonia (in other words, let them die from pneumonia intentionally).

View full article at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/pan/pan_34deathclinics.html

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ITEM #7. Scots patients left to starve

Recently released figures suggest that 90 patients a year die of starvation in Scottish hospitals. The figures say that 452 mostly elderly patients were killed by hunger over the last five years. The 2009 figures reveal that Greater Glasgow and Clyde were the areas where deaths caused by malnutrition was highest.

Article is located at
Express.co.uk:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/192310/Scots-patients-left-to-starve-on-our-ward

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ITEM #8. Ageing with HIV: The hidden side of world's AIDS crisis

The world will face a mighty social and medical challenge as millions of people with HIV survive into old age, the world AIDS forum has heard. The problem is only now becoming apparent as the first generation living with the human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV) head towards their 60th birthday and beyond, thanks to the lifeline of antiretroviral drugs, say specialists. These survivors are mainly in western nations, where the precious therapy first became available from 1996. But they will soon be followed by millions of counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa and other poor countries where the drug rollout started in the middle of the last decade.

Article can be found at AFP:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jnzf8Are7m-LwulHbpxpeJcamNhA

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ITEM #9. Cost burden improved for pediatric patients with HIV

The introduction of antiretroviral therapy has lowered overall medical costs for children with HIV compared with eras in which only older forms of treatment were available, according to recent study data.

View entire two files at Pediatric Supersite:
http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=67589

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ITEM #10. Marie Stopes selling male vasectomies in Ireland via beer-mat ads

Marie Stopes International, the abortion provider, has claimed that the number of Irish men seeking vasectomies is increasing every day, following their advertising campaign on beer mats in Dublin pubs. Gabrielle Malone, Marie Stopes's programme director, said that the advertising campaign would now be extended throughout the whole of Ireland.

View entire text at Optimum Population:
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/blog/?p=2705

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ITEM #11. Big BioTech Meets the Vatican: A Fruitful Union?

For those interested in the Pontifical Council collaborating with NeoStem, the PCC is a department ("dicastery") of the Holy See that assists the pope in bringing the Gospel to the world of culture. It promotes dialogue between Christianity and contemporary science in order to dispel the poisonous misconception that faith and science are incompatible. Not only are they not incompatible, they are integrally complementary. John Paul II taught wisely that faith needs science to protect it from falling into superstition and science needs faith to protect it from idolatry.

View entire text at LifeIssues.net:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/bru/bru_21biotechvatican.html

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ITEM #12. Hundreds of IVF embryos donated 'without consent'

Hundreds of leftover IVF embryos from British couples have been given away to other people without their knowledge or explicit consent, in a controversial scheme at a clinic in Spain, it can be disclosed.

View entire text at
Telegraph.co.uk:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7902308/Hundreds-of-IVF-embryos-donated-without-consent.html

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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 is centered 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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