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Dear Friends For Life, November 30, 2011 - The PNCI (Parliamentary Network For Critical Issues) has issued a warning that MPs should expect increased Pro-Abortion activity. The warning states that leading pro-abortion organizations which operate under the guise of human rights, women's rights and women's health are latching onto the recent UN report on health and its recommendation that governments overturn laws against abortion. Over 30 organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Catholics for Choice, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Ipas, IPPF, Marie Stopes International and Planned Parenthood Federation of America have stated their support for report (A/66/254) by the UN Special Rapporteur on health, Anand Grover, to the General Assembly which is highly critical of laws which protect the lives of children in the womb from the violence of abortion and even condemns laws against drug use by pregnant women aimed at protecting the health of the unborn child. Pro-life laws are described as "misguided legal restrictions that governments frequently impose in violation of sexual and reproductive rights".
These leading pro-abortion organizations are committed to activity on national levels "to immediately decriminalize abortion" and implement the recommendations of the report which portrays access to abortion as a "human rights obligation". Parliamentarians are advised to be ready to refute pro-abortion arguments that distort sovereign laws protecting unborn children and their mothers from the violence of abortion and that portray life-affirming laws and policies as "harmful to women's health, equality, bodily integrity and dignity."
God Bless,
Fr. Jerry, OMI
(A Thought) "As I read the triumphant headlines in the newspapers day after day - 'U.S. Pounds Iraq from Air'-and saw the pictures of missiles streaking into Iraq, I could not help but hear the silent screams of all the little Iraqi children in utero who were having their lives ripped from them. The lucky ones were the ones who took a direct hit. The ones, who were aborted because of percussion, vibration or because of the terror, trauma, malnourishment and/or exhaustion visited upon their mothers by war, would probably have suffered less agonizing deaths at the wrong end of a suction machine in an abortion clinic." - Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
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For clear thinking about crucial issues, visit LifeIssues.net
(Due to volume of spam received, do not reply to this message but instead send all emails to jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp. Thank you!)
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Lifeissues.net Newsletter #555
December 11, 2011
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2. South Korea Doing Human Cloning After Hwang Scandal
3. China elderly facing HIV/AIDS crisis
4. A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead
5. The Catholic Tradition on the Morality of Contraception
6. Abortion Won't Help Trafficking Victims
7. Special Report on Abortion and Sexual Assault
8. Feminists Join Pro-Lifers Warning of Cloning Exploiting Women
9. The Greening of AIDS Prevention
10. Keeping Kids from Porn
11. Being Human in an Age of Unbelief
12. The Reckless, Profitable Elimination of Down Syndrome
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(ASIA): "The state of human rights in Asia on International Human Rights Day 2011" - On the occasion of the annual International Human Rights Day, held on December 10, 2011, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is releasing reports on the human rights situations in ten Asian countries: Bangladesh, Burma, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and Sri Lanka. In 2011, the AHRC has witnessed the continuing widespread use of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by state agents, serious clampdowns on the freedom of expression, and attacks on human rights defenders. Furthermore, in some of the countries listed above, religious intolerance has led to suppression of religious freedoms and violence against religious minorities.
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ITEM #1: The Man who cloned "Dolly the Sheep" urges shift away from the use of embryonic stem cells
There's so much going on that it's easy for 99% of the public to think that Ian Wilmut, the cloner of "Dolly" the sheep, is still invested in cloning. He's not, as a story in a California newspaper reminded us yet again yesterday. Moreover he is warning against the use of embryonic stem cells (ESC).
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ITEM #2: South Korea Doing Human Cloning After Hwang Scandal
Korean scientists are at it again. Professor Park Se-pill at Jeju National University is attempting to clone human embryos after the disgrace of his fellow countryman Hwang Woo-Suk. Hwang claimed he was the first to clone human embryos and destroy them from their stem cells. This claim was revealed to be false but not before Hwang enjoyed enormous celebrity status including a nod on an official postage stamp depicting a paralyzed patient getting up and walking again. Cloning embryos to get patient-specific embryonic stem cells (stem cells genetically identical to the patient) has been a dismal failure.
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ITEM #3: China elderly facing HIV/AIDS crisis
With the population rapidly aging, more than 10% of China's 1.3 billion people are now over the age of 60, census figures show. Improving living standards mean many Chinese are living and remaining sexually active for longer. But now the threat of HIV/AIDS looms large over a segment of Chinese society not previously known for a high prevalence of cases: senior citizens.
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ITEM #4: A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead
Comment: Note these quotes: "Only now, more than a decade after the initial discovery, are they taking a closer look." "According to several studies, about 40 percent of patients who have been declared vegetative are actually minimally conscious. Other studies have shown that a surprising number of vegetative and minimally conscious patients made huge strides toward recovery much later than conventional wisdom would predict." and "It is not uncommon for doctors to assume the worst and advise family members to withdraw care early. They do so in part because they see their duty as helping loved ones face reality." This is what many of us who have worked with such patients have been saying for decades.
Unfortunately, don't expect things to change anytime soon. Note this quote: "Still, it's unclear whether even the most aggressive care will make much difference for many patients." "The payers need a better sense of what the likely outcome is for any given patient," says Tom Smith, program director at Moss, "so that they can say with confidence which patients are likely to benefit from treatment, and how significant that benefit is likely to be. And I hate to sound this way, but then it's basically: 'Am I going to invest this amount of money to get this outcome? Is that worth it?' And that is a tough, tough question to answer."
The real answer to that question is the same one my friend Marcia and I gave to a Missouri state legislator during the Nancy Cruzan travesty in the late 1980s. He asked us to give him one good reason to keep Nancy alive with her tube feedings. "At least we won't have killed her, sir" we responded.
This answer infuriated the legislator but it is true that only by following the basic ethical principle of not deliberately ending life that we can show scientific breakthroughs like this. -Nancy Valko, RN
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ITEM #5: The Catholic Tradition on the Morality of Contraception
There are pressing reasons why a Catholic should know the history of the Church's doctrine on contraception. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul appeals to the "landmarks in the human Christian vision of marriage," and to the "teaching of the Church on the regulation of birth," for declaring that artificial contraception is forbidden by divine law. To see some of these landmarks and the unbroken teaching of the Church is more than ever necessary today, when the papal pronouncement is called into question.
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ITEM #6: Abortion Won't Help Trafficking Victims
Human Trafficking Expert Says Pro-Abortion Ideology Could Be "A Death Sentence".
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ITEM #7 Special Report on Abortion and Sexual Assault
Many people, including those whose mission is to help women and girls who are victims of sexual assault and abuse, believe abortion is the best solution if a pregnancy results from rape or incest. Yet our research shows that most women who become pregnant through sexual assault don't want abortion, and say abortion only compounds their trauma.
*An excellent article: Abortion and War
Emanuel Charles McCarthy has written an excellent article on one of the many connections between abortion and war, which considers the experience of what in medical terms is called "spontaneous abortion," more commonly known as miscarriage. If mothers miscarry when they are traumatized by acts of war, and this consequence can be foreseen by those committing it, isn't this lethal violence toward unborn children every bit as outrageous as deliberately targeting individual children in clinics?
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ITEM #8: Feminists Join Pro-Lifers Warning of Cloning Exploiting Women
There is a dirty little secret behind cloning to obtain stem cells that no supporter ever wants to talk about. The secret is this: somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT,) better known as cloning, requires an enormous amount of eggs. Human eggs, retrieved from young human females. Your niece, your daughter, your granddaughter. And the procedure to get these eggs necessary for cloning is no walk in the park. To retrieve the enormous amount of eggs needed for SCNT, many women have to undergo a difficult and dangerous procedure.
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ITEM #9: The Greening of AIDS Prevention
Abandon the pipe dream that we can eradicate AIDS through drugs or condoms and understand that we have to deal with behavior (in the context of culture)!
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ITEM #10: Keeping Kids from Porn
Anti-porn week highlights what we can do to protect our children and our marriages. The use of pornography in our culture has reached epidemic levels, and a large portion of it is hardcore and illegal, under federal statutes that are rarely fully enforced.
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ITEM #11: Being Human in an Age of Unbelief
It's important for our own integrity and the integrity of our country to fight for our pro-life convictions in the public square. Anything less is a kind of cowardice. But it's even more important to live what it means to be genuinely human and "pro-life" by our actions - fidelity to God; love for spouse and children; loyalty to friends; generosity to the poor; honesty and mercy in dealing with others; trust in the goodness of people; discipline and humility in demanding the most from ourselves.
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ITEM #12: The Reckless, Profitable Elimination of Down Syndrome
As National Down Syndrome Awareness Month has come to an end, the introduction of a new prenatal test risks ending the births of babies with Down syndrome. While promoted as being safer, the current administration of the testing is reckless.
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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. Access to all prior Newsletters is located in the Archives on main page. 2. 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 3. 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) ------------------------------ Get a weekly dose of clear thinking: subscribe to our free Lifeissues newsletter! Sign up at www.LifeIssues.net. Pass this free service to your friends and various groups. ------------------------------ Contact EDITOR: Jerry Novotny, OMI Akebono-cho 1-15-9 Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072 [tel/fax: 088-843-0406] [email: jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp] ["Due to volume of spam received, we're asking you not to reply to this message but instead send all correspondence to jerry@shirt.ocn.ne.jp. Thank you! Editor"] ------------------------------ Websites by Editor: English LifeIssues Site: http://www.lifeissues.net, Japanese LifeIssues Site: http://www.japan-lifeissues.net,
HIV/AIDS Site: http://capcha.org OMI Site: http://www.omijapankorea.net/index.html
