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Dear Friends For Life,
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Halted: Geron, the California company that was the first to get US Food and Drug Administration approval for human trials with cells derived from embryonic stem cells, has decided to shut down the trials. This means that one of the two companies experimenting on live human embryos has decided to withdraw from the field. And once again, Planned Parenthood is knee deep in a coalition with government officials and morally bereft sex-pushing organizations, to the great detriment of American school children. 1. [The group is pushing to define and standardize the sex ed core curriculum, content, and skills for students in K-12. -->Planned Parenthood and cohorts churn out National Standards for public schools - Part 1: The players] 2. [By the end of second grade, rather than teaching children that their private parts are not to be touched other than for cleaning, it teaches they have the right to tell others not to touch their body IF they do not want to be touched. By the end of 5th grade, 11-year-old students must "define sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender," and "describe the process of human reproduction." -->Planned Parenthood and cohorts churn out National Standards for public schools - Part 2: The content and how to stop it!] God Bless,
Fr. Jerry Novotny, OMI
(The Difference is LIFE) An example of the traditional magisterial teaching which indicates that it is never morally licit to intentionally kill a child through abortion in order to "save the life of its mother" comes from the teaching of Pope Pius XII: "Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral 'indication' that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life - which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit."
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(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 #565
March 4, 2011
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2. The Brain Death Controversy
3. A cry of innocence from death row
4. After I was raped I aborted my child, but that only increased the pain
5. Dear England, I'm very confused. Is abortion a 'woman's choice' or is it 'morally repugnant'?
6. MUST VIEW: "Hooking Kids on Sex II" video
7. Stem-Cell Advance Offers Hope for Infertility
8. Scientists Urge Personhood for Dolphins and Whales
9. Finding Joy in Alzheimer's
10. Ageing population needs more nursing care
11. The Global War Against Baby Girls
12. Question Authority: A Bioethics Journal Controversy Reminds Writers to Be Wary
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(Bioethics): "Where Science Meets Faith: Anticipating The Future" - Jesuits on genetic engineering, "Can we develop a way of thinking that allows us to be more amenable to that sort of reality that kind of social structure within which we live? I think we can." For more on Jesuits and their mission, visit: http://www.nationaljesuitnews.com.
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ITEM #1: Whose design will be used for designer brains?
Dr Paul Root Wolpe is the senior bioethicist at NASA and a pioneer in the field of neuroethics. Peering into his children's and grandchildren's future, he sees an America that rewards competitiveness and productivity over relationship-building, and suspects that future generations will face intense pressure to enhance their minds and bodies in unhealthy ways. If parents already use Ritalin to give kids a competitive edge, what will happen when we can genetically engineer their talents?
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ITEM #2: The Brain Death Controversy
Brain death is a very controversial issue that is ongoing now. Some physicians claim that they will diagnose their patient as being brain dead if there is no brain activity that can be detected, even when the patient's heart is still beating.
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ITEM #3: A cry of innocence from death row
Lawyers for a Texas death row inmate are fighting for the right to constitutional review of a "freestanding" claim of innocence -- one where the inmate says the evidence now shows him innocent but there was no constitutional defect in his conviction years earlier. The inmate says the evidence now proves he was in jail at the time the victim was killed.
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ITEM #4: After I was raped I aborted my child, but that only increased the pain
My story is not an easy one to tell. However, I think it's important to try, because I know what it's like to feel alone. I don't know who needs to hear this, but I believe in the deepest part of my heart that what I've experienced has not been in vain. If talking about what has happened in my life can help one less person to feel like she is struggling by herself, then I will try.
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ITEM #5: Dear England, I'm very confused. Is abortion a 'woman's choice' or is it 'morally repugnant'?
I won't ask if you are doing well, because I read the news every day and I already know. But I hope you will be well enough to help me clarify a few things that have appeared in the news in the last day or so that have confused me. Yesterday, it seems everyone flew into a tizzy because the Daily Telegraph reported that abortion facilities are allowing women to abort their children if the child is the "wrong" sex.
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ITEM #6: "Hooking Kids on Sex II" video
A recent health ministry report has revealed the number of infants with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has more than doubled in the last year. The new video report, "Hooking Kids on Sex II," can also be seen on American Life League's embeddable permalink on ALL's private video server.
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ITEM #7 Stem-Cell Advance Offers Hope for Infertility
[Note: Isn't it absolutely fascinating that so much research seems to appeal to "curing" terrible human diseases and conditions? But are there sometimes ulterior motives involved as well? These same human "eggs" could also increase the supply of human oocytes for pure research purposes, e.g., human cloning and other human genetic engineering goals -- and then those genetically "reconstructed" embryos could be implanted to cure "infertility" that is caused by various factors. [For extensive scientific documentation, see Irving, "Any Human Cell - iPS, Direct Programmed, Embryonic, Fetal or Adult - Can Be Genetically Engineered to Asexually Reproduce New Human Embryos for Purposes of Reproduction ('Infertility')" (November 2011), at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_194cellasexuallyreproduce1.html]. - DNI]
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ITEM #8: Scientists Urge Personhood for Dolphins and Whales
T[Note: One of the false "scientific" proofs used since the 1960's by Jesuit Fr. Richard McCormick and frog embryologist Clifford Grobstein and their adherents to ground their fake term "pre-embryo" was "individuality" (different from the philosophical term "individuation"). That is, there is no embryonic "person" present until "twinning" could no longer take place, about 14-days (which, BTW, can take place months post-fertilization!) - and therefore human embryo research, human cloning, early abortions, genetic engineering of the "pre-embryo", etc., is morally sanctioned. Subsequently, the international nomenclature on human embryology formally rejected the terms "pre-embryo" and "individuality" as unscientific and misleading. Below we see a "religious" revival of the use of the fake term "individuality", which is nothing more than just a fake scientific "pre-embryo substitute". What Peter Singer et al refer to as "self-awareness, autonomy, choosing", etc., has long been counter-explained as animal "instinct", different from human intellectual capacities. - DNI]
["Ethics expert Professor Tom White, from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, author of In Defence of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, said: "Dolphins are non-human persons. A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent of deliberately killing a human being."]
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ITEM #9: Finding Joy in Alzheimer's
Comment: As both a nurse and the daughter of a mother with Alzheimer's, I found this article especially touching. It also reminds me of a question I was asked about my mom before she died. A friend asked "How can you take care of a mom who doesn't even recognize you?" I responded that the real question was not whether she recognized me but rather whether I recognized her. My mom taught me so much at the end of her life and my patients with dementia always have a special place in my heart. -Nancy Valko, RN
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ITEM #10: Ageing population needs more nursing care
Even with its abundant labour force, Viet Nam achieved its status as an "ageing population" in 2011. The General Office for Population and Family Planning estimates the country's elderly population over 60 has increased from 8.7 per cent in 2009 to ...
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ITEM #11: The Global War Against Baby Girls
Over the past three decades the world has come to witness an ominous and entirely new form of gender discrimination: sex-selective feticide, implemented through the practice of surgical abortion with the assistance of information gained through prenatal gender determination technology. All around the world, the victims of this new practice are overwhelmingly female — in fact, almost universally female. The practice has become so ruthlessly routine in many contemporary societies that it has impacted their very population structures, warping the balance between male and female births and consequently skewing the sex ratios for the rising generation toward a biologically unnatural excess of males. This still-growing international predilection for sex-selective abortion is by now evident in the demographic contours of dozens of countries around the globe — and it is sufficiently severe that it has come to alter the overall sex ratio at birth of the entire planet, resulting in millions upon millions of new "missing baby girls" each year. In terms of its sheer toll in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale tantamount to a global war against baby girls.
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ITEM #12: Question Authority: A Bioethics Journal Controversy Reminds Writers to Be Wary
[Note: Massive conflicts of interest have plagued bioethics since its formal "birth" in 1978 with the Belmont Report of the U.S. Congress. Before 1978 bioethics didn't exist; nor did bioethicists. These new bioethicists were rapidly recruited into various and sundry "Ethics Committees" and "Institutional Review Boards" that supposedly screened pharmaceuticals, the use of human subjects in research, hospital polices, etc., to determine if they were "ethical". The question no one asked at the time was whether or not this "ethics" was ethical or even academically defensible -- as if anyone cared. See Irving, "What is 'bioethics'?", at:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_36whatisbioethics01.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. 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
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