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Dear deaconjohn,
As this week's Spirit & Life goes out, I am preparing to
board the last leg of my trip to Belarus. I just met HLI's Joannes
Bucher here in Frankfurt, Germany, and he is as excited as I am to get
rolling on this pro-life mission.
Joannes, our regional director
for Europe, arranged this mission with HLI's affiliate in Belarus, the
Open Hearts Foundation, which is run by Vladislav Volokhovich. We will
arrive in Minsk this evening, and will spend more than a week meeting
with and energizing pro-lifers, encouraging and guiding them as they
strategize and grow their own work. We will also have meetings with
various leaders in the Church and in politics and culture who work on
all levels of Belarus's society to protect life and family.
Now,
we do not expect trouble with the authorities. After many decades of
terribly destructive policies and cultural assaults perpetrated on this
nation the Belorussian people are expressing greater openness to the
message of life. This constant battle is in different stages around the
world - in the United States the Culture of Death still has the upper
hand, though the momentum among the people and at the state political
level is toward life.
The battle lines are uneven. This week saw
the investigators from the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleidin
and Sandra Merritt, respond to a warrant by turning themselves in at a
Houston police station to be booked. A Houston grand jury, as most of us
know, had been presented an indictment of Planned Parenthood for its
illegal sale of the parts of babies they had killed, and instead of
investigating and indicting Planned Parenthood, the prosecutor had the
investigators who unveiled this barbaric practice indicted. Using the
same tactics that investigators have long used to expose injustices that
continue without the scrutiny of law, they find themselves accused of
crimes.
Once evil infects the structures of a society, such
injustices are to be expected. Even if they have unintended effects.
This has happened many times in history, though it is troubling to see
such flagrant injustice so close to home.
Sometimes, however,
such overreach from the allies of the Culture of Death has unintended
effects. Today we also have a story that I am going to ask you to share
far and wide, one which resonates with the humiliation being visited
upon Mr. Daleidin and Ms. Merritt.
Uganda, long a bastion of
great respect for life and family that has been in the crosshairs of the
"aid" and "development" industry (read: population control industry),
is again the setting for a renewed assault from the Culture of Death. We
already know how it goes, if not all the details.
A document
that lays out "Guidelines" for "safe abortion" was formally adopted by
the Ugandan Ministry of "Health" last summer. As you can guess, it was
basically written by US-funded NGOs who profit from abortion, and who
think that the world would be a better place without so many African
children. After years of seduction and what is referred to in Africa as
"facilitation," a bill to expand legal access to abortion is about to be
presented to the Parliament. When will the bill be considered? Think of
how the "democratic" process around Obamacare happened here in 2010:
The bill will be presented when they think they can win, when enough
arms have been twisted and palms greased.
But there is
resistance. HLI Uganda, led by Father Jonathan Opio, has been working on
many levels to stop the assault. There is some political resistance,
though HLI's ability to provide "facilitation" is no match for that of
the Western elites.
He has als0 been coordinating a ground-level
campaign collecting signatures against the Guidelines and the
soon-to-be-announced bill. For their efforts, three of his team members
were arrested for "inciting violence," though no one could say exactly
how or against whom. His accusers were nowhere to be found.
Please
read and share Father Opio's story here. We need as many people praying
for him and his team, and for the success of their efforts, as
possible.
As always, I am grateful and humbled to be serving God
in the cause of life and family with the courageous missionaries of
HLI, and with you all! Thank you for your prayers and support!
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Sincerely yours in Christ,
Father Shenan J. Boquet
President, Human Life International
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