DEACON FOR LIFE

Were there to be no support in the whole history of ethical and moral thought, were there no acknowledged confirmation from medical science, were the history of legal opinion to the contrary, we would still have to conclude on the basis of God's Holy Word that the unborn child is a person in the sight of God. He is protected by the sanctity of life graciously given to each individual by the Creator, Who alone places His image upon man and grants them any right to life which they have.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

FROM CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC DAILY:

Temporary reprieve

Congress extends abstinence-education funding for three months, but future in doubt

On July 11, the U.S. House of Representatives agreed to extend funding for abstinence education for three months – until the end of the current fiscal year. Since the bill was previously passed by the Senate, it now goes to the White House for the President's signature.

Section 510 of Title V of the Social Security Act – established in 1996 – allows money for abstinence-only education to be distributed to states that apply for it. Ever since Congress failed to act on the President's budget reauthorization proposal in 2002, Title V funding has been extended only by a series of limited reauthorizations. Current funding was set to expire on June 30. The three-month extension provides little time for lawmakers to save the program.

"We applaud the extension for Title V state abstinence-education funding passed today by Congress and thank them for protecting our children, if only temporarily," Linda Klepacki, Focus on the Family's analyst for sexual health, told the Christian Post. Klepacki has asked parents and sexual health teachers to urge federal lawmakers to support abstinence-until-marriage education funding beyond the three-month
extension.

Read the rest of the story here: California Catholic Daily

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"In Cordibus Jesu et Mariae"

LIFE IS SACRED

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.”