LifeSite Daily News for Friday August 4, 2006

Friday August 4, 2006

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Ontario Catholic Bishops to be Scolded by Pope? Some hope so.
ACLU Forces Co-Ed Classes in Louisiana School Citing Gender Discrimination
Irish Lesbians Using Canadian “Marriage” to Impose Same-Sex “Marriage” on Ireland
Cardinal Calls for Madonna’s Excommunication: Pop Star’s Mock Crucifixion an “Open Act of Hostility”
British Researchers: No Male Children For Families With History of Autism
Democrats Continue to Block Child Custody Protection Act
Incrementalism Explained as a Proven Pro-Life Strategy
Brownback Introduces Bill to Fight Assisted Suicide
Aussie Union Leader Calls Human Cloning “Nazi-like” Experiments
China Claims Sex-Selective Abortion Will be Punished
LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes

Ontario Catholic Bishops to be Scolded by Pope? Some hope so.

LifeSiteNews documents reasons why scolding would be hoped for by faithful Catholics

In Depth Report
By Steve Jalsevac and Hilary White

All is Not Ok With Canadian Church

TORONTO, August 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation daily newspaper, published an Aug. 3 story, “Bishops expect papal scolding”, that has been receiving international attention. The article implies that Canada’s Catholic bishops are seen by the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI as having been negligent in their duty to evangelize in an increasingly secular Canada.

The Ontario Catholic bishops are expected in Rome for their “ad limina” visit, the meetings with the pope made every five years by bishops from around the world. The Star’s Stuart Laidlaw says the bishops are expecting to be pushed for greater evangelization by Benedict and scolded for the growing secularism within the Church and the nation.

The star quotes Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops (OCCB) president Bishop Richard Smith who states he “wouldn’t be surprised,” if the Pope were to touch upon the secularism theme. Smith, however, takes the usual tack of Canada’s Catholic bishops in brushing over any suggestion of serious problems within the Church itself.

“It is something that is part of our reality in Ontario as well," Smith told the Star. “In the church there are many people of faith who love the church and are deeply committed. But it is a society as a whole that is tending toward a secularist outlook.”

The Star cited Pope Benedict’s admonition to the Atlantic bishops in the spring during their ad limina, about the need to evangelize and the dangers of rampant Canadian secularism, a statement which was taken in the press as a public dressing down.

Despite Bishop Smith’s bland assertion that all is well within Canadian Catholicism, however, recent events indicate a dramatically different conclusion. In statements, actions and inactions, the Canadian Catholic institution has shown itself to be among the most secularized in the world. The indifference or even hostility of Catholic officials to Catholic teaching, particularly on life and family issues, is axiomatic among faithful Catholics in Canada.

Dissident Priests, Religious Openly Support Homosexuality

In January 2006, a letter issued by the Canadian Religious Conference, the organization representing Canada’s consecrated nuns and monks, sisters, brothers and priests in 230 religious orders, revealed a deep rejection by the orders of the Church’s moral teachings and the male only priesthood. The letter called on the bishops, in preparing for their ad limina visits to Rome, to consider a greater openness to homosexuality, divorce, contraception and even assisted suicide. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06030801.html)

Although the letter implied that Canadian Catholics should separate themselves from the Church’s central magisterial authority, no members of the Canadian Catholic episcopate publicly reprimanded the organization or strongly refuted the document. "We regret”, said the letter, “the unconditional alignment of our Church with directives issued from Rome.”

Three months after the letter was issued and three days after it was first made public by LifeSiteNews.com, two Quebec Cardinals, Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal and Marc Ouellet of Quebec City, expressed some disagreement with the letter. They did not strongly rebuke the letter writers or condemn the contents of the openly dissident document. Cardinal Turcotte in fact even assured the CRC, “We will bring to Rome the concerns that our people have”. The strongest statement that Cardinal Ouellet could make was that “The majority of the 4000 members of religious orders in my diocese would not approve what is written in the document of the CRC”. Ouellet, however, is considered one of Canada's few faithful bishops and is attempting to renew the faith in a mostly fallen away Quebec since his installation as archbishop of Quebec City in January 2003.

Earlier this year, 19 priests in the Archdiocese of Montreal, in an open letter in LaPresse newspaper, defied their promises of celibacy, extolled the homosexual lifestyle and called upon the Catholic Church to abandon its teaching on sexual purity. Cardinal Turcotte, who has repeatedly refused to take serious disciplinary action against publicly rebellious clergy merely shrugged off the letter saying, “We are used to a certain amount of disagreement (in the Church).” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06022706.html)

In February 2005, at the height of the struggle to retain marriage in Canadian law, the Ontario bishops, those who will be meeting with the Pope next month, issued a statement praising the bill that facilitated same sex “marriage” in that province. The bishops’ praise was for the fact that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty - himself a Catholic - included a provision protecting religious objectors to same-sex “marriage” from prosecution. All other Ontario citizens are not protected by the legislation. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05022307.html)

Catholic Newspapers Part of Problem

In the same month it was revealed that 70% of London, Ontario parishes carried and endorsed the dissident and Marxist-leaning “social justice” Catholic New Times (CNT) newspaper based in the Archdiocese of Toronto. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05022201.html) CNT has a decades-long history of open and often vicious dissent from Catholic teaching, particularly on matters pertaining to sexual morality. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05031503.html). Despite the flagrant anti-Catholicism exhibited by the paper, it is nonetheless still available in hundreds of Catholic churches and schools across Canada. As far as is known, despite numerous, often passionate appeals by faithful Catholics to their bishops, the paper is prohibited in Catholic institutions only in Bishop Richard Smith’s diocese of Pembroke and in Bishop Nicola De Angelis' diocese of Peterborough. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041107.html ).

The Toronto diocese's Catholic Register is the most influential Catholic paper in Canada. In an on-going attempt to capture the "social justice" readership from the New Times, the Register regularly mixes articles with a solid Catholic perspective together with articles and columnists of a considerable secular "social justice" bent. The paper's associate editor, Michael Swan specializes in “social justice” columns and lauded the homosexual propaganda film, Brokeback Mountain in a movie review column. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06021508.html).

In an article, Church caught up in condom conundrum, (http://aids.catholicregister.org/church_condom_conundrum.html) in the Register's Aug. 2006 special AIDS conference section, Swan muddied the Church's teaching on the use of condoms and AIDs prevention. Pro-life physician, Dr. John Shea, in a letter to the Register, responded that "the moral and medical advice" in the article, "is incorrect and dangerous". Revealing more of the thinking behind his numerous Register articles, Swan also lauded prominent dissident and defrocked priest Gregory Baum in another article (http://www.catholicregister.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=i...). Baum, who has long been attracted to Marxist concepts, is a militant activist in favour of homosexual marriage and other positions against the Church's moral teachings. He is also a co-founder of the Catholic New Times. Baum is every now and then given space in the Register for articles about him or by him. Other dissidents are also regularly given considerable space to subtly promote their ideologies in the Register.

Anti-Catholic "Catholic" Educators and Politicians Get off Scot-Free

Many Ontario Catholic institutions are filled with staff who oppose Church teachings, especially, again, on moral issues. The large, wealthy and powerful Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association supports many aspects of the gay agenda (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04021904.html). It aggressively supported a homosexual Catholic high school student’s legal effort to force his school to allow him to bring his same-sex partner to the school prom (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/may/02050606.html). The union has been allowed to retain its “Catholic” identity by Ontario’s bishops despite decades of aggressive actions that have led many teachers and subsequently students to views seriously opposed to Church teaching and authority. Ontario’s bishops have rarely publicly challenged the union or taken strong actions to blunt its substantial negative influence. OECTA has above all emphasized a Marxist-leaning or leftist interpretation of the Church’s social justice tradition, as have many of Canada’s bishops and the various bishops conferences' staff.

The fact that all Catholic Canadian Prime Ministers and most Catholic government ministers since Pierre Trudeau have been aggressively secularist and have advanced abortion, homosexuality, suppression of religious freedom and many other aspects of secularism, still seems to be lost on Canada’s Catholic Church establishment or of little concern to them.

Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition has reflected that these political leaders are not nearly as accountable for their actions as are most of Canada's Catholic Church leaders. They are seen to have allowed or even deliberately created the situation where moral relativism and the primacy of personal conscience and promoting immoral public policy are seen as perfectly acceptable for Catholics. Hughes has noted with dismay during his many years of exhaustive pro-life work the admiration and sometimes even comradeship many prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians have experienced with members of the Canadian Catholic establishment (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/oct/011005b.html ).

Social-Justice/Economics Trump Faith/Morality

Canada’s Church establishment has consistently given enthusiastic, if not primary, emphasis to economic issues rather than the spiritual and moral issues which are widely understood to be the primary mandate and competence of religious leaders and organizations. Canada’s Catholics have in recent decades followed this lead from their church leaders and institutions with the consequence that anti-life, anti-family agendas have persistently triumphed in Canada.

Papal documents and encyclicals have for years routinely been ignored or given low priority by Canada’s bishops and institutions – except for those that address the politically correct “social justice” issues. Vatican directions on moral issues are especially filed away and not promoted or even actively undermined, such as then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2003 Considerations statement on Homosexuality (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/aug/03080101.html)..

The Canadian Conference of Bishops organization is known for publishing many questionable texts. They are often characterized by liberal or seriously incomplete theology, a strong emphasis on left leaning “social justice” themes and rewriting of scriptural quotes, hymns, liturgical texts and other worship and study documents to accommodate feminist language. Religious education textbooks and programs have reflected this emphasis with the result that generations of Canadian parents have lamented the loss of faith and moral corruption experienced by their children in Catholic schools.

Gay clergy and laymen have been especially prominent in the Canadian liturgical establishment. The author, for instance, of the current CCCB published Workbook for lectors and gospel readers is an openly gay activist Minnesota priest. The often gender neutral Lectionary still used in parishes across the country since 1993 has constantly been opposed and never approved by Rome because of its use of an unapproved scriptural text.

Possible Connections With "Lavender Mafia"

What has been called the “lavender mafia” or a clique of powerful homosexual priests and bishops in the United States (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/sep/05091903.html) likely also exists to a quieter but still significant degree in Canada given the extensive history of homosexuality among Canada’s Catholic clergy and close networking between U.S. and Canadian dissident and homosexual clergy (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/aug/020812a.html and http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05120601.html). Many unexplainable situations seem only explainable by the existence of such a clique.

One likely member of such a U.S. clique was former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, called the most liberal bishop in America by National Review magazine, who was disgraced by the revelation that he paid $450,000 in hush money to buy the silence of an apparent former male lover. Weakland was the keynote speaker at the 1994 annual CCCB meeting in Ottawa.

The Chicago diocese's now deceased "bishop-maker", Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, is seen by U.S. author Randy Engel and many others as having been the most influential of the U.S. Catholic Church's "Homosexual Collective" of homosexual and homosexual supportive clergy. The Toronto diocese's also now deceased Gerald Emmet Cardinal Carter, Canada's most influential "bishop-maker" for many years, had a high regard for Bernardin. Carter is rumoured to have influenced Philadelphia's Cardinal John Krol to have Bernardin appointed to the important Chicago diocese.

Cardinal Bernardin has been revered as almost a saint by the liberal social justice establishement within the Catholic Church in the U.S. and Canada. His “Seamless Garment” theology is said by Engel to have advanced the agenda of the Collective. Engel writes in a just published book, The Rite of Sodomy, that "The Seamless Garment strategy set out by Bernardin in the 1980s sought to broaden the pro-life tent by expanding the movement’s opposition to abortion, euthanasia, population control and school sex instruction to include other 'social justice' issues such as war and peace, opposition to the death penalty, welfare reform and civil liberties." Engel goes on to note that "One of the immediate effects of the Seamless Garment ethic was the increase of power and financial resources of Social Justice offices at the diocesan level where the Homosexual Collective has always been strongly represented."

The Canadian situation reflected that very same approach with the various social justice organizations within the Church being especially supportive of "social justice" for homosexuals and indifferent or even hostile to pro-life efforts and Church moral teachings.

Faithful Priests Persecuted by Bishops and Bureaucrats

The public is still not aware of the common persecution of outspoken and exceptionally faithful priests by Canadian bishops, chancery bureaucrats or religious order heads. Many such priests have even had their priestly faculties removed (forbidden to act as a priest) while it seems known sexual abusers, homosexuals and outspoken dissenters have been allowed to retain their faculties unless serious indiscretions are made public. LifeSiteNews has been made aware of many such situations over the years.

LifeSiteNews has concluded from numerous conversations with clergy that in many dioceses fear of the bishop or of Chancery bureaucrats is the order of the day for enthusiastic, faithful priests. The sudden transfer or removal of such a priest from a parish or an announcement that he has gone for “treatment” may not have been for a real illness, or any other similarly valid reason, at all. Then again, some of these enthusiastic priests have been driven to a state requiring treatment because of the poor leadership or total lack of support or even persecution they have received from what many call “head office” and its cold, corporate-management-style bishop and chancery staff.

Even faithful bishops are often ostracized, intimidated or threatened by the more numerous liberal, dissenting Canadian bishops to tow the liberal line. Bishop Fred Henry has received extremely little support from his brother bishops for his outspoken comments in recent years on marriage and the duties of Catholic politicians that have resulted in human rights charges against him.

In the end faithful Catholics aware of the severe distress of Canada’s Catholic institutions are hoping that the Pope finally does “scold” Canada’s bishops and demand that they do their God-ordained job. Most of these Catholics are not holding their breath that this will actually occur since they have endured many disappointments over the past four decades.

Canada's liberal Church establishment is exceptionally skilled at playing the game with Rome. They know how to lie low and say and do the right things and make the right public statements to convince the Vatican Curia that things aren't really so bad in Canada. They are also very adept--networking with certain Curial officials of like mind--in pulling the wool over the eyes of Rome and getting their own kind to be appointed new bishops or to more senior dioceses to perpetuate the liberal, dissident hegemony in Canada.

Still, Pope Benedict has given new hope that the Catholic Church in Canada may finally be saved from its self-inflicted death spiral due mostly to the negligence, lack of courage, chronic dissent, or in many cases, serious corruption of its leaders.

Faithful Laity the Hope of Canada's Church

Ultimately, the solution to the severe problems in the Catholic Church in Canada may be from the faithful laity. They have so far been far too timid about their Catholic right to insist that abuses be corrected, to appeal to their bishops to do the job for which they have been consecrated, and to withhold donations until needed changes are made. Most wrongly think they are not supposed to do such things. Church history, however, is full of examples where lay Catholics have prayerfully acted and turned wayward bishops back in the right direction and saved the Church.

Some have unfortunately responded to bishops’ negligence or complicity with counterproductive, knee-jerk, angry communications which only entrench bad leadership attitudes. Others though, realizing that Rome is limited in what it can do and that their pastors and bishops are often caught in circumstances which require help that can only come from determined, faithful lay persons, are taking constructive actions.

It remains to be seen how accurate the Toronto Star report will turn out to be.

ACLU Forces Co-Ed Classes in Louisiana School Citing Gender Discrimination

"Unfounded notions like 'boys need to practice pursuing and killing prey, while girls need to practice taking care of babies' has no place in our classrooms": ACLU Executive Director

By Hilary White

BATON ROUGE, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – It seems the mere threat of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union is enough to force a school to alter innovative policies.

The Livingston Parish school board in Louisiana has agreed to drop its plans for a pilot project of sex-segregated classes after the ACLU filed suit, alleging the plans violated sex discrimination laws.

The ACLU filed a suit in Baton Rouge federal court in the name of 13 year-old student Michelle Selden.

"Psychological research demonstrates that on average, boys and girls are psychologically more alike than different," the suit claimed, by way of arguing against segregated classes.

"We are relieved school officials have realized they cannot ignore the law and sex segregate classes based on broad gender stereotypes about psychological differences between boys and girls," said Joe Cook, Executive Director, ACLU of Louisiana.

"Unfounded notions like 'boys need to practice pursuing and killing prey, while girls need to practice taking care of babies' has no place in our classrooms."

A major doctrine of the radical feminist movement – for which the ACLU has long been an advocate – asserts that there are no distinctive psychological differences between boys and girls.

Superintendent Randy Pope of the Livingston Parish school system in Louisiana at first told the Associated Press that the school’s segregation project is legal and there were no plans to change it.

The board’s decision to implement the project came after examining research showing the significant differences between the way boys and girls learn at the junior high school level. The plan was to teach the same academic material, but in different ways to accommodate different learning styles for boys and girls.

The Advocate reports however, that the school board reached an agreement with the ACLU to drop the plans on Wednesday. The school told U.S. District Judge Frank J. Polozola that they cannot afford the disruption to the school year that the suit would entail.

Emily Martin, deputy director of the ACLU Women's Rights Project, admits that this is the first time the lobby group has actually filed suit over the sex-segregation issue. In previous cases, Martin said, the mere beginnings of the threat of a suit by the ACLU was sufficient to convince schools to drop sex-segregation plans.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

ACLU Founder a Communist Ideologue Bent on Uprooting Judeo-Christian Foundation of America
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/sep/05092102.html

Irish Lesbians Using Canadian “Marriage” to Impose Same-Sex “Marriage” on Ireland

By Peter J. Smith

Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan DUBLIN, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A court hearing has been set for two Irish women who are attempting to force the Irish government to recognize their Canadian same-sex “marriage”.

The Irish case comes on the heels of a UK High Court decision that denied a similar petition to a British couple.

Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, both homosexual activists, used Canada’s same-sex “marriage” laws in order to “marry” on September 13, 2003.

Dr. Zappone is a public policy research consultant and member of the Human Rights Commission, while her partner Dr. Gilligan lectures at St. Patrick's College, Dublin.

This week Zappone and Gilligan, who yesterday opened up the 14th Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, were informed by the Irish High Court that they have a hearing scheduled for October 3, 2006.

Drs Zappone and Gilligan have claimed that the government and the State and the Revenue Commissioners have violated their rights under the Irish Constitution and have breached the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to recognize their Canadian “marriage“, and by failing to apply the tax law provisions otherwise enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.

Should the Irish High Court refuse to recognize their Canadian “marriage”, Zappone and Gilligan will seek a declaration that they have a right to “marry” each other in Ireland. Zappone and Gilligan, undaunted by Britain’s High Court decision to uphold traditional marriage, remain confident about their case, since Ireland has no civil-union law, unlike the United Kingdom.

“While civil partnership might allow same sex couples a broad range of marriage-like privileges, it does not confer equality of status and equality of rights on all Irish citizens,” the couple said in a statement. They pointed out that marriage has been changing in Ireland, since the once staunchly Catholic nation legalized divorce in 1997.

See related LifeSite Coverage:

UK High Court Refuses to Recognize Canadian “Marriage”; Lesbians Will Appeal to EU Court
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06073105.html

Cardinal Calls for Madonna’s Excommunication: Pop Star’s Mock Crucifixion an “Open Act of Hostility”

By Peter J. Smith

Madonna "crucified" ROME, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Vatican Cardinal has called for the pop-singer Madonna to be formally excommunicated, calling her plan to perform a blasphemous mock crucifixion in the Eternal City an “open act of hostility.”

"This concert is a blasphemous challenge to the faith and a profanation of the cross. She should be excommunicated,” said Cardinal Tonino, whose statements the Daily Mail says were approved by Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Ersilio Tonino called for Madonna’s excommunication after find out that during her routine she appears crucified, descending from a suspended mirrored cross. The “Confessions Tour” will be held this Sunday at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, less than 2 miles from the Vatican.

"To crucify yourself in the city of the pope and the martyrs is an act of open hostility," said Cardinal Ersilio Tonini according to the daily La Stampa Wednesday. "It's a scandal created on purpose by astute merchants to attract publicity."

The pop-star’s spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, claimed in a Thursday e-mail to the Associated Press that "Madonna does not think Jesus would be mad at her, as his teaching of loving thy neighbor and tolerance is Madonna's message as well.”

She added, “The context of Madonna's performance on the crucifix is not negative nor disrespectful toward the church."

However, Madonna’s tour has united Italy’s Muslim and Jewish leaders in solidarity with Catholics in condemnation of the pop star's decision to stage the mock-crucifixion for this Sunday’s Rome performance.

"It's not the first time Madonna stages such an act. We deplore it, we feel it is an act of bad taste,"" said Mario Scialoja, head of Italy's Muslim World League. “I think her idea is in the worst taste and she'd do better to go home.”

"We express solidarity with the Catholic world," said Riccardo Pacifici, spokesman and vice president of the Roman Jewish community. "It's a disrespectful act, and to do it in Rome is even worse."

The 47 year old Madonna is a lapsed Catholic and daughter of a Catholic Italian-American father, and has been famous for her unapologetic displays of sexual obscenity and religious blasphemy. Back in 1989, Church leaders condemned her for a 1989 music video, "Like a Prayer" featuring burning crosses, statues crying blood tears, and the artist seducing a black Jesus.

In anticipation of Madonna’s first-ever concert in Moscow, Russia's Orthodox Church urged a boycott of the Confessions Tour, according to Agence France-Presse.

“The US singer Madonna exploits Christian symbols -- the cross, rosary beads and the crucifix -- and tries to equate human passions, including her own personal passions, with something sacred," said the Moscow patriarch’s spokesman.

British Researchers: No Male Children For Families With History of Autism

By Hilary White

LONDON, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Researchers at the University College Hospital London have applied for permission to begin using pre-implantation diagnosis (PGD) to screen IVF embryos for possible autism, even though there is no reliable test for the condition.

Opting for what one commentator called a "close enough solution," the reasoning goes that since 90% of autism sufferers are males, the answer is to allow only embryonic girls to be implanted in families with a medical history of autism. This, they say, will allow families with autistic children "to have a daughter free from the condition."

Simone Aspis of the British Council of Disabled People pointed to the inherent eugenic principles behind the application. "Screening for autism would create a society where only perfection is valued." In the brave new world of the researchers, it is reasonable to fear "that anyone who is different in any way will not be accepted," Aspis said.

Bioethicist Ben Mitchell said, "If unborn children are being eliminated for a genetic disposition to autism, no one is safe . . . Today autism, tomorrow intelligence below 70 I.Q., the next day male pattern baldness. When will this madness stop?"

US columnist Chuck Colson, writing in Townhall about the British Researchers' application for the PGD screening, quotes Business Week saying, "the social cost of accommodating [their] birth is increasingly being seen as exceeding [their] worth."

This rhetoric from Business Week of the "social costs" of allowing the unfit to live and reproduce is identical to that of the early 20th century eugenics movement, led by abortion and contraception zealots such as Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger.

Colson makes the point, "Oh my! This utilitarian view of life inevitably leads us exactly where the Nazis were creating a master race. Can’t we see it?"

See Colson's Article in Townhall:

The eliminators
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ChuckColson/2006/08/03/the_eliminators

Democrats Continue to Block Child Custody Protection Act

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As of press time, leading US Senate Democrats are continuing to block the Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA) from moving to negotiations with the US House of Representatives. The procedural tactic threatens to kill the bill which makes illegal the transportation of underage girls across state lines to obtain abortions in order to circumvent parental notification laws in the girls’ home states.

Since the House and the Senate passed slightly different versions of the CCPA, a conference committee of Senate and House delegates must hammer out any differences in order to produce a final version of the bill for passage by both houses of Congress.

The Senate’s version of the bill passed last week 65-34 in the Senate, with the support of Senate Minority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid himself. Reid has since been working to block the bill.

Earlier Sen. Durbin, the democratic minority whip, demanded that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promise any final version of the CCPA would include an amendment submitted by Sen. Boxer (D-CA), which removes the parental rights of incest perpetrators. The Boxer amendment was passed 98-0 by senators, and forbids a father who impregnates his daughter from transporting her to another state for an abortion or from suing a person who takes her across state lines for an abortion.

Frist promised not to support a final version of the bill that did not include the amendment. He then called for a vote to send the bill to the conference committee, a vote that was then obstructed by Sen. Reid.

Pro-lifers fear that if CCPA doesn't leave the Senate for conference today, there will be very little time to get a vote on a version of the bill acceptable to both houses of congress, and the bill may die. The Senate commences a month-long recess on August 7.

By all accounts Senate democrats seem to be pursuing a tactic of “running out the clock.” Once the senate reconvenes on September 5, only a month will remain for both houses to approve a final version of CCPA before they adjourn on October 6.

Frist still has the option to force a vote on the bill by calling for a cloture vote - which requires 60 votes - in order to send CCPA to the congressional negotiators.

President Bush has said he would sign the legislation into law should it be presented to him.

An April 2005 poll by The Polling Co., revealed that 82 percent of Americans objected to a person being able “to take a minor girl across state lines to obtain an abortion without her parents’ knowledge.”

See previous LifeSite coverage:

Parental Notification Bill Passed: Democratic Caucus Moves to Kill Bill by Procedural Obstruction
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06072606.html

Incrementalism Explained as a Proven Pro-Life Strategy

By Steve Jalsevac

July 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his July 2006 Interim newspaper article, “How to Chip away at abortion”, Interim editor Paul Tuns explains at length the logic and crucial continuing need of what are now called pro-life incremental strategies and which are often misunderstood by pro-life North Americans.

Tuns presents these step-by-step law changes, such as banning partial-birth abortions and requiring parental consent for abortion of a minor, as being “incremental” tactics necessary for paving the way for an eventual prohibition of all abortions. The United States pro-life movement has successfully fought for a series of these legislative changes in recent years that have gradually chipped away at the abortion on demand monolith of Roe v. Wade.

Incremental legislative victories are said to have helped a great deal to reduce the number of U.S. abortions by about 17 percent. However, many pro-life North Americans have not understood the strategies with the result that some have strenuously opposed them as being a compromise of principles.

George Weigel, at a Campaign Life Coalition clergy luncheon in May, 2006 in Toronto, noted that incremental victories are indeed pro-life victories and their importance should not be discounted. Weigel emphasized the usefulness of studying an Americans United for Life document, Defending Life 2006: Proven Strategies for a Pro-Life America, for grasping the importance of this development.

“The assumption among many U.S. pro-lifers”, says Tuns, “is that change (in a favourable direction) will continue through these incremental steps - changing the hearts and minds of Americans by demonstrating that the abortion licence is not unlimited.”

The article goes on to explain what Incremental Steps Make Sense and are permissible, from a pro-life perspective, in Canada.

Permissible incremental strategies are said to be “effective restrictions on abortion that affirm the value of life, teach the public that abortion is not an inconsequential procedure and limit the evil of abortion by reducing the number of them committed”.

Mary Ellen Douglas, Campaign Life Coalition’s national coordinator, defines incrementalism as “moving towards a larger goal without admitting that abortion is ever morally permissible”.

Campaign Life Coalition Ottawa lobbyist Aiden Reid adds that “permissible restrictions include outlawing certain procedures, protecting survivors of abortion and laws that require abortion-seeking women to notify family members or become informed about the decision they are making.”

Tuns finally adds that “The pro-life measure being proposed should not have the effect of severely hindering future politicians from acting to further restrict abortion or ultimately achieving the more perfect goal of prohibiting abortion if political conditions change.”

The following items that fit the criteria are discussed in the article:
- banning partial-birth abortion
- prohibiting dilation and extraction (D&E) abortions
- informed consent or women’s right-to-know laws
- 24 hour waiting periods
- mandating that minors seeking abortions notify their parents or receive their consent
- implementing strict limits on free-standing abortion facilities
- placing limits on abortion funding
- passing a Born Alive Infant Protection Act

** See the full Interim newspaper article**
How to Chip away at abortion
http://www.theinterim.com/2006/july/08howtochip.html

Brownback Introduces Bill to Fight Assisted Suicide

Bill prohibits prescribing controlled substances for assisted suicide

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - U.S. Senator Sam Brownback yesterday introduced the Assisted Suicide Prevention Act, which would prohibit doctors from prescribing federally-controlled substances for the purpose of physician-assisted suicide.

“When the law permits killing as a medical ‘treatment,’ society’s moral guidelines are blurred, and killing could gain acceptance as a solution for the chronically ill or vulnerable,” said Brownback. “Doctor-assisted suicide could actually create a financial incentive for insurance companies to encourage prematurely ending the lives of those in need of long-term care.”

Last May Brownback chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing to examine the impact of physician-assisted suicide in places where it has been widely practiced. Several experts testified that in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, where assisted suicide is legal, doctors have started experimenting with euthanasia and infanticide. A September 2005 article in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet reported that half of the newborn babies who died in Flanders, Belgium between August 1999 and July 2000 were “helped” in that regard by their doctors.

Brownback continued, “The American Medical Association and disability rights groups are strongly opposed to physician-assisted suicide because it is antithetical to the doctor’s role as a healer and it jeopardizes the ability of the infirm and helpless to defend themselves. I doubt Americans want the government to decide when life is worth preserving and when life can be destroyed.”

In Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg the Supreme Court unanimously upheld state prohibitions against assisted suicide, ruling that it is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Constitution. In an amicus brief filed in the Washington case, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and the American Psychiatric Association stated the following:

“Once established, the right to physician-assisted suicide would create profound danger for many ill persons with undiagnosed depression and inadequately treated pain, for whom physician- assisted suicide rather than good palliative care could become the norm. At greatest risk would be those with the least access to palliative care—the poor, the elderly, and members of minority groups.”

By only penalizing doctors for using a federally-controlled substance for the stated or undisputed purpose of assisted suicide, and by placing the burden of proof on the Attorney General, the bill does not constrain doctors from offering palliative care that brings pain relief to patients, even if such treatments could hasten death.

Aussie Union Leader Calls Human Cloning “Nazi-like” Experiments

By Peter J. Smith

Joe de Bruyn MELBOURNE, Australia, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A prominent senior official of Australia’s largest trade union has denounced attempts to legalize human cloning for embryonic stem-cell research and compared the practice to human experiments made by Germany’s Nazi doctors, reports the Australian.

"Therapeutic cloning is the creation of human life for the express purpose of destroying it so you can obtain the stem cells and do research," stated Joe de Bruyn, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union secretary.

De Bruyn told the Australian, "That's no different to what Hitler's doctors used to do during the last century. They experimented on human life, and that's what this is."

Earlier this week, Australia’s Health Minister Tony Abbott had also condemned efforts to pressure the government to lift its ban on human cloning for the sake of stem-cell research, calling it “a bridge too far”, and told the National Press Club that there is "very little evidence embryonic stem cell research is the health nirvana".

The Victorian and Queensland premiers have been the principal leaders in pressuring Prime Minister John Howard’s Government to reconsider its ban on human embryo research. Both leaders indicated their state governments are considering their options for financing experiments in therapeutic human cloning, despite the federal government’s ban.

Next Monday, August 7, members of Howard’s coalition government will debate on lifting the ban on human cloning in a special party room meeting before Parliament reconvenes. Howard, speaking ahead of the party room debate, repeated yesterday his conviction that the laws on stem cell research should not change.

Related LifeSite Coverage:

Australian Health Minister Warns Cloning, Embryo Research: “A Bridge Too Far”
Cloning/Embryo research a slippery slope that will only lead to more and more sordid human experimentation
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06080302.html

China Claims Sex-Selective Abortion Will be Punished

By Hilary White

BEIJING, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Associated Press reports that an official with the Chinese communist government’s one child family planning department said that it will still punish selective abortion of girls, even though the legislature decided in June not to make sex-selective abortion a crime.

The Associated Press reports that Zhang Weiqing, an official with the State Commission for Population and Family Planning, said the government would continue to prosecute institutions and individuals involved in illegal sex-selective abortions.

The Chinese government has at least officially acknowledged sex-selection as one of the problems caused by their "family planning" system, but declined to make it a crime to kill unborn baby girls, despite a rapidly growing demographic disaster.

According to the latest available statistics, China reports that about 119 boys are born for every 100 girls, compared to the global average ratio of about 105 boys to 100 girls.

The official Xinhua News Agency that the government has prosecuted 3,000 cases of fetus gender identification and selective abortions in the last two years.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

China Will Not Pursue Criminal Penalties for Sex-Selection Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062604.html

LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes

Mel Gibson and politics of bigotry
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/BrentBozellIII/2006/08/04/mel_gibson_and_poli...

The Great Stem Cell Coverup - Promising medical research you never hear about - Wesley J. Smith
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/519gzqaa.asp

Gender difference, not gay marriage, at center of family fight - Michael Medved
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2006/08/02/gender_difference,_n...

Knights of Columbus pledge to fight for marriage, life, ‘under God’
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=7324

Sen. Brownback: ACLU -- Not Taxpayers -- Should Foot the Bill for Church-State Lawsuits
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/afa/32006a.asp

The Immoral Intentionality of 'Teen' Movies
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/afa/42006c.asp

Professor Ratzinger goes back to school. After Islam last year, Darwin topic this year
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=75381&eng=y

No better place for Maurice Strong to hide from American justice than China
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/cover080206.htm

ACLU Accused of Profiting at Taxpayer Expense
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200608/CUL20060804a...

Is conservatism finished?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301259....

CWA President Urges Prayer for U.N. Convention on People With Disabilities
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11264/CWA/life/index.htm

Homosexual-activist cop threatens Christians
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51378

Investigation of Illinois Catholic diocese cites "culture of secrecy"
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisstatenews/story/DC9C6B...

Court Puts Sexual Orientation in Same Category as Race
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11265/LEGAL/freedom/index.htm

A Bit of History for Global Warmers: Look at 1930
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200608/NAT20060804c.h...

Latest batch of Chinese spies wear the collar of Catholic priest
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/cover080406.htm

Education Leader Urges Teachers to Consider Alternatives to NEA
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/afa/42006a.asp

Federal Grants Promote Character Education in U.S. Schools
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/afa/32006d.asp

Credit Cards Cancel Porn
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/afa/32006g.asp

AIDS death rate same despite new drugs
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060804-081458-8534r

Rethinking the marriage debate - 250 gay supporters urge new path, oppose ‘special rights’ for couples
http://www.washblade.com/2006/8-3/news/national/rethink.cfm

Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie is filled with . . . religious symbolism
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12527&...

The immaturity of today’s youth has been shaped by decades of prosperity and consumerism
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=334

The cultural contradictions of capitalism
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336

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Friday August 4, 2006

Ontario Catholic Bishops to be Scolded by Pope? Some hope so.

LifeSiteNews documents reasons why scolding would be hoped for by faithful Catholics

ACLU Forces Co-Ed Classes in Louisiana School Citing Gender Discrimination

"Unfounded notions like 'boys need to practice pursuing and killing prey, while girls need to practice taking care of babies' has no place in our classrooms": ACLU Executive Director

Irish Lesbians Using Canadian “Marriage” to Impose Same-Sex “Marriage” on Ireland

Cardinal Calls for Madonna’s Excommunication: Pop Star’s Mock Crucifixion an “Open Act of Hostility”

British Researchers: No Male Children For Families With History of Autism

Democrats Continue to Block Child Custody Protection Act

Incrementalism Explained as a Proven Pro-Life Strategy

Brownback Introduces Bill to Fight Assisted Suicide

Bill prohibits prescribing controlled substances for assisted suicide

Aussie Union Leader Calls Human Cloning “Nazi-like” Experiments

China Claims Sex-Selective Abortion Will be Punished

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