Politics
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Wednesday February 1, 2006
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Print- U.S. President Includes Pro-Life and Pro-Family Remarks in State of the Union Address
- On Day of Alito Confirmation, Two Courts Rule Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act Unconstitutional
- Majority of UK Women Want Abortion Restricted by Law
- Abortion Pill RU486 Banned in Italy
- Cardinal Newman Society Campaign Against Offensive “Monologues” Achieves Results
- Germany Leads the World in Childless Women
- 35% of Christian Families Have Been Harmed By Internet Material
- McGill University Homosexual Activists Shut Down Blood Clinic
- Campaign for 100,000 Children to Write Colombian Supreme Court to Keep Abortion Illegal
- LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes
U.S. President Includes Pro-Life and Pro-Family Remarks in State of the Union Address
"Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale."
TODAY'S HEADLINES
By John-Henry Westen
WASHINGTON, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During his State of the Union address last night, U.S. President George W. Bush gave voice to his pro-life and pro-family supporters.
Noting that in "recent years, America has become a more hopeful nation," the President boasted that "there are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades." He also mentioned a decline in violent crime, welfare cases, drug use, and teen pregnancies, citing these (and the fewer abortions) as "evidence of a quiet transformation -- a revolution of conscience, in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment."
On life issues, Bush also said, "A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life."
Addressing himself to Congress, the President asked for the passage of "legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos."
He concluded the point saying, "Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale."
President Bush also raised the fact that "many Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture." They are, he said, "discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage." Shortly after which he praised the newly appointed members of the Supreme Court - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito.
He encouraged his listeners not to give in to dismay and helplessness. "As we look at these challenges, we must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel," he said.
Back to TopOn Day of Alito Confirmation, Two Courts Rule Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act Unconstitutional
By John-Henry Westen
SAN FRANCISO, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While pro-lifers were celebrating the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, two federal Appellate Courts ruled the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional.
The 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco, with a reputation of being the most activist court in the nation, ruled unanimously. The ruling, written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, barred enforcement of the act, affirming a lower court's "permanent injunction." (See the full ruling here: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/F2F40907BCCED8078825710700038BAE...$file/0416621.pdf?openelement )
The 2nd Circuit Court in Manhattan also held the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban unconstitutional. See the ruling here: http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:81/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcT1BOXDA0LTUyMDEtY3Zfb3BuLn...
"This ruling is one of a number of nonsensical abortion rulings handed down by our liberal courts," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "On one had we have courts that convict people like Scott Peterson for double homicide when it involves the death of a pregnant woman and her pre-born baby. Then on the other hand, we have courts that determine that the 'gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized' partial-birth abortion is a Constitutional right."
"This schizophrenic and immoral misapplication of our laws can no longer be tolerated. These cases must go to the newly seated Supreme Court for adjudication. This will be a golden opportunity for Roberts and Alito to put their conservative judicial philosophies to good use," said Newman.
Majority of UK Women Want Abortion Restricted by Law
By Gudrun Schultz
GREAT BRITAIN, UK, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Women in the United Kingdom want to see more legal protection for unborn children.
An opinion poll from January conducted by Ipsos MORI found widespread public support for greater restrictions on abortion, particularly among women. Almost 60 percent of all women polled want to see greater restrictions on abortion access. 47 per cent want to see the current limit of 24 weeks reduced, while ten percent of women want to see abortion banned entirely, “under any circumstances.”
Less than one third of women and just over one third of men questioned think the present limit should stand as it is. Only two per cent of women and five per cent of men want to see abortion limits increased to more than 24 weeks.
Advances in ultrasound technology that allow a clear view of the child’s face in the womb appear to have affected public opinion. In particular, images of unborn children smiling and frowning at 24 weeks have had an impact.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, plans to encourage the government to conduct a review of the existing law, his spokesman told Reuters.
“The Cardinal sees in this moral awakening a growing unease with, and erosion of, the idea of abortion as simply a woman’s right,” Dr. Austen Ivereigh, spokesman for Cardinal O’Connor, said. “There has been a moral awakening over the last few years about abortion—the British public have been undergoing a reality check.”
Some pro-abortion MPs have begun to look at the possibility of supporting a reduction in abortion limits, based on medical advances that have further improved viability rates for premature babies—Current legislation is based on viability. In 1990 legislation was passed reducing the original limit of 28 weeks to 24 after doctors stated babies could now be considered viable at an earlier age.
Abortion was legalized in Britain in 1967. Approximately 200,000 children die each year under the current laws.
Ipsos MORI interviewed 1,790 people aged 16 to 64 by online questionnaire between 6 and 10 January.
Abortion Pill RU486 Banned in Italy
By Gudrun Schultz
MILAN, Italy, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has banned imports of the abortion pill RU 486.
Although the drug is not licensed in Italy, it has been available on an “experimental” basis since 2002. Health Minister Francesco Storace said imports of the drug have “rocketed” in the past two years, in an interview with the UK Times.
“From now on doctors will have to justify every individual request on precise clinical and epidemiological grounds,” he said.
The abortion pill causes a woman up to seven weeks pregnant to abort her baby. The drug Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, causing the uterine lining to break down and bleed.
The so-called “medical abortion” occurs with severe side effects including nausea, pain and bleeding. Hemorrhaging occurs in up to five percent of cases. In over ten percent of cases, medical intervention, including a surgical abortion, is required to cope with the effects of the drug. Ten women have died from taking the drug, five in the US alone.
Last month, Pope Benedict XVI urged doctors not to give women the abortion pill, saying the Italian government should not "introduce pharmaceuticals that in one way or another hide the grave nature of abortion."
For previous LifeSiteNews coverage, see:
Public Documents Reveal Numerous RU-486 Complications
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05012403.html
For further information on RU486, go to:
http://www.ru486.org
Cardinal Newman Society Campaign Against Offensive “Monologues” Achieves Results
By Gudrun Schultz
MANASSAS, VIRGINIA, United States, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Five Catholic universities have stated they will not permit the Vagina Monologues to be presented on campus, and four more say the play won’t appear, after a campaign by the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) to stop performances of the offensive production on Catholic campuses.
The Monologues is an obscene, sometimes pornographic “celebration” of women’s sexuality that focuses on lesbian sexual experiences and masturbation. The play encourages the use of vulgar and explicit sexual language, and glorifies the lesbian seduction of a young girl.
The CNS contacted 29 Catholic colleges this year to encourage the cancellation of planned performances in February and March 2006. The Society’s campaign has seen increasing success, with declining numbers of annual performances at Catholic colleges and universities. Last year, the play was performed at 27 Catholic schools, down from 29 in 2004 and 32 in 2003.
V-Day, an organization started by the play’s author, radical feminist Eve Ensler, to promote the Monologues, has acknowledged the success of the CNS’s efforts by posting a rebuttal on their website.
Universities that will not allow performances on campus include the Catholic University of America, Marquette University, New York Medical College, Providence College and Seton Hall University.
Assumption College, Carlow University, Sacred Heart University and Saint Xavier University have said the play will not appear, but have not officially banned the performance.
Germany Leads the World in Childless Women
By Hilary White
BERLIN, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - 30% of German women choose not to have children with the figure rising among female graduates to 40% making Germany the world’s leader in childless women. These numbers spurred a contentious debate in the German Bundestag (parliament) earlier this week.
Germany is following the European trend with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, 1.3 births per woman compared with the 2.1 required for a stable population. Statistics show that with the current rates of births and deaths, the German population declines by a third every generation.
"If the birth rate continues to fall, Germans are at risk of dying out," said Harald Michel, the head of the Institute for Applied Demography. He along with other experts is [are] so alarmed at the decline that he believes if the trend is not reversed, not only will Germany and other European countries not be able to support their generous state cradle-to-grave welfare programmes, they will not continue to exist.
Ursula von der Leyen, a gynaecologist and mother of seven is the German family minister, says that unless the birth rate rises, “we will have to turn out the light.”
Debate on the German birth crisis is focusing not on the birth rate itself, however, but on the dearth of spaces available for childcare and on government subsidies for parental leave. No mention of abortion has been made either by von der Leyen’s Christian Democrat party or the Social Democrats. Von der Leyen’s solution was to attempt to force men to take two months leave from work after the birth of a child in order to qualify for state-funded child welfare support.
Germany’s abortion rate has long been among the highest in the world and polls are showing that many young German women accept the feminist proposal that a life spent as a mother is a waste. German women also have children later, delaying motherhood until after university and securing a well-paid job. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel said that men and women are “deeply uncertain” about parenthood
35% of Christian Families Have Been Harmed By Internet Material
By Terry Vanderheyden
NICEVILLE, Florida, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Christian internet filtering company is warning that many families are at risk of exposing their children to unsolicited pornography while on the internet.
American Family Online’s (AFO) Executive Director Steve Ensley told AmericanDecency.org in an interview that, “By all indications from both external and internal surveys, less than 35% of Christian families have Internet filtering of any kind.”
Ensley added that many filtering companies still allow soft porn, such as lingerie sellers and some magazines. “These sites and thousands like them are commercial sites that intentionally have erotic images and material on the sites. But the ‘popular’ filters will not filter these sites.” He also warned that homosexually explicit sites are often not blocked by filters.
Ensley reported about statistics conducted by the AFO. He revealed that 74% of 465 people surveyed had been disturbed by pornography while on the internet. A whopping 35% of respondents said they or someone in their household had been harmed by the internet. The type of harm was broken down into physical, emotional, and spiritual harm, with over half of respondents indicating that they or a family member had been harmed “emotionally” or “spiritually” by internet content. Twenty-one reported the harm as “major.”
“That percentage is higher than any other disease or morally destructive behavior in our culture today.” said Ensley. The greatest cause of harm was reported to be from pornography, at 30%. The research also revealed that almost 10% of those affected by the internet required outside help for the effects. “Equally telling, according to the survey, is the fact that two adults are harmed for every child that is harmed,” Ensley explained. “We tend to think of filtering as an issue for children. The truth is that the entire family needs protection and the survey confirms this fact.”
A large study conducted in 2002 found that pornography viewing results in a host of problems. One of the most common psychological problems is a deviant attitude towards intimate relationships such as perceptions of sexual dominance, submissiveness, sex role stereotyping or viewing persons as sexual objects. Behavioural problems include fetishes and excessive or ritualistic masturbation. Sexual aggressiveness, sexually hostile and violent behaviours are social problems as well as individual problems that are linked to pornography.
Only about half of the AFO survey respondents said that they have internet filtering software installed on their computers.
Learn more about American Family Online’s filtering services at:
http://www.afo.net
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Pornography Addiction Destroying Lives, US Senate Told
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04111909.html
Study Proves "Pornography Is Harmful"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/mar/02031203.html
McGill University Homosexual Activists Shut Down Blood Clinic
Protesters told to “lie about your sexual history”
MONTREAL, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of homosexual activists have shut down a Montreal blood donor clinic that was screening out sexually active “gay” men. 10 to15 men showed up at the McGill University blood drive Wednesday, dressed in women’s clothes and waving sex toys.
Workers with the Quebec blood agency found an anonymous note posted in men's bathrooms encouraging homosexual donors to lie on their blood donor questionnaire.
The note urged the men to "act faggy" and "lie about your sexual history."
A homosexual activist group called Queer McGill condemned the agency’s lifetime ban on sexually active homosexuals as discriminatory. Medical realities, however, give little room for pandering to political correctness and the agency, not willing to take chances, shut down the clinic. The agency’s policy is to refuse men who have had sex with another man since 1977.
Andre Roch, a spokesperson with the agency said, “When we collect blood, we collect blood for patients. And what we must do is ensure safety is paramount.”
In 1998, the federal and provincial governments paid out $1.1 billion in compensation to Canadians who had been infected with hepatitis C from transfusions of tainted blood through the 1980’s. This followed a previous payout by the federal government in 1989, of $150 million for 1,250 Canadians infected with HIV.
Campaign for 100,000 Children to Write Colombian Supreme Court to Keep Abortion Illegal
By Terry Vanderheyden
MEDELLIN, Colombia, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life groups in Columbia are campaigning to have 100,000 children write the Supreme Court to prevent the justices there from legalizing abortion.
The groups are asking children to submit letters by February 20, to be collected by schools and parishes of the Archdiocese of Medellin.
See the Catholic News Agency report:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5872
LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes
Marriage Protection Amendment Waits for Congress
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039400.cfm
NBC to mock the Crucifixion of Christ
http://www.afa.net/nbcspecialalert.asp
Schiavo news points up need of support for priests and reform of chanceries
http://www.spiritdaily.com/bishopviews.htm
Women Sue Wal-Mart Over Morning After Pill
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060201/ap_on_re_us/wal_mart_contraception
U.K. Evangelicals Applaud Defeat of Religious Hate Crime Law
http://www.christianpost.com/article/europe/606/section/uk.evangelicals.applaud....
Brokeback - Understanding Propaganda
http://www.rense.com/general69/prop.htm
Gates speaks out against Internet censorship
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060201/gates_censorship_06...
Britney, NBC plan to mock crucifixion - In 'Will & Grace' role, she does Christian cooking segment 'Cruci-fixin's'
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48612
Giving to churches by US seniors threatened?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48598
Major League Baseball succumbs to Beijing - Forces Taiwan to forgo name, flag, anthem at tournament
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48597
Colorado bishops, others, blast proposed legislation, cite unequal treatment for sexual abuse cases
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5890
Chilean senator says homosexual unions and abortion part of new government’s agenda
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5894
Catholic League says New Hampshire bill targeting confessional should not pass
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5874
Brad Pitt has ordered aides to find him a GAY movie role.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006050298,00.html
Homosexual Propoganda Film 'Brokeback Mountain'gets 8 Oscar Nominations
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060131/D8FFN6EG0.html
Tobin becomes third Liberal to snub leadership - joins former deputy prime minister John Manley and former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=46514f7c-45bb-443c-afc6-a6...
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