LifeSite Daily News for Thursday July 3, 2008

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Dear readers,

There has been a heavy emphasis on Canadian news for the past few days, but for good reason. Be assured that all the crucial international developments are also a priority while we are covering the astonishing Order of Canada development that has put the abortion issue high in the public consciousness again in Canada.

There has been an unprecedented response to the story that arch-abortionist Henry Morgentaler was appointed to receive the highest national civilian award. Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada has performed yeoman service on the issue, providing news of the appointment to media and key stakeholders a few days prior to the official announcement.

With that lead time many of the life and family groups, church and civic leaders were primed to respond to the official announcement on Canada Day. Phones at the Governor General’s office have been clogged for the past two days, emails and faxes have poured in. As you’ll see in today’s news a petition drive has been launched just this evening and a protest outside the Governor General’s headquarters has been set for July 9th.

Kudos to Campaign Life Coalition which launched LifeSiteNews.com a dozen years ago, and kudos to all of you and the other organizations who have taken action on this matter raising the right to life debate in Canada to a prominence we have not seen in many years. Keep up your prayers and hard work, sign and promote the online petition, write those letters to the editor, contact your MPs and remember LifeSiteNews.com when deciding where to make your donations. Also, for those of you with Facebook accounts, be sure to join our Facebook group, “Fans and Friends of LifeSiteNews.com”, that was launched today.

For Life,
John-Henry Westen
Editor
LifeSiteNews.com

National Group Launches Petition Calling for Morgentaler Order of Canada Appointment to be Revoked

By Steve Jalsevac

TORONTO, Ontario, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com ) – Canada’s national pro-life political organization, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), in response to the wave of opposition to the Morgentaler Order of Canada appointment, has developed an Internet petition by which all citizens and even non-Canadians may jointly call for the appointment to be revoked by the Governor General. See:

a) Canadian Petition:
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Morgentaler/

b) American and International Petition:
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/MorgentalerAmerican/

Since the organization broke the Morgentaler story in a press release this past Saturday at noon, CLC has been inundated with telephone calls. National Organizer Mary Ellen Douglas, located in Kingston, Ontario, told LifeSiteNews that she has conducted at least 30 print, radio and television interviews and answered numerous additional calls for clarification. The National Office in Toronto has also been responding to a flood of communications. Many other organization leaders also reported a strong response as they and their fellow Canadians came to learn of the shocking development.

CLC President Jim Hughes says he has been amazed at the extent of opposition to the award by the public and many Members of Parliament. He said he quickly realized that his organization had to assist the public to properly direct their calls for the Order to be revoked.

CLC and other groups have been providing the contact information of those who should be emailed and called about the issue, and Campaign Life Coalition, in cooperation with Angelina Steenstra of Silent no More Awareness, has now just launched an online national petition campaign calling for Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada to be revoked. Steenstra, who heads the Canadian branch of an organization of women and men who regret their abortion decisions, will be presenting the printout of the names to the Prime Minister and the Governor General.

The petition campaign has been designed to protect the privacy of signers. Only the name, city and province of signers will appear on the petition website. Campaign Life Coalition has consulted several leaders to arrive at the most appropriate wording for the petition. This took a few days to get just right.

Other life and family organization leaders have also expressed support for such a petition campaign during recent discussions among the leaders about the Order of Canada travesty. They have emphasized, however, that personal telephone calls and emails are also needed at this time.

To join in the petition campaign see:

a) Canadian Petition:
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Morgentaler/

b) American and International Petition:
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/MorgentalerAmerican/

Order of Canada Members Return their Awards Over Morgentaler Decision

By Hilary White

LONDON, Ontario, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com ) – Father Lucien Larre, a Catholic priest in British Columbia, is returning his Order of Canada, saying that Morgentaler’s investiture into the highly prestigious Order was “a terrible mistake”.

Fr. Larre said he did not want to “condemn” Dr. Morgentaler, but felt “compelled in conscience to return my Order of Canada.” He added, “I believe in my heart that he is horribly wrong and the advisory committee made a terrible mistake.”

Even the usually reticent Prime Minister Stephen Harper has indicated he is not happy with the choice to honour Morgentaler. In comments today after a meeting with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Harper said he would rather see the award “be something that really unifies” and “brings Canadians together.”

Created in 1967, the order was established to recognize the lifetime contributions made by Canadians who made a major difference to Canada. The first level, Member of the Order of Canada, is awarded for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.”

One man, who asked to remain unnamed to avoid media publicity, told LifeSiteNews.com that, although he had been named as a recipient for his volunteer activities, he would ask the committee to remove his name from the list. “At first I thought it was a great honour. But right now I’m not sure I’m a proud Canadian. Honour dropped down quite a bit today,” he said.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday decried the naming of Dr. Morgentaler, issuing a news release calling it an “inadmissible affront” to Canadians. “In the name of freedom of choice, he has encouraged the development of a culture of death and has thus attacked the most vulnerable, the unborn,” the bishops said.

Bishop Ronald Fabbro of London, Ontario, also said he was “extremely discouraged” to hear of the award. “I join Catholics across Canada, as well as many other Canadians who respect the value of every human life, in urging the Governor General to revoke this decision,” he said.

Bishop Fabbro was joined locally by Chatham-Kent Essex MP Dave Van Kesteren and Lambton-Kent Middlesex MP Bev Shipley who also said he was “greatly disappointed” by the decision and that “Canada’s highest civilian honour has been politicized and debased by this appointment”. Van Kesteren said, “I would have thought they would have used more wisdom in the selection process.”

Theodore Caldwell, president of Caldwell Asset Management wrote in the National Post yesterday that his father, Thomas S. Caldwell, a recipient of the award in 2003, has also returned his award as a protest. Caldwell wrote that he was “proud” that his father had returned the award, saying, “I have not been graced with the time or talent to have attained such a prestigious award. But if I had, and if the same folks who honoured me then chose to celebrate a man for snuffing out little lives, I like to think I would waste no time in telling them where to stick their snowflake.”

Thomas Caldwell, a businessman, is chairman of the King-Bay Chaplaincy, a non-denominational Christian ministry that provides meals, clothes and other assistance to street people. He also received Her Majesty’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 for his activities on behalf of veterans.

Barbara Kay wrote in the National Post yesterday that, at the very least, awarding the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour, to Dr. Morgentaler was “unwise”.

“Abortion is a divisive issue, and only two minority groups believe there is a black-and-white answer to the questions of ‘if’ and ‘when’,” she wrote.

Kay said that although most Canadians fall “somewhere in between” the pro-life and pro-abortion opinions, “a significant number of Canadians were offended yesterday – and many were more than offended: They were ashamed and morally anguished at his invitation into the Order.”

She points out that, having cast the entire debate in terms of “women’s health” and “women’s freedom”, “[p]art of Dr. Morgentaler’s legacy has thus been to make pro-life advocacy politically incorrect. Chilling free speech is not the hallmark of a ‘better country’.”

But the bottom line, that Dr. Morgentaler is personally responsible for the deaths of countless thousands of innocent children, was highlighted by the Toronto Sun, who quoted Joanne Boone. Boone, as an 18 year-old, had paid Morgentaler $600 for an abortion.

“If you can imagine a soul being pulled out one’s body! That is how it felt,” said the now 56 year-old Boone. “It felt so unnatural. We are supposed to give life, not end it.”

She told the Sun that she felt she had no choice and no say because her family had decided on an abortion.

LifeSiteNews Now on Facebook – Join the Group, Spread the Word

Dear Readers,

Yesterday LifeSiteNews.com inaugurated its own Facebook group, called “Fans and Friends of LifeSiteNews.com.” Readers can join the group by going to: https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=4651&uid=2323739…. If you are not already a member of Facebook, you will have to open up an account before you can join.

Facebook is the fastest growing online networking utility and in many cases is having a surprising impact on important issues around the world. By joining LifeSiteNews’ Facebook group, friends and fans of our news service will be able to gather together in one place, to post and respond to various discussion topics, to engage in debate on the issues of the day, to easily communicate with LifeSiteNews’ staff and writers, and to give us your feedback on anything and everything.

For those who wish to lend a hand to LifeSiteNews and its work, Facebook offers numerous opportunities. In particular, those who are part of the online community and have a list of friends can invite their friends to join our group, and can encourage friends to check out our website and sign up for our daily news reports.

Due mostly to a very tight budget, LifeSiteNews.com has rarely been able to advertise our website. Our wide and devoted readership has come about almost entirely through a process of word of mouth, Internet referrals and Internet searching. LifeSiteNews’ Facebook group simply takes that word of mouth process into the digital sphere, utilizing the networking capabilities of Facebook to boost our readership and therefore our overall impact – the reason for the existence of LifeSiteNews.

You who are already fans of LifeSiteNews know just how powerful that impact can be and undoubtedly want LifeSiteNews to be read by as many people as possible. So join up, invite your friends and spread the word.

Also, for those of you who have not already done so, please take a moment to sign up a few friends and relatives for a trial subscription for our daily news e-mails. It takes mere seconds to do, but is one of the most important things you can do to support our unique news service. Follow this link here: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/subscribe/gift/index.html and punch in the necessary information.

And, as always, thanks for your ongoing support.

Sincerely,
John Jalsevac
Assistant Editor

P.S. Once again, to join LifeSiteNews’ Facebook group, go to: https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=4651&uid=2323739…

Online Polls Show Strong Opposition to Morgentaler Order of Canada

By John Jalsevac

July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Yesterday seven different news organizations conducted online polls seeking the opinions of Canadians on the question of whether or not arch-abortionist Henry Morgentaler should have been awarded the Order of Canada.

The results of six of the seven polls showed a heavy majority being strongly against Morgentaler’s having been named to the Order. The seventh poll, which was the only one that did not offer a simple “yes” or “no” option, still showed a larger number of respondents being against Morgentaler’s receiving the award than were in favour.

While such online polls are far from being scientific, the results indicate, at the very least, that Morgentaler is a long way from being unanimously embraced by Canadians as a worthy recipient of Canada’s highest civic award.

A poll conducted by Newstalk 650 showed 85% of respondents being against Morgentaler’s receiving the award, with only 15% in favour. The Calgary Herald showed 77.95% against giving the award to the abortionist, with 22.05% in favour. VOCM’s poll showed 80% against and 14% in favour. While the Winnipeg Sun’s poll showed 76% against and 24% in favour, with a total of 3187 votes having been received.

The poll by CNews was the only poll not to offer a simple “yes” or “no” choice, instead giving the option of, “Yes, he’s a champion of women’s right,” or “No, he’s a murderer.” Despite the strong epithet of “murderer” being applied in the negative response, a higher number of respondents to the CNews poll still voted that, indeed, Morgentaler is a murderer, and does not deserve the Order of Canada, than voted that he is a champion of women’s rights. 47% said he is a murderer, while only 43% said he deserved the award. 11% said they were unsure. A total of 4129 votes were received by CNews.

The CTV poll, which received an especially large number of votes, with 16454 people having weighed in on the issue, showed 61% of respondents (or 9999) being against Morgentaler’s being named to the Order, and 39% (or 6455 respondents) being in favour.

Interestingly, the poll with the largest number of respondents, the Globe and Mail poll, can no longer be found on the Globe’s website, despite the fact that the site has an extensive archive of past polls. An e-mail sent to the Globe seeking an explanation for the disappearance of the poll was not returned by press time.

However, a blogger at the conservative website, Freedominion, claimed to have been able to access the results of the Globe and Mail’s missing poll through a “back door”. That blogger reported that the final results showed 56% of votes (or 11,467) being against Morgentaler’s receiving the award, and 44% (or 8,931) being in favour.

Britain’s Pathway to Euthanasia – NHS Protocols for Dehydrating Disabled Patients to Death

By Hilary White

July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British “end of life” care protocol approved for use by the National Health Service (NHS), has created a systematic, and legal, method of euthanising elderly and disabled patients, even while “mercy killing” remains officially illegal, says a prominent expert in elder care. The “Liverpool Care Pathway” will be used to eliminate patients deemed to be “blocking beds” in the increasingly financially strapped public health system.

For years, Dr. Adrian Treloar, a psycho-geriatrician and senior lecturer at the Greenwich Hospital and Guys’, King’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals in London, has been sounding the warning that the NHS has an unofficial system in place to authorise the killing of vulnerable disabled patients with an unwritten policy of “involuntary euthanasia” by deep sedation and dehydration.

On April 26, 2008, Dr. Treloar wrote a letter to the British Medical Journal, saying that the protocol known as the “Liverpool Care Pathway” for dying patients, is a blueprint for systematic euthanasia of disabled patients. The Liverpool Care Pathway, which allows for “continuous deep sedation” for patients judged to be incurable, was developed between the Royal Liverpool hospital and Marie Curie cancer hospices in order to standardise the medical approach to dying that could then be used as a template nationally. Combined with withdrawal of fluids, deep sedation leads quickly to death.

In 1999, the NHS dismissed Dr. Treloar’s warnings as “ludicrous.” But media coverage of families resorting to lawyers to stop the killing of their relatives has made it increasingly difficult for health officials to deny that there is an accepted euthanasia procedure in place. Dr. Treloar maintains that the motivation for killing patients judged to be incurable is not the relief of extreme suffering but the enormous pressure on the socialised health care system to make hospital beds available and the “triaging” of costly tax-sponsored medical care.

Since that time, the government passed legislation in 2005 – the Mental Capacity Act – that, following existing guidelines from the British Medical Association, allows doctors to withhold all “treatment,” including food and water, from patients who are judged to be incapable of making decisions for themselves. Under this law, doctors, and not the family and not the patient, have the last say in whether a patient is judged mentally capable. Once this judgement has been made, withdrawal of fluids can be ordered on the grounds that it is in the patient’s “best interests” to die. If families try to intervene to save their loved ones lives, social services and police can be, and have been, called to intervene.

Since 2000, the instances of helpless patients being denied the basic necessities needed to sustain life are becoming more prominent in the news. Only this week, the BBC reported on the case of Mrs. Ellen Westwood, an 88 year-old woman whom doctors had decreed was ‘due to die’ in February, and whose life was saved only after the determined efforts of her family and clergy resulted in her being removed from the hospital.

Dr. Treloar wrote that the Liverpool Care Pathway threatens patients because its “eligibility criteria do not ensure that only people who are about to die are allowed on the pathway.”

“They allow people who are thought to be dying, are bed-bound, and are unable to take tablets onto the pathway. In chronic diseases such as dementia, dying may take years, but such patients may be eligible.”

Elspeth Chowdharay Best, from the anti-euthanasia group ALERT, wrote recently, “Death by dehydration has been occurring for some years in Britain without the new official blessing [of the Liverpool Care Pathway protocol] and sometimes challenged by relatives.”

The Sunday Times reported on May 18 this year that many families are “dismayed” that their cases are not being included in a long-term investigation into ten suspicious deaths of elderly patients in a convalescent home in Hampshire between 1996 and 1999. Mike Wilson told the Times that his 91 year-old mother, Edna Purnell, had been out of bed and using a walking frame when she was transferred to the Hampshire unit for what was supposed to have been a brief period of rehabilitation.

Records show that Mrs. Purnell was put to bed and given morphine. The hospital threatened Mr. Wilson with arrest when he was caught feeding his mother. She was judged to be “demented” and thus falling under the auspices of the Mental Capacity Act. Mr. Wilson told the times that his mother was not “demented” before she was given morphine: “We are in no doubt that this is what killed her.”

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Elderly Woman Rescued by Family from NHS Dehydration Order
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08070205.html

Abortionists in South Dakota Now Required to Admit Abortion Kills a “Whole, Separate, Unique, Living Human Being”

SIOUX FALLS, SD, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a 7-4 decision, will allow South Dakota to begin enforcing a state law that requires abortion providers to tell women, in writing, that the abortion procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the Court vacated a temporary injunction that had been issued by the trial court, which had blocked the law from going into effect.

The opinion addresses the important issue of whether South Dakota can enforce its 2005 informed consent law while the constitutionality of its requirements is litigated in court. Much of the opinion discusses whether the statement, “abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” is truthful, not misleading and relevant to women’s decisions to obtain abortions. The majority found that Planned Parenthood had “submitted no evidence” that this statement was false, misleading, or irrelevant.

Planned Parenthood and abortion activists have tried to deny the fact that abortion kills a separate human being. Denial of this fact was part of a national strategy to create a culture of abortion for the entire nation, according to sworn testimony of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (NARAL). Today, a majority of the judges on the Eighth Circuit have clearly and decisively declared that South Dakota need not deny the truth.

Harold Cassidy, chief counsel for the two crisis pregnancy centers which intervened in the case, said: “Planned Parenthood, in a shocking, and perhaps perverse logic, argued that abortion doctors were harmed by being required to tell women the truth, and this supposed harm outweighed the damage to pregnant mothers who lost their children because of these doctors’ failure to make material disclosures.” The informed consent law is designed to guard against the negligence and misrepresentations by providers, since many women would not obtain abortions if properly informed.

The South Dakota law is designed to provide basic information necessary for a pregnant mother to make an informed decision before she gives up her fundamental rights. In the process, it allows her to apply her own personal, moral, and ethical values to the facts once they are disclosed. This fall, the people of South Dakota will vote on a statewide initiative that will ban abortion except in the case where the mother’s life is threatened or in the rare case of rape or incest. This voter initiative will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which sanctioned abortion through all nine months of pregnancy on January 22, 1973.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “Planned Parenthood wants to practice evil while pretending it does not exist. Planned Parenthood is founded on a lie and it seeks to deceive women into thinking that abortion is good for them and that it does not involve a separate human being. When the truth about abortion is known, very few women will choose to kill their children.”

Human/Pig Hybrid Clones Approved for UK

By Hilary White

LONDON, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Doubtless in anticipation of the apparently imminent passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the UK’s embryo research authority has granted a license to scientists to begin work to create human/pig cloned hybrid embryos. The Labour government’s proposed bill, however, would, if passed into law, do away with the necessity of researchers even asking for individual licenses.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) granted the license to the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, who want to make the embryos in order to produce embryonic stem cells.

Professor Justin St. John told the Daily Telegraph: “We will take skin cells from patients who have a mutation for certain kinds of heart disease…and put them into pig eggs after their chromosomes have been removed. We will then make embryos so that we can attempt to derive embryonic stem cells which will allow us to study some of the molecular mechanisms associated with these heart diseases.”

The researchers say they hope to use the cells to learn the origins and workings of certain types of heart disease and provide models for drug testing. “We will effectively be creating and studying these diseases in a dish,” Professor St. John said.

The initial stages of the research will be focused on learning to create human/animal hybrid clones more efficiently.

The Christian Legal Centre responded to the announcement with a warning that this was only a “foretaste of things to come.” Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, also argued that the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act does not give the HFEA the power to grant such licences.

“The HFEA has not met the 1990 Act’s stringent standards for granting licences, in as much as these licences are neither ‘necessary’ nor ‘desirable’,” said Mrs. Williams.

“No significant advances have been made in embryonic stem cell research, while great advances in disease treatment have been seen in research on adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells,” she said.

“When other viable alternatives to such controversial research already exist, such as human induced pluripotent stem cells, then it cannot be claimed that such new research is either necessary or desirable.”

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) have called on supporters to contact their MPs to defeat the HFE bill, currently moving into its final stages in Parliament.

Mrs. Williams added, “When we are talking about making human pig clones, we should lament our dulling of conscience as a society which permits such embryos to exist. This underscores the deplorable state of bioethics in which the UK now finds itself.”

To find out who your UK MP is:
https://www.spuc.org.uk/mps

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Defeat Embryo Bill and Abortion Amendments say UK Parliamentarians
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08070212.html

U.K. Researcher: Creation of Human/Animal Hybrid Embryos is Easier than Expected
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08062006.html

Bishop in Center of Catholic Charity Scandal Says He Forbade Minor’s Abortion

By Peter J. Smith

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo has revealed that he expressly forbade an abortion from taking place back in January, but neither the diocese nor the Commonwealth Catholic Charities (CCC) has told the press what “erroneous information” prevented the bishop and the director of Commonwealth Catholic Charities from taking action to stop the abortion.

The scandal broke after The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly, and The Washington Times exposed Catholic Charities’ complicity in a 16 year-old Guatemalan girl’s abortion. The girl was a ward of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who was entrusted to the care of Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR).

Two months before the abortion, CCR staff members had the girl fitted with a contraceptive device. When the girl said she wanted an abortion, one CCR staffer signed consent papers, while a volunteer drove her to an abortion facility on January 18.

The Times reported that both Bishop DiLorenzo and Joanne Nattrass, executive director of Commonwealth Catholic Charities, were informed the day before the intended abortion. Nattrass told Bishop DiLorenzo, who says he then forbade it from happening, at which point Nattrass is reported to have informed him that nothing could be done.

“We were notified at the 11th hour,” Nattrass, executive director of Commonwealth Catholic Charities, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We were provided with erroneous information, and that information included that there was nothing Catholic Charities and the [Catholic] Diocese of Richmond could do to affect the outcome.”

However the Times-Dispatch reported that Nattrass would not elaborate as to what the erroneous information which tied the hands of Catholic Charities and the diocese was.

LifeSiteNews contacted Nattrass’s office for further explanation, but calls were not returned by press time.

The Times also interviewed Bill Etherington, an attorney for the diocese and CCR, who also said Bishop DiLorenzo was given bad information about whether the abortion could be prevented, but again did not elaborate as to how.

“He was told it could not be stopped,” Mr. Etherington said. “It was erroneous information. He didn’t have to sign off on it. He was not personally involved.”

The Diocese’s lethargy in producing an answer about the content of the “erroneous information” has not settled well with some Catholics. A number have questioned why it was news agencies, and not the bishop, who six months later revealed the tragic scandal to the public.

“We call on Bishop Francis DiLorenzo and the rest of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops to commit to accountability by answering the many questions left by this latest episode of apparent child abuse and subsequent deadly assault on a preborn child,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League.

“Even though this latest scandal is not related to clergy abuse per se, the disgraceful event in Richmond was anything but transparent – months went by before Bishop DiLorenzo acknowledged the child-killing he knew about in January and even then only to warn his brother bishops that a possible investigation loomed on the horizon,” Brown continued.

“The Diocese of Richmond pulls out all the stops when an execution is scheduled for a serial killer on death row. They call for prayer vigils and petition drives. Where was that kind of vigilance for this girl and her baby?” said Mary Ann Kreitzer, President of Les Femmes, a Catholic lay media group based in the Arlington Diocese.

Four CCR staff members involved in the abortion scheme were fired by the diocese in March and an official with the US Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) was suspended.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began an investigation April 23 to determine what Virginian and federal laws were violated by CCR when a staff member signed a consent form for the teenager to get an abortion. Federal law forbids taxpayer funding for abortion, and Virginia law requires the consent of a parent, legal guardian or custodian to authorize a minor’s abortion.

After learning of the federal investigation, Bishop DiLorenzo and two other bishops issued a private letter April 29 to the nation’s 350 Catholic bishops – made public by The Wanderer June 19 – saying it was “a most regrettable stain on the record of excellence in the work both of MRS and of Catholic Charities.”

The letter admitted that “some members of the MRS staff were not sufficiently aware of church teaching” and that in future they will receive training on “the primacy of Catholic teachings and beliefs as they impact their work or professional ethics…to assure that such unacceptable incidents never happen again.”

In a statement released to The Catholic Virginian newspaper June 25, Bishop DiLorenzo said, “Because of the issues of privacy of those involved, and the ongoing legal investigations, there was, and is a need to be prudent in making any public statement.”

Bishop DiLorenzo said that questions surrounding the scandal will be answered by “the board, the administration and the staff of Commonwealth Catholic Charities.”

“The guilt and depression that many of us experience as a result of the behavior of a few is something that we will bear for a long time to come,” he wrote.

“Finally, I express my profound apology for the loss of the life of one of the most vulnerable among us, and I apologize for the profound embarrassment this has caused the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, and Catholics throughout the United States.”

To contact the Diocese of Richmond:

7800 Carousel Lane
Richmond, VA 23294-4201
Phone: (804)359-5661
Main Fax: (804)358-9159

Email : [email protected]

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Catholic Charity Caught Helping Virginia Girl Obtain Abortion
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08061906.html

Amnesty International Pushes Mexican High Court to Uphold Legal Abortion

By Piero A. Tozzi and Juan Carlos Perez

July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com/C-Fam) – Global human rights group Amnesty International (AI), which officially abandoned its neutrality on abortion in 2007, has authored a pro-abortion legal memorandum addressed to the Supreme Court of Mexico asking the high court to uphold liberal abortion in Mexico City. The memorandum directly contradicts AI’s previous position that “there is no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law.”

AI’s memo supports a liberalized first-trimester abortion law passed last year by Mexico City’s Legislative Assembly that has been challenged by Mexico’s Attorney General. AI cites several treaties signed by Mexico, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention Against Torture, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, claiming that they require the Court to uphold the legislation.

As AI had previously acknowledged, however, no such right can be found in any of the treaties mentioned in AI’s legal brief. Human rights treaties are consensus documents negotiated by governments, many of which outlawed abortion at the time of ratification, and thus are silent on the subject of abortion. To underscore that such treaties would leave their domestic laws unchanged, some countries made explicit formal interpretative statements and reservations at the time of signing protecting the rights of the unborn child.

AI’s submission cites no treaty language in support of its argument that a failure to uphold the challenged law would “result in violations of Mexico’s international human rights obligations.” The Amnesty brief does, however, reference a report by a UN treaty monitoring body, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which pressured the Mexican government on abortion in 2006. Such committees are composed of unelected members many of whom are drawn from pro-abortion non-governmental organizations. Such committees take it upon themselves to reinterpret treaties and then try to get governments to agree even though committee pronouncements are non-binding.

AI’s new approach apparently mirrors strategy adopted by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which along with the International Commission of Jurists filed a third-party intervention in the Mexico City case. In 2006, CRR had persuaded Colombia’s constitutional court to overturn that country’s pro-life laws based on the argument that by acceding to various treaties, a sovereign nation must conform its domestic laws to subsequent treaty body interpretations of what constitutes its evolving obligations.

AI was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a Catholic convert, to combat human rights abuses by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Compared with more secular-oriented human rights counterparts, Amnesty International has historically drawn support from members of various religious denominations. After decades of defending human dignity without compromising the rights of the unborn, its 2007 abortion policy switch alienated a number of its long-time supporters, including Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Bishop Michael Evans – a member of thirty years standing – and activist priest Daniel Berrigan, S.J., all of whom have withdrawn support from AI as a result.

Canadian Cabinet Minister Kenney “Deeply Disturbed” that Abortion Doc Awarded Order of Canada

By John-Henry Westen

OTTAWA, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper briefly signaled his displeasure with the nomination of abortionist Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada yesterday. “My preference, to be frank, would be to see the Order of Canada be something that really unifies, that brings Canadians together,” he said at a press conference. That theme of divisiveness has been repeated by most Conservative MPs who have spoken on the matter since the announcement on Canada Day – July 1st.

Today Conservative MP Jason Kenney, a Minister in the Department of Canadian Heritage, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about his reaction to the nomination. “I’m deeply disturbed by this nomination,” he said. “It violates profoundly the spirit of the Order of Canada which is a symbol that is supposed to unite Canadians. Instead, the advisory council has chosen to divide Canadians.”

Kenney added that “those members of the council who made this deliberately contentious choice were more interested in using the Order as a vehicle for their own political views on a contentious issue rather than as a unifying symbol of great achievements which is what the Order was created for.”

Harper has distanced his Government from the decision saying, “I have to say this clearly: This is not a decision of the government of Canada.”

Kenney concurred, noting further: “There is a provision in the Order which requires the Council to consider rescinding the Order from individuals who after their appointments end up with criminal records or reprimands from their professions. When the constitution of the order was crafted, they didn’t even bother to make that apply to prospective nominees because it was at the time probably unthinkable that they would seriously consider a nomination for someone with such a background as this.”

Morgentaler has been incarcerated for conducting illegal abortions prior to the Supreme Court’s striking down of the abortion law. Moreover he had his licence to practice medicine suspended in 1976 by the Disciplinary Committee of the Professional Corporation of Physicians of Quebec.

Catherine Dunphy’s 1996 biography of Morgentaler notes that the disciplinary committee “commented on ‘an attitude which is primarily directed to protecting his fees. No really valid interview is held before proceeding with the abortion. This behaviour confers a mercenary character on the doctor-patient relationship. This committee is incapable of reconciling this behaviour with the humanitarian concern that the accused invoked throughout his defence.'”

Kenny continued, “Obviously this individual has been nominated several times, and the council has seen fit to disregard his nomination in the past precisely because they understood how divisive it would be and how far outside the spirit of the Order it would be. This is a deliberate rupture from the tradition of the Order and I think it is deeply regrettable and will make many Canadians feel that the Order has lost its symbolic importance to Canadians.”

Kenney also addressed the “undenied” reports that the Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, the chair of the council which decides who receives the award, railroaded the award to Morgentaler, dispensing with the need for consensus on the committee and permitting a rare recorded vote. The Globe and Mail reports today that the panel was divided 7-2, with the two government members having cast the opposing votes.

“I am concerned by the undenied reports that the council departed from its usual consensus rule in this instance,” said Kenney. “If that’s true it’s very troublesome because it seems to me that the consensus rule exists precisely to avoid divisive and disruptive decisions. If anyone on this council made a power play to override the usual consensus rule that would be very regrettable indeed.”

More Prominent Pro-Life Groups Join Those who Oppose Morgentaler’s Order of Canada

Order has become a “political tool to promote the left-wing agenda”

By Tim Waggoner

OTTAWA, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The ranks of Canadians who are vocally opposing Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s elevation into the Order of Canada are growing ever thicker as several more prominent pro-life groups, representing hundreds of thousands of supporters, have come forward to say that the decision to give Morgentaler the award was nothing more than a politically motivated decision by an extreme “leftwing” and pro-abortion minority.

Real Women Canada has released a statement claiming the Order of Canada itself has become little more than a mere “political tool”, demonstrated by the fact that a disproportionate number of political “leftists” have been appointed to the Order over the years.

“The appointment of Morgentaler to the Order of Canada makes obvious the fact that the Order, established in 1967, has become a political tool to promote the left-wing agenda. Over the years, the Order of Canada has mainly been awarded to feminists, homosexuals, environmentalists, left-wing broadcasters, writers and others involved in promoting the political left. Rarely has the Order of Canada recognized the services of those who take a conservative approach to issues,” read the statement.

The women’s group also questioned the Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, who spearheaded the effort to secure Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order, asking how she could claim to retain judicial “impartiality” while sitting on such a “partisan” committee: “Since it is politics, rather than achievement, that is the operating principle of the Order of Canada, the Order has no honour. In view of the political debacle that the Order of Canada has become, it is reasonable to question why Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin is chairing such a partisan agency. The Order of Canada should be discarded because it is a partisan organ, which is meaningless to most Canadians – for good reason.”

Following suit was Brian Rushfeldt, Executive Director of Canada Family Action Coalition, who said, “With such manipulation of the system we question if the Advisory Council Chair, Justice Beverly McLachlin’s well-known ‘unwritten constitutional principles’ subverted accepted Council procedures. The integrity of the Order of Canada has been undermined as it has become a political award administered by a judicial activist.”

The Toronto Right to Life Association also commented on the unusual manner in which Morgentaler was given the award: “The highly objectionable manner in which this award was given, which bypassed the usual procedure of obtaining a unanimous vote from the Order of Canada Advisory Committee to the Governor General, was unjustified. It reflects the personal sentiments and agenda of the committee members who voted in favour of the award only, and does not reflect the view of the entire committee or the national sentiment on this issue.”

Angelina Steenstra, National Coordinator of Silent No More Awareness Campaign and co-founder of Second Chance Ministries said she was “appalled” by the decision, but “not surprised.”

“They take an award of truth that was made to bind Canadians together and they bestow it on a man who has divided people from each other, from their families and from the nation, and in their own hearts,” said Steenstra.

The pro-life leader made comments similar to those of Real Women Canada, saying that the Chief Justice’s decision to appoint Morgentaler into the Order of Canada was “forced and militant” and “disregarded democracy and the free will” of the majority of Canadians who do not support abortion on demand.

Joanne Byfield, president of LifeCanada also released statements accusing the decision of being a politically motivated attempt to solidify abortion in Canada as a non-issue. Byfield emphasized the fact that the award was bestowed upon a man whose life work is despised by most Canadians.

“This is a desperate attempt to sanctify Canada’s deplorable situation on abortion. Forty years after abortion was decriminalized and twenty years after the limited restrictions on it were removed, two-thirds of us, according to polls, still don’t accept abortion as just another medical procedure. The pro-abortion minority has shut down political discussion of the subject. Now, as a nation, we must declare Henry Morgentaler a hero and give him our most prestigious honour? Let’s be clear. Here is a man who says he has aborted thousands of babies with his own hands. That is not something most Canadians will celebrate,” she said.

Byfield expressed her belief that the Order of Canada is now tainted for many Canadians: “We know from polls over the last 30 years that the majority of Canadians do not support unrestricted legal abortion and they resent being forced to pay for them. This award not only ignores that reality, it tells us that taking human lives is heroic and honourable. This is beyond belief and a shameful decision.”

See related coverage:

Pro-Life Groups Horrified by Morgentaler’s Appointment to the Order of Canada
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08070208.html

Morgentaler Order of Canada Protest Set for July 9 in Ottawa

OTTAWA, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Campaign Life Coalition is organizing a demonstration for concerned Canadian citizens to protest the awarding of the Order of Canada to abortionist Henry Morgentaler and to seek its revocation.

WHERE: Rideau Hall – official residence of the Governor General of Canada – 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa

WHEN: Wednesday July 9, 2008 from 12:00 noon to 2:00pm.

CONTACT: Paul Lauzon [email protected] 613-729-0379

WHO: People who agree that Henry Morgentaler is an inappropriate choice for the Order of Canada will be attendance

Controversial HPV Vaccine Causing One Death Per Month: FDA Report

140 “serious” adverse reactions, including 27 “life threatening” cases, 10 spontaneous abortions, and 6 cases of the debilitating Guillain-Barre Syndrome reported since January 2008

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One death per month is the average loss of life associated with the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil according to an FDA report obtained by a government watchdog agency.

Merck, the makers of Gardasil, are poised to make profits in the billions from the vaccine, which protects against some cancer-causing forms of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV), but the pharmaceutical giant has come under heavy criticism for fast-tracking the drug onto the market without adequate testing in order to beat out its rivals.

Judicial Watch, a public interest group that campaigns against government corruption, uncovered documents through the Freedom of Information Act that show the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received reports of 10 deaths associated with Gardasil since September 2007, and 140 “serious” reports of adverse reactions, including 27 “life threatening” cases, 10 spontaneous abortions, and 6 cases of the debilitating Guillain-Barre Syndrome since January 2008.

Judicial Watch also found 8,864 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) records associated with Gardasil, more than double the 3,461 events that had been reported with the HPV vaccine in Fall 2007. Many experienced outbreaks of genital warts from the HPV vaccine.

The watchdog group says the number of deaths associated with the vaccine is at least 18 and possibly as many as 20.

Eleven deaths occurred less than a week after receiving the vaccine. Seven women died in less than two days. The most common diagnosed cause was blood clotting. One woman died from a clot within 3 hours of the vaccine. One 20-year-old woman, with no medical history reported, died April 4, 2008 just four days after receiving Gardasil.

The serious adverse events include anaphylactic shock, grand mal convulsion, foaming at mouth, coma, paralysis, and death.

Another 23 year-old woman was vaccinated with her first dose of Gardasil on January 31, 2008 and thereupon went into anaphylactic shock. The report says, “patient experienced anaphylactic shock 2 minutes after vaccination characterized by a brief loss of consciousness… respiratory arrest, eyes rolled upwards, blurred vision and greyish skin tone… Anaphylactic shock was considered to be immediately life-threatening.”

A 14 year-old girl took six steps after being injected with the vaccine before she collapsed to the floor unconscious and foaming at the mouth. The girl regained consciousness after “a 60 second grand mal seizure” and had “pale clammy skin” and blood pressure of 60/40.

A VAERS report from a physician stated a female patient was inoculated with a dose of Gardasil and, “Subsequently, the patient experienced a coma and is now paralyzed.”

Merck & Co. has invested heavily in getting US states to mandate Gardasil to schoolgirls as young as 11 for sexually transmitted HPV in order to beat out rival GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine Cervarix. Merck successfully lobbied the FDA to fast track Gardasil to the market, which critics have charged essentially makes US women part of a massive testing experiment.

JPMorgan Analyst Chris Schott told Forbes.com that since GlaxoSmithKline PLC was delaying submitting more information to the FDA on its cervical cancer treatment Cervarix until the first half of 2009, he projects Merck to dominate the market, while Cervarix will manage only 25% market share by 2012.

“Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to re-evaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children.”

Read the special report by Judicial Watch:
https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/2008/JWReportFDAhpvVa…

Abortionist Tiller Likely to Escape Late Term Abortion Charges

By Tim Waggoner

WICHITA, KS, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The citizen-called grand jury that investigated late-term abortionist George R. Tiller was dismissed today without issuing an indictment.

Pro-life groups led a petition drive that resulted in the convening of the grand jury in January to investigate if Tiller’s late-term abortion business violated the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions at 22 weeks gestation or later.

In the statement released by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, the jury found that, “After six months of conducting an investigation that included hearing extensive witness testimony, reviewing volumes of documents and medical records of patients of Women’s Health Care Services (Tiller’s clinic), this Grand Jury has not found sufficient evidence to bring an indictment on any crime related to the abortion laws.”

Operation Rescue (OR) has been working for years to bring Tiller to justice. President Troy Newman said he was disheartened to hear the grand jury’s decision:

“We are extremely disappointed that this grand jury did not indict Tiller for committing illegal abortions. Our own research proves that viable babies up until the moment of birth are being wrongly and illegally killed by Tiller and his cohorts under the misuse of a mental health exception that was not written into the law, but forced upon it by a pro-abortion former attorney general.”

Newman alluded to his belief that Tiller’s close relationship with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, bribery, and other corrupt practices are some of the reasons why the abortionist has not yet been brought to justice.

“Once again, we are suspicious that corrupt influences in the government, which have been influenced by Tiller’s large financial involvement in Kansas politics, may have thwarted justice once again.”

Under current Kansas abortion law, late term abortions are only permitted in two circumstances. The first exception allows for the procedure to save the life of the mother. The second allows a late term abortion if continuation of the pregnancy would result in a “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” of the pregnant woman. That exception has been taken to include mental health risks to the mother, as long as the risk is substantial and irreversible, and provided two separate physicians sign off on the abortion.

Tiller used the mental health exception for nearly every post-viability abortion done at his Wichita clinic, which the jury accepted despite allegations that the second physician was an abortionist that Tiller had founded an illegal business relationship with. OR also confirmed that the vast majority of pregnant women they have counseled do not claim to be considering an abortion because of “mental health risks.”

Tiller will likely escape future indictment given the fact that the case must be closed by July 8 and that presiding Judge Paul Buchanan reported the jury found “no true bill,” which indicates that no criminal charges will be filed.

Furthermore, the Office of the District Attorney ‘s statement reads: “We doubt that any investigation into the practices and procedures of Dr. Tiller and the Women’s Health Care Services will yield an outcome that will provide any basis for indictment.”

Yet, Newman was adamant that OR will continue the fight.

“We will not stop seeking justice for the innocent victims of Tiller’s late-term barbaric practice, and will continue to exercise every legal avenue to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring Tiller to justice,” he concluded.

LA Sherriff’s Department Violated Pro-life Group’s Freedom of Speech: Federal Appellate Panel

LOS ANGELES, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A federal appellate panel ruled Wednesday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department violated the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s (CBR) free speech rights. Two CBR associates had been forced by the Sherriff’s Department to move a mobile billboard display of enlarged photos of early-term aborted fetuses away from a Rancho Palos Verdes middle school campus.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), a non-profit pro-life educational foundation, sued the LA County Sheriff’s Department and an assistant principal at Dodson Middle School, claiming civil rights and First Amendment violations. The mobile billboard truck was part of the group’s Reproductive Choice Campaign, which seeks to “expose as many people as possible to the realities of abortion.”

Gregg Cunningham, Executive Director of CBR said: “In this case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals almost totally reversed the trial judge on almost every issue. This is a huge win for the First Amendment. This is an even larger win for middle school and high school students who are being lied to about abortion and who will now learn the truth as our billboard trucks drive past their schools displaying large aborted baby photos.

Letter to the Editor for Thursday, July 3, 2008

RE: Morgentaler Awarded Order of Canada

Dear Editor,

So the Queen’s representative will confer the country’s highest honor – the Order of Canada – on an arch-abortionist.

There’s no one more dishonorable in all Canadian history than someone responsible for the death of tens of thousands of our country’s children, including over 6,000 in New Brunswick. Compared to him, Paul Bernardo is a saint.

What kind of value statement this is for young people: Kill one or two, they throw you in jail; kill thousands, you’re a national hero!

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate the man. As a Christian I’m called to love my enemies. But I recognize a purveyor of death and destroyer of motherhood when I see one.

Has the Governor-General lost her marbles? Has the country’s top judge – who headed the committee that proposed this name – flipped out? Meanwhile, the Prime Minister sidesteps the issue as smoothly as Fred Astaire.

With leaders like this, heaven help us – and I mean it. It’s time for the silent majority to break their silence, to show “we stand on guard for thee.” Hold these people accountable. Contact them. Call upon our premier and lieutenant-governor to intervene before the induction ceremony takes place.

And as Canada sits poised to trash the notion that life is sacred, let us hear from religious leaders.

If this man is honored, we are all dishonored.

Peter Ryan
Charters Setttlement NB

____________________________________________________

To write a letter to the Editor: E-mail your letter to [email protected]. Write “letter to the editor” in the subject line. Include your name, city and province or state of residence, as well as your phone # (the phone # is for our use only, and will not be published). Please note that all letters are subject to editing. LifeSiteNews.com will publish letters to the editor at its discretion, giving priority to the most concise, insightful and timely submissions.

LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes for July 3, 2008

* Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of LifeSiteNews.com. They are presented only for your information.

ABORTION

Opposition to Morgentaler’s Order is wide and deep and intense – National Post Politics Editor
https://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008…

Court affirms law calling unborn ‘living human beings’ – Ruling lifts Planned Parenthood injunction against South Dakota’s abortion statute
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&page…

Woman gets year in jail for forging girl’s abortion parental notice
https://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Jul08/A…

A federal appeals court ruled that South Dakota can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life.
https://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/27/america/NA-GEN-US-…

Inconvenient Truth for MSM: Black Ministers March Against Planned Parenthood
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2008/06/30/inconve…

Improving neighborhoods by aborting children? Really?
https://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/07/improving-neigh…

Time Now Says Pregnancy Pact Really Anti-Abortion Pact
https://bostonist.com/2008/07/01/time_says_pregnancy_pact_rea…

National Education Association Members to Speak Out on Union’s Pro-Abortion Policies
https://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&ST…

One woman’s journey from pro-choice atheist to pro-life Catholic
https://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_i…

The advocates of contraception have finally admitted in public what some of us have known for a while: The Pill doesn’t work very well – cohabiting teenagers using the Pill have a failure rate of almost 50%
https://www.townhall.com/columnists/JenniferRobackMorse/2008/…

Wal-Mart Drops Planned Parenthood Promotion
https://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007731.cfm

REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Has the world’s leading science journal abandoned the ideal of human dignity? Embyro experimentation ok’d
https://www.mercatornet.com/articles/dignified_arguments/

French archbishop criticizes ‘rent-a-womb’ practice
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13105

Britain and Canada are well ahead in the race to make fatherhood completely redundant.
https://www.mercatornet.com/articles/the_new_improved_disposa…

ASSISTED SUICIDE

California attempt to institute backdoor assisted suicide via “palliative sedation” gets chopped up in committee
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/06/gutted-ab-2747-gets…

Assisted Suicide Advocate Shows Ugly Truth of the Movement’s Ideology
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/07/assisted-suicide-ad…

U.S. POLITICS

The Wars of Religion Return by Patrick J. Buchanan
https://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27282#continueA

James Dobson and Obama’s Theory of Abortion Relativity
https://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/james_dobson_and_obam…

CNN’s Costello Omits Part of the Story About Obama’s Radical Abortion Votes
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2008/07/01/cnn-s-…

Infanticide is becoming a touchy subject for Barack Obama – by Deal W. Hudson
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_conten…

Obama’s Global Tax Bill Coming Soon
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/06/obamas_global_ta…

Mrs. Obama Reaffirms Husband’s Support to Gay Community
https://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mrs-obama-re…

Obama rejects proposed California gay marriage ban
https://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1051404.html

Barack Obama rejecting our values 100% of the time
https://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68394

Obama’s biggest lie about supporting infanticide
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&page…

If conservative politicians in the United States wish to connect their politics with conservative religion (and why shouldn’t they?), they should at least take the trouble to become religiously informed.
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_conten…

Can gay marriage save the GOP again? By GARY L. BAUER
https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11450.html

Conservatives may not be enamored of John McCain, but on a subject that is near and dear to their hearts—legal philosophy and judicial appointments—they are finding a lot to like about the Arizona senator.
https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11413.html

FAMILY LIFE

Instead of supporting the family, many governments are usurping its prerogatives
https://www.mercatornet.com/articles/who_needs_a_family_when_…

Teenagers aren’t ready to be parents. Their parents would tell them this — if the government would let them.
https://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDkyN2JmZDI5MjQzNTFlOWE…

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party. The boy’s school says he has violated the children’s rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7479758.stm

RELIGION

Power in the Pulpit halls of the Capitol were lined with clergy leaders who held up signs thanking Senators for supporting traditional marriage.
https://www.cwfa.org/articles/15441/FIELD/family/index.htm

Neopaganism growing quickly
https://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_9695062?source=commen…

Most Catholic bishops “hate confrontation.” This goes a long way toward explaining their reluctance to discipline predatory priests
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=0608-notes-hamme…

‘Religion in private’ OK, declares ACLU – New limits on Christians leave family groups reeling
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&page…

“The Pope Does Not Put On Prada, But Christ”
https://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/205488?eng=y

After decades of repression and marginalization, Christianity rises rapidly in China
https://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/news/world…

Expanding the Evangelical Tent: Revisiting the Evangelical Manifesto
https://www.cwfa.org/articles/15439/BLI/dotcommentary/index.h…

More than 1,300 clergy have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury saying they will defect from the Church of England if women are consecrated as bishops.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030577/1-300-clergy…

San Diego minister seeks to unite churches in prayer and fasting as part of marriage amendment campaign, but so far few Catholic parishes have signed up to “Largest grass-roots campaign in California history”
https://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=41652424…

India’s Moderate Muslims See Peril In Growth of Stricter Form of Islam
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06…

GLOBAL WARMING, POPULATION CONTROL, RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

State frees teachers to criticize evolution – Global warming, origins of life, cloning also may be scrutinized
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&page…

Hansen is out of control. NASA employees aren’t supposed to call for tax hikes, endorse candidates, or attack businessmen
he’s a single, scientific outlier, terrorizing the American people.
https://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjQ2YTllODZiOTA0N2E2MTI…

Global Warming as Mass Neurosis – Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification.
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB121486841811817591.html?mod=…

Human Sacrifice on the Altar of Gaia – When the leaders of the Culture of Death look at us, they see a plague of alien creatures infesting an imagined divinity. Hitler was a vegetarian for whom animals had intrinsic value, so much so that he wanted to send to concentration camps anyone who mistreated them. Population growth is the “root of our problem.”
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0608-gardiner

It Pays to be a Eugenicist – Wesley Smith
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/07/it-pays-to-be-eugen…

It isn’t about science, it is about ideology and the destruction of Judeo/Christian moral philosophy. And it must be stopped. More “Anti-Science” McCarthyism by Wesley Smith
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/06/more-anti-science-m…

A Dying Breed? As the birthrate in European countries drops well below the “replacement rate” the declining population will first be felt in the playgrounds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?_r…

“Ape Rights:” Not Taking it Seriously is Precisely the Wrong Approach – Wesley Smith
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/06/ape-rights-not-taki…

A huge point about what is wrong with animal rights in general and the GAP in specific is that once you grant animals rights, it destroys human rights Wesley Smith
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/07/saletan-on-gap.html

HOMOSEXUALITY

A Weakened Pro-Family Movement. The homosexual community has an agenda. It plans to hit the ground running. The pro-family community is mostly on the defensive. The homosexual community at this stage very much reminds me of the emerging pro-family community in 1980 – By Paul M. Weyrich
https://www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2008/080701.aspx

Bush’s Embattled AIDS Bill – Serious Concerns Raised Over Use of Funds
https://www.zenit.org/article-23057?l=english

Pro-Homosexual Researchers Conceal Findings Relevant to Same-Sex Marriage Debate: Openly Homosexual Parents Influence Sexuality of Children
https://christiannewswire.com/news/61467050.html

A special graveyard has been opened for Danish homosexuals in Copenhagen
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0608-news

New EU report says tougher laws needed to fight homophobia, urges equal treatment for gays
https://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/01/europe/EU-Europe-H…

MISCELLANEOUS

Growing modesty movement shows teens they can be stylish without revealing too much
https://www.kansascity.com/433/story/685421.html

Media Silent on Far-Left Anti-Abstinence Alliance – The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are teaming up to take down federally funded abstinence education.
https://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/articles/2008/200806…

Canadian Health Care System Also a Mess – Wesley Smith
https://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/06/canadian-health-car…

The Girl Scouts’ new radicalism
https://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=16036…

Yorktown University – an internet university which would teach traditional economic and cultural ideas. This is a dream come true for many By Paul M. Weyrich
https://www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2008/080626.aspx

AP Supreme Court Reporter Shamefully Suggests Child Rapist Was Innocent
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/jason-aslinger/2008/06/26/ap-su…

Democratic Politician Promises to ‘Rip Apart’ Child Rape Victims; Mainstream Media Silent
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2008/06/26/demo…

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