Politics
Thursday October 29, 2009
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Print- Commentary on October 29 News
- Coalition of Catholic Groups Calls for Massive Reform of U.S. Bishops' Social Justice Arm
- Life Versus Death; Beggars Versus Giants - Part 1
- Accused Shooter of James Pouillon Found Competent to Face Murder Charges
- Bishop Tobin asks Rep. Kennedy to Talk after Abortion/Healthcare Remarks
- 40 Days for Life Reaches Milestone: 2,000 Babies Saved from Abortion
- Stem Cell Breakthrough Could Create Babies Without Men, Women, or Sexual Relations
- Gardasil Researcher Admits Vaccine May Be More Dangerous than the Disease
- Archdiocese of Washington Opposes Bill to Redefine Marriage in District of Columbia
- Did Feminism Benefit Men more than Women? Prominent US Feminist Asks
- Google Supports Ref. 71 Favoring Same-Sex Unions
- Conservatives Propose UN Reform
- UN Rapporteur Criticized for Report Claiming Gender is a "Social Construct"
- Life Versus Death; Beggars Versus Giants
Commentary on October 29 News
TODAY'S HEADLINES
Dear Readers,
The problems and needed massive reform of the U.S. bishops' social justice arm are astonishingly similar to those of the Canadian bishops' Development and Peace organization that we have been reporting. The new coalition, begun by advocacy organizations HLI, ALL and BVM, appears to have done an outstanding job of launching this initiative, summarizing the problems and proposing excellent solutions. Bravo for them. Check out the various pages on their website.
Please read my Special Report Commentary today. Part 2 will come tomorrow. Although only a few groups are named in the report as examples, the arguments apply to most pro-life organizations in the world who all need far more support from pro-life minded citizens and organizations in their nations. There has already been some very positive response to Part 1.
LifeSiteNews went out on a limb long ago to begin reporting on Gardasil and its aggressive promotion by giant pharmaceutical company Merck. We got a lot of flack over those early reports. Today's report on PRI's expose of Dr. Harper's comments on Gardasil have added much to the credibility of LSN's numerous stories on the product and its promotion. Please be sure you also read this story.
Steve Jalsevac
LifeSiteNews.com
Back to TopCoalition of Catholic Groups Calls for Massive Reform of U.S. Bishops' Social Justice Arm
By Patrick B. Craine
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new coalition of Catholic pro-life organizations is calling for a massive reform of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and urging Catholics to boycott the upcoming November collection.
The CCHD is the domestic social justice arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and focuses on supporting groups that work in community organizing. They have been accused over many years of supporting radical left-wing groups who advocate a distorted un-Catholic view of social justice. The organization primarily raises funds through an annual nationwide parish collection, this year scheduled for November 22nd.
Scandal erupted in the U.S. Church last year over the CCHD's funding of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a liberal network of local community activism groups. At least two dioceses, in fact, opted not to take up the collection last fall. The CCHD, which has given ACORN millions of dollars in the last ten years, cut their funding last year based on reports of embezzlement within the organization. In recent weeks, several ACORN offices were caught condoning child prostitution and sex trafficking in a series of videotaped sting operations conducted by veteran pro-life investigators.
The new pro-life coalition, which includes Human Life International (HLI), American Life League (ALL), and the new Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM), was formed following a report released in August by BVM which revealed that the CCHD was funding at least four groups that promote abortion, contraception, same-sex 'marriage', and even legalized prostitution. The report also listed numerous groups that are advocating the current proposal for health care reform without prejudice to its funding of abortion.
After LifeSiteNews.com presented the report to CCHD last month, Director Ralph McCloud responded that he was "shocked" and that they were taking "decisive action." He indicated that they had already defunded two groups and were still investigating the two others.
On October 2nd, Bishop Roger P. Morin, CCHD Chairman, issued a memo to the U.S. bishops as a response to BVM's report. Morin says that CCHD had defunded the Chinese Progressive Association and Young Worker's United (YWU), both San Francisco-based groups that advocate same-sex "marriage" and abortion.
The two other groups - LACAN and the Women's Community Revitalization Project - said Morin, "were investigated and, in consultation with the local dioceses, the charges proved to be inaccurate or a misunderstanding had occurred."
"These firm actions are consistent with CCHD's policies and practices, which deny funding to groups that take positions contrary to Catholic teaching," he insisted.
BVM Not Satisfied With CCHD Response to its Findings
BVM responded on October 8, saying that "After carefully and prayerfully considering Bishop Morin's response to our campaign, we must respectfully state that this response does not satisfactorily address our primary concerns and is factually deficient in several areas."
While Morin claims that the implicated groups had gone against Church teaching "after they were funded," BVM insists that "Young Workers United acted in support of abortion prior to approval to funding," and therefore should not have been funded in the first place.
"Also, the Chinese Progressive Association acted in support of homosexual marriage in 2006, yet still was cleared for funding in subsequent years," they write. "The CCHD must take responsibility for failure in properly screening these groups."
"While we are pleased with the rapid response in defunding both these organizations, the CCHD has yet to address how such organizations made it through the grants process in the first place," they continue. "This is our primary concern. Until the grants process is thoroughly investigated and reformed, the grave risk remains that organizations such as these may be funded in the future."
They go on to challenge Morin to further explain why the other two groups are to still be funded. "LA CAN explicitly promoted contraception and praised the work of its members in support of homosexual marriage in its own newsletter," they write. "Also, in regards to the Womens Community Revitalization Project our charge that this grantee was a coalition partner with the pro-abortion group WomenVote PA is not inaccurate."
LifeSiteNews.com contacted CCHD for comment, but did not hear back by press time.
The coalition is calling the CCHD to a major reform, focused on ensuring grantees' fidelity to Church teaching on social justice, family and life issues. They launched a website yesterday called Reform CCHD Now where they are calling on faithful Catholics to download and print out special coupons to be put in collection baskets on November 22nd.
The coupon states that the person is allocating their CCHD donation to a different group that conforms to Catholic teaching on social justice and issues relating to life and family. They have begun compiling a list of such groups on their website. The coupon indicates further that the person will be willing to continue supporting CCHD only after being assured, through "substantial published research into the funded groups," that these groups do not oppose Church teaching.
Coalition Lists Specific Actions Needed to Reform CCHD
The coalition wants an explanation of the CCHD's poor funding practices, "an independent audit of the CCHD grant process with the results published online," and greater vigilance from the organization in evaluating grantees for Church teaching on social justice, life, and family issues.
They are proposing, further, that the CCHD require grantees to sign a statement indicating they will not oppose Church teaching. BVM has said that such a statement should be posted to the websites of both CCHD and the grantee.
The coalition insists that "a complete reform of the CCHD" is needed, "not simply the occasional defunding of a problematic organization, followed by assurances that the problem has been solved, as has been the CCHD's response until now."
"We are trying to shed some light not only on the CCHD, but also on some wonderful organizations that actually serve the poor and disenfranchised in a way that is consistent with Catholic teaching" said Rob Gasper, president of BVM, in a press release. "We just think that faithful Catholics in the pews should be able to trust that the money they give to the CCHD is going to reputable organizations that in no way work against the Church."
"We support without qualification our Catholic bishops," said Stephen Phelan, Communications Manager for Human Life International. "We are confident that many of them will support this call for greater transparency in the CCHD, and to a deep reform in the organization. In this campaign we are asking that the CCHD reconsider its philosophy and practices."
"We respectfully call the CCHD to respond to Pope Benedict's call in his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, when he challenged development professionals to work towards an authentic, integral human development based on a Catholic view of the human person and in the Love and Truth of Jesus Christ," said Phelan.
Phelan told LSN that he thought CCHD's response to the BVM report was "a real positive thing." "We think that there's enough good potential there for [CCHD] to do great things," he added. "There should be such an arm in the Church, but it should be fixed."
Phelan noted that they have already received requests from several groups to join the coalition, which may be done through the website.
Contact Information:
Catholic Campaign for Human Development
3211 Fourth St. NE
Washington DC 20017
v: 202-541-3210
f: 202-541-3329
cchdpromo@usccb.org
To visit the Reform CCHD Now website click here.
Too see the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry Report click here.
See Left-Wing Radicalism in the Church: CCHD and ACORN (Human Events)
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
USCCB's Social Justice Arm Caught Funding Pro-Abortion/Prostitution Groups: Takes "Decisive" Action in Response
See the LifeSiteNews Feature Page regarding Canada's Development & Peace, a Catholics bishops' agency similar to CCHD.
Life Versus Death; Beggars Versus Giants - Part 1
Special Report Commentary By Steve Jalsevac
Note: There has been much discussion lately among pro-life leaders about the chronic lack of resources the movement has had to endure during its existence while fighting the great battle against the Culture of Death. This article is one I believe has been needed for some time, and now more than ever. 40 years of this battle is a long time. It will be won, but certain things must finally happen to bring that about. This article addresses some of those needed developments.
October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mother Teresa, awarded the Nobel peace prize in1979, said, "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." I was present when she said it in Toronto at a peace rally. Pope John Paul II called abortion "legal extermination." He compared abortion to the Nazi Holocaust and stressed that the abortion "rights" movement could "drive democratic regimes to transform themselves into totalitarian regimes." That decline in fundamental freedoms has been occurring now in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Pope Benedict XVI told the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2007 "to guarantee the right to life for all and in an equal manner for all is the duty upon which the future of humanity depends." He has also stressed that "today's gravest injustice" is the destruction of new life.
Abortion has spawned a long and still growing list of related assaults on life that are taking us down a truly frightening path, leading to even more massive killing of the most vulnerable and innocent.
And yet, mysteriously, despite all of this, there are still relatively few people who are taking seriously enough the great dangers of the international death culture spawned by abortion and its parent movement - the perversion of human sexuality.
The Beggarly Pro-Life Movement
Coincident with all of this is the mystery of the relative beggarly existence that most pro-life organizations around the world have been forced to endure while they have attempted to fight the massively supported and financed anti-life Goliath.
Pro-life leaders, through their intense commitment to the cause for many years, have developed an expert knowledge of the many issues involved in this struggle and the actions needed to restore a culture of life. And yet, their effectiveness has been crippled by poor or inconsistent support or even active opposition from influential persons or organizations that should have been their natural allies.
The "politically incorrect" and "controversial" work of pro-life organizations has been repellent to much of the secular and even religious establishment. It is not seen as attractive work. It is about opposing killing and about promoting traditional sexual ethics, which receives much hostility from the popular culture. Pro-life causes discomfort.
The result is that pro-life groups have been forced to depend overwhelmingly upon volunteers and minimally compensated paid staff. These groups, including LifeSiteNews, which assists them, are fighting the greatest war in history. And yet, they are usually handicapped by a severe lack of resources and a pattern of enthusiastic, bright young workers who come and then go because they cannot be given sufficient income to marry and raise a family. They also move on because of the long, stressful hours and seeming lack of success of what should normally be successful actions undertaken with the same effort and skill in almost all other contexts.
Most people believe that pro-life organizations are heavily supported by Church organizations. Idealistic new workers to the movement usually soon experience a shocking and deflating realization about this.
With the notable exceptions of some individual clergy and certain special events, church institutions and leaders are inconsistently supportive of the pro-life cause. Many do not in practice give it a high priority. Communications with pro-life leaders is poor. Indifference is common. Some Church leaders even actively oppose crucial actions undertaken by the movement's organizations. This is especially the case with regard to political and legislative decisions and efforts. That is often the most disheartening aspect of pro-life work.
The Culture War
The Culture War is now at a dire crossroads. Peter Kreeft, in his book and frequently given talk, How to Win the Culture War, notes that "To win any war" one of "the three most necessary things we must know" is "that we are at war." This has been a huge problem for the always struggling pro-life movement since its beginning: most principled, moral people still do not realize that this great war is going on, has been for about 40 years, and that they cannot avoid being affected by it.
As Kreeft says, "If you are surprised to be told that our entire civilization is in crisis, I welcome you back from your nice vacation on the moon." The renowned Catholic philosopher and prolific author continues, "Many minds do seem moonstruck, puttering happily around the Titanic, blandly arranging the deck chairs."
That, to some degree explains what most pro-life leaders and we at LifeSiteNews have been up against since we began our various missions to try to stop the advance of what Pope John Paul II labelled The Culture of Death or as Chuck Colson has warned is a looming "new dark age."
Kreeft explains that there is a deeper, more ominous dimension to the Culture War. He says, "eternal souls will die - billions of Ramones and Vladimirs and Tiffanys and Bridgets will go to hell. That's what's at stake in this war." It is really, he says, a war against "powers and principalities" - on a very great scale - perhaps the greatest in all of human history.
One Organizations' Past and Current Struggles
Canada's national pro-life organization, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), is an example of one of the larger and more effective organizations that has been heroically waging this seemingly impossible battle on many fronts. During it's over 30 years of existence, CLC has been doing truly extraordinary things against a vastly greater funded opposition on both the local, national and international levels. Among its numerous projects, CLC was the original parent organization and the main financial backer of LifeSiteNews.com, but is no longer able to provide that support.
Right now CLC and many other pro-life groups are struggling financially like they never have before. At the same time, the organizations promoting the death culture have been receiving hundreds of millions, if not billions, from governments at all levels, giant private foundations and numerous other sources. In addition they receive massive ongoing other support for their agendas from the world's mainstream media, government and education institutions, the United Nations and other international agencies and textbook, magazine and other publishers.
It is not even remotely a fair fight.
The leaders and workers at CLC (and for that matter the workers of most pro-life groups in the world) see up close every day the enormity of what the death movement is doing to individuals and to all of society. They are the professionals, the experts on these issues. And yet everyday they have to beg and plead for financial and other support that never even begins to approach the levels needed.
What would have happened if during the Second World War the Allied generals and troops had to constantly, personally beg for money and other resources to wage each desperate battle against the enemies of freedom, but were met with indifference from those whose help they needed the most? That is the situation of the pro-life movement.
Pro-life soldiers in the field at the battle front are often fighting with pea shooters, while at the same time having to constantly expend much time and energy pleading for even a minimum of moral support and financial support for real weapons to wage the culture war - which they know they can and will one day win.
Ordinary People The Real Heroes
Campaign Life Coalition, LifeSiteNews and the large majority of pro-life organizations in North America and elsewhere have been supported almost entirely by generous ordinary people - the real heroes of the movement. They have sacrificed year after year, giving up precious time and limited personal financial resources while not expecting anything in return, not even a tax receipt. They understand what this is all about. Many of them are dismayed over the lack of support and even opposition from the more powerful and wealthy in both civil and religious society.
Without these ordinary folks, there surely would not be any pro-life movement. The battle would have been over long ago. There would be no one putting the finger in the dyke these past many years limiting the great flood of physical death, death of consciences and the complete collapse of our traditional civilization that the anti-human, anti-God movement is leading us all towards.
Wealthy and Powerful Still do Not Comprehend Importance of Pro-Life Work
CLC leaders are very concerned that even the very limited financial support they have relied upon has been plummeting because of the current financial crisis. The little people, the traditional supporters of CLC, are hurting. The ongoing mystery is that wealthy individuals and organizations still do not comprehend the enormous importance of CLC's work and have never, in 30 years, given any substantial donations to this life and civilization-saving organization compared to what they often give to other worthy causes.
Jim Hughes, president of CLC and vice president of International Right to Life, reports that in all the years of CLC's existence the largest donation the organization has received was $150,000. That amount was received three times from an anonymous person who thankfully did not demand a tax receipt (In Canada, charitable tax rulings have been notoriously biased against groups that might upset the abortion status quo). That level of donation was an extreme rarity. Hughes says he has tried ceaselessly and mostly unsuccessfully to find wealthy benefactors to support the work of CLC and its incredibly dedicated workers.
Accused Shooter of James Pouillon Found Competent to Face Murder Charges
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
CORUNNA, Michigan, October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Harlan James Drake, who is accused of murdering pro-life activist Jim Pouillon in September, was deemed competent to stand trial for the killing by 66th District Court Judge Terrance P. Dignan on Tuesday.
Earlier this month Judge Dignan ruled that Drake was incompetent to stand trial, after an evaluation by the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti, and ordered treatment to render him competent.
Drake's lawyer said the order was partially based on Drake's attempted suicide on the day following his arrest. On September 12, Drake gashed his arm using glass from a television he smashed in his cell. He was treated at Memorial Healthcare following the incident and returned to jail.
Drake was taken into custody on September 11, a few hours after the fatal shooting of Pouillon, 63, and a local gravel pit owner, Mike Fuoss. Police say Drake admitted that he shot Pouillon because his pro-life witness in front of local schools annoyed him. In his frequent witness around the small town of Owosso, Pouillon routinely carried a sign with an image of an aborted baby on one side, and a living child and the word "life" on the other.
Drake's lawyer, Robert Ashley, filed a notice of insanity defense following Judge Dignan's ruling on Tuesday. An order for new psychiatric examinations of the accused is expected at another hearing scheduled for next week.
Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry told media that the question of Drake's mental health relative to criminal responsibility will be determined by the follow-up examinations.
"This isn't really a whodunnit," he said after the hearing. "It's an issue of state of mind - how this state of mind is going to be determined. In my opinion, all the experts should have all the information that is available out there to make their determination."
See previous LSN coverage:
Judge Deems Pouillon Murder Suspect Incompetent to Stand Trial
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09100502.html
"Jim the Sign Guy": Slain Pro-Lifer, Father of Two, Remembered by Friends as Cheerful, Peaceful Activist
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09091104.html
Bishop Tobin asks Rep. Kennedy to Talk after Abortion/Healthcare Remarks
By James Tillman
WASHINGTON, DC, October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence has asked Senator Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to discuss health care legislation and life issues with him. The invitation follows a heated exchange in which Kennedy said the Catholic bishops were acting "against the biggest social justice issue of our time" by opposing abortion-funding health care legislation. Bishop Tobin in turn responded by calling Kennedy "a disappointment to the Church and to the citizens of Rhode Island."
Bishop Tobin, in a letter to Kennedy dated Tuesday and released Wednesday, argues that "the Catholic Church has been clear and consistent in its support of comprehensive health care reform; support that continues to this day."
He goes on to invite Kennedy to meet with him to discuss the Church's support of both "comprehensive health care legislation and measures that protect and defend life."
The reference both to comprehensive health care and to the support of life echoes Bishop Tobin's first letter, in which he said that "the Bishops of the United States are indeed in favor of comprehensive health care reform and have been for many years. But we are adamantly opposed to health care legislation that threatens the life of unborn children, requires taxpayers to pay for abortion, rations health care, or compromises the conscience of individuals."
By this statement Bishop Tobin was responding to Senator Kennedy's statements against the Church in an interview with Cybercast News, in which Kennedy said that if "the Church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health care reform because it's going to provide health care that is going to keep people alive."
Kennedy went on to accuse the Church of doing nothing but fanning "the flames of dissent and discord" by resisting the abortion-funding legislation, and called their position an "absolute red herring."
Recently Archbishop Timothy Dolan of the Diocese of New York also entered the fray, calling Kennedy's remarks "sad, uncalled-for, and inaccurate."
He wrote: "The Catholic community in the United States hardly needs to be lectured to about just healthcare. We've been energetically into it for centuries. And we bishops have been advocating for universal healthcare for a long, long time." "All we ask is that it be just that -- universal -- meaning that it includes the helpless baby in the womb, the immigrant, and grandma in a hospice, and that it protects a healthcare provider's right to follow his/her own conscience."
Kennedy spokeswoman Kerrie Bennett said that Kennedy has received Bishop Tobin's letter and is preparing a response.
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
U.S. Bishops Will "Vigorously" Oppose Health Care if Abortion Concerns Not Addressed
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09100807.html
Rep. Kennedy Questions Whether Bishops "Pro-Life" over Opposition to Health Care: Local Bishop Demands Apology
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09102310.html
White House at Loggerheads with U.S. Bishops on Existence of Government-Funded Abortion in Health Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09100807.html
40 Days for Life Reaches Milestone: 2,000 Babies Saved from Abortion
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Through the grace and mercy of God - and the faithful prayers of more than 200,000 volunteers standing vigil outside abortion facilities - an incredible miracle has taken place," said David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life, in a letter to supporters today.
"Starting with the first-ever 40 Days for Life campaign in Bryan/College Station, Texas in 2004, and continuing through the international 40 Days for Life effort that is under way this fall, we now have confirmed reports of at least 2,000 babies whose lives have been saved from the tragedy of abortion," Bereit said. "Who knows what wonders each of these children will bring to the world!"
Two thousand children, pointed out Bereit, would be enough to make up 180 teams of little soccer players - "and just as importantly, this could represent 180 teams of soccer moms - women who will enjoy watching their children run and jump and shout - blessings they would have never known if they had fallen for the lies that are so often disguised by the rhetoric of 'choice.'"
Frequently, it is simply the sight of people peacefully standing in prayer that will convince a woman to turn away from abortion. "When people ask me what to say when they're at the vigil," said Bereit, "I often say - just pray and don't worry about it. We have countless stories of women rejecting abortion and leaving the clinics even when not a single word was spoken."
It is often the prayer of children that has this effect. "Just last week, I heard about two little girls who were singing 'Jesus Loves Me' at a 40 Days for Life vigil," he said. "They sang as a woman went in for an abortion appointment - then watched as she left the clinic in tears, read the number of a pregnancy resource hotline, and called for real assistance."
40 Days for Life is the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization in history. The fall 40 Days for Life campaign, which began September 23, will conclude on November 1. The initiative, in 212 cities across 45 American states, five Canadian provinces, and Denmark, consists of 40 days of intense prayer and fasting for an end to abortion, peaceful vigils outside abortion facilities, and grassroots community organizing.
Since 2004, some local 678 campaigns have been conducted in 282 communities, covering all 50 American states, the District of Columbia and American Samoa, as well as Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland and Denmark.
Stem Cell Breakthrough Could Create Babies Without Men, Women, or Sexual Relations
By Hilary White
October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Researchers announced a scientific breakthrough yesterday in which the progenitor cells to human ova and sperm have been created out of embryonic stem cells. Pro-life commentators have responded to the news by highlighting the massive ethical pitfalls involved in the technology: not only does the process result in the death of embryos, but it potentially leaves both men and women, as well as natural sexual relations, out of the human reproductive picture.
The report, published in the journal Nature by Stanford University researchers, says that the primary aims of the researchers were to unlock the secrets of genetic malformation of ova and sperm by creating germ cells and eventually to treat infertility and genetic defects that are common in in vitro fertilisation treatments. In the experiments, embryonic stem cells taken from "spare" IVF embryos were treated with proteins to stimulate the growth of germ cells.
Germ cells are the progenitor cells of the gametes, ova and sperm, that combine in sexual reproduction to create an embryo. The report in Nature said that the research could be used to answer questions about genetic birth defects that start in the development of germ-cells and to "examine the unique developmental genetics of human germ-cell formation."
The next phase, the report says, is to create the cells from human somatic or body cells, including possibly skin cells, bypassing the use of living embryos.
Rita Reijo Pera of Stanford's Centre for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and the senior author of the new study, said, "Figuring out the genetic 'recipe' needed to develop human germ cells in the laboratory will give us the tools we need to trace what's going wrong" for infertile couples.
But Anthony Ozimic, a bioethics expert and spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), said that the new research, as with cloning, results in the death of human beings at the embryonic stage and is unjustifiable, even by secular ethics standards, because of the low success rate and the high risk of the creation of "defective embryos and birth defects."
Further, he said, the creation of gametes for artificial reproduction, as with regular IVF, artificial insemination and the use of donor gametes, "distort and damage relations between family members."
Embryonic stem cell research, said Ozimic, is a "scientific dead end." The bottom line is that "human embryos - innocent, equal members of the human family - were killed to extract the embryonic stem cells used in the research."
But even without this, the technique will lead to the creation of more embryos outside the human body "to be killed and abused."
"The researchers are destroying life in a scientifically dubious quest to manufacture new lives," Ozimic added.
Dr. Dianne Irving, a PhD in bioethics and former research scientist, told LifeSiteNews.com that in her opinion, the new report shows only that “science, the practice of medicine, and patient expectations have run dangerously amuck, and it's time that someone say so”.
“There is,” she said, “an inordinate degree of total moral bankruptcy connected to this ‘scientific inquiry’, as well as seriously misguided narcissism and selfishness involved, when both scientists/physicians and patients think they can justify doing absolutely anything in the lab or clinic in order to get what they want to appease their overblown egos.”
The announcement follows previous research at Newcastle upon Tyne University in the U.K., published in the New Scientist, that said similar work was being carried out in a "handful" of labs around the world.
But the new report said that such cells created in previous research, "did not develop beyond the earliest stages" and were genetically damaged. The new technique, they said, has created germ cells that could differentiate into fully functioning ova or sperm and potentially be used in IVF treatments.
Reports in the media have said that the breakthrough is step towards creating ova and sperm for IVF treatments without harvesting them directly from donors. This leads to the possibility of procedures to enable homosexuals to have children created from their own cells without the use of donated ova or sperm.
The Daily Mail's Fiona Macrae wrote that the research "raises a number of moral and ethical concerns," including "the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies."
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Men No Longer Needed?: Scientists Use Female Adult Stem Cells to Create "Female Sperm"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08020103.html
Gardasil Researcher Admits Vaccine May Be More Dangerous than the Disease
Less Than 10%, Maybe Even Less Than 1% of Vaccine Side Effects Reported
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
October 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A researcher with Merck Pharmaceutical who helped develop the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, has revealed that the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and may cause more illness than the disease they are intended to prevent.
Dr. Diane Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, and lead researcher in the development of the two vaccines, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4.
Dr. Harper has on several occasions warned that the vaccines were being "over-marketed" and the research on their potential side effects not properly carried out.
Dr. Harper told CBS News on August 19, 2009 that "young girls and their parents should receive more complete warnings before receiving the vaccine" and that a girl is more likely to die from an adverse reaction to Gardasil than from cervical cancer.
A report by Steven W. Mosher and Joan Robinson of the Population Research Institute (PRI), who attended Dr. Harper's presentation at the Conference on Vaccination, states that although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, it left many of the health professionals wondering if the drug should be given at all, considering its "poor promise of efficacy as a vaccine married to a high risk of life-threatening side effects."
Gardasil, Dr. Harper explained, is promoted by Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, as a "safe and effective" prevention measure against cervical cancer. The theory behind the vaccine is that, as HPV may cause cervical cancer, conferring a greater immunity of some strains of HPV might reduce the incidence of this form of cancer. In pursuit of this goal, tens of millions of American girls have been vaccinated to date.
However, "I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn't help but question why we need the vaccine at all," said Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the Population Research Institute.
Robinson added that she "did not wish to give the impression that Dr. Harper presented, even inadvertently, a consistently negative view of her own vaccine. She did tout certain 'real benefits,' chief among them that 'the vaccine will reduce the number of follow-up tests after abnormal PAP smears,' and thereby reduce the 'relationship tension,' 'stress and anxiety' of abnormal or false HPV positive results.
Dr. Harper Indicates Vaccine "will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US"
Dr. Harper also explained, however, that 70% of HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in one year. After two years, this rate climbs to 90%. Of the remaining 10% of HPV infections, only half coincide with the development of cervical cancer.
"Indeed," Robinson continued, Dr. Harper "surprised her audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is so low that 'if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.'"
At this point Dr. Harper said that "with the use of Gardasil, there will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70% of the population is vaccinated, and in that case, the decrease will be very minimal. The highest amount of minimal decrease will appear in 60 years."
In the US, the cervical cancer rate is 8 per 100,000 women, and is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. The current death rate from cervical cancer is between 1.6 to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 cases of the disease and is steadily declining due to traditional PAP tests and treatment.
The PRI report points out that the most recent records from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) indicate 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil in the US, and that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths linked to the vaccine.
Less Than 10%, Maybe Even Less Than 1% of Vaccine Side Effects Reported
Of even greater concern is the probability that numbers of deaths and adverse effects are underestimated.
Dr. Harper's comments in an ABC News report concur with the National Vaccine Information Center's claim that "though nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review."
The PRI report notes that "on average, less than 10 percent - perhaps even less than 1 percent - of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported, according to the American Journal of Public Health."
PRI's Steven Mosher concluded the report on Dr. Harper's revelations by offering some thoughts on the intense promotion of Gardasil by not only the manufacturer of the vaccine, but by state and country government agencies.
"I think that they see Gardasil as what one might call a "wedge" drug. For them, the success of this public vaccination campaign has less to do with stopping cervical cancer, than it does with opening the door to other vaccination campaigns for other sexually transmitted diseases, and perhaps even including pregnancy itself.
"For if they can overcome the objections of parents and religious organizations to vaccinating pre-pubescent - and not sexually active - girls against one form of STD, then it will make it easier for them to embark on similar programs in the future.
"After all, the proponents of sexual liberation are determined not to let mere disease - or even death - stand in the way of their pleasures. They believe that there must be technological solutions to the diseases that have arisen from their relentless promotion of promiscuity. After all, the alternative is too horrible to contemplate: They might have to learn to control their appetites. And they might have to teach abstinence."
See related LSN articles: (For much more information on Gardasil type "Gardasil" into the LifeSiteNews search)
Seizures and Brain Damage Follow HPV Vaccine Injection for U.K. Girl
Gardasil Vaccination Results in Three Outbreaks of Genital Warts in Fiji School Children
Controversial HPV Vaccine Causing One Death Per Month: FDA Report
Drug Conglomerate funds campaign to impose Mandatory HPV Vaccine on Young Girls
Canada's Conservative Government Distributes $300 Million to Provinces for Controversial HPV Vaccination
Archdiocese of Washington Opposes Bill to Redefine Marriage in District of Columbia
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
WASHINGTON, October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Representatives of the Archdiocese of Washington spoke in support of natural marriage and religious freedom at a hearing examining proposed same-sex "marriage" legislation in the District of Columbia.
In testimony before the D.C. City Council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary on October 26, the archdiocese stated its opposition to proposed legislation that would redefine marriage and infringe upon religious liberty.
On October 6, D.C. Council member David A. Catania, one of two open homosexuals on the council, introduced the same-sex "marriage" bill, with nine of the thirteen council members and Mayor Adrian Fenty expressing support for the measure.
The council is expected to vote on the bill by December. If passed, the measure would also have to be approved by Congress, which has 30 days to review City Council legislation before it becomes law.
The archdiocese said it "opposes this legislation and any effort to redefine marriage as other than that between a man and a woman. Furthermore, the Archdiocese has deep concerns that this bill would restrict the free exercise of religious beliefs if it is passed as drafted."
Prominence is given in the diocesan statement to the legislation's lack of exemption for individuals who may have religious objections to providing services for same-sex couples.
"The expected effect … if enacted without expanded protection for religious conscience, would be to put the Archdiocese (and its employees) in a position that is simply untenable under the First Amendment: the District will effectively force the Archdiocese either to violate the law or to abandon forms of religious practice - care for the poor, hungry and homeless - that are fundamental to the practice of Catholic social teaching."
In addition, the archdiocese noted that the legislation, besides overturning the definition of marriage, has no exemptions for churches, religious organizations such as the Knights of Columbus or religiously-owned nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, if those organizations provide services to the general public or rent space to individuals or groups outside of their faith.
These religious organizations would be at risk of lawsuits if, for example, they decline to offer their facilities to same sex couples or to limit married student housing to couples of the opposite sex.
"Every year, Catholic Charities provides shelter, food, counseling, medical and legal assistance, and more, to 68,000 people in the District of Columbia regardless of their faith," said Ed Orzechowski, president/CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, in a press release.
"If the Council passes this bill as written, these programs are at risk along with nearly 100 different parish social ministry programs, all of the other ministries operated by the Catholic Church and even meeting space for groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Scouts and neighborhood organizations who partner with churches."
The full text of the Archdiocese of Washington's written testimony, and other related information, is available here.
See previous LSN coverage:
D.C. Bill Expected to Dismantle Traditional Marriage in Capital by December
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09100708.html
D.C. Archbishop Joins Black Pastors in Same-Sex "Marriage" Fight
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09090204.html
Did Feminism Benefit Men more than Women? Prominent US Feminist Asks
By Hilary White
October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an Op Ed in the New York Times, leading US feminist Maureen Dowd has expressed her surprise that recent research continues to find that women, who may have been economically "emancipated" by the feminist revolution, are more unhappy now, forty years later, than men.
Calling it a "paradox" that women may have thrown off the aprons, Dowd wrote, "But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?"
Dowd, a journalist and regular columnist for the New York Times, is known as one of the last of the old-school radical feminists, and is the author of the book "Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide".
Dowd's Op Ed follows a report by Time Magazine showing that despite increased economic opportunities, limit-free "reproductive choice" and easy divorce, men are more happy overall than women in the US. Women, Dowd said, are being "driven to distraction" by maintaining both their status as mothers and wives while at the same time maintaining high-powered careers. Citing several different researchers, Dowd said that a big part of the problem is children. "One area of extreme distraction is kids," she wrote.
But an even bigger threat to women's happiness, she said, is the natural instinct of women for forging strong emotional bonds and relationships. "They tend to attach to other people more strongly, beat themselves up more when they lose attachments, take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants."
In the Time piece, Nancy Gibbs says that the magazine's research showed that although women have "gained more freedom, more education and more economic power," the study found that "they have become less happy".
Since Time did a piece on feminist gains in the early 1970s, Gibbs wrote, "close to half of law and medical degrees go to women...half the Ivy League presidents are women, and two of the three network anchors soon will be; three of the four most recent Secretaries of State have been women. There are more than 145 foundations designed to empower women around the world."
But women are still saying they are not happy compared to men, according to the surveys, and are suffering more than men in the financial downturn. The mysterious "paradox" of modern, emancipated, contracepting and high-achieving women is not so mysterious to some.
Gibbs writes that among the "most confounding" changes is the evidence "that as women have gained more freedom, more education and more economic power, they have become less happy". "No tidy theory explains the trend."
Gibbs herself points to an answer, saying, "Among the most dramatic changes in the past generation is the detachment of marriage and motherhood" and that women "no longer view matrimony as a necessary station on the road to financial security or parenthood".
She notes the leap in the numbers of children born to single women (from 12 per cent to 39 per cent) and notes that while "a majority of children in the mid-1970s were raised by a stay-at-home parent, the portion is now less than a third".
But Albert Mohler, commenting in a column, followed the evidence, saying, "The big question raised by these studies is this: Has feminism produced unhappiness among women? That question is inescapable when seen in light of the historical context."
Mohler is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a board member of Focus on the Family and hosts a Christian radio talk show that discusses social issues. He quotes Gail Collins, who wrote in her book "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present," that the achievements of women "did not resolve the tensions of trying to raise children and hold down a job at the same time".
"Sadly," Mohler writes, "most feminists seem incapable, given their ideological commitments, of asking the hardest questions.
"In reality, feminism was never only about opening doors for women. In order to make the case for the vast social transformation that feminism has produced, the feminist movement aspired to nothing short of a total social, moral, and cultural revolution. Along the way, feminism redefined womanhood, marriage, motherhood, and the roles for both men and women."
Google Supports Ref. 71 Favoring Same-Sex Unions
By James Tillman
SEATTLE, WA, October 29 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Representatives of the Google offices in Seattle and Kirkland Washington have sent a letter to the editor of the Seattle-Post Intelligencer supporting Referendum 71, which would grant the same legal rights to same-sex "partners" as to married couples in Washington.
The letter, signed by the engineering and site directors of each office, says that although Google does not "not generally take positions on social, legal or political issues that arise beyond our normal, day-to-day business," there are nevertheless "issues that are so important and so clear cut that we feel compelled to lend our voice."
"Supporting Referendum 71 is one of those issues."
This statement of support comes as the November 3rd vote on Referendum 71 draws near. Referendum 71, while not granting the name of marriage to same-sex partnerships, would nevertheless grant to such partnerships the same rights, obligations, and responsibilities that marriages have.
Larry Stickney, campaign manager of Protect Marriage Washington, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that he was "not the least bit surprised" at Google's move.
He continued: "It is well known here in Western Washington that much of the computer industry, whether based in Seattle or elsewhere, has a very left-wing political bent."
This left-wing bent was recently reflected in the $100,000 Microsoft gave to Washington Families Standing Together (WAFST), an organization working to pass Referendum 71. Microsoft has a long reputation of promoting homosexuality; Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and chief executive Steve Ballmer have each personally given $25,000 to WAFST.
So far during the Referendum 71 race, homosexualist groups have raised vastly more money than pro-family groups. The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission website reports that WAFST has raised nearly two million dollars, while Protect Marriage Washington and Vote Reject on R-71 have together raised roughly $450,000 dollars, less than a fourth of their opposition's budget.
Larry Stickney told LifeSiteNews that in "politically correct Seattle you simply cannot be a member of the political and business 'in crowds' unless you publicly kiss the ring of the homosexual and abortion lobbies."
However, although "the homosexual agenda may be fashionable with many Seattleites and business elites around the nation," he said, "it is opposed by a majority of Washingtonians who resent being dragged along involuntarily by a social movement that contradicts the wisdom of the ages."
WAFST has also received donations from groups such as Nike, Planned Parenthood, and T-Mobile, as well as donations from liberal institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the homosexualist Human Rights Campaign.
In addition to its public support of homosexualist laws, Google is well known for having previously worked against small conservative organizations through the vast power it exerts over internet content.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, is infamous for censoring pro-life videos. On June 24th they pulled a video by Life Action Films, featuring a Planned Parenthood employee claiming that the graphic abortion pictures used by pro-lifers are "not real." On July 10th, they removed a video showing Planned Parenthood failing to report what would be a statutory rape under Alabama state law. There several are other cases of such censorship.
Google also opposed Proposition 8 in California, a referendum to protect California marriages as the union of one man and one woman. Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, wrote that "it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8."
He continued: "We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
Google has also been sued for refusing to allow pro-life advertisements regarding abortion that contain religious content. Google settled out of court.
See related LifeSiteNews.com stories:
YouTube Yanks another Pro-Life Exposé Video
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072109.html
YouTube Yanks Video Exposing Obama's Abortion Extremism
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08091912.html
Google to be Sued for Anti-Christian Discrimination for Refusing Advertising
"http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040806.html
Washington State Referendum Challenges Expanded Same-Sex Partner Privileges
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050508.html
Voter Referenda on Same-Sex "Marriage" on Nov. Ballot in Washington and Maine
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09090304.html
Conservatives Propose UN Reform
By Samantha Singson
NEW YORK, NY, October 29, 2009 (C-FAM) - At a United Nations (UN) press conference Wednesday a group of conservative policy experts put forth an agenda for UN reform including alternatives to major UN programs on social issues and methods for making the UN more accountable to member states. The event featured authors of the new book ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives, published by the Washington DC-based Heritage Foundation.
Ambassador John Bolton, former United States Ambassador to the UN and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, praised the book's “data-driven, empirical approach, which proposes specific changes and alternatives.” Bolton highlighted the resistance to reforming the UN system from bureaucrats and member states alike. Bolton said his idea of the most practical path toward UN reform, would be a change in how the organization is funded, proposing voluntary funding instead of reliance on assessments. He said this would make the UN more responsive and accountable.
Ambassador Berenado Vunibobo from Fiji commended the book for asking "timely" questions, particularly on the role of the UN in the debate on social issues. Ambassador Vunibobo stated, "fundamental values seem to be under attack" at the UN and that for "small countries who are still rooted in traditional values, the debate at the UN can be truly frightening." Vunibobo highlighted in particular the ease with which negotiated language contained in treaties is "reinterpreted by some UN bureaucrats to suit their own purposes."
Austin Ruse, President of C-FAM, the event’s sponsor and publisher of the Friday Fax, opened the press conference, which was held at the UN Correspondent’s Association (UNCA), by calling the UN "broken," and pointed to the disconnect between the UN bureaucracy and member states in the UN's decision making bodies.
Brett Schaefer, of the Heritage Foundation and the book’s editor explained that the purpose of the book was not only to point out the UN's problems or take a "condemnatory" view of the UN, but to take the opportunity to investigate where the UN is meeting its goals and where it is not. Schaefer called on the international community to undertake reform to help the UN "live up to its expectations."
Dr. Susan Yoshihara, vice president for research at C-FAM and a contributor to the book, gave concrete examples of a "stratagem" whereby bureaucrats use innocuous procedural mechanisms to promote radical interpretations of human rights treaties. Yoshihara warned that this coupled with a "rights-based approach" to humanitarian action was undermining the credibility of premier UN agencies like the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Among her recommendations for reform, Yoshihara called on states to limit the role of special interests by holding treaty monitoring bodies more accountable and focusing on bilateral rather than expert-driven, top-down approaches to humanitarian aid.
Dr. Edward Fuelner, President of the Heritage Foundation, said that "whether one supports or opposes the activities of the UN, critical analysis on what could be done better for the people of the world always needs to be examined."
UN Rapporteur Criticized for Report Claiming Gender is a "Social Construct"
By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.
NEW YORK, NY, October 29, 2009 (C-FAM) - A host of nations lined up this week to criticize a special report on "gender-based human rights abuses in counterterrorism measures" for pushing a notion of gender as a fluid social construct and advancing a United Nations (UN) "gay rights" document known as the Yogyakarta Principles, rather than focusing on the assigned task of examining the abuse of women caught up in the global "war on terror."
Dubbed an "interactive discussion" with UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin, criticism from the Organization of Islamic Countries and the African Group, delivered by Malaysia and Tanzania, respectively, rapped Scheinin for exceeding his mandate in violation of the Human Rights Council's Code of Conduct. According to the African Group, Scheinin misused his position to advance the controversial Yogyakarta Principles, a statement purporting to "reflect the existing state of human rights law" concerning "sexual orientation and gender identity." Scheinin was one of about thirty self-selected "experts" who crafted the Yogyakarta Principles in 2007.
In response, Scheinin defended his use of the Yogyakarta Principles as "fully legitimate," calling it a "soft law" document that "enriches" ones understanding of binding human rights norms. One delegate, in remarks to C-FAM's Friday Fax, discounted the "soft law" claim, pointing out that there is no international consensus on sexual orientation as a non-discrimination category and no binding legal obligation.
A statement by the Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia took Scheinin to task for departing from the agreed-upon definition of gender in the Beijing Platform for Action and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, both of which affirm the traditional understanding of the term. The United States (US) delegation, signaling continuity with Bush Administration policy, also supported the Beijing usage, while adding that the US was interested in the effect counterterrorism efforts had on the "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community." The Rome Statute defines gender as "the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society," and the Beijing document affirms the "ordinary, generally accepted usage" of the term.
The Holy See restated that "gender is grounded in biological sexual identity, male or female," and rejected "the notion that sexual identity can be adopted indefinitely." India, which seldom speaks on such divisive social issues, faulted the Special Rapporteur for redefining "gender perspective," and for taking the committee into an "academic" debate removed from his mandate.
Scheinin had his defenders as well, particularly among European nations and certain Latin American countries such as Uruguay and Chile. Norway expressed "full support" for the report and welcomed Scheinin's elastic gender construct. Switzerland scolded those nations who attacked the special rapporteur because they did not agree with his submission, adding that they must comply with any subsequent resolutions based on his report.
One delegate critical of the "arrogance" of Scheinin and his European supporters summed up the exchange by saying "Basically, they are allowed to criticize us, but we are not allowed to criticize them. They are gods."
(This story republished with permission from http://www.c-fam.org/)
Life Versus Death; Beggars Versus Giants
Special Report Commentary By Steve Jalsevac
Note: There has been much discussion lately among pro-life leaders about the chronic lack of resources the movement has had to endure during its existence while fighting the great battle against the Culture of Death. This article is one I believe has been needed for some time, and now more than ever. 40 years of this battle is a long time. It will be won, but certain things must finally happen to bring that about. This article addresses some of those needed developments.
October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mother Teresa, awarded the Nobel peace prize in1979, said, "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." I was present when she said it in Toronto at a peace rally. Pope John Paul II called abortion "legal extermination." He compared abortion to the Nazi Holocaust and stressed that the abortion "rights" movement could "drive democratic regimes to transform themselves into totalitarian regimes." That decline in fundamental freedoms has been occurring now in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Pope Benedict XVI told the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2007 "to guarantee the right to life for all and in an equal manner for all is the duty upon which the future of humanity depends." He has also stressed that "today's gravest injustice" is the destruction of new life.
Abortion has spawned a long and still growing list of related assaults on life that are taking us down a truly frightening path, leading to even more massive killing of the most vulnerable and innocent.
And yet, mysteriously, despite all of this, there are still relatively few people who are taking seriously enough the great dangers of the international death culture spawned by abortion and its parent movement - the perversion of human sexuality.
The Beggarly Pro-Life Movement
Coincident with all of this is the mystery of the relative beggarly existence that most pro-life organizations around the world have been forced to endure while they have attempted to fight the massively supported and financed anti-life Goliath.
Pro-life leaders, through their intense commitment to the cause for many years, have developed an expert knowledge of the many issues involved in this struggle and the actions needed to restore a culture of life. And yet, their effectiveness has been crippled by poor or inconsistent support or even active opposition from influential persons or organizations that should have been their natural allies.
The "politically incorrect" and "controversial" work of pro-life organizations has been repellent to much of the secular and even religious establishment. It is not seen as attractive work. It is about opposing killing and about promoting traditional sexual ethics, which receives much hostility from the popular culture. Pro-life causes discomfort.
The result is that pro-life groups have been forced to depend overwhelmingly upon volunteers and minimally compensated paid staff. These groups, including LifeSiteNews, which assists them, are fighting the greatest war in history. And yet, they are usually handicapped by a severe lack of resources and a pattern of enthusiastic, bright young workers who come and then go because they cannot be given sufficient income to marry and raise a family. They also move on because of the long, stressful hours and seeming lack of success of what should normally be successful actions undertaken with the same effort and skill in almost all other contexts.
Most people believe that pro-life organizations are heavily supported by Church organizations. Idealistic new workers to the movement usually soon experience a shocking and deflating realization about this.
With the notable exceptions of some individual clergy and certain special events, church institutions and leaders are inconsistently supportive of the pro-life cause. Many do not in practice give it a high priority. Communications with pro-life leaders is poor. Indifference is common. Some Church leaders even actively oppose crucial actions undertaken by the movement's organizations. This is especially the case with regard to political and legislative decisions and efforts. That is often the most disheartening aspect of pro-life work.
The Culture War
The Culture War is now at a dire crossroads. Peter Kreeft, in his book and frequently given talk, How to Win the Culture War, notes that "To win any war" one of "the three most necessary things we must know" is "that we are at war." This has been a huge problem for the always struggling pro-life movement since its beginning: most principled, moral people still do not realize that this great war is going on, has been for about 40 years, and that they cannot avoid being affected by it.
As Kreeft says, "If you are surprised to be told that our entire civilization is in crisis, I welcome you back from your nice vacation on the moon." The renowned Catholic philosopher and prolific author continues, "Many minds do seem moonstruck, puttering happily around the Titanic, blandly arranging the deck chairs."
That, to some degree explains what most pro-life leaders and we at LifeSiteNews have been up against since we began our various missions to try to stop the advance of what Pope John Paul II labelled The Culture of Death or as Chuck Colson has warned is a looming "new dark age."
Kreeft explains that there is a deeper, more ominous dimension to the Culture War. He says, "eternal souls will die - billions of Ramones and Vladimirs and Tiffanys and Bridgets will go to hell. That's what's at stake in this war." It is really, he says, a war against "powers and principalities" - on a very great scale - perhaps the greatest in all of human history.
One Organizations' Past and Current Struggles
Canada's national pro-life organization, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), is an example of one of the larger and more effective organizations that has been heroically waging this seemingly impossible battle on many fronts. During it's over 30 years of existence, CLC has been doing truly extraordinary things against a vastly greater funded opposition on both the local, national and international levels. Among its numerous projects, CLC was the original parent organization and the main financial backer of LifeSiteNews.com, but is no longer able to provide that support.
Right now CLC and many other pro-life groups are struggling financially like they never have before. At the same time, the organizations promoting the death culture have been receiving hundreds of millions, if not billions, from governments at all levels, giant private foundations and numerous other sources. In addition they receive massive ongoing other support for their agendas from the world's mainstream media, government and education institutions, the United Nations and other international agencies and textbook, magazine and other publishers.
It is not even remotely a fair fight.
The leaders and workers at CLC (and for that matter the workers of most pro-life groups in the world) see up close every day the enormity of what the death movement is doing to individuals and to all of society. They are the professionals, the experts on these issues. And yet everyday they have to beg and plead for financial and other support that never even begins to approach the levels needed.
What would have happened if during the Second World War the Allied generals and troops had to constantly, personally beg for money and other resources to wage each desperate battle against the enemies of freedom, but were met with indifference from those whose help they needed the most? That is the situation of the pro-life movement.
Pro-life soldiers in the field at the battle front are often fighting with pea shooters, while at the same time having to constantly expend much time and energy pleading for even a minimum of moral support and financial support for real weapons to wage the culture war - which they know they can and will one day win.
Ordinary People The Real Heroes
Campaign Life Coalition, LifeSiteNews and the large majority of pro-life organizations in North America and elsewhere have been supported almost entirely by generous ordinary people - the real heroes of the movement. They have sacrificed year after year, giving up precious time and limited personal financial resources while not expecting anything in return, not even a tax receipt. They understand what this is all about. Many of them are dismayed over the lack of support and even opposition from the more powerful and wealthy in both civil and religious society.
Without these ordinary folks, there surely would not be any pro-life movement. The battle would have been over long ago. There would be no one putting the finger in the dyke these past many years limiting the great flood of physical death, death of consciences and the complete collapse of our traditional civilization that the anti-human, anti-God movement is leading us all towards.
Wealthy and Powerful Still do Not Comprehend Importance of Pro-Life Work
CLC leaders are very concerned that even the very limited financial support they have relied upon has been plummeting because of the current financial crisis. The little people, the traditional supporters of CLC, are hurting. The ongoing mystery is that wealthy individuals and organizations still do not comprehend the enormous importance of CLC's work and have never, in 30 years, given any substantial donations to this life and civilization-saving organization compared to what they often give to other worthy causes.
Jim Hughes, president of CLC and vice president of International Right to Life, reports that in all the years of CLC's existence the largest donation the organization has received was $150,000. That amount was received three times from an anonymous person who thankfully did not demand a tax receipt (In Canada, charitable tax rulings have been notoriously biased against groups that might upset the abortion status quo). That level of donation was an extreme rarity. Hughes says he has tried ceaselessly and mostly unsuccessfully to find wealthy benefactors to support the work of CLC and its incredibly dedicated workers.
Massive Funding Received by Anti-Life Organizations
In Canada, all abortions are fully funded by taxation dollars. Abortion advocating feminist and other organizations are given millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars from all levels of government, plus funds from wealthy multinational foundations and other sources. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation reported that Canada's Conservative government gave $80 Million to de-population groups in 2006/07. $44,050,000 went to the UNFPA, and $18 million each went to Planned Parenthood and UNICEF.
The Minister for Canadian International Cooperation in the federal Liberal government in the year 2000 unveiled a $2.8 billion five-year plan to promote population control, abortion, abortifacient contraception, homosexuality and sex education targeted at poor nations. The list of abortion funding sources seems endless. By comparison, Canadian pro-life groups have had to work with a fraction of 1% of the amounts give to pro-abortion organizations to counter the influence of these groups.
In the United States, Planned Parenthood receives massive funds from government. Jim Sedlak, the executive director of STOPP International reported that according to PP's 2005-06 report, the organization received taxpayer funds for that year alone totalling $305.3 million and it has amassed assets worth $839.8 million. According to PPFA's financial report for 2007-2008, the abortion provider brought in total revenue of $1.038 billion and posted an $85 million profit.
The giant pro-abortion US foundations have given hundreds of millions towards population control related initiatives throughout the world. One of the nation's ten largest foundations, the MacArthur Foundation, in 2002 had assets of $4.2 billion and was reporting to be making grants totalling approximately $227 million annually. LifeSiteNews reported then that a list of recipients of grants from the MacArthur Foundation includes most of the enemies of life, faith and family that exist on the international level, as well as those in specific countries which the foundation targets. Apart from funding 'Catholics for a Free Choice' and International Planned Parenthood, the foundation targets funds towards abortion and population-control-promoting groups in Brazil, India, Mexico and Nigeria.
Then there is the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation and the newer, far larger Buffet and the Gates Foundations - all for many years pouring millions into initiatives and groups around the world that advance what we emphasize is a Culture of Death. A 2002 Vida Humana Internacional report gives some idea of where these foundation funds went to in Latin America at that time.
"The Most Important Work on Earth"
Wealthy principled, pro-life leaning groups and individuals regularly give millions, if not billions to all kinds of worthy charitable and religious organizations every year. This is good. But they still have not caught on that the work that organizations like Campaign Life Coalition do is of an even higher level of importance. Pope John Paul II told HLI's Father Paul Marx in 1979 that pro-life is "the most important work on earth." Other leading figures have made similar statements.
"The pro-life movement is really all that there is consistently and daily fighting the death movement," says Hughes. "They are the David fighting the Goliath and yet they're not even given the slingshot and stones which were all that David needed to slay Goliath." "It can be disheartening at times," says Hughes, especially given the intimate knowledge that the organization has of the great tragedy and destruction of abortion and its many related evils.
The situation is more crucial now than ever in history. In Canada, there is a greater vacuum of political and other leadership on the life issues than Hughes has ever seen. In the United States, the Obama administration is the most anti-life, antifamily government in U.S. history. Under President Obama the powerful American UN delegation has had it's direction completely reversed and is now committed to pushing a world-wide right to abortion. The growing power of what is becoming a totalitarian EU bureaucracy is a massive threat to life and family.
"In other words," says Hughes, "there's never been a time that a strong national and international pro-life movement has been needed so much, including a much stronger LifeSiteNews international news service." "And yet", he says, "we are crippled by not receiving even remotely sufficient support from those who should be logically supporting us."
Hughes says, "we don't need much, you know, compared to the resources of our opponents. Pro-life workers around the world perform miracles with whatever they are given because of their incredible dedication and the fact that they are strengthened by their religious faith and their passion for justice on this issue." "But," he emphasizes, "they do need far more support than they have been getting -- especially from the wealthy and influential who are pro-life.
Why CLC, for instance, hasn't been getting donations of $1 million, $5 million, $10 million -- is beyond me," Hughes says. "But that has to change and very soon. Those amounts would provide the comparative slingshot and pebbles needed to slay the anti-life Goliath with it's billions of dollars of funding."
The veteran national and international pro-life leader suggests that "if those with large financial resources give a healthy proportion of their usual charitable donation funds to pro-life, they will save vastly more lives and do more long-term good for the world than everything else that they normally support combined."
This is About More Than Abortion
"The pro-life moment movement is not only about abortion," he says. "It is fighting an international movement engaged in a variety of efforts to massively reduce the world's population." "And to achieve that", Hughes explains, "they know they must also eliminate or at least severely limit the influence of religion and traditional cultures that emphasize the dignity and sacredness of human life and the importance of the natural family. They are doing that now."
"Their movement is a danger to everyone," Hughes says. "And unless we begin to take seriously that we have to fight this war, all the other things that we fund will achieve very little." "There will be far less of a future for people of principle and traditional values and a disturbing future for their children and grandchildren in this new world order that will be radically different from what we have worked and hoped for."
"However," Hughes stresses, "as big and as powerful as our opponents are, we are on God's side, so we have truth on our side. We have natural law on our side." The condition, he says, is that "we need much more support of every kind from those who know what is right and what is wrong."
The CLC President says, "Right now, our organization, for instance, is struggling to not have to lay off more critically needed staff. It's not going well. And yet, that is ridiculous. We have so much to do."
Angel Investors Needed
The little people are still doing their very best for the cause of life. What is needed, as can be seen from Jim Hughes's comments, is for those with larger financial means to finally come on board.
There is a special need at this moment for what is termed in the business world, "angel investors", to not only just keep CLC, LifeSiteNews and all the other effective, dedicated groups in the world going, but to help them get to that higher level of organization and influence that will eventually result in more funds coming in to sustain the new level of activity.
The return of investment for the angel investors would however not be a direct financial return on their investment. Pro-life angel investors would receive the same return as all those who have already been giving so much of their lives for this cause -- the sure knowledge there that they are contributing their required share to "the most important work on earth."
At the end of their days they would be assured of the certainty that they responded to God's call to protect the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable of his highest creation willed by him specifically to be with him for eternity.
"In other words," says Hughes, "being involved in or at least supporting pro-life work with the right motivation, has lasting benefits that cannot be compared to the always passing rewards of the material life. It is a work of justice at its very highest level. It is the best possilble type of legacy to leave the world."
Some years ago U.S. Congressman Hyde made a speech on the abortion issue that struck so deep to the core of the responsibility and rightness of defending the unborn that it has been repeated on numerous websites and in many print publications ever since. The quote seems to be especially appropriate to end this article.
When the Time Comes by Henry Hyde:
"When the time comes as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I've often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God and a terror will rip through your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there will be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, "Spare him because he loved us," and God will look at you and say not, "Did you succeed?" but "Did you try?"'
More Powerful Quotes to Consider
The following are additional quotes from prominent individuals emphasizing why abortion and its related anti-life evils must be given a very high priority:
"Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide."
Ronald Reagan Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
"everything collapses without respect for life."
Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Vatican City, Oct. 3, 2000
"The abortion law has a common denominator with the spirit of the Nazis and of communism: We may kill.."
Auxiliary Bishop of Salzburg Andreas Laun in an interview with the Austrian magazine News
"Some will say that the defense of innocent life is only one issue among many, that it is important but not fundamental. They are wrong. In the natural moral law, the good of life is the most fundamental good and the condition for the enjoyment of all other goods."
Archbishop Raymond Burke Jan. 2004
"Defense of human life is the only foundation on which all else must be built, or else, all else is eventually going to collapse. .."
Bishop William Murphy, Archdiocese of Boston in Pilot Column
"The taking of innocent human life is so heinous, so horribly evil, and so absolutely opposite to the law of Almighty God that abortion must take precedence over every other issue."
Bishop James Timlin, D.D., Bishop of Scranton, "The Ballot and the Right to Life" Fall 2000
"...we have a most grave obligation to defend all human life from the moment of conception until natural death. God help us if we fail in this most fundamental obligation."
Archbishop John Myers of Newark, New Jersey - May 4, 2004
"A new 'ideology of evil' is threatening society and it includes gay 'marriage,' and abortion"
Pope John Paul II in his book, "Memory and Identity." about his experiences with 20th-century totalitarianism
[T]he failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics" (1998)
I am writing as the great great grandson of William Wilberforce, who campaigned vigorously for the ending of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which ultimately paved the way for the abolition of slavery itself throughout the entire British Empire in 1833. I am often asked what would be the campaigns Wilberforce would be fighting if he were alive in 21st century Britain. I believe that there would be a number of different issues among them human trafficking and the scourge of drugs. But almost certainly at the top of the list, would be the issue of abortion.
Fr. Gerard Wilberforce.
"Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up."
Winston Churchill's shortest and most memorable commencement speech of all time at his alma mater during World War II as quoted by Peter Kreeft in his book How to Win the Culture War.
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