Articles for Month: December 2002

Monday’s story “COURAGEOUS PRIEST BARS PRO-ABORTION CALIFORNIA GOV. FROM CHURCH PREMISES had the incorrect email addresses for Msgr. Kavanagh.  Msgr. Kavanagh can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]

TORONTO, December 23, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The woman charged in connection with a pepper spray attack on Aid to Women counsellor Robert Hinchey last   August has been remanded to Jan. 21 for a pre-trial hearing. Carol-Ann Trueman,  an employee of the Stop 86 women’s shelter, appeared for the first time with a lawyer, T. Ducharme, at College Park Court this morning. This was her third appearance. She failed to show up for her first hearing, at which a discretionary warrant was issued for her arrest. At her second appearance, she simply produced a note asking for a remand to […]

TORONTO, December 23, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The homosexual TV channel PrideVision has gone broke little more than a year after it went on the air. The network has gradually been forced to lay off half of its staff and put itself up for sale.  “The operating performance of this subsidiary has been below corporate expectations,” said a spokesman for Headline Media Group Inc., the company that owned the network, which the spokesman claims had 22,000 subscribers paying $5.95 to $7.95 a month to receive the 24-hour all-homosexual network.  Some distributors, including cable operator Shaw Communications and satellite provider Star Choice, […]

ROME, December 23, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite tax-funded childcare and paid leave for both parents, Italians are now competing with Spaniards for the world’s lowest birthrate. With birthrates around half of the 2.1 child-per-woman replacement rate,  the European Union reports that Europe can expect to “suffer a net loss of as many as 70 million people by 2050.  “Most people don’t understand how bad it is,” Valerio Terra Abrami, a senior demographer at Italy’s Institute of National Statistics, told reporters. “Every year I give one or two interviews saying the same thing, but nothing happens.” Only with the advent of […]

WASHINGTON, December 23, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Washington’s city police plan to use surveillance cameras to monitor the annual right to life march in January, even though there is no history of violence associated with the 30-year-old peaceful protest.  The Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, a Presbyterian minister and director of the D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, is “absolutely outraged about these cameras. … It is a crushing blow to the First Amendment and free speech activities”—and he plans to seek a court injunction to stop it.  In contrast, Rev. Frank Pavone, founder and director of Priests for Life, said he supports anything […]

LIFESITE, December 23, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rebecca Wasser Kiessling had many audience member at the Toronto International Forum in tears with her heart wrenching story about the many hardships she has faced in life. Rebecca is a living testament against the oft mentioned ‘rape exception’ as she tells her own moving story of being conceived in rape, later being brutally beaten and yet successfully overcoming her obstacles to become a joyful Christian wife, mother, attorney and sought after pro-life speaker.  The tape of this exceptional talk can be ordered by going to:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/shop/tapes/2002conf/orderform1.htm

Politically correct "Happy Holiday", "Season's Greetings" deliberately undermine real Christmas joy

The Harry Potter controversy https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/harrypotter/index.html   Embryonic Stem Cell research was approved in Germany, Australia, India and Belgium.  The International Criminal Court went into effect as of July 1, 2002.  The Irish referendum on abortion which would have defined human life as beginning after implantation rather than at fertilization was defeated.  U.S. stats showed that some 170,000 embryos are killed every year in fertility treatments.  Assisted Reproductive societies announced the birth of the one millionth child through in vitro fertilization.  Belgium legalized euthanasia.  The sex scandal concerning Catholic priests has caused the Vatican to emphasize its rules against the ordination […]

World Youth Day – Miraculously awesome, changing the hearts of even the most extreme pro-abortion media. To review the coverage type “world youth day 2002” into the search engine at https://www.lifesitenews.com/search/search.html By far, the most numerous good news stories in 2002 involved President George W. Bush.  With the hard work of pro-life groups both in the U.S. and internationally he:  – withdrew any notion of U.S. support for the International Criminal Court   – appointed pro-life U.S. representatives to United Nations conferences. This thwarted the pro-abortion agenda at the conference on human cloning where the U.S. insisted on a total […]

A happy and blessed Christmas and a happy New Year to all LifeSite News readers!  LifeSite News is taking its usual break for the Christmas season and will return on Thursday January 2nd.  We look forward to serving you again in 2003.

ALABAMA ENHANCES NEW ABORTION LAW The state Board of Health of Alabama has passed a set of proposed rules in conjunction with its new abortion law, including a 24-hour waiting period before a customer can obtain an abortion. The “Women’s Right To Know Act,” as it is called in pro-life circles, requires doctors or clinic workers to fully inform a woman about several implications of abortion – including information about adoption agencies, embryonic and fetal development, risks of abortion and childbirth, a father’s obligations and alternatives to abortion. If the woman still wants an abortion, she can return no sooner […]

WASHINGTON, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-lifers may have to hold their noses as Senate Republicans choose a replacement next month for Sen. Trent Lott. Bill Frist, the Tennessee doctor who is reportedly both frontrunner and the White House favourite for Majority Leader, supported the confirmation of Bill Clinton’s militantly pro-abortion surgeon general, David Satcher. In addition, Frist is major a shareholder in a for-profit chain of medical clinics founded by his father and brother that conducts abortions.  According to Tennessee Right to Life’s Sherry Holden, Sen. Frist told the organization he is pro-life. “He said he’s against abortion, period-no […]

CAVE JUNCTION, Oregon, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) –  In a WorldNetDaily feature, former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson, once a co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, reminisces about the cynical and dishonest tactics he and his pro-abortion allies devised during the 1960s and 1970s.  “Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public,” says Nathanson, now a Catholic convert and a pro-life activist. “We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one,” Nathanson recalls, citing misinformation and lies spread by the pro-abortion industry. “This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few […]

LOS ANGELES, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles have used stem cells from bone marrow to generate brain cells and nervous system cells that can be used to treat brain cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases. “Neural stem cells have a lot of characteristics that make them an attractive means of treating neurological disorders—but they come from precarious sources,” said Dr. John Yu, co-director of the brain tumor program and lead author of the study. The journal Experimental Neurology recounts how they injected genetically engineered neural stem cells into the arteries of rats with […]

WASHINGTON, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Stanford University's unilateral decision to create a stem cell laboratory for human embryo experimentation and cloning has drawn criticism from the Bush Administration's bioethics panel. “Stanford has decided to proceed with cloning research without public scrutiny and deliberation,” said Dr. Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, “and has hurt the cause of public understanding of this subject by its confusion of the issue.” Dr. Kass, who is on the faculty of the University of Chicago, sought a public apology from Stanford for “obfuscating the nature of such research” into “cloning for […]

MONTREAL, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Raelians, a Quebec-based UFO cult, claims that its Clonaid company is set to announce the birth of the world first cloned human within two weeks.  While the claims of this sect have been dubious in the extreme, pro-life leaders point out that what this “news story does point out is that the cloning of human beings is a scientific disaster waiting to happen.”  Pro-life leaders warn that despite what it says on the surface, the proposed Canadian legislation regarding stem cell research, Bill C-13, does not forbid human cloning.  “Every ‘mad’ scientist in […]

LONDON, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British High Court today ruled in favour of a pro-life person who challenged the country’s artificial reproduction authority for granting permission for clinics to selectively screen embryos to find a tissue match for treatment of born siblings.  The High Court ruled that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) operated beyond its jurisdiction in allowing the controversial procedures which have been described as designer baby selection.  Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE), was congratulated on her high court victory over the embryology authority today by the Society for the Protection of […]

Politically correct, one-sided re-definition of "tolerance" was a deciding factor

LIFESITE, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the magazine First Things, was the banquet speaker at the Toronto International Forum. With his deep, booming voice he held the close attention of the over 500-strong audience for 45 minutes, leaving them hungry for more. More importantly, his uplifting and hopeful speech motivated veteran and recent activists alike to be a voice for the unborn, the sick, the elderly and the disabled. Fr. Neuhaus, who was born and raised near Ottawa before moving to the U.S., thanked those who were involved in the pro-life movement, which he […]

CALGARY, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite having just witnessed the awesome power of a cooperation between fiscal and moral conservatives in the recent U.S. elections, Canadian Alliance Leader Stephen Harper has chosen to further alienate himself and the Party from its natural constituency of moral conservatives. In an interview with the Calgary Herald, Harper said he wanted to rid the Alliance of a “too right wing, too scary” image by distancing it from “sensitive” social conservatism.  “On sensitive things, we will try to be clear where this party stands. My position on abortion, for example, will be that this […]

SACRAMENTO, December 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – California Governor Gray Davis, arguably the most pro-abortion governor in U.S. history, has been refused entrance to a Catholic children’s home run by St. Patrick’s Parish in Sacramento.  The priest who runs the home said Davis would not be allowed to distribute gifts at the home – as governors have done for the past twenty years – unless he repents and turns from his sinful ways.  “We don’t let any pro-abortion people in our grounds here,” said Monsignor Edward Kavanagh, director of the home since 1952. “He should get his life together and he […]

But second and third generations are less keen

Staff will be explaining the concept of transgender to elementary students on Monday

WASHINGTON, December 19, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Under pressure from the Bush Administration to post more honest information about sexually transmitted diseases on their website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been obliged to change a fact sheet promoting condoms as “highly effective” in preventing HIV and other diseases.  The CDC site was changed to say that “refraining from sex” is the “best way to prevent transmission” of disease. This should be common sense but for some reason Democrats in Congress are up in arms. The old version added, “But for those who have sexual intercourse, latex condoms […]

CHICAGO, December 19, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Proponents of in vitro fertilization (IVF) maintain that there is no higher risk of birth defects among test tube babies. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, for example, says IVF does not produce higher-than-normal defects. But now, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) website says a study funded by the National Institutes of Health has found the opposite.  In a registry of 65 children with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS, “characterized by, among other features, an enlarged tongue and a predisposition for rare cancers”), three cases (5%) were IVF children. But in the general […]

Move Comes Just After UN Link to China Coercive Abortion Regime

OTTAWA, December 19, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a case watched closely by pro-family groups, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled today that the province of Nova Scotia is not acting unconstitutionally when it discriminates between married couples and common-law couples.  In the case, the Nova Scotia Matrimonial Property Act (MPA) was unsuccessfully argued to be violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for failing to include common-law couples within the definition of “spouse”.  The majority ruling noted that “The exclusion from the MPA of unmarried cohabiting persons of the opposite sex is not discriminatory within the meaning of s. 15(1) […]

LIFESITE, December 19, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Dr. Jack Willke is one of the world’s pre-eminent pro-life spokesmen. As the former president of U.S. National Right to Life, current president of the Life Issues Institute and founder and president of International Right to Life he has a deep understanding of the worldwide anti-life movement. His amazing talks during the October Toronto International Forum were stunningly informative. Dr. Willke competently tells it like it is. He told LifeSite that at his age he no longer cares what people think about him. He feels compelled to tell the truth about all that he […]

U.S. SUPREME COURT ASKED OPINION OF U.S. GOV’T NOT ON SCHEIDLER CASE BUT ON ANOTHER CASE   On December 16 LifeSite reported incorrectly that the U.S. Supreme Court had sought the opinion of the U.S. government on the Scheidler vs. NOW case.  In fact, the court sought government opinion on the American Coalition of Life Activists v. Planned Parenthood case. See the corrected version of the LifeSite coverage at:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/dec/02121604.html

ALBANY, December 18, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Republican governor and Republican-controlled Senate of New York state voted this week to ban so-called “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”  Governor George Pataki signed the bill into law after the Senate approved it 34-26 with one-third of Republicans collaborating with Democrats. Democrats vowed to play the homosexual card to unseat Republicans in liberal areas. “I’m shocked that so many suburban Republicans voted against the clear wishes of their constituents,” Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), told Newsday.  After the vote, Michael Long, chairman of the small Conservative Party of New York, vowed that […]

Gay activist ideological pressure censors distinguished medical professionals

BUFFALO, December 8, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – James C. Kopp, 48, who last month confessed to Buffalo News reporters that he had in fact shot Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, now faces a second grand jury indictment for second-degree murder based on “depraved indifference to human life,” according to the Buffalo newspaper.  Bruce A. Barket, one of Kopp’s lawyers, says his client “might appear before the new grand jury and expand on the jailhouse admissions he made to two Buffalo News reporters,” says the newspaper.  To follow the coverage in the Buffalo News see:  https://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20021217/1027323.asp

FRESNO, Calif., December 18, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Attorney’s office will convene a grand jury in order to seek an indictment against a local pro-life activist, Terri Palmquist. Mrs. Palmquist’s alleged offense is threatening abortionist Kenneth Wright by reading passages of the Bible to him. On July 9, 2002, Mrs. Palmquist, who regularly leaflets and counsels at the Family Planning Alternatives abortuary, saw Wright entering the clinic and read to him passages from Ezekiel 33 concerning admonishing the evildoer to turn from his sins lest he die. Although Wright has seen Mrs. Palmquist at the clinic for years and […]

So-called 'emergency contraception' is an abortion!

Would allow babies to be created and killed for stem cells up to nine months gestation

WASHINGTON, December 18, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Since LifeSite’s publication of the names of several Catholic universities which provide links to Planned Parenthood clinics which therefore encouraged their students to use the pro-abortion facilities, a few of the universities have removed the offensive materials from their websites. Georgetown University has removed a website on “sexual health & safety” which had encouraged the use of sexual aids including “dental dams” and “latex gloves” for “safer sex”. Beyond linking to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, it also suggested the use of the abortifacient morning after pill in case of rape. However, a visit […]

Defends accuracy and says critics did not do their homework

SCIENTIST CLAIMS FIRST HUMAN CLONE TO BE BORN IN JANUARY IN BELGRADE SERBIA https://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5681863%255E401,00.html   AWESOME PRO-LIFE MESSAGE GIVEN BY NEWARK ARCHBISHOP JOHN MYERS https://www.rcan.org/archbish/jjm_letters/HumanBody.htm   PLANNED PARENTHOOD RETURNS ABORTION TO ALASKA INTERIOR- GONE SINCE 1999 https://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113%257E7247%257E1052871,00.html ARKANSAS PRO-LIFE GROUP TO ARGUE UNBORN CHILD MURDER CASE Arkansas Right to Life will be allowed to present arguments in the criminal case against Lonnie Beulah, who was convicted of first-degree murder under the 1999 law in the death of a pregnant woman’s unborn child. On appeal, Beulah claims the 1999 law is unconstitutional.  https://www.gomemphis.com/mca/midsouth_news/article/0,1426,MCA_1497_1606076,00.html   OHIO STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION SAYS TEACH […]

TURIN, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italian Public Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello has opened an investigation in the Sant’Anna Hospital—which performs the highest number of abortions in all Italy—after doctors there announced they would begin clinical trials of RU-486, the Mifepristone “human pesticide” abortion drug.  According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the trials may violate the legal requirement that abortions take place in a hospital or clinic. Doctors were planning to get the test women to sign a document requiring that they reside within two hours of a hospital, and warning that there is a “remote possibility” that a blood […]

TOKYO, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Tokyo-based Japan Society for Dying with Dignity is claiming 100,000 members in support of a “dignified death” for the terminally ill.  Spokesman Masafumi Takai credited “the rapid aging of society [and] the rise of interest in self-determination regarding terminal treatment,” adding that three-quarters of members are over age 65 and nearly 70% are women.  Membership began to rise in 1990 after the Japan Medical Association reaffirmed the right of terminally ill patients to decline life-prolonging treatment.  For newswire coverage see:  https://library.northernlight.com/FB20021216160000022.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc   For related coverage see:  JAPANESE CABINET PANEL APPROVES RESEARCH ON HUMAN […]

CLEARWATER, Fla., December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Terri Sciavo, the woman whose estranged husband has been fighting to have her taken off life support, even though her family insists she could recover if therapy is resumed, has been given a repreive. Circuit Judge George Greer, who ruled on November 22 that the husband could pull the plug on January 3, has stayed the decision while another court hears her parents’ appeal.  The parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say their daughter “reacts to them with tears and smiles and moves her head.” They believe she could be rehabilitated with new and […]

Province will open its own abortuary to meet high demand

CHARLOTTETOWN, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – PEI Attorney General Jeff Lantz introduced amendments to the Family Law Act in the legislature last Tuesday that grant homosexuals privileges normally accorded to married couples.  The legislation concerns child custody, property division and spousal support.  The Journal Pioneer reports that Lantz said that the definition of a common law relationship has been changed from a “man and a woman co-habitating outside of marriage” to “two persons co-habitating outside of marriage.” The Attorney General acknowledged that the government would receive negative reactions from the morally conservative province which remains the last in Canada to […]

CALGARY, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a ruling being praised by pro-life leaders, the Alberta Court of Appeal has struck down sections of Canada’s Elections Act which limited how much money lobby groups could spend during a federal election.  The decision scrapped the $3,051 in each riding, or $152,550 national spending limits and the requirement of those spending more the $500 to register with the government. CP reports that the government has 60 days to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.  See the CP coverage in the Globe and Mail:  https://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021216/welec1216a/Front/homeBN/breakingnews

BANGKOK, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference came to a close today with the United States being voted down on proposals to ensure the document produced did not promote abortion.  In two votes held today, U.S. proposals were voted down 31-1 with two abstentions, and 32-1 with two abstentions.  U.S. delegates had said some of the wording, including “reproductive health services” and “reproductive rights,” could be used to advocate abortion and underage sex. The 22-page document is to be an implementation plan for the population and development agenda of the 1994 Cairo conference.  The […]

Publicly Dissented on Church's Stand Against Contraception and Remarriage After Divorce

OTTAWA, December 17, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Dr. Dianne Irving, a PhD graduate of the first ever program in bioethics from the Kennedy Institute – where the field received its beginnings – has delivered a stinging evaluation of the Canadian stem cell research legislation.  Dr. Irving, currently a Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics as well as a former bench research biochemist with the National Institutes of Health, was asked to present her analysis of the legislation to the Commons Health Committee by Jose Cadorette, the Clerk of the committee.  In her written testimony to the committee, Dr. Irving points out […]

Argentina to approve same-sex civil unions

Pro-abortion Kean named instead

Chretien fearful of losing dictatorial control over parliament

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 16, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Buenos Aires has become the first city in Latin America to give legal recognition to homosexual unions.  The legislation passed Friday gives homosexual couples health insurance and pension rights properly reserved to married spouses. The Catholic Church condemned the move, however, homosexual activists complained that the legislation did not allow for adoption of children.  See the AP coverage from the Guardian:  https://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2243020,00.html

NEW YORK, December 16, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Friday, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) issued a statement in favour of homosexual couples adopting children.  “The APA supports initiatives which allow same-sex couples to adopt and co-parent children and supports all the associated legal rights, benefits, and responsibilities which arise from such initiatives,” the group said in a statement. See the Reuters coverage:  https://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&ncid=751&e=10&u=/nm/20021213/hl_nm/gay_adoption_dc

WASHINGTON, December 16, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Supreme Court has solicited the federal government for its views on the “Nuremberg Files” case.  Reuters reports that the Court asked for the government submission Monday. The American Coalition of Life Activists argues that it lists the names and addresses of abortionists on their site in the hopes of eventually prosecuting them for the killing of unborn children just as Nazi’s who murdered Jews were prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials.  The Department of Justice Solicitor General Theodore Olson will file a brief expressing the government’s views.  However, the submission could take several […]

WASHINGTON, December 16, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A top advisor to Former Vice President Al Gore said that Gore has decided not to run for president in 2004.  A recent flurry of media appearances by Gore sparked concern that he was planning a presidential bid. See the CNN coverage:  https://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/15/gore.ap/index.html

Tories Also Pass Legislation To Stall the tax Credit

Bill Out Of Committee And Set For Third Reading

FREDERICTON, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s top abortion crusader, invited Peter Ryan, the executive director of New Brunswick Right to Life and president of Campaign Life Coalition New Brunswick, for a tour and a polite chat inside the Fredericton abortuary on October 23. The encounter is reported in the December 2002 edition of The Interim newspaper, but as Ryan points out, it is doubtful that the exchange led to any change in Morgentaler’s thinking.  Contacted by a reporter this week, Morgentaler said of Ryan, “He tried to convince me that a 12-week foetus is a baby. … […]

OTTAWA, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite new federal guidelines designed to curb corruption and mismanagement of donated sperm,  Health Canada inspectors found “dozens of cases of shoddy paperwork and an equal number of failures by sperm banks to properly screen donated semen for disease before distributing it to women.” This was reported in internal government documents the public would never have seen if the National Post had not obtained them under the Access to Information Act. Only 10% of sperm banks inspected were found to be operating safely.  To read National Post coverage use the search engine at www.nationalpost.com

Teenwire website targets teens with homoerotic enticements

OTTAWA, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Greg Thompson, M.P. (New Brunswick Southwest, P.C.) has protested against the Royal Canadian Mint’s policy of replacing the word “Christmas” with the banal “giving” in an advertisement using the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of [Christmas].”  Thompson submitted eight (8) questions in writing to the House of Commons, including, “Whose decision was it to take the Christ out of Christmas?” However, Thompson told the House of Commons on December 11, the latter question was rejected as “inflammatory by a clerk in the Journals office.” The Speaker agreed but is taking the seven other questions […]

SACRAMENTO, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Crackdowns on Christmas have made news across the U.S. this week. In one case, a first grade teacher in Sacramento County, Calif., says teachers at one school have been ordered by the principal not to utter, or use teaching materials that contain, the word “Christmas,” according to a report from WorldNetDaily.  Deidra Powell, spokesman for the San Juan Unified District, said: “You can say ‘Christmas,’ you can say ‘Hanukkah,’ … It is nowhere written in any policy; I don’t think our board of education or superintendent would prohibit that.” Powell says the policy is […]

VICTORIA, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A school board superintendent in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island wrote an email memo discouraging school principals from using the word “Christmas” in referring to the holiday season.  Carola Lane sent the e-mail to principals and vice-principals, underscoring the district’s “strong commitment” to diversity. “As we look at the celebration of ‘Christmas Concerts,’ we need to be sensitive to ensure that no one feels excluded,” she wrote. “I appreciate your co-operation in ensuring that holiday festivities at schools do not discriminate against any students or their families,” she said.  In response to public outcry, Ms. […]

WASHINGTON, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The libertarian-conservative Weekly Standard reports that Stanford University is creating a $12 million research center for producing human clones for biomedical research. The move defies both the July 2001 ban by the U.S. House of Representatives and a four-year moratorium recommended by the President’s Council on Bioethics, write William Kristol and Eric Cohen.  Kristol and Cohen comment: “Stanford’s announcement is important: In a country still weighing the significance and moral dangers of taking the first steps toward human cloning, a major research university has decided to plunge ahead. Stanford seems to believe that the […]

VATICAN CITY, December 13, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope John Paul II, who earlier rejected the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, today accepted the resignation after Law traveled to Rome to repeat the request personally.  It has recently become the norm that bishops step down at age 75, but Cardinal Law, 71, is the longest-sitting cardinal in the American church, and the highest level prelate to resign in the current scandal involving sexual abuse, drugs, mismanagement and cover-up, mostly occurring in the 1970s and 1980s.  No new archbishop has yet been named for Boston, but the Vatican appointed auxiliary […]

Officials were using "secular" codes to exclude legitimate applications

A Call for Christians to Wake Up

WICCA GROWING ON U.S. COLLEGE CAMPUSES https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,72791,00.html   BOSTON CARDINAL OFFERS TO RESIGN https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,72843,00.html   KAISER FOUNDATION STUDY SAYS INTERNET FILTERS BLOCK MOST PORN SITES https://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0023643.html   GIRLS PETITION RETAILER FOR MORE MODEST CLOTHING https://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0023640.html   REPORT PORN SITES TO U.S. GOVERNMENT SITE https://www.obscenitycrimes.org/

LONDON, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An English embryologist who authorized the implanting of “fake embryos” into patients’ wombs in order to raise more money to pay off debts has been convicted of assault and false accounting charges.  Paul Fielding, 44, left the real embryos in cold storage while the fake ones were surgically implanted in unsuspecting customers. “The victims,” ITV News reports, “who were desperate for children, needlessly underwent the painful process thinking that eggs were being implanted.”  For local news coverage see:  https://www.itv.com/news/Front1515589.html

CANBERRA, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Australia’s highest court has ruled that a man living in Victoria state can launch a libel suit in Australia against a U.S.-based website over damage to his reputation in the local community. The High Court dismissed an application by Dow Jones & Co. to have the defamation suit moved to a court in the U.S. on grounds the libels appeared in its subscription-only Barron’s Online website.  The ruling is said to have “far-reaching implications for U.S.-based Internet publishers, who may in future find themselves facing libel suits in countries where freedom of speech is […]

BEIJING, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The People’s Republic of China’s official Xinhua news agency has released an upbeat attempt to portray the country, which has the world’s highest rate of sex-selected abortion of girls and conducts forced abortion and sterilization of unwilling women, as pro-women.  “For thousands of years,” the article says in Pravda-like tones, “Chinese women were full-time baby-bearing workers while their husbands, rich or poor, habitually just sat back and enjoyed the growing family.” Xinhua’s creative writers credit China’s brutal “family planning” policy with liberating women from this “feudal” state. In fact men as well as women […]

Campaign vs. U.S. rollback is likely to fail

WASHINGTON, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United States Postal Service has been ordered to display framed posters with the U.S. motto “In God We Trust” in all 38,000 of its post offices. The American Family Association is taking credit for the ruling after member Frank Williamson appealed to Washington when his donated framed pictures of the motto were removed from post office lobbies in three Texas locations.  “The U.S. Postal Service decided to design the poster after researching Williamson’s complaint and discovering that the U.S. House of Representatives had adopted a resolution two years ago that supported putting the […]

BRUSSELS, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Reissuing its dubious claim that “tens of millions of children around the world feel disconnected from political institutions and lack trust in their governments,” UNICEF announced a new campaign for increased “participation.”  Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, says: “If we fail to promote child participation from an early age, we are missing an amazing opportunity to deepen democracy and human dignity around the world. … That failure leaves young people with a sense of powerlessness and exclusion from society—and that can carry a great cost.”  But Sam Singson, who monitors U.N. affairs for […]

TORONTO, December 12, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Interim newspaper reports that UNICEF is trying to regain its access to Toronto Catholic school-children. This time, they have enlisted Catholics for a Free Choice, the small but well-financed heterodox group that promotes abortion and contraception with the support of large corporations like Hewlett-Packard.  Surprisingly, in September the Toronto Catholic District school board voted 5 to 3 to allow UNICEF to make a Halloween-box presentation next May with a view to re-introducing the boxes in the schools in October 2003. For five years, the district’s students have carried collection boxes for Aid to […]

KENYA METHODIST BISHOPS TELL FAITHFUL TO VOTE PRO-LIFE AND PRO-FAMILY https://allafrica.com/stories/200212100018.html   MARVEL COMICS TO BRING BACK ‘THE RAWHIDE KID’ – AS A PRACTISING HOMOSEXUAL For CNN coverage see:  https://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/12/09/rawhide.kid.gay/index.html For related LifeSite coverage of proliferating homosexual comic books see:  COMIC BOOK FEATURES GAY ‘HATE CRIME’ VICTIM https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/aug/02081407.html and COMIC BOOK GIANT PRODUCES GAY SUPERHERO COMICS https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/feb/00022903.html

Activists Incensed Over Ad for Book on Preventing Homosexuality

Sex to Be Changed on Birth Certificates After Sex-Change Operation to Allow Marriage

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., December 11, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a revealing tale of modern values, USA Today’s report on happiness features a husband and wife, both with Ph.D.‘s, who learned that their unborn child would be born with Down’s Syndrome and a serious heart condition—but chose not to abort the child because they saw the experience as a “personal challenge.”“In [the couple’s] intellectual circle of friends, some viewed having a retarded child as unthinkable—and let them know it. Lots of people, including some family members, assumed they’d opt for abortion,” USA Today reports. “After thoroughly exploring all the angles—medical, practical and […]

McLEAN, Va., December 11, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The “positive psychology” movement of recent years offers new insights into what makes people happy, according to a USA Today report. Although the article reveals nothing new to readers with a smattering of classical philosophy or theology, modern psychologists are amazed by the findings.  University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, author of the new book, Authentic Happiness, says, “the happiest people spend the least time alone. They pursue personal growth and intimacy; they judge themselves by their own yardsticks, never against what others do or have.” Materialism is “toxic for happiness,” says University […]

EDINBURGH, December 11, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has been forced to admit that it granted a secret licence to derive stem cells from human embryos to Edinburgh University scientist Austin Smith as early as 1997—even though Parliament did not approve experiments involving human embryos until January 2001. The revelation, in Glasgow’s Sunday Herald, has outraged Parliamentarians, since Tony Blair’s Labour Government has always claimed that the first such licences were issued in March 2002.  Lord Alton, the leading pro-life peer, said: “This licence was granted four years in advance of parliament deciding on the […]

VATICAN, December 11, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family has released a Lexicon of the Family” in order to point out the deceptive language which is used by advocates of abortion and homosexuality at the United Nations.  Zenit News reports that the 1000-page volume is go on sale in Italy next year but no date has been set for an English edition.  Pro-life activists working at the United Nations told LifeSite that developing countries are often misled by the deceptive language used at the United Nations.  The lexicon points out that such misleading language introduces grave […]

But Attempts Double Talk To Pretend 'Therapeutic Cloning' is Not Cloning

EUTHANASIA KILLER KEVORKIAN SEEKS PRISON RELEASE FOR HEALTH REASONS Kevorkian, 74, was arrested and convicted of murder after videotaping himself administering a lethal injection to a man suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.  He is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence.  https://www.lsj.com/news/local/021209_webupdatekevorkian.html   RIGHT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LINKED TO ALL OTHER BASIC RIGHTS SAYS VATICAN https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/d2_en.htm   GEORGIA BILL WOULD REQUIRE ‘DEATH WARRANTS’ FOR ABORTIONS WorldNetDaily reports on a bill to be introduced in Georgia that refers to abortion as an ‘‘execution’’ and will require any mother seeking an abortion to go to court to obtain a death warrant. Once a […]

INVERNESS, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Scottish woman claims that her chances of having a family have been ruined after test-tube embryos were destroyed at her ex-husband’s request. The embryos had been created using eggs donated by another woman and fertilised with sperm from Ian, the ex-husband. Despite the divorce, Margaret Grant, 42, from Inverness, hoped that the embryos could still have been implanted in her womb, saying, “I thought they were still there for me. I now have no chance of having further IVF treatment. It was my only chance of having a family, my one and only […]

WASHINGTON, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood’s use of tax dollars to generate business, rather than teen pregnancy prevention programs intended for those funds, is coming under scrutiny. “It sounds as though it is money funded through Title V [of the Welfare Reform Act],” Jerry Gramckow, a specialist in Abstinence Education with Focus on the Family, told CNSNews.com.  Teen sex ed programs using Title V dollars from Washington are required, as their “exclusive purpose,” to teach the “social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity,” and “abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as […]

LOS ANGELES, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Actor Liam Neeson, the star of Schindler’s List, has been cast as Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the “father of the sexual revolution,” in a Francis Ford Coppola movie that will lionize the “most infamous pedophile propagandist in scientific history,” according to Judith Reisman, the author of Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences.  Reisman’s book shows how Kinsey’s hugely flawed 1948 and 1953 reports “undergird the entire modern academic sexology field,” from Planned Parenthood to sex education. Much of his influential research is now known to have been based on unrepresentative prison inmates and unscientific records kept […]

After a 20-year decline, sexual disease is on the rise again

BRUSSELS, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last Thursday the Belgian Senate voted 39-17 to allow destructive research on embryonic humans.  The bill also allows human cloning for ‘therapeutic’ purposes.  However, the bill goes further than any other to date by allowing the production of embryonic humans specifically for research when embryos left over from fertility treatments are not available.  The bill now moves to the Lower House for consideration.  See the Reuters coverage:  https://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05561869

OTTAWA, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In comments outside the House of Commons yesterday, federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said the government would “move ahead quickly” to decriminalize marijuana.  “I don’t like to give you a date or a time frame, but let’s say the beginning of next year, the four first months of next year,” he told reporters.  REAL Women of Canada blasted the announcement saying also that a former report on the issue and one set to come out next week are merely window dressing for the decriminalization proposal.  “The House of Commons Committee on Drug Use, which […]

OTTAWA, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A self-admitted practicing homosexual MP has announced that he plans to run for the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.  Scott Brison, MP for Kings-Hants Nova Scotia, has voted in favour of homosexual marriage and also supported pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia measures.  Although he has been known as a homosexual activist MP for some years, a recent Globe and Mail interview which announced his bid for the leadership is being reported as his “coming out”.  Brison, a darling of current Tory leader Joe Clark is often referred to as Clark’s protégé.  Political commentators however […]

OTTAWA, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Canadian House of Commons, by a vote of 195-77 today, approved ratification of the Kyoto protocol. Prime Minister Jean Chretien said he will formally ratify the protocol by the end of the year.  The Canadian Alliance and Conservative parties voted against ratification with Alliance leader Stephen Harper, says the Toronto Sun, stating Canadians “should expect the worst” regarding the unknown effects of the protocol on the nation. The National Post also reports Harper stating ‘‘It was an incredibly stupid decision, and without precedent, to adopt an international accord with enormous economic ramifications potentially […]

CHICAGO, December 10, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A study has found that mothers who are not married when they give birth to their first child are much more likely to suffer depression later in life than mothers who are married at the birth of their first child.  However the study was surprising to some researchers since it was found that even teenage mothers who are married at the time of are psychologically more healthy than mothers who are of a more responsible age but bear their children out of wedlock.  The study found that “Unmarried teenage childbearers displayed higher levels of […]

LONDON, December 9, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Opposition parties joined Tony Blair’s Labour Government in support of enabling homosexuals to register their partnerships and enjoy equivalent legal rights to those of married couples.  Barbara Roche, the Minister for Social Exclusion and Equalities, alleged that there is an “extremely strong case” for registering same-sex relationships. “I do think society has moved on… They may have been very long, enduring relationships, but their partnership has no recognition in law.” Using typical doublespeak, she denied the change would mean “equivalency” and thus downgrade marriage. “We are not talking about marriage here,” she told BBC […]

TORONTO, December 9, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A senior judge has approved a country-wide class action suit on behalf of self-styled homosexual “widows.” Ontario Superior Court Justice Maurice Cullity gave approval to one suit claiming to represent 2,000 people in British Columbia and another launched in Toronto representing 8,000 people from across the country.  The homosexuals claim the federal government owes them $400 million in Canada Pension Plan benefits from their deceased partners, retroactive to April 17, 1985, when the equality guarantees of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force.  For previous coverage see:  OTTAWA FAST TRACKS SAME-SEX “WIDOW” […]

HAVANA, December 9, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Cuban pro-life Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who served two years of a three-year prison sentence for refusing to perform abortions at the hospital where he worked, and for displaying three Cuban flags upside-down in protest, is now being held again by police after they broke up a human rights meeting.  Biscet was arrested in November 1999, sentenced in 2000 to three years, and released early this October. During his trial, Biscet said his conscience compelled him to protest against abortion. According to Dr. Elias’ wife, Elsa Morejon, he was held with about 12 other […]

BATON ROUGE, December 9, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Louisiana Republicans failed to solidify their majority in the U.S. Senate on Saturday, losing the state’s run-off election against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell, the state Elections Commissioner, lost by a margin of 52% to 48% despite last-minute campaigning by President Bush. The Republicans still have a 51-48 majority (there is one Independent senator) in the Senate. But the defeat makes it that much easier for liberal Republicans to obstruct the Bush agenda by siding with the Democratic minority on some issues.  Democrats cited their successful mobilization of black […]

Cardinal Newman Society head calls such promotion "scandal and a terrible crime"

Many improvements but law remains "unfinished business" and is "too little too late"

Young Chinese couple will continue appeal to avoid forced abortion in China

LANSING, Michigan, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Governor-Elect Jennifer Granholm, the pro-abortion feminist, “Catholic” Democrat who won last month’s election, is planning an interfaith prayer service to be held at a Catholic church before her inauguration as governor on the morning of January 1.  Pro-lifers are distressed that the church would allow her to use their premises as a platform. A Plymouth-based group called the Church and Truth Project is now urging members to call St. Mary’s Cathedral in Lansing, where Granholm has booked the service, and will be holding a prayer vigil outside the church this Sunday. The Church […]

SAINT JOHN, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New Brunswick College of Physicians and Surgeons has ruled that doctors are not obliged to make referrals if they consider the alternative treatment to be immoral—provided they give an explanation “as to why a physician is declining to provide the service or treatment requested.”  The guidelines, published in the college’s November bulletin reaffirm that a doctor can refuse treatments and procedures if they believe them to be morally wrong—just as patients can refuse any treatment they themselves find repugnant.  The pro-abortion camp seized on the opportunity to attract lucrative abortion customers. Judy […]

SYDNEY, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference reacted with profound sadness at the passage of laws allowing destructive research on human embryos. “The parliament has created for the first time in Australian political and legal history, a class of human life which is statutorily expendable,” said Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson in a release. “Human life now becomes a commercial commodity. Under these laws, human life is for sale. The passage of this Bill is evidence of the continuing slide towards wholesale creation and destruction of human life for various unproven medical and commercial uses,” he said.

JOHANNESBURG, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study has indicated that over the past four years South Africa has seen a revolution in condom use.  Dr Olive Shisana, principal investigator for the study said, “For example, for women aged 15-49, condom use at last sexual intercourse has more than tripled, from 8% in 1998 to 28.6% in the present study, and amongst women aged 20-24 it has increased from 14.4% to 47%.”  However, despite the condom surge, AIDS infection has surged, leaving the country with an AIDS epidemic.  The study estimates the overall HIV prevalence in the South African […]

VATICAN, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope John Paul II addressed a Meeting of the International Catholic Union of the Press today.  In his speech the Pope outlined what it means to be a professional journalist who is Catholic.  “It means having the courage to seek and report the truth, even when the truth is inconvenient or is not considered ‘politically correct’,” he said.  “Quite simply, it means being a person of integrity, an individual whose personal and professional life reflects the teachings of Jesus and the Gospel. It means striving for the highest ideals of professional excellence, being a […]

3 ½ times more money spent to prevent births than on saving lives via clean water

SAN FRANCISCO, December 6, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Just hours after LifeSite released the story on the Catholic Jesuit University of San Francisco website links to abortion services, the webpage in question was altered. The pregnancy website aimed at students, which had linked to a Planned Parenthood abortuary, now says: “This portion of the web site is currently being reviewed. For pregnancy information or resources, please contact the Student Health Education Program at 422-6702 or the Counseling Center at 422-6352.”  Prior to the LifeSite release of the story, LifeSite alerted the California Pro-Life Council a California affiliate of National Right to […]

AD HOC PROTOCOL TO ENSURE EU DOES NOT FORCE MALTA INTO ABORTION COMING SOON https://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=114892   KOPP MAY TESTIFY BEFORE GRAND JURY NEXT WEEK https://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20021204/1041089.asp   PANEL APPROVES ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON APPLICATION FOR BANKRUPTCY https://www.boston.com/news/daily/04/bankruptcy.htm

CANBERRA, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Senate of Australia has cut off debate at 50 hours and voted 45 to 26 in a free vote for what media call “strict” guidelines on human embryo experimentation. The only amendment pro-lifers were able to add was limiting the available stem cell lines that can be used to 70,000 so-called “spare” embryos from IVF factories. Proposed amendments banning the export of stem cell lines, the use of stem cells and embryos in drug testing and the labelling of drugs or cosmetics sold after testing on embryonic stem cells all fell through—even though […]

Ignores 50 million women 'missing' due to reproductive choice

BRUSSELS, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Euro-Fam, a pro-life group specializing in matters related to the European Union and Parliament, reports that the European Parliament’s Development Committee has postponed its vote on the Sandbaek report (the blueprint for the new international aid regulation) for the third time. The vote had been scheduled for Monday, 2 December 2002, but it has now been re-scheduled for Tuesday, 17 December. The delay has arisen because the EU Council of Ministers were unable to reach agreement on the most controversial aspects of the new regulation, in particular whether it should allow funding for abortions […]

Touchstone writer compares Oneida "free love" to modern "reproductive choice"

HARRISBURG, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker yesterday signed into law a bill that adds ‘sexual orientation’ to the state’s hate crime – Ethnic Intimidation law.  The legislation, drafted by a homosexual activist group, was fought by Christian groups which warned that it would threaten freedom of religion and freedom of speech for Christian preachers and pastors among others. “Those especially at risk are conservative religious people who may very well find themselves hauled into court unless they keep their mouths shut for being politically incorrect,” Laurel Lynn Petolicchio, a constitutional activist told the Washington Times.  “This […]

Prevents interfering with the rights of pro-life demonstrators to display abortion signs

WASHINGTON, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in Scheidler v. NOW, the infamous case involving the misapplication of racketeering laws to silence anti-abortion protests. Law professors and a host of activist groups have agreed that the verdict of the case has implications not only for pro-life groups but for all who wish to exercise their right of free speech in peaceful protest.  During the deliberation, both Justices Scalia and Breyer questioned whether civil-rights demonstrators would not have faced the same fate as pro-life protestors for their actions in fighting racism. Family Research Council President […]

VATICAN, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Today, Pope John Paul II addressed a conference on “Globalization and Catholic Universities,” organized jointly by the Congregation for Catholic Education and the International Federation of Catholic Universities.  In his remarks, the Pope stressed that “It is clear that university centers that do not respect the Church’s laws and the teaching of the Magisterium, especially in bioethics, cannot be defined as Catholic universities.”  Beyond abortion, the Pope spoke of faithfulness to church teaching on “the big questions in bioethics, such as the statute of the human embryo and stem cells, today the object of […]

SAN FRANCISCO, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Jesuit Catholic University of San Francisco (USF) offers a website on pregnancy which contains three links to “resources”, two of which are pro-abortion.  The website, which offers students health information links to the local office of planned parenthood which in turn boasts of an online calculator which can be used to determine the cost of a 16-week abortion, among other things.  Another link is to the “Women’s Community Clinic” which offers the abortifacient morning after pill.  The final link, listed last, although not alphabetically last, bills itself as a Christian counselling centre.  […]

Says Chretien wants to leave a parting legacy as Trudeau did with Charter of Wrongs

OTTAWA, December 5, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a 5-4 judgment today, the Supreme Court of Canada opposed the patenting of a genetically altered mouse known as the Harvard mouse.  The Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), which intervened jointly in the case praised the decision not to allow the patenting of higher life forms in Canada. “The extension of patentability to higher life forms would have been an expansion of patent law into new areas of huge significance for public policy in Canada,” said Eric Beresford, of the Canadian Council of Churches. “Such changes […]

ABORTIONIST MORGENTALER CALLS FOR END TO RELIGIOUS AND ESPECIALLY CATHOLIC HOSPITALS IN CANADA https://www.newswire.ca/releases/December2002/03/c9486.html 45 JUDGES NOW NOMINATED FOR INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT’S 18 POSITIONS https://www.un.org/law/icc/elections/judges/judges_nominations.htm   UNFPA REPEATS MANTRA ‘REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH’ (READ: ABORTION ALLEVIATES POVERTY https://www.unfpa.org/news/2002/pressroom/swp2002pr1.htm   OREGON GOVERNOR APOLOGIZES FOR EUGENICS FORCED STERILIZATIONS Gov. John Kitzhaber formally apologized Monday for Oregon’s past eugenics law that led to the forced sterilization of 2,500 people.  The law stood from 1917 to 1983.

Former director says using "common era" is "divisive" and "doesn't make any sense"

But abortion rate remains steady at 17 per 1,000 women

WASHINGTON, December 4, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study has found that women who used the contraceptive pill at a young age, or before 1975, when hormone doses were at more dangerous levels, face a higher risk of breast cancer if they are genetically predisposed.  A study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, based on a study of more than 2,600 women in 11 countries, found that women with the BRCA1 gene mutation who took oral contraceptives 25 years ago faced an increased lifetime risk of breast cancer by 33 percent to 42 percent when compared with carriers […]

Alarming sex imbalance of 50 million missing women

JERUSALEM, December 4, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite controversy, the government-funded Israel Council for Demography was revived after being dormant for five years.  The council discourages Jewish abortions and intermarriage and encourages Jews to have more children with incentives such as housing benefits and other grants.  The recognition that an official abortion-discouraging council is needed is due to a ‘demographic crisis’ made public by a study released Tuesday showing the Jewish population outside Israel is declining at an alarming rate.  According to figures from the Jewish Agency’s Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning, there are now some 12.9 million Jews down […]

KABUL, December 4, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported December 1 that Germany has given the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) $493,000 to fund the “Safe Motherhood Initiative” in Afghanistan. Notably, the Safe Motherhood project includes the pro-abortion groups International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). A list of “Essential Services” under the 'Safe Motherhood' program includes abortion. On the project's website a list of seven essential services includes: “Management of abortion complications, postabortion care and, where abortion is not against the law, safe services for the termination of pregnancy.”

LONDON, December 4, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Josephine Quintavalle, a veteran pro-life activist in the UK, is challenging the power of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to issue licences permitting in vitro babies to be created and screened for use in stem cell treatments of already-born siblings.  The case which began yesterday is expected to be completed tomorrow.  The case was prompted by a decision of the HFEA last February which gave a clinic permission to screen embryos created by a couple that wanted to use the umbilical cord blood of a selected embryo after implantation. The purpose was […]

MP Declares Canadian Society Agrees with Artificial Procreation

UNBORN CHILD KILLING LAW CHALLENGED The attorney for a woman charged with killing the 15-week-old unborn child carried by another woman will challenge a Pennsylvania law enabling a foetus to be considered a murder victim. Corinne Wilcott, 20, is charged with murder of an unborn child, aggravated assault of an unborn child and related charges in the death of the foetus whom Sheena Carson had been carrying.  Prosecutors say Wilcott attacked Carson and threatened her unborn child during a fight on June 8 because Wilcott’s husband was the father. But Tim Lucas, Wilcott’s attorney, wants the law declared unconstitutional, saying, […]

SANT’ANGELO A SCALA, Italy, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A dissident Catholic priest who defied repeated requests to not join the July 2000 ‘gay pride’ parade in Rome has been removed from his small parish in southern Italy by his local bishop, two years later.  Fr. Vitaliano Della Sala, 39, says he will appeal to the Vatican. He says his removal by his bishop, Abbot Tarcisio Nazzaro, who presides from Montevergine Abbey near Beneveneto, “seems unfair,” adding, “A priest must defend the rights of those who are trampled upon.” At the time of the parade, which was mounted by homosexual […]

WASHINGTON, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court said yesterday it would re-consider the constitutionality of state laws banning homosexual sex, which remain in place in 13 states.  The Court ruled 5-4 in 1986 that was no grounds to declare such state laws unconstitutional.  The case in question involves two men from Texas who face misdemeanor charges.  John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested under Texas’ Homosexual Conduct Law, which classifies anal or oral sex between two men or two women as deviate sexual intercourse. See the Newsday coverage:  https://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-scotus-sodomy1202dec02,0,809712.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

BOSTON, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Faced with 450 alleged victims of clerical abuse from the 1970s and 1980s, the Archdiocese of Boston may file for bankruptcy, according to sources within the archdiocese. This move would suspend all civil suits and combine 450 cases into one, placing some limit on the bottomless financial pit of at least $100 million, plus millions in lawyers’ fees, that Boston-area Catholics now face.  Seeking Chapter 11 protection would “amount to an admission by the archdiocese that it is liable for the claims because of its negligence,” reports say. But much of the damage from […]

Strong support for religious schools -- but intolerance for religious principles in practice

Vatican has confirmed that men with homosexual sexual orientations should not be ordained.  The December bulletin of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments contains a letter indicating that men who have homosexual tendencies should not be ordained priests. Catholic News Service reports that the letter written last May was signed by Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez who retired as the head of the Congregation in October.  The letter was in response to a query on the matter from an unidentified bishop.  The letter said ordaining such men would be imprudent and “very risky.”  While a new document on […]

LONDON, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Thirty British MPs are now backing a Parliamentary Motion for closer scrutiny of the Department of Health’s strategy to combat teenage pregnancy. Contrary to years of multimillion-pound information campaigns, the MPs say easier access to contraceptives such as the morning-after pill does nothing to help reduce teenage pregnancies.  “For 20 years the [Department] has pressured consistently for ever-easier contraceptive and abortion facilities for the young (without parental consent),” the MPs write, “claiming that this would lower our teenage conception rates. However we now have the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe and the second […]

WASHINGTON, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Supreme Court has brought to a definitive close the pro-abortion legal campaign to block specialty car licence plates in Louisiana with the slogan “Choose Life”. The plates also have a silhouette of a baby wrapped in a blanket carried in the beak of a brown pelican, the state bird. The Justices on Monday refused without comment to review an appeal by the plates’ opponents of a ruling earlier this year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which said the groups did not have standing to sue. Tracey Green, a South […]

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu Engaged in "breathtakingly brazen deception"

WASHINGTON, December 3, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The federal racketeering (RICO) case against pro-life activist Joe Scheidler, National Director of the Pro-Life Action League, will go before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, December 4, at 10:00am.  The Court has agreed to review the RICO case on two points:  1. Is a private party (the abortion clinics who sued the pro-lifers) entitled to an injunction under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; and 2. Is political protest, including sit-ins and demonstrations that obstruct access to a business and interfere with customers’ freedom to obtain services there, properly defined as “extortion?”“This is […]

Country Insists On Retaining Sovereignty Over Own Health Policies

Second Aborted Foetal Tissue Study Shows 'Treatment' Causes Patients Severe Damage

UK 12-YEAR-OLD DECIDES AGAINST ABORTION AFTER SEEING ULTRASOUND IMAGE https://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-12-19102-1-13-44.html   SLOVAKIA SET TO RAISE COST OF ABORTION BY OVER 100%  Slovak Health Minister Roman Kovác has proposed raising the cost of abortion from $74 to $135 to reflect more of the actual cost which is estimated at $150.  There are 44 abortions for every 100 births in the country.  https://www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?vyd=2002046&rub=spect_news&cl=11213   LATCHKEY TEENS MORE PROMISCUOUS STUDY WARNS PARENTS   https://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/hsn/20021202/hl_hsn/unsupervised_teens_have_more_sex

MELBOURNE, December 2, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Not to be outdone by his pro-death Canadian counterparts who invented a fitted plastic suicide bag called the de-breather, Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke has developed a ‘death breath’ machine, which kills with just a few breaths.  Nitschke’s COGEN machine has a facial mask which releases pure carbon monoxide.  To get around legal restrictions Nitschke admitted that he would lie in advertising for the product and sell it merely as an oxygen machine but also provide chemicals which would produce the death dealing agent.  “We will sell it through Exit Australia as an oxygen […]

OTTAWA, December 2, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian statistics on divorces in the year 2000 indicate that the risk of divorce increases with the duration of marriage peaking after the fourth year of marriage.  Figures released today by Statistics Canada indicate that a total of 71,144 couples had a divorce finalized in 2000, up a marginal 0.3% from 1999, and up 3.0% from 1998.  After the first anniversary, the divorce rate was 5.1 per 1,000 marriages. This increased to 17.0 divorces after the second anniversary, 23.6 divorces after the third, up to the peak of 25.5 after the fourth anniversary. The […]

"Canada at the forefront of an internationalist pro-abortion agenda"

MANILA, December 2, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Nov. 25, Sen. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., told the Philippine Parliament that the promotion of population control in the Third World comes from United States policy spelled out in the 1974 US National Security Study Memorandum 200 entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests”.  Pimentel explained that the self-serving purpose of the document, developed by Henry Kissinger, was to protect U.S. economic and military interests from growing populations in the developing world.  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), backed Pimentel’s assertion, noting that NSSM 200 and […]