News

Re: Planned Parenthood Booted Out of Texas Panhandle
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08122214.html

  Bishop John Yanta, Respect Life Coordinator Rita Diller, and all those in the Amarillo Diocese, are deserving of our highest honors, respect and love for their courageous, long-term commitment to protecting life by opposing and defeating Planned Parenthood.

  Ed Mullen – Nova Scotia
  ______________________________________

  Re: Exclusive: Twenty Years of Eugenic Abortion at Ontario Catholic Hospital
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121111.html

  Thank you for the very informative report (along with the associated ones) about Fr. Prieur and St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. It was helpful in enabling me to send the forwarded message in regard to this matter.

  Vito Norejko – Ontario, Canada
  ______________________________________

  Re: Vatican: Use of Morning After Pills “Fall Within the Sin of Abortion” – Will Catholic Hospitals Now Stop Using them for Rape Victims?
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121804.html

  I wish to thank you for December 18th’s editorial.  As you note, “In the December 12 document Dignitatis Personae, the Vatican has condemned the use of morning after pills as falling ‘within the sin of abortion,’ and thus being ‘gravely immoral’….Bishop Elio Sgreccia who assisted in the preparation of Dignitatis Personae, noted in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com last February that there is no exception for rape.”  

  When the Morning After Pill is given to someone who identifies herself as a rape victim, it is my understanding that NOT even an ovulation test can guarantee that MAP is not working in an abortifacient manner.  Use of MAP thus necessitates acceptance of abortion.  As you note, “Some have suggested that there is a Catholic exception to the use of the morning after pill when dealing with rape victims….in a February interview…the then-head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, said that there was no exception to the use MAPs.”  Simply put, the Vatican does NOT offer provisos for the supposed “moral” use of MAPs.

  In my home state, & in the United States generally, revisions appear needed to the Pennsylvania Bishops’ “Guidelines for Catholic Hospitals Treating Victims of Sexual Assault” (1998), as well as directive 36 of the USCCB’s “Ethical & Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” (2001), to bring documents/practices in line with what the Vatican is proclaiming.  To use a phrase from our national past time, we need our hierarchy (as well as our local clergy & diocesan officials) to “step up to the plate” and proclaim the truth.  No doubt, it will NOT be popular.

  Joseph Tevington – Morrisville, Pennsylvania
  ______________________________________

  RE: The Failure of Our Pro-Life Leadership
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121006.html

  Brian Rooney is correct; our pro-life strategy is failing! I’ve been trying for years to influence a change in our current strategy because it’s intrinsically flawed! If we are going to stop the diabolical inhumanity of slaughtering our own children we had better analyze our failings. The gradualists are the ones who say we’re winning. They can say that fewer babies are dying; but they can’t tell us when the dying will end!    

  To those pro-lifers who tell us we are winning, and who believe in the strategy of incremental steps, e.g., legislative curbs (that are repeatedly thwarted in the courts), I would ask, why does the abortion horror continue after 35 years, and counting? By trying to incrementally destroy the abortion tree of evil, we attack its branches one by one, hoping to eventually destroy the tree, but it thrives because it’s fed by the root which is firmly entrenched, bearing its evil fruit, which the media feeds to the people. The root of the death tree can be destroyed only by focusing on the crux (root) of the abortion debate. 

  The crux of the debate is the right of the preborn zygote/embryo/fetus/baby/living person to be freely born as promised by our Declaration of Independence. Early pro-life arguments on the personhood of the new living being was virtually smothered by the pro-abortion language and imagery of choice, privacy, and a woman’s rights, all contrived, with the help of the media, to shift the debate from the core reality which is the murder of an innocent preborn human person.  

  The personhood of the tiny preborn growing in the womb has not yet been clearly established in the minds of most people. This hidden phenomenon of nature has made the womb-phase vulnerable to liars. For the last three to four decades the reality in the womb has been obfuscated by a long list of contrived utterances, false imagery, and distortions.

  But now the false claims of the abortion industry and their advocates have been irrefutably exposed by science. The womb-phase is now an open picture show. Thanks to 3-D and 4-D fetal ultrasound, our eyes can see the unique drama of nature’s miracle in the womb. The fetus can be seen to yawn, cry, swallow, blink and execute intricate moves. Personhood is undeniable! Fetal ultrasound is the achievement of the century because it supports what we have always known to be true.

  A person lives in the womb! That is our battle cry!

  Can it be argued that an incremental strategy, without a reasonable end-date in sight, produces fewer abortions for a longer period of time? A realistic analysis of last November’s election exposes the fact that there are of inherent flaws in the pro-life movement; pro-abortion politicians have gained power in all branches of government and will inevitably extend the abortion slaughter for years.  

  When we argue with flawed logic, we join the abortionists who have always been guilty of anti-intellectualism. We know their arguments are without foundation in science, medicine or philosophy. By not being fully committed to our own stated belief, that every single preborn life has a right to be born, we have become vulnerable. Our opponents can say, with some credibility, that pro-lifers are really quasi-choice, or if you prefer, quasi-pro-life.

  Charles N. Marrelli, Writers for Life – Irvine, California – bloblings.blogspot.com