Monday November 27, 2000
See today’s LifeSiteNews stories- EUGENICS FEARS INCREASE AS EMBRYO IQ TEST MARKETED
- JOINT STATEMENT BY MAJOR RELIGIONS CONDEMNS ATTACKS ON FAITH STATEMENTS
- UNFPA OUTGOING HEAD ADMITS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ABORTION’S SPREAD
- CRTC APPROVES FIRST ALL HOMOSEXUAL TV STATION
- RU-486 LEAD TO HUGE INCREASE IN ABORTION IN CHINA
- LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
- US NEWS ROUNDUP
EUGENICS FEARS INCREASE AS EMBRYO IQ TEST MARKETED
LONDON, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – British scientists have developed a test which screens embryos for their IQ for under $300 (CDN). The test, being marketed by Cytocell, of Banbury, was developed from research at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford. While the current test only identified embryos conceived via in vitro fertilization, scientists are searching for a test for normally conceived babies. The Sunday Times reports that the test is already being used in the United States and Italy, at St Barnabas Medical Centre in New Jersey, and at a genetics centre in Barcelona. The article also reports that “the American government is ploughing federal funds into developing such tests.”
See the Sunday Times at:
https://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/11/26/stin…
JOINT STATEMENT BY MAJOR RELIGIONS CONDEMNS ATTACKS ON FAITH STATEMENTS
OTTAWA, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – Attacks on the Christian beliefs of Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day have continued despite religious leaders’ attempts to speak out against it. In a joint statement Friday the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Islamic Society of North America-Canada, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada called “upon politicians and media representatives to be respectful of the faith beliefs of all political candidates and to be committed to treating them with dignity and sensitivity.”
As LifeSite has reported in recent weeks, Day’s belief in rest on Sunday was attacked by the Prime Minister, CBC and political leaders ridiculed his belief in the Biblical account of creation, and Liberal Minister Hedy Fry bashed his public testimony that “Jesus is Lord.”
“Individuals ought to be able to come to public life with their faith and their beliefs intact,” said the joint statement. “Every faith tradition has fundamental statements of belief that espouse the truth of its faith. If politicians or media deem such statements about deity and the world to be inappropriate, the result will be to exclude all people of faith from public life.”
See related LifeSite stories:
LIBERALS ATTACK DAY’S RELIGION AS POLLS SHIFT IN ALLIANCE FAVOUR
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/0011152 .html
ATTACKS AGAINST PARTY LEADER’S CHRISTIANITY CONTINUE
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/0011171 .html
ELECTION ATTACKS AGAINST RELIGION CONTINUE UNABATED
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/0011201 .html
CANADA CITED ON LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT PERSECUTE CHRISTIANS
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/0011213 .html
JEWISH, MUSLIM, EVANGELICAL AND CATHOLIC LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST
ATTACKS ON DAY’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/0011223 .html
See the Joint Statement at:
https://www.cccb.ca/english/fullpublice.asp?ID=61
UNFPA OUTGOING HEAD ADMITS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ABORTION’S SPREAD
NEW YORK, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – In a revealing interview published today by the UN Foundation news service, outgoing UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Nafis Sadik admitted that she has been very successful at changing policies around the globe in areas of reproductive health, population issues and family planning. An interview with Sadik, who has led the UNFPA for 14 years and has been with the organization for 29 years, she said that when the agency started, few countries had family planning programs because it was simply not acceptable in many areas. But “now every country in the developing world has family planning as part of its health service, and today every country now has a reproductive health program.”
Sadik also admits that her agency has been responsible for tying developmental assistance to population control. “I think we’ve been able to make the consensus … that population issues are part of developmental issues, that they’re not separate, that they link with all facets of social life and economic and developmental life,” Sadik says. “Without pursuing social policies and social goals, you can’t really have economic development,” she adds. (Candace Hammond, UN Wire, 27 Nov)
Kofi Annan has appointed Ms. Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia to head the Fund effective 1 January 2001. Ms. Obaid is currently the Director of the Division for Arab States and Europe at UNFPA.
See the UN release on Obaid’s appointment at:
https://www.unfpa.org/news/pressroom/2000/executivedirector.h…
CRTC APPROVES FIRST ALL HOMOSEXUAL TV STATION
Catholic station refused
OTTAWA, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – Canada’s communications regulators, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), have approved a new list of television channels for the Canadian market. The agency has this time approved an all-homosexual programming channel called PrideVision (gay and lesbian interests). The allowance for the specialty channel strikes many as manifestly unfair since the CRTC has repeatedly turned down the all-Catholic Eternal World Television Network.
See the CRTC list of newly approved channels at:
https://www.crtc.gc.ca/ENG/NEWS/RELEASES/2000/R001124e.htm
RU-486 LEAD TO HUGE INCREASE IN ABORTION IN CHINA
BEIJING, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – A report by the US Embassy in China notes that the introduction of RU-486 in China led to a huge increase in the number of abortions. The report notes that the drug was approved in China eight years ago but has been widely used in Chinese cities for about two years. “Although a prescription drug, RU-486 is widely available on the black market in many Chinese cities for about US$15,” says the report. “Chinese physicians worry about complications emerging from unsupervised use of the drug.”
The relatively easy availability of the abortifacient has led to a vast increase in sex-selective abortions as ultrasounds are often used to detect female children for destruction.
See the whole report at:
https://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/ru486.html
LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
The Tablet, a Catholic newspaper in the UK, reports this month that the leaders of Latvia’s four traditional faiths (Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox are the three main) celebrated the country’s National Day in Riga’s Dome Church, but in a protest against the Government they took no formal part in the proceedings. Archbishop Janis Vanags, head of the Latvian Lutheran Church, explained in an open letter to the President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, that he and his colleagues from other faiths had taken this stand due to their “sadness and shame” over the stance of the Latvian state on matters of morality during the past year – particularly abortion.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin
The first-ever joint assembly of French-speaking and English-speaking Bishops’ Conferences of West Africa noted that one of the biggest “challenges” is “to prepare the people to be wary of dangers: the invasion of the media which undermines morals, foreign cultural models contrary to African solidarity; certain organizations which promote abortion and the birth control.” The bishops met in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, from 16 – 19 November. 114 Bishops from 16 countries, represented 119 dioceses and almost twenty million Catholics, that is 19,111,936 (or 10 percent) out of the 191,374,527 people who live in West Africa. (Fides, Nov 24, 2000)
London’s Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that the British government is urging pregnant teens to abort their babies. In a new scheme, “pregnancy advisers”, appointed by the Government, will tell girls how to proceed when pregnant, “putting them in touch with GPs, social services and family planning clinics. They will even be accompanied to hospital if they choose to have an abortion.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003864436460684&rtmo;=wetof0…
US NEWS ROUNDUP
Florida’s secretary of state certified George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore Sunday night in the state’s near-deadlocked presidential vote, but predictably the Gore camp again rejected the results and is waging the battle for power in the courts.
https://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/NWview.cgi?/news/2000/11/26/…
An abortuary guard was charged by police in Granite City after repeatedly beating a pro-lifer over the head. The violent attack came after the pro-lifer turned his back to the guard and was walking away.
https://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/News/529B929EA5AF…
(Pro-Life E-News)