American Life League Associates Newsletter
September 25, 2006
Vol. 3, No. 37

From Associates

• Houston Coalition for Life

  On day 30 of the 40 Days for Life Prayer Campaign, sidewalk counselors were blessed by a visit from a young mom toting two children in a minivan. She stopped to show off her 3-year-old and 15-month-old children and to tell the story about how she almost aborted her firstborn. She shared how she changed her mind after listening to the words of a sidewalk counselor and was incredibly thankful for the work that continues to be carried out by faithful prayer volunteers and counselors.

  Surely this is God’s way of encouraging our faithfulness and dedication to protecting the most vulnerable among us. Please keep praying for the Houston Coalition for Life, their prayer campaign and all of those who have so generously volunteered their time and efforts!

• Pro-Life Wisconsin

  Pro-Life Wisconsin recently held a fundraising reception in Milwaukee to assist in the effort to defend South Dakota’s abortion ban in the November election. PLW was able to raise more than $1,100 for the “Vote YES for Life” campaign in South Dakota.

  Pro-Life Wisconsin would like to remind all associate groups that a pro-life victory in South Dakota would greatly assist efforts to initiate similar laws and constitutional amendments in other states as well.

From ALL Headquarters

• Pro-Life Memorial Day

  American Life League’s second annual Pro-Life Memorial Day, being held this year on Monday, October 2, is just one week from today. This national event is a unique and meaningful day unlike any other because it’s devoted to the sole and solemn purpose of remembering the 47 million children killed through surgical abortion since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

  Pro-Life Memorial Day is an occasion to look back over the past 33 years and reflect upon what that Supreme Court decision has meant for our country, to reflect upon what legalized abortion has reaped for our society. It is a day for pro-lifers nationwide to pause and remember those who were never given a chance at life and who are not with us today because of this heinous decision.

  It is not too late to gather even a small group for a short prayer vigil on this day. Suggestions for events as well as flyers and posters for your event can be found online. If you hold an event or just participate in one, please consider taking photographs (if you’re using a digital camera, the highest resolution, please) and forwarding them to LTignor@ALL.org for use in ALL publications.

• Training and Activism Weekend 2007

  American Life League will sponsor a number of events in Washington, D.C. the weekend of January 20-22. In addition to Rock for Life youth training and activism, there will be training and activism briefings featuring a number of national pro-life speakers on Sunday and a Monday morning breakfast meeting with a panel discussion. Watch this space for additional information in the weeks ahead. If you are planning to be in the D.C. area that weekend, now is the time to reserve your room (or rooms). Contact Erik Whittington for reservation details.

News

• Pro-choicers introduce, well, a pro-abortion bill

  On September 14, Rep. Tim Ryan introduced a bill, along with Rep. Rosa DeLauro and other pro-abortion Democrats, titled "Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act." Rep. Ryan's press release touts the bill as a new effort by both pro-life and pro-choice Democrats to "significantly reduce the number of abortions in America."

  How would they accomplish reducing "unwanted pregnancies?" The bill includes no requirements that women be given information on abortion alternatives. The bill doesn't contain a parental notification requirement. Instead, the bill creates a massive slush fund for abortion groups and comprehensive sex-ed programs that promote condom use and sexual experimentation as well as Plan B, which can act as an abortifacient. The bill also increases funding for Title X family planning programs from $283,000 to $647,000 per year. Why? Planned Parenthood receives millions of this money and millions in other government funds as well.

• Emergency contraception doesn't lower abortion rates Making the "morning-after" pill more readily available to women does not cut the rate of either abortions or pregnancies, a British reproductive health expert contends.

  Ten different studies found that giving women a supply of emergency contraception to keep at home increased its use twofold to threefold but had no measurable effect on rates of abortion or pregnancy.

• Church teaching and human reproduction

  The Catholic Church teaches that "the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally excluded is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or the woman." This teaching prohibits contraception by means of the condom, intrauterine device, vasectomy, tubal ligation, and chemical contraception by the use of oral contraceptives, morning after pills, or the administration of contraceptives by injection or in a skin patch. The reason for this prohibition is that contraception breaks the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act.

• Christian family - Gift and hope

  The world appears to be bent on the destruction of marriage and the family. This attack was spearheaded by the globalization of contraception and abortion promoted by the anti-natalist propaganda and justified by doomsday predictions of population explosion. The world is in for a rude awakening. The dominant demographic problem is not going to be population explosion. Aging and population implosion will dominate the social, economic, political and demographic horizon of this century. The U.N. has openly admitted that population aging is due to the drastic fall in fertility.

• 'Eugenic abortion' among ethical issues raised about prenatal gene testing

  Members of the President's Council on Bioethics have discussed ethical issues raised by prenatal genetic testing. Several members noted that it raises problems of "toxic knowledge" described as "learning more than you want to or more than you can handle." It also raises problems of "eugenic abortion" that is abortion on grounds of disability or susceptibility to disability, and of "micro-eugenics" described as an effort to "take control of the family lineage" by removing genes responsible for diseases or characteristics deemed unfavorable.

• Pope endorses adult stem-cell research

  Pope Benedict XVI endorsed stem-cell research and therapy utilizing stem cells harvested from adults and umbilical-cord blood. He also called for researchers and doctors to work more closely together in applying the latest research.

  "The possibilities opened up by this new chapter in research are in themselves fascinating" because adult stem-cell studies have pointed to actual and potential cures of degenerative diseases that would otherwise lead to disabilities or death, the pope said at an audience for participants attending a Vatican-sponsored congress on stem-cell therapy.

  "How can I not feel compelled to praise those who dedicate themselves to this research and those who support it and its costs," the pope said September 16 to congress participants at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome.

• Princeton Professor Singer: And I repeat, I would kill disabled infants

  In a question and answer article published in the UK's Independent, controversial Princeton University Professor Peter Singer repeats his notorious stand on the killing of disabled newborns. Asked, "Would you kill a disabled baby?" Singer responded, "Yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole."

  People who oppose Singer's position have maintained that Singer is the logical extension of the culture of death and that society will eventually embrace his stance if there is no shift to the culture of life.

Closing thought

Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

– Psalm 37:1-4