American Life League Associates Newsletter
October 30, 2006
Vol. 3, No. 42

New Associate Group

Please join me in welcoming RochesterPro-Life.org. RochesterPro-Life.org began as a group of pro-life sidewalk counselors and prayer warriors working outside of the Planned Parenthood facility in Rochester, New York in 1996. They seek to counsel through verbal interaction, literature and photographic images. This year the group opened the Focus Pregnancy Center just two doors away from Planned Parenthood so they could expand their mission and more effectively assist in providing a life-giving solution to all women contemplating abortion. RochesterPro-Life.org is co-directed by Mary Jost and Thomas Wilson.

From Associates

• Children of God for Life

  COG for Life notes in a recent e-mail that the National Catholic Bioethics Center has released the NCB Quarterly Autumn 2006 edition. In it are several new and outstanding articles on the topic of cell lines from aborted fetuses being used in producing vaccines.

  Debi Vinnedge, president of COG for Life, believes this edition is a must read for all who are concerned about this subject and for all who are unsure of the truth. Visit Children of God for Life to learn more and to order copies of this excellent and informative edition.

• California Right to Life Education Fund

  CRLEF has taken the opportunity in its most recent newsletter to remind readers that Halloween is just around the corner (tomorrow, in fact!) and, with it, the annual “Trick or Treat for UNICEF” campaign. Pro-lifers should be aware of the pro-abortion nature of UNICEF. Contributions to this organization are helping to fund abortion, contraception and sterilization programs throughout the world.

From ALL headquarters

• Training and Activism Weekend 2007 - Please join us!

  The Training and Activism Briefings will be held on Sunday, January 21, beginning at 9 a.m. in the North Ballroom of the Holiday Inn on the Hill in Washington, D.C. Speakers will include Judie Brown, president of American Life League, David Bereit, executive director of American Life League, Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, Fr. Thomas Eutenuer, president of Human Life International, Chris Slattery, president of Expectant Mother Care in New York, Dr. Allen Unruh of the Vote Yes on 6 Committee in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Joe Scheidler, president of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago.

  Then join us for breakfast on Monday, January 22, at 8 a.m. in the Congressional Room at the Holiday Inn on the Hill and participate in a panel discussion on state human life amendments. Panel guests include representatives from Pro-Life Wisconsin, Michigan Citizens for Life and the Vote Yes on 6 Committee in South Dakota. Judie Brown will be the moderator.

  Make your reservations now by contacting Erik Whittington.

• Stop Planned Parenthood

  Last week’s edition (October 25) of The Wednesday STOPP Report took a good, hard look at Planned Parenthood’s recent memo, "A Strategy for Moving Forward," penned by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.

  In his analysis of the document, Jim Sedlak says, “What is new in the document is the implicit admission that Planned Parenthood is having a harder and harder time achieving its goals and that it really feels it is on the defensive.” And he adds that, “This should be an encouragement to all who daily fight this insidious organization.”

  Cecile Richards has discovered, after nine months on the job, that the pro-life movement is making things difficult for Planned Parenthood – that the efforts we have been putting forth through our plan to defeat Planned Parenthood and other initiatives are having their desired effect.

  If, for any reason, you missed last week’s issue of The Wednesday STOPP Report, see it online and be sure to read this week’s edition which will bring you a full description of how our efforts can be fine-tuned to keep Planned Parenthood on the defensive.

• Rock for Life

  American Life League's youth outreach has posted two new videos on the popular YouTube site. The first offers a recap of Pro-life Memorial Day activities in Washington, D.C. The second takes a look ahead to Rock for Life's annual training and activism weekend, January 20-22.

News

• Catholic view on life's origin compatible with science

  The central issue for the Catholic Church remains what it always was—the deliberate killing of an innocent human being is never justifiable. According to Fr Kevin Doran, secretary of the Catholic bishops' committee for bioethics, “The central issue for the Catholic Church remains what it always was, namely that the deliberate killing of an innocent human being is never justifiable. If the natural sciences help us to understand when individual human life begins, so much the better.”

  “So when does individual human life begin?” he asked. Modern genetics has helped us to clarify this issue by demonstrating that the new organism, which comes into existence at fertilization, is genetically unique and distinct from either of the parent organisms.

• UCC scientist on when human life begins

  Professor William Reville of the Department of Biochemistry at University College Cork wrote in The Irish Times, “There is no doubt scientifically that human life begins at conception when the sperm and the egg unite to form the zygote. Thereafter, human life proceeds along a continuum until it ends in death. All of the genetic information that specifies human development is present in the zygote. No new genetic information is added later. Each stage of human life along the continuum has its own properties both peculiar and appropriate to its stage.”

  Furthermore, he pointed out, “To pick any point on the continuum of human life, other than the starting point of conception, as marking the beginning of full human life is illogical, arbitrary, and incoherent.”

• 'Don't tear a smiling fetus from the womb'

  Professor Stuart Campbell of the Create Health Clinic, London, and head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at King's College School of Medicine, pioneered the '4D' scanning technology which produced vivid images of unborn babies moving in the womb. Writing recently for the “Daily Telegraph” he said he believes unborn babies “who exhibit the signs of humanity these images portray” should not be aborted.

  According to Professor Campbell, “There is something deeply moving about the image of a baby cocooned inside the womb. When four-dimensional scans first became available three years ago, I sat with parents who trembled at the sight of their soon-to-be newborn. They told me they wanted to stroke its downy head. Advanced scanning means we have a window on the secret life of fetuses. At 11 weeks, we can see them yawn, and even take steps. At 22 weeks, they begin to open their eyes. Between 20 and 24 weeks we watch as they seem to cry, smile and frown. Understandably, these incredible images have influenced the debate on abortion. I pioneered the 4-D scanning technique in the UK and it has certainly caused me to question my own opinions.”

  Speaking on abortion he declared: “We must grasp the nettle now. These are healthy babies, not brain-dead, feelingless creatures. When I see a fetus that can smile at me, I know absolutely that we should not tear it from the womb.”

• Oxford study denying abortion-cancer link "seriously flawed" says expert

  Oxford scientists first covered up the abortion-breast cancer link with the publication of a 1982 study, and are at it again with another study released this week according to the Abortion-Breast Cancer Coalition (ABCC). The latest study is the fifth study by the university's scientists denying an abortion-cancer link.

  Professor Joel Brind, president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, maintains that the methodology is "seriously flawed in the direction of covering up the link." Last year, Dr. Brind authored a review of ten studies, including two Oxford papers. He concluded that they "embody many serious weaknesses and flaws" and "do not invalidate" the larger body of research supporting a link.

• Breast cancer and oral contraception

  October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is an annual campaign to build public awareness about the disease as well as to raise funds for research. What does this educational campaign have to do with contraception? It has to do with the fact that many types of oral contraceptives contain estrogen, a synthetic steroid believed to have a role in the development of breast cancer.

• Firm reports using human embryos to make insulin

  Scientists at a small California biotechnology company reported that they had developed a process to turn human embryonic stem cells into pancreatic cells that can produce insulin and other hormones. The work by the company, Novocell, based in San Diego, is a step toward using embryonic stem cells to replace the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed by the body’s immune system in people with Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. Years of research remain, however, before a therapy developed from this approach can be put to use.

• Stem cells might cause brain tumors

  Injecting human embryonic stem cells into the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients may cause tumors to form, U.S. researchers reported last week.

  Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York said human stem cells injected into rat brains turned into cells that looked like early tumors. Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers said the transplants clearly helped the rats, but some of the cells started growing in a way that could eventually lead to a tumor. The researchers killed the animals before they could know for sure, and said any experiments in humans would have to be done very cautiously.

• Catholic Church not opposed to all stem-cell research, says priest

  The public has the misconception that the Catholic Church and pro-life political candidates oppose all types of stem cell research, says Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. And the misconception is worsened by the ads that fail to distinguish between embryonic and adult stem-cell research, he added.

  Fr. Pacholczyk addressed this misunderstanding in a talk he gave recently, entitled "Cutting Through the Spin of Stem Cells and Cloning." The priest said it is incorrect to make the blanket statement that the Church is against stem-cell research. Instead, it is important to clarify that the Church is only against embryonic stem-cell research, which requires the embryo—new human life—to be killed for research. The Church, he stated, supports adult stem-cell research.

  He said the possibilities of embryonic stem-cell research have been exaggerated, and the adult stem-cell research, which is already curing diseases, has been undersold.

Closing thought

Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered, and let those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish before God. But let the righteous be glad; let them exult before God; yes, let them rejoice with gladness.

—Psalm 68:1-3