American Life League Associates Newsletter
March 12, 2007
Vol. 4, No. 12

From Associates

• Pro-Life Wisconsin

  PLW’s weekly e-newsletter, Monday Update, contained an article last week that we would like to bring to the attention of other Associate groups. Specifically, the article noted that Wisconsin’s governor, Jim Doyle, has decided that a confidential state program providing 15-year-old girls with free, taxpayer-funded birth control should be expanded to include 15-year-old boys.

  Why would the governor want to expand a family planning program to males? Although male teens cannot now be prescribed oral contraceptives, most of these so-called family planning programs include condoms, STD testing and reproductive health information. And it appears that male contraceptives (pills and implants) are on the way. As male contraception is perfected, approved and commercialized, we can easily anticipate it being a covered service for men under these family planning programs. Also, because the program covers tubal ligation for women, we can also anticipate vasectomies being covered for men.

  The provision of family planning services to young teens, whether male or female, without the consent or the knowledge of their parents and with taxpayer funds is horrible public policy. Government-funded family planning, a good deal of which is doled out by the likes of Planned Parenthood, is encouraging teen sexual promiscuity and with it a host of social pathologies.

  We need to become thoroughly familiar with the family planning policies in our state and knowledgeable as to where our tax dollars are being spent.

• Pro-Life Waco

  John Pisciotta, co-director of Pro-Life Waco, recently sent a notice that we’d like to share with Associates nationwide. The topic of concern here is the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

  Pro-Life Waco is just one of several groups across the country that is challenging the Komen Foundation and its local affiliates. John points out that there are two problems with the work of Komen. First, in spite of substantial research evidence, Komen refuses to advise women that abortion is a risk factor for breast cancer. Second, many local Komen affiliates make grants to Planned Parenthood’s local affiliates. (The Central Texas Komen affiliate has provided a $45,000 grant to Planned Parenthood of Central Texas.)

  Pro-Life Waco is encouraging its local community, as well as others, to contact leaders of the local Komen affiliates and ask the organization not to use any funds raised in local Races for the Cure in grants to Planned Parenthood.

  Dates, times and locations for upcoming Komen events, as well as affiliate contact information, can be found online.

From ALL Headquarters

• Celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation

  American Life League is marking the Feast of the Annunciation with a special Mass offered for the safe delivery of all preborn children in the womb. We want to pray specifically for as many children as possible that day. To add a mother and her preborn child to our list of intentions, please fill out the online form.

• STOPP

  According to Planned Parenthood, “Abortion ends a pregnancy. Emergency contraception pills cannot end a pregnancy.”

  This is a lie, plain and simple – a lie that is based on PP’s inaccurate definition of pregnancy as beginning at “implantation,” not at fertilization when a human being is first created.

  One of the ways “emergency contraception” works (as with all hormonal contraceptives) is by making the lining of the uterus inhospitable to the pre-born child so that at 5-7 days of age the child cannot implant and starves to death.

  Not only does Planned Parenthood endorse, promote and sell this dangerous drug, but it has recently begun a campaign (called “Pill Patrol”) to force pharmacists and doctors to dispense EC as well.

  Please contact your local pharmacy and let them know that you support their professional and moral rights to protect the safety of their patients by refusing to dispense these dangerous drugs.

• National Pro-life T-shirt Day

  April 24 is the date for ALL's fifth annual National Pro-life T-shirt Day. This day provides an opportunity for all pro-life people, especially students, to make a public stand on behalf of preborn children.

  The official shirt of ALL's National Pro-life T-shirt Day is available for $6 plus shipping and handling. Call 866-LET-LIVE or order online. Additional information is available at www.NationalProLifeTshirtDay.com.

  Additionally, our webmaster has come up with some web site banners for National Pro-life T-shirt Day. You can help promote this day by pasting this banner on your web site: HTML code =

  You can also download the flyer, print it, make copies and hand them out.

  Pledge to participate. Let us know you’ll be wearing your shirt on April 24.

News

• Modern-day slavery defenders

  Should society condone a "private choice" that permits one person to oppress or even kill another person for their own benefit, if that choice is justified by the "private, deeply held personal convictions" of the person making the decision to kill or oppress?

  Should the person or group who benefits from that oppression or death be the final arbitrator of the morality that justifies the decision to do so?

  Strangely enough, the pros and cons of those questions have already been passionately argued, over 140 years ago. The emotional issue of that day was the institution of slavery. Today, over 130 years after the issue of slavery was finally settled, civilized people find it almost incomprehensible that anyone could have found any justification to defend such an inherently evil institution. Yet, slavery was defended vigorously by mainstream politicians who believed that free men should have the right to choose to own slaves if their community allowed it. An examination of the arguments that were made then to support that position reveals an eerie similarity to the arguments that are made today in defense of abortion rights.

• Zell Miller: military shortages, social security crisis and illegal immigration all linked to abortion

  It hasn’t gotten widespread play yet, but former U.S. Sen. Zell Miller made a little news this week in Macon when he declared that abortion has contributed to the military’s manpower shortage, the Social Security crisis, and the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. “How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years? Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed,” Miller said.

• First, Do Harm . . . A betrayal of the hospice movement

  The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine has just released a position statement on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, in which it abdicates its core professional responsibility. On the impropriety of permitting doctors to help kill their patients, the association has assumed a position of "studied neutrality.”

  One of the AAHPM's stated missions is to engage in "public policy advocacy" for hospice and palliative care. Assuming a neutral stance on what may be the most important public policy controversy of our day involving dying people is both a cowardly act and a backdoor repudiation of the long-established philosophy of hospice care, which promises to respect the intrinsic value of each patient's life and to care for dying patients until their natural deaths.

• Stem cell study for joint injuries

  Researchers study stem cells for healing joint injuries. As anyone who’s ever injured a knee or elbow will tell you, recovery can be a long and painful process. Cartilage is an exceptionally slow-healing tissue, and, until now, the missing or damaged tissue is often irreplaceable.

  Researchers at the University of Guelph are hoping stem cells might provide the needed tissue replacements.

  Prof. Dean Betts and doctoral candidate Thomas Koch, Department of Biomedical Sciences, are hoping to use stem cells to improve cartilage healing after joint injuries. They’re working with horses, where joint injuries are both common and costly, and say the research could be a model for helping human joint injuries.

  Because there are no other reports on isolating stem cells from equine cord blood, Betts and Koch are eager to gather as much information as possible. Already, they’ve succeeded in differentiating the cord blood stem cells into three different cell types including chondrocytes – the building blocks of cartilage.

• Pope warns pro-abortion politicians against receiving Communion unworthily

  On March 13 Pope Benedict XVI released the long-awaited document on Holy Communion, called "Sacramentum Caritatis" or the Sacrament of Love. It is a follow-up document reflecting on the 2005 meeting of bishops on the Eucharist.

  In the 110+ page document, the Pope gives Catholic politicians a biblical warning against receiving Communion unworthily.

  In a section on "Eucharistic consistency." the Pope says that politicians must adhere to "non negotiable" values "such as respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one's children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms." He added, "Consequently, Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature."

Closing thought

Turn to the Lord and pray to Him, now that He is near. Let the wicked leave their way of life and change their way of thinking. Let them turn to the Lord, our God; He is merciful and quick to forgive.

— Isaiah 55:6-7