American Life League Associates Newsletter
April 9, 2007
Vol. 4, No. 15

From Associates

• Culture of Life USA

  Rafael Ortega and Dr. Michael Sanders, founders of Culture of Life USA, have received information that Planned Parenthood of Northeast Florida is moving from its current location to a new larger clinic in south Jacksonville Beach next month. Culture of Life is organizing a prayer vigil for opening day at this new site. Additional details will be forthcoming. If you are in the area or know of others who are, please contact Rafael Ortega.

• Pro-Life Wisconsin

  A recent cover story in the Wisconsin State Journal reported on the growing debate over Governor Jim Doyle’s proposed budget expansion of the Medicaid Family Planning Waiver Program (free, taxpayer-funded birth control to minors without parental knowledge) to include minor males. The story quotes PLW’s legislative director, Matt Sande.

  Also of note in Wisconsin is Governor Doyle’s recent acceptance of Planned Parenthood’s “Stand Up for Women’s Health Award” last month at Planned Parenthood’s national conference in Los Angeles. Doyle was commended for vetoing legislation that would have protected the conscience rights of pharmacists, for protecting the practice of human cloning in Wisconsin and for turning down federal abstinence education funds. See the article in PLW’s Monday Update.

From ALL Headquarters

• National Pro-life T-shirt Day

  This year’s National Pro-life T-shirt Day is Tuesday, April 24. The last day to order the official National Pro-Life T-shirt Day shirt is tomorrow, April 10. For more information on this annual event, see www.nationalprolifetshirtday.com/.

• STOPP

  According to a recent article in the Bradenton Herald, Planned Parenthood of Southwest Florida has broken ground for its new $7.8 million regional headquarters. The 23,000-square-foot building will include an expanded clinic, library, meeting rooms and administrative offices.

  Planned Parenthood also announced a new fundraising campaign to open three new clinics in areas of “great need” as well as raising an additional $1 million for its endowment fund. Planned Parenthood is busy in Florida.

  The physical layout of the new Planned Parenthood in Sarasota is one that appears to be part of a new trend by Planned Parenthood in an effort to win support. A similarly designed building in Portland, Oregon is also being pushed by Planned Parenthood.

  These buildings have retail or similar space at the street level and the Planned Parenthood killing centers on the second floor or in the back. Planned Parenthood sells these projects as improving shopping to the community and providing jobs. It is a clever way to bring killing centers into poor neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood hopes nobody will notice it is also killing future generations upstairs.

  All who oppose Planned Parenthood should be aware of this trend and be prepared to fight it.

• Day of the Preborn

  American Life League has launched a year-long petition campaign asking President Bush to officially declare March 25 as the Day of the Preborn, beginning with March 25, 2008. The petition sets forth the basic principles upon which the pro-life movement is based.

  If you have not already, we encourage you to sign the petition, available online, and then forward the information to family, friends and colleagues.

News

• Cloning Doubletalk

  Senators Dianne Feinstein and Orrin Hatch have introduced Senate Bill 812, which explicitly legalizes human cloning and, since a shortage of human eggs is currently impeding human cloning research (one egg is needed for each attempt at cloning), the bill also authorizes researchers to pay women to undergo egg procurement.

  And if the purpose of the legislation wasn't bad enough, there's its name: Feinstein and Hatch mendaciously named S. 812 the "Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Protection Act of 2007."

  How can a bill to legalize human cloning be instead called a ban? Through the time-tested method of disingenuous legislating--the bogus definition. Here's a rarely discussed truth: Key words and terms in legislation mean only what a bill's authors say they mean, rather than their actual definitions. If a dung beetle was defined in legislation as a butterfly, for the purposes of that bill, the dung beetle would be a butterfly. This is essentially what S. 812 does. It defines the term "human cloning" inaccurately and unscientifically so that Feinstein and Hatch can pretend their bill will outlaw human cloning.

• Adult bone marrow stem cells treating heart and liver damage

  The American College of Cardiology's meeting in New Orleans on March 25 was told of a breakthrough in a cardiac treatment developed using stem cells taken from adult volunteers.

  Rush University Medical Center participated in a study of Provacel, an intravenous preparation of adult stem cells that has been shown in preclinical animal models to prevent scar formation in the area of the heart after heart attacks. Animal studies have shown that Provacel can return heart function to near normal levels in as few as 2 months.

  Patients with first-time acute myocardial infarction were treated in a double blind test that showed that patients receiving Provacel were 75 per cent less likely to experience problems such as arrhythmia compared to those receiving placebo.

• British team grows human heart valve from stem cells

  A British research team led by the world's leading heart surgeon has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years.

  Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, has worked on ways to tackle the shortage of donated hearts for transplant for more than a decade. His team at the heart science centre at Harefield hospital has grown tissue that works in the same way as the valves in human hearts, a significant step towards the goal of growing whole replacement hearts from stem cells.

Closing thought

The angel spoke to the women. “You must not be afraid,” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has been raised, just as He said. Come here and see the place where He was lying. Go quickly now, and tell His disciples, ‘He has been raised from death, and now He is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see Him!’ Remember what I have told you.”

— Matthew 28:5-7