in this issue
hot button issues: NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY / BATTIN’ 1000
abortion: TEXAS
activism: SOLID INFORMATION
birth control pill: RISK
catholic culture: CHARLES FORTUNATO
condoms: MEDICAL DEVICES
death: WHO DEFINES?
euthanasia: FLORIDA / NORTH CAROLINA
human subjects: RESEARCH TRIALS
parental consent: TEXAS
population: IMPLOSION
sexual abuse: CALIFORNIA
zinger: HEMLOCK SOCIETY
reflection for prayer: ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA / O SACRED HEAD SURROUNDED
hot button issues
NATIONAL PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY: Time is running out! Get the pro-life young people in your community involved. April 28 is the day.
BATTIN’ 1000: American Life League’s campaign to raise support for its Campus of Life project through the support of all-star baseball players received a nice boost from ESPN, which featured Battin’ 1000 chairman Sal Bando on its “Outside the Lines” feature. The project has also received favorable mention in Catholic newspapers.
(Reading: “Major leaguers step to the plate in support of life,” Milwaukee Catholic Herald, 4/3/03)
abortion
TEXAS: The Texas Justice Foundation has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of women who have suffered from botched abortions. Foundation president Allan Parker is also the attorney for Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of Roe v. Wade.
(Reading: “Texas woman’s botched abortion lawsuit begins Friday,” Texas Justice Foundation news release, 4/10/03; also see Roe No More Ministry)
activism
SOLID INFORMATION: Pro-Life E-News is the most informative daily pro-life news service in the world. The service provides unedited, accurate reports with sources for all the material provided including the source URL. No report is censored. Sign up via .
birth control pill
RISK: Researchers find that women on birth control pills have higher rates of chlamydia and HIV infection. They recommend “a priority in the development of new contraceptives is that they should have an anti-infective component?new strategies should be sought to up-regulate the innate defense mechanisms of the female reproductive tract.”
(Reading: “Hormonal contraception can suppress natural antimicrobial gene transcription in human endometrium,” Fertility and Sterility, 4/03, pp. 856-863, paid subscribers only)
catholic culture
CHARLES FORTUNATO: Forty years ago secular morality was born and it has grown into the insidious cesspool we have today. It is time for the hierarchy, the laity and the media to proclaim the truth of our faith and to hold fellow Catholics accountable for their acts of secular morality. It is very important that Canon Law be enforced entirely and consistently across the dioceses.
(Reading: e-mail message from Charles Fortunato; also see “Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church,” American Life League)
condoms
MEDICAL DEVICES: A Swiss court has ruled that condoms are medical devices and cannot be sold if defective. The tribunal ruled that a condom may not be allowed to “put the user’s or anyone else’s life in danger.”
(Reading: “Condoms are medical devices: Swiss,” Agence France-Presse, 4/10/03)
death
WHO DEFINES? Michael Potts is head of philosophy and religion at Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C. Medical Ethics Advisor reported on a recent speech of his on the topic of defining death: “The main problem with organ donation from beating-heart, brain-dead donors, Potts argues, is that if such donors are alive — there is a good reason to believe they are — removing an unpaired vital organ (heart, liver) or both paired organs (both lungs or both kidneys) kills the patient. ‘Instead of unnecessary treatment being withdrawn, healthy organs are removed, not for the benefit of the donor, but for the benefit of another person,’ he says. ‘Actively killing the brain dead promotes treating people as only a means to an end and not as ends in themselves. It weakens the barrier against viewing other, less disabled, lives as not being worthy to live, either. This is a dangerous path to follow.'”
(Reading: “Consciousness vs. physiology, when is death really death?” Medical Ethics Advisor, paid subscriptions only)
euthanasia
FLORIDA: Terri Schiavo’s family is waging what could be a last stand in the battle to protect her from death by starvation. Said George Felos, attorney for Terri’s husband, “Her dignity has been degraded for someone who was meticulous in her appearance. What Terri has left is for us to honor her request for death with dignity.” On the other hand, Rus Cooper-Dowda, who has disabilities, and attended the Schiavo hearing last week, writes: “The judge asked the husband’s attorney if the doctor promoting Terri’s death was someone the court could trust. The answer was affirmative based on academic research and that the doctor in question had studied every person who has ever come out of a PVS state. I knew for certain that is not true. I am one and I have never heard from him.”
(Reading: “Appeals court urged to keep Schiavo alive,” Tampa Tribune, 4/4/03; “Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain,” Cooper-Dowda, 4/5/03; also see Terri’s Fight)
NORTH CAROLINA: In 1992 Timothy Quill, M.D., and two associates authored protocols setting forth the guidelines under which physician assisted suicide could be legally protected. In comparing these protocols to a recently introduced pro-euthanasia bill in North Carolina, the current bill does not measure up to the 1992 protocols; protocols which are totally unacceptable, by the way, to the pro-life community.
COMMENT: Communique thanks Life Tree’s Elizabeth Wickham for bringing this to our attention.
(Reading: “Care for the hopelessly ill,” New England Journal of Medicine, 11/5/92; Physician Assisted Suicide, S.145, North Carolina General Assembly, 2003)
human subjects
RESEARCH TRIALS: Jeffrey Drazen, M.D., complains the Office of Human Research Protection went beyond its mandated tasks by registering a concern regarding treatment of patients in a clinical trial with regard to treating Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Drazen suggests the ensuing delay in the trial hindered the effort to get “critical new information to the scientific community” that could have saved more lives than might have been lost even if the clinical trial had been conducted unethically. The Alliance for Human Research Protection correctly asks, in a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, “How can citizens participating – consciously or unconsciously – in biomedical research feel secure in knowing that the NIH seeks to put itself above the regulatory authority of the OHRP to monitor and supervise the ethics of all studies, including those sponsored by the NIH?”
(Reading: “Controlling research trials,” New England Journal of Medicine, 4/3/03, pp. 1377-1380, paid subscribers; letter to the editor, 4/10/03, Alliance for Human Research Protection, letter available by request from )
parental consent
TEXAS: Careful reading of a newly proposed parental consent law (HB 945) addressing minors who seek abortion reveals that the abortion can be done if a parent consents in a written affidavit, or if a judge of a court issues an order authorizing the abortion, or if a court by its inaction constructively authorizes the minor to consent to the abortion, or if the physician performing the abortion concludes on the basis of his good faith medical judgment that an immediate abortion is required to avert the minor’s death or to avoid “a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function and that there is insufficient time to obtain the consent required.”
(Reading: “An act relating to parental consent for abortion,” HB 945, Texas legislature, 2003)
population
IMPLOSION: A recent report focusing on Central and East European countries points out that record-low fertility, relatively low life expectancy and limited immigration potential will drive a significant population decline in the comings decades.” Further, the report states that “ageing will compound the decline. ?According to the United Nations, the region’s overall population could fall by as much as one-third in the next 50 years.”
(Reading: “Eastern Europe: Demographic developments,” Oxford Analytica World Service Daily Brief, 4/11/03, paid subscribers only)
sexual abuse
CALIFORNIA: Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy has introduced AB 930, a bill that imposes strict reporting requirements on health care professionals, and their assistants. For details on grassroots activities pertinent to the bill contact Monrovians Against Planned Parenthood at .
(Reading: “Mountjoy bill calls for quick response to early warning signs of sex abuse,” Rep. Dennis Mounjoy news release, 2/20/03; AB 930, California General Assembly, 2003)
zinger
HEMLOCK SOCIETY: The group is considering a new name because “we want it to be better” and “convey our broad interest in end-of-life issues.” Interesting, then, is the suggestion that perhaps the new name should be “Promoting Options for a Peaceful End.”
COMMENT: So the acronym would be … POPE?
(Reading: “Changing Hemlock’s name,” End-of-Life Choices, Winter 2003, article not online)
reflection for prayer
ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA (1420 AD): The recollection of an injury is itself wrong. It adds to our anger, nurtures our sin and hates what is good. It is a rust arrow and poison for the soul. It puts all virtue to flight. It is like a worm in the mind: it confuses our speech and tears to shreds our petitions to God. It is foreign to charity: it remains planted in the soul like a nail. It is wickedness that never sleeps, sin that never fails. It is indeed a daily death. Be peace-loving.
O SACRED HEAD SURROUNDED: O Sacred Head once wounded, with grief and pain weighed down, how scornfully surrounded with thorns Thine only crown! How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn! How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn.
(Reading: “O Sacred Head Surrounded,” text attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090-1153)