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Communique – Dec. 9, 1999

  • Communique
  • 32 min read

abortion

PROPONENT: David A. Grimes, M.D., cites the case of a 26-year-old woman as the basis for presenting his view that “the abortion experience” is common for women facing unexpected pregnancy, who are sexually active, unmarried, and have financial and “cultural” problems. Grimes equates aborting at five- or six-weeks gestation with “doing an office endometrial biopsy with a Karman cannula and hand-held syringe.”

David A. Grimes, M.D., cites the case of a 26-year-old woman as the basis for presenting his view that “the abortion experience” is common for women facing unexpected pregnancy, who are sexually active, unmarried, and have financial and “cultural” problems. Grimes equates aborting at five- or six-weeks gestation with “doing an office endometrial biopsy with a Karman cannula and hand-held syringe.”

(Reading: “A 26-year-old Woman Seeking an Abortion,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 282:12: 9/22-29/99; Grimes is vice-president of Family Health International and professor of ob/gyn, University of North Carolina School of Medicine.)

chemical abortion

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

COMMENT: How many lies can you fit into one sentence? We count two: (1) There is no such thing as a fertilized egg; there is a unique human being who results from the union of sperm and egg. (2) Conception is the same as fertilization, and when it occurs, pregnancy has begun.

(Reading: “Emergency Contraception,” Planned Parenthood of Central Washington)

MORNING AFTER PILL II: The Washington Post published an Associated Press story in which the statement is made “The morning-after pill prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted in the womb.”

COMMENT: Embryologist Keith Moore describes morning-after pills in the sixth edition of his textbook: “These hormones prevent implantation, not fertilization. Consequently, they should not be called contraceptive pills. Conception occurs but the blastocyst does not implant. It would be more appropriate to call them ‘contraimplantation pills.’ Because the term ‘abortion’ refers to a premature stoppage of a pregnancy, the term ‘abortion’ could be applied to such an early termination of pregnancy.” (page 532)

(Reading: “French Schools to Give Out Pill,” Washington Post, 11/29/99; Quotation from “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,” Moore and Persaud)

fetal tissue

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Brave New World,” The Report Online (Canada), 12/6/99)

imposed death

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

(Reading: “Compassion in Dying Welcomes Prof. Tom Beauchamp,” PRNewswire, 11/30/99; description of Compassion in Dying)

OREGON I: An editorial chronicling the debate surrounding the death of 85-year-old Kate Cheyney, who succumbed to physician-assisted suicide, includes this statement from Robert H. Richardson, M.D., Kaiser-Permanente Ethics Services: “Kaiser Permanente does not take a stand either for or against physician assisted suicide, but we respect the decision that Oregon voters have made.”

(Reading: “Killing Grandma,” Brainstorm, 11/99)

OREGON II: Gastroenterologist Daniel Philips, M.D., writes, “When we medicalize suicide, it allows us to think of this as a normal part of the caring process. The result is to further desensitize society to the taking of human life. Physician-assisted suicide is a giant step toward euthanasia.”

(Reading: “Doctor-Assisted Suicide Affects Us All-Negatively,” Register-Guard (Oregon), 12/2/99)

personhood

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

(Reading: “Addicted Mom Held in Infant’s Death Gets Legal Help,” Fulton County Daily Report, 11/30/99; CRLP Freedom News)

MISSISSIPPI: Eric Laquinne Brown has been charged with murder and manslaughter after admitting to the January 22, 1999, killings of Shorlonda Moore and her preborn child.

(Reading: “Brown Guilty of Murder, Manslaughter,” Sun Herald (Mississippi), 12/1/99)

OKLAHOMA: Ryan Owen McCarty was found guilty of three counts of murder after a fire he set resulted in the deaths of three people including a preborn child.

(Reading: “Killer to Serve Three Life Terms Concurrently,” The Oklahoman, 12/1/99)

prenatal diagnosis

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

COMMENT: Let us pray MRI is not used to target and destroy human beings!

(Reading: “MRI Adds to Ultrasound for Fetal Diagnosis, UCSF Researchers Find,” BW HealthWire, 12/2/99; “MRI Useful Way to Confirm Fetal Ultrasound Findings,” Reuters Health)

stem cell research

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

web news

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

zinger

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Marketers of the Preven ‘Morning After Pill’ Are Engaged in Re-Defining Pregnancy,” The Report, 12/6/99)

reflect

When anyone makes jest of you, remember our Lord… Let us now emulate him and so we shall be enabled even to be delivered from all insults. For it is not the insulter that gives effect to acts of insult and makes them biting, but he who is little in soul and is pained by them.

-John Chrysostom

PROPONENT: David A. Grimes, M.D., cites the case of a 26-year-old woman as the basis for presenting his view that “the abortion experience” is common for women facing unexpected pregnancy, who are sexually active, unmarried, and have financial and “cultural” problems. Grimes equates aborting at five- or six-weeks gestation with “doing an office endometrial biopsy with a Karman cannula and hand-held syringe.”

David A. Grimes, M.D., cites the case of a 26-year-old woman as the basis for presenting his view that “the abortion experience” is common for women facing unexpected pregnancy, who are sexually active, unmarried, and have financial and “cultural” problems. Grimes equates aborting at five- or six-weeks gestation with “doing an office endometrial biopsy with a Karman cannula and hand-held syringe.”

(Reading: “A 26-year-old Woman Seeking an Abortion,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 282:12: 9/22-29/99; Grimes is vice-president of Family Health International and professor of ob/gyn, University of North Carolina School of Medicine.)

chemical abortion

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

COMMENT: How many lies can you fit into one sentence? We count two: (1) There is no such thing as a fertilized egg; there is a unique human being who results from the union of sperm and egg. (2) Conception is the same as fertilization, and when it occurs, pregnancy has begun.

(Reading: “Emergency Contraception,” Planned Parenthood of Central Washington)

MORNING AFTER PILL II: The Washington Post published an Associated Press story in which the statement is made “The morning-after pill prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted in the womb.”

COMMENT: Embryologist Keith Moore describes morning-after pills in the sixth edition of his textbook: “These hormones prevent implantation, not fertilization. Consequently, they should not be called contraceptive pills. Conception occurs but the blastocyst does not implant. It would be more appropriate to call them ‘contraimplantation pills.’ Because the term ‘abortion’ refers to a premature stoppage of a pregnancy, the term ‘abortion’ could be applied to such an early termination of pregnancy.” (page 532)

(Reading: “French Schools to Give Out Pill,” Washington Post, 11/29/99; Quotation from “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,” Moore and Persaud)

fetal tissue

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Brave New World,” The Report Online (Canada), 12/6/99)

imposed death

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

(Reading: “Compassion in Dying Welcomes Prof. Tom Beauchamp,” PRNewswire, 11/30/99; description of Compassion in Dying)

OREGON I: An editorial chronicling the debate surrounding the death of 85-year-old Kate Cheyney, who succumbed to physician-assisted suicide, includes this statement from Robert H. Richardson, M.D., Kaiser-Permanente Ethics Services: “Kaiser Permanente does not take a stand either for or against physician assisted suicide, but we respect the decision that Oregon voters have made.”

(Reading: “Killing Grandma,” Brainstorm, 11/99)

OREGON II: Gastroenterologist Daniel Philips, M.D., writes, “When we medicalize suicide, it allows us to think of this as a normal part of the caring process. The result is to further desensitize society to the taking of human life. Physician-assisted suicide is a giant step toward euthanasia.”

(Reading: “Doctor-Assisted Suicide Affects Us All-Negatively,” Register-Guard (Oregon), 12/2/99)

personhood

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

(Reading: “Addicted Mom Held in Infant’s Death Gets Legal Help,” Fulton County Daily Report, 11/30/99; CRLP Freedom News)

MISSISSIPPI: Eric Laquinne Brown has been charged with murder and manslaughter after admitting to the January 22, 1999, killings of Shorlonda Moore and her preborn child.

(Reading: “Brown Guilty of Murder, Manslaughter,” Sun Herald (Mississippi), 12/1/99)

OKLAHOMA: Ryan Owen McCarty was found guilty of three counts of murder after a fire he set resulted in the deaths of three people including a preborn child.

(Reading: “Killer to Serve Three Life Terms Concurrently,” The Oklahoman, 12/1/99)

prenatal diagnosis

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

COMMENT: Let us pray MRI is not used to target and destroy human beings!

(Reading: “MRI Adds to Ultrasound for Fetal Diagnosis, UCSF Researchers Find,” BW HealthWire, 12/2/99; “MRI Useful Way to Confirm Fetal Ultrasound Findings,” Reuters Health)

stem cell research

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

web news

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

zinger

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Marketers of the Preven ‘Morning After Pill’ Are Engaged in Re-Defining Pregnancy,” The Report, 12/6/99)

reflect

When anyone makes jest of you, remember our Lord… Let us now emulate him and so we shall be enabled even to be delivered from all insults. For it is not the insulter that gives effect to acts of insult and makes them biting, but he who is little in soul and is pained by them.

-John Chrysostom

PROPONENT: David A. Grimes, M.D., cites the case of a 26-year-old woman as the basis for presenting his view that “the abortion experience” is common for women facing unexpected pregnancy, who are sexually active, unmarried, and have financial and “cultural” problems. Grimes equates aborting at five- or six-weeks gestation with “doing an office endometrial biopsy with a Karman cannula and hand-held syringe.”

(Reading: “A 26-year-old Woman Seeking an Abortion,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 282:12: 9/22-29/99; Grimes is vice-president of Family Health International and professor of ob/gyn, University of North Carolina School of Medicine.)

chemical abortion

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

MORNING AFTER PILL I: Planned Parenthood of Central Washington’s web site tells visitors, “[The morning after pill] prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg, or changes the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg will not implant (conception will be prevented), and a pregnancy will not develop.”

COMMENT: How many lies can you fit into one sentence? We count two: (1) There is no such thing as a fertilized egg; there is a unique human being who results from the union of sperm and egg. (2) Conception is the same as fertilization, and when it occurs, pregnancy has begun.

(Reading: “Emergency Contraception,” Planned Parenthood of Central Washington)

MORNING AFTER PILL II: The Washington Post published an Associated Press story in which the statement is made “The morning-after pill prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted in the womb.”

COMMENT: Embryologist Keith Moore describes morning-after pills in the sixth edition of his textbook: “These hormones prevent implantation, not fertilization. Consequently, they should not be called contraceptive pills. Conception occurs but the blastocyst does not implant. It would be more appropriate to call them ‘contraimplantation pills.’ Because the term ‘abortion’ refers to a premature stoppage of a pregnancy, the term ‘abortion’ could be applied to such an early termination of pregnancy.” (page 532)

(Reading: “French Schools to Give Out Pill,” Washington Post, 11/29/99; Quotation from “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology,” Moore and Persaud)

fetal tissue

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

PARKINSON’S: In May 1996, the publication Neurology outlined the case of a “52-year-old American man who traveled to China to have fetal tissue from five- to six-week-old and 15- to 16-week-old fetuses transplanted into his brain to treat his Parkinson’s. Twenty-three months after the surgery…he died suddenly. An autopsy revealed that the transplanted tissue had remarkably survived. But it had not, as was hoped for, grown into neurons. Rather the ‘totipotent’ fetal tissue had grown wildly, differentiating into hair shafts, skin, cartilage and bone that studded his ventricular system. The man also showed signs of having mounted an immune system attack against the fetal tissue graft.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Brave New World,” The Report Online (Canada), 12/6/99)

imposed death

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

COMPASSION IN DYING: The pro-euthanasia, pro-physician-assisted suicide group based in Washington state announces that Georgetown professor of philosophy Tom Beauchamp has joined their board of directors. The Board also includes Kathryn Kolbert of the abortion-rights advocacy group Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

(Reading: “Compassion in Dying Welcomes Prof. Tom Beauchamp,” PRNewswire, 11/30/99; description of Compassion in Dying)

OREGON I: An editorial chronicling the debate surrounding the death of 85-year-old Kate Cheyney, who succumbed to physician-assisted suicide, includes this statement from Robert H. Richardson, M.D., Kaiser-Permanente Ethics Services: “Kaiser Permanente does not take a stand either for or against physician assisted suicide, but we respect the decision that Oregon voters have made.”

(Reading: “Killing Grandma,” Brainstorm, 11/99)

OREGON II: Gastroenterologist Daniel Philips, M.D., writes, “When we medicalize suicide, it allows us to think of this as a normal part of the caring process. The result is to further desensitize society to the taking of human life. Physician-assisted suicide is a giant step toward euthanasia.”

(Reading: “Doctor-Assisted Suicide Affects Us All-Negatively,” Register-Guard (Oregon), 12/2/99)

personhood

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

GEORGIA: Shannon Moss has been charged with murder “for allegedly causing her baby’s death by taking drugs while pregnant.” She went into premature labor and delivered twins; only one of the babies survived. The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected such sentences in the past, reports the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) which has joined Moss’s defense.

(Reading: “Addicted Mom Held in Infant’s Death Gets Legal Help,” Fulton County Daily Report, 11/30/99; CRLP Freedom News)

MISSISSIPPI: Eric Laquinne Brown has been charged with murder and manslaughter after admitting to the January 22, 1999, killings of Shorlonda Moore and her preborn child.

(Reading: “Brown Guilty of Murder, Manslaughter,” Sun Herald (Mississippi), 12/1/99)

OKLAHOMA: Ryan Owen McCarty was found guilty of three counts of murder after a fire he set resulted in the deaths of three people including a preborn child.

(Reading: “Killer to Serve Three Life Terms Concurrently,” The Oklahoman, 12/1/99)

prenatal diagnosis

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can now be used to help detect fetal abnormalities, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers report that in at least two cases, “the MRI diagnosis led to treatments that saved the children’s lives.” Lead researcher Fergus Coakley said, “In difficult cases, MRI is an option that adds to ultrasound diagnosis.” This is especially important when in utero or immediate post-delivery treatment is an option.

COMMENT: Let us pray MRI is not used to target and destroy human beings!

(Reading: “MRI Adds to Ultrasound for Fetal Diagnosis, UCSF Researchers Find,” BW HealthWire, 12/2/99; “MRI Useful Way to Confirm Fetal Ultrasound Findings,” Reuters Health)

stem cell research

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

NIH GUIDELINES: The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on when the federal government will pay for research involving the destruction of an embryonic baby for the purposes of obtaining totipotent stem cells. The public is invited to comment until January 31, 2000. Such comments should be directed to: Stem Cell Guidelines, NIH Office of Science Policy, 1 Center Drive, Building 1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892; by fax to 301-402-0280; or by “>e-mail.

web news

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

MARY BETH BONACCI: Her Real Love Productions now has a web site.

zinger

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

PERSONHOOD: Jennifer Kessell, a spokeswoman for Roberts Pharmaceuticals, the Canadian manufacturer of Preven, says “There’s different definitions [of pregnancy] depending on where you live. Most doctors would say pregnancy begins at implantation. Only ‘anti-abortionists’ would say life begins ‘when the sperm meets the egg. Period.’ Pregnancy begins when a woman is ‘comfortable’ with it beginning, she adds. It depends on your own personal views and what you want to believe.”

(Reading: Celeste McGovern, “Marketers of the Preven ‘Morning After Pill’ Are Engaged in Re-Defining Pregnancy,” The Report, 12/6/99)

reflect

When anyone makes jest of you, remember our Lord… Let us now emulate him and so we shall be enabled even to be delivered from all insults. For it is not the insulter that gives effect to acts of insult and makes them biting, but he who is little in soul and is pained by them.

-John Chrysostom