in this issue:
hot button issues: SOUTH DAKOTA / USCCB
abortion: ABORTIONISTS VS CPCs / OHIO
brain death: NEW JERSEY
congress: LEGISLATIVE CHAOS
euthanasia: CALIFORNIA / DALLAS
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT
stem cell research / ethical: BONE MARROW / LUPUS / NANOG / SKIN STEM CELLS
stem cell research / unethical: WISCONSIN
vaccines: HUMAN PAPILLOMA VIRUS
zinger: HYPOCRITES
reflection for prayer: YES OR NO
hot button issues
SOUTH DAKOTA: American Life League ran a full-page ad in The People’s News, a newspaper circulated across numerous South Dakota reservations. The ad affirms the sacredness of all human life. On multiple trips to South Dakota to show support for the state’s law banning surgical and medical abortions, American Life League representatives have been greeted with enthusiasm by members of Oglala Lakota Nation who are eager to spread the pro-life message.
(Reading: “ALL ad runs in S.D. reservation’s newspaper,” American Life League news release, 6/22/06; “Every life is a sacred one,” American Life League, 6/22/06)
USCCB: Regarding the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and pro-abortion Catholic public figures, ALL’s Judie Brown writes, “Who would have ever guessed that the bishops would come out of their meeting without a unanimous agreement on how to instruct the faithful, and how to enforce Canon 915 of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law?”
(Reading: “Catholic bishops: Say yes when you mean yes,” American Life League, 6/23/06)
abortion
ABORTIONISTS VS CPCs: The National Abortion Federation is dragging out its annual attack on pro-life pregnancy centers. The organization’s latest “report” alleges that pro-life counselors intimidate and misinform women. The report alleges “false advertising,” and runs through the same oft-repeated litany about those who seek to steer mothers away from abortion.
(Reading: “Abortion providers say crisis pregnancy centers deceive women,” Kansas City InfoZine, 6/19/06)
brain death
NEW JERSEY: Authorities in New Jersey are proposing a rule change that would substantially weaken the procedural and substantive requirements for declaring someone “brain dead.”
ACTION: Please consider submitting comments at the web page below opposing the proposed changes. Please contact pro-life physicians to encourage their response as well.
(Reading: “Proposed Repeal and New Rules: N.J.A.C. 13:35-6A,” New Jersey Register, 5/15/06)
congress
LEGISLATIVE CHAOS: Whether one is reviewing the Santorum-Specter stem cell research bill or some other version of a human cloning or stem cell bill, please note that language can literally condemn even more preborn embryonic children to death.
COMMENT: Analysis by Dianne N. Irving, Ph.D., shows that current legislative proposals all lack consistency.
(Reading: “Analysis of legislative and regulatory chaos in the U.S.: Asexual human reproduction and genetic engineering,” Life Issues, 10/20/04)
euthanasia
CALIFORNIA: AB 651, a physician assisted suicide bill, was amended in Senate committee and is now basically incoherent; it puts all treatment at the end of life to aid the dying into the category of assisted suicide.
(Reading: AB 651, California state legislature, 6/15/06)
DALLAS: An 11-month-old child is at the center of a debate that has pitted his mother against Children’s Medical Center. Doctors want to discontinue treatment for the baby; the mother does not agree. She has been given two weeks to find a facility willing to take the baby. The baby’s condition is not terminal at this point.
(Reading: “Mom fights to keep baby on life support,” Associated Press, 6/15/06)
personhood
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT: This bill (HR 552) states, “The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” See www.RightToLifeAct.org for details.
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? If not, ask!
stem cell research / ethical
BONE MARROW: Researchers are learning how cells that work at remodeling the bones play a direct part in the ongoing renewal of another system — the blood. Their findings indicate that the stem cells found in bone marrow divide and differentiate in such a way that they can be beneficial to the blood by possibly becoming immune cells for fighting infection or cells for blood clotting and healing after injury.
(Reading: “Bones hold the key to blood renewal,” American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science news release, 6/19/06)
LUPUS: Researchers have found that adult stem cells can wipe out lupus. Many of the patients treated with this new therapy, according to doctors, “have their lives back.”
(Reading: “Stem cells can fight lupus,” Ivanhoe Newswire, 6/13/06)
NANOG: “British scientists have discovered a key factor that directs the stem cells in the body to grow into any tissue. This finding means that adult cells could be turned back into stem cells, thus avoiding the unnecessary controversy generated by human embryonic stem cells or cloning.” The specific molecule that may create this situation is described as “Nanog.”
(Reading: “British scientists find key to ‘pluripotency’ of stem cells,” Earth Times, 6/15/06; “A way around dilemmas of stem cells,” San Francisco Chronicle, 6/15/06)
SKIN STEM CELLS: A new study shows that stem cells found in adult skin can function after being transplanted into diseased mice. This could potentially mean a treatment for patients with spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease or MS. These stem cells can produce nervous system cell types called Schwann cells which in turn make insulation, or myelin, and allow nerve cells to function efficiently.
(Reading: “Skin stem cells aid nerve cells,” Toronto Sun, 6/14/06)
stem cell research / unethical
WISCONSIN: Pro-Life Wisconsin reports that Gov. Jim Doyle is supporting human embryonic stem cell research and is using families whose children suffer from juvenile diabetes to make his argument for him.
(Reading: “Gov. Doyle using diabetic children to push embryonic stem cell research,” Pro-life Wisconsin Monday Update, 6/19/06)
vaccines
HUMAN PAPILLOMA VIRUS: Father Tom Euteneuer of Human Life International has written an excellent column on the HPV vaccine.
(Reading: “HPV vaccine: Another deception of the Culture of Death,” Spirit and Life, 6/16/06)
zinger
HYPOCRITES: An Ohio abortion ban bill, HB 228, has caused some Republicans to reveal their true convictions regarding ending the direct killing of preborn babies, which is this bill’s purpose. State Rep. Bob Gibbs said, “I’m pro-life, but I’m not Draconian either.” He said the bill “goes too far, too quick.” Another representative, John Hagan, said, “It was too stringent. It was a pretty harsh approach to the issue.” And State Rep. Bill Seitz said regarding the idea that the bill could be used to overturn Roe v. Wade, “I don’t feel in good conscience that justifies passing an unconstitutional bill. It’s tough, because absolutists don’t necessarily understand that.” He went on to say that passing the bill would be “buying a lawsuit.”
COMMENT: Those elected officials who will do anything to avoid really ending abortion cannot be considered pro-life.
(Reading: “Abortion bill exposes divisions in Ohio GOP,” Akron Beacon Journal, 6/17/06)
reflection for prayer
YES OR NO: Would it be reading too much into the words of Our Lord – to simply say “yes” if we mean yes, and “no” if we mean no – to apply them to the origins and intentions of lying in our lives? Jesus affirms that anything obscuring what we ought to say, or anything meant to mislead, cover up or falsify by false emphasis, “comes from the Evil One.” He shows us that insincerity is how political and economic life become and remain alienated from truth, become destructive of the kingdom of God, of the kingdom of him who was, and remains, “a sign that is spoken against” (Luke 2:34).
(Reading: “Yes or no,” Regnum Christi, 6/17/06)