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Communique – Mar. 7, 2003


in this issue:

hot button issues: BATTIN’ 1000 / GUARDIAN OF TRUTH / JFK LEGACY / NEW YORK
activism: PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY
catholic education: SURVEY
ewtn: RACHEL’S VINEYARD
legislation: ONE-STOP SHOPPING
planned parenthood: ALASKA / CONGRESS / WISCONSIN
political correctness: OOPS
rhetoric: HATE SPEECH?

reflection for prayer: 1 CORINTHIANS 3:18-19

hot button issues

BATTIN’ 1000: American Life League has launched a campaign designed to build support for its Campus for Life project. More than 80 present and former big-league baseball players have endorsed the effort. After the campaign was launched in Phoenix, a newspaper columnist responded with a negative commentary and the local Planned Parenthood affiliate started planning grassroots opposition.

(Reading: “Battin’ 1000 — Building America’s Campus for Life,” American Life League, 2/21/03; “Abortion politics played at ballpark,” Arizona Republic, 2/25/03; “Pro-choice message to Jerry Colangelo,” Planned Parenthood action alert, 2/25/03)

GUARDIAN OF TRUTH: Fr. Gerald Baker of Hopkinsville, Ky., is American Life League’s most recent award recipient. When State Rep. John Adams insisted that people support legal abortion, Fr. Baker took him to task — from the pulpit, and in a full-page ad in the local newspaper, and is imploring citizens to vote Adams out of office.

(Reading: “Fr. Gerald Baker presented with Guardian of Truth Award,” American Life League news release, 3/6/03)

JFK LEGACY: The latest ad in American Life League’s Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church offers a point to ponder during Lent — the idea that President Kennedy’s decision to separate his Catholic faith from his political life was a turning point in the ongoing culture war. The ad quotes Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, said of Kennedy’s decision, “All Americans, not just Catholics, have been paying for that mistake for 40 years.”

(Reading: “The lasting legacy of John F. Kennedy,” American Life League, 3/5/03)

NEW YORK: Eliot Spitzer, the pro-abortion state attorney general invited to address the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s annual dinner, withdrew from the program following criticism from American Life League. Cardinal Edward Egan was also invited to attend the March 16 event.

(Reading: “Pro-choice Spitzer bows out of St. Pat’s bash,” New York Post, 3/1/03)

activism

PRO-LIFE T-SHIRT DAY: Just a reminder that all pro-life students are asked to wear a pro-life message to school on April 28.

(Reading: “National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day,” American Life League)

catholic education

SURVEY: A feature in Catholic World Report notes that college seniors are more likely to be pro-abortion than freshmen — at both Catholic and non-sectarian universities. At Catholic schools, 37.9% of freshmen said abortion should be legal, while 51.7% of seniors thought abortion should be legal.

COMMENT: Why would any Catholic student at any level of college say abortion should be legal?

(Reading: “Catholics adopt more liberal attitudes during college,” New York Times, 3/5/03)

ewtn

RACHEL’S VINEYARD: Theresa Burke, Ph.D., director of ALL’s Rachel’s Vineyard (http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/), will appear twice on EWTN’s “Defending Life” program to discuss post-abortion healing. The first program airs Friday, March 7, at 10 p.m. EST. The second program airs Tuesday, March 11, at 5:30 p.m. EST; Wednesday, March 12, at 5 a.m. EST; and Friday, March 14, at 10 p.m. EST.

legislation

ONE-STOP SHOPPING: Washington state legislators are pondering an “omnibus bill” that would outlaw human cloning, ban fetal tissue transactions and use, attack partial birth abortion, require parental consent and 24-hour waiting periods for abortion, and more. A Planned Parenthood spokesman shrugged it off as “political posturing.”

(Reading: “Abortion foes propose sweeping legislation,” The [Spokane] Spokesman-Review, 2/28/03)

planned parenthood

ALASKA: Abortion returned to Fairbanks for the first time since the area’s only abortionist retired in 1999. Pro-life demonstrators have been picketing the new Planned Parenthood site daily since mid-February. They vow to continue until the center closes.

(Reading: “Clinic opens despite protests,” Fairbanks News-Miner, 3/4/03)

CONGRESS: In response to the latest legislative effort to regulate partial-birth infanticide, Planned Parenthood’s Gloria Feldt complains that the bill “would outlaw some of the safest and most common abortion procedures.” She goes on to accuse sponsors of “attacking women’s civil rights by blocking access to abortion services.”

(Reading: “House threatens to ban abortion procedures,” Planned Parenthood news release, 2/13/03)

WISCONSIN: Planned Parenthood cites the importance of donations in building a new $1.8 million office in Madison. The project was launched after a local abortionist lost his lease. It is reported that the University of Wisconsin wants to enter a partnership with Planned Parenthood for training new doctors how to perform abortions.

(Reading: “New Planned Parenthood center to be built,” The [Madison, Wis.] Badger Herald, 3/4/03)

political correctness

OOPS: While “safe sex” devotees have been clamoring to distribute condoms in Africa, it appears the spread of AIDS throughout the continent may be related to bad medicine rather than bad morals. The real culprit? According to researchers, “A growing body of evidence points to unsafe injections and other medical exposures to contaminated blood.” The findings were flatly rejected by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. IPPF quoted a World Health Organization spokesman who proclaimed that “unsafe sex is still the leading cause of HIV infection.”

(Reading: “Unsafe healthcare drives spread of African HIV,” International Journal of STD and AIDS news release, 2/20/03; “Did unsafe medical care spread HIV?” International Planned Parenthood news release, 2/26/03)

rhetoric

HATE SPEECH? A student group at Ryerson University in Toronto is under fire for distributing a pro-life pamphlet on campus. According to a formal complaint, “Materials distributed perpetuate problematic myths and hate towards women who chose to determine their own choices about their own bodies.” The pamphlet quoted Mother Teresa.

(Reading: “Ryerson University pro-life student group denied official status,” LifeSite News, 2/28/03; “Pro-life pamphlets cause outrage on campus,” The Eyeopener, 1/29/03)

reflection for prayer

1 CORINTHIANS 3:18-19: Make no mistake about it: if any one of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.