Pro-life

At an interfaith press conference held just steps from the White House today, Catholic Relief Services (CR’S) issued a statement calling on President Bush to ensure full funding for the fight against global poverty and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Organized by Bread for the World, the conference brought together prominent Christian leaders, as well as Irish rock singer Bono, to advocate on behalf of the millions of poor around the world who would benefit from the Global AIDS Initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and ongoing U.S. development and humanitarian assistance programs.

�People�s lives depend on presidential action now,� said Bill O�Keefe, Sr. Director of Policy and Advocacy for CRS.
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This news release put out by Catholic Relief Services makes it look like President Bush is purposely stopping the funding in some uncaring fashion. No mention is made of the fact that the funding would have directly been used for contraception and abortion and that and that alone is the reason for withholding the funding.

Organization associated with this funding complain about the fact that they can not separate abortion and family planning (contraceptive) services from the treatment of those who suffer with HIV/AIDS. They call this an integrated approach, more buzzwords of death. CRS should be lambasting these organizations instead of blaming Bush for the problem and working to ensure that truly Catholic Relief services are available.

FIVE women in Scotland are pregnant after buying sperm over the internet, it was revealed last night.

They paid more than �800 each to mannotincluded.com.

Glasgow-based courier firm Citysprint delivered the DIY baby kits to their door within an hour of the order being placed.

Four of the customers are lesbians and the first baby is expected in March.

But the revelation has outraged church leaders.

Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: “This service demeans the miracle of conception to the level of a fastfood takeaway.’
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e-mail is replacing the male. Internet vice intercourse. Oh what a tangled world wide web we weave, when first we order to conceive.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (AP) — Jerry Childress says his 26-year-old son’s pulse and blood pressure jump on hospital monitors from the sound of a familiar voice or the roar of a NASCAR race on television.

Jason Childress simply needs time to heal from massive brain damage that left him in a vegetative state, his father believes.

Childress’ mother, sister and fiancee disagree and are seeking to have him taken off life support.

“There’s nothing I would want more than for him to open his eyes,” Amy Little said of her brother. “But he used to work in a nursing home, and he said he wouldn’t want to live that way.”

The decision on Childress’ future will eventually be made by a court-appointed guardian because his divorced parents can’t agree. It’s an unusual solution, and experts say they don’t know of a case in which the disagreement between parents ran so deep that the ultimate decision rested with a guardian appointed by a court.
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Fr. Todd has an excellent homily for today.

A moving story of a Catholic Couple who adopted a child who lived but six weeks.

The first legal abortion in Erie County in more than 20 years could be performed as early as two weeks from today.

..McGarvey also said the clinic received the state’s OK without having what’s known as a transfer agreement. Transfer agreements are signed statements between an abortion clinic and a hospital capable of providing emergency services “within 30 minutes notice,” McGarvey said.

If a woman develops complications during an abortion at Brigham’s clinic, McGarvey said, “there are ample number of hospitals within 30 miles that would, by law, have to provide emergency treatment. It’s just like someone walking in with a gunshot wound. … You can’t turn them away.

“The close proximity of hospitals to the clinic was a factor in providing the exemption,” McGarvey said.
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It is interesting that those who spout the mantra “Safe abortions” admit that they need hospitals within a reasonable distance to treat those who develop complications during abortion procedures. I wonder if they consider the death of the mother under some circumstances to be a “complication.” The state with their law about transfer agreements also acknowledges that abortions are not safe.

To its critics, Project Prevention or Crack – an American organisation which pays drug addicts and alcoholics to be sterilised – is a terrifying throwback to the neutering of “defectives” during the 20th Century.

But the woman who runs this not-for-profit programme believes she is offering a service to everyone: the drug addict, the taxpayer, the child who has not yet been born, and if she has her way – will never be born.

The project targets poor women – and you tell me what sort of choice it is when it’s made by someone living in poverty and desperate for money

As the programme reaches its fifth anniversary, Barbara Harris also believes she has cause to celebrate.

Some 1,050 addicts – mainly women – have undergone sterilisation as part of her programme over the past five years.
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Ah the beauty of this idea, no need to help with their addiction, but with surgery they will be able to more freely to prostitute themselves to get more drugs. Margaret Sanger would be so proud that these defectives are unable to reproduce and spread their obviously inferior genetics. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then she has completed an interstate or two.

For the second year in a row, Pennsylvania’s abortion rate has risen slightly, surprising activists on both sides of the bitter abortion debate.

…Still, Pennsylvania’s uptick in 2001, the latest year for which data are available, went against the tide. National abortion rates have crept down, and Pennsylvania’s pregnancy and birth rates have declined for more than a decade.

..Linda Hahn, president of Planned Parenthood of Bucks County, said, “It’s my great hope that this is a fluke and that the numbers go down.”

Isn’t that statement a little bit like McDonald’s decrying an increase in hamburger sales?

…One thing that may have played a role in the 2000 numbers was the opening of the first abortion clinic in Bucks County. The number of abortions in that county jumped from 60 in 1999 to 685 in 2000 – almost all because of the Warminster clinic, operated by Planned Parenthood. (Since then, Hahn said, the clinic’s annual abortion total has been in the 800s.)

Statewide, however, the list of registered abortion facilities shrank by four between 1999 and 2001, when there were 110 providers – 17 clinics, 14 physicians’ offices, and 79 hospitals. (The number of clinics was stable.)

Despite this picture, Vitale speculated that the higher abortion rates are because “the abortion industry is targeting Pennsylvania.”

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If this is a true correlation is just goes to show Banned Parenthood’s massive hypocrisy in bemoaning increased abortions.

Tampa, Florida-AP — Florida Governor Jeb Bush has stepped into the fray over keeping a brain-damaged woman alive.

Bush has asked a circuit judge to delay setting a date to remove Terry Shiavo’s (SHY’-vohz) feeding tube. Bush wants time for the court to appoint a guardian, who he says could give an unbiased view of Schiavo’s best interests.

Bush said his office has received thousands of e-mails, asking him to intervene.
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It is nice to live in a state with a real pro-life governor. Now it is your turn Florida Catholic Conference.

Update: Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg has a statement on-line.
[Via Ut Unum Sint]

Update: Florida Judge Rejects Governor’s Bid to Help Terri Schiavo

(CNSNews.com) – The plaintiff in one of the two famed Supreme Court cases that when combined, legalized abortion during all nine months of pregnancy, announced Monday she was filing a motion to try to have the historic verdict overturned.

Sandra Cano, who was identified only as “Mary Doe” in the 1973 Doe v. Bolton case, is now a pro-life activist, as is Norma McCorvey, the woman referred to as “Jane Roe” in the more famous Roe v. Wade ruling from the same year.

The Doe v. Bolton ruling broadened the health exception for late term abortions, allowing women virtually unfettered access to abortion. The more famous Roe v. Wade verdict, as the companion to Doe v. Bolton, established a legal right to privacy for women seeking abortions during the first two trimesters.

McCorvey has also attempted to have her case overturned, but in June, U.S. District Court Judge David Godby from Texas denied the motion two days after it was filed, ruling that it was not made within a “reasonable time.” Godby’s decision is now under appeal with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Monday, Cano used the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta as the backdrop for her announcement. If Cano’s motion was granted and the Supreme Court eventually reversed its 1973 ruling, states would be able to outlaw abortion once again.

Cano claims her 1973 case was based on lies and deception.

“The truth is that I did not seek or want an abortion. I was young, uninformed and in a difficult situation,” Cano said in an affidavit filed with the motion. “Not once in the process was I given an opportunity to speak, and no judge or attorney in court asked me how I felt about abortion.”
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