Dear Readers,
The UN is becoming more militantly opposed to the inherent right to life of every human being, born or unborn. It is also a growing danger to the sovereignty of nations and a danger to religion, especially authentic belief in Christianity.
Of course not all persons and agencies in the UN are a party to this corruption. Still, the reality is that the UN's deepening ideological rot must be faced and resisted, including in our schools and universities, where uncritical promotion of the UN and its agencies is the rule. LifeSiteNews has been warning about this for years.
Notre Dame is revealing the depth of its intolerance of even the mildest freedom of on campus expression against its invitation to Barack Obama. The continuing effort to convict the peaceful protesters of Obama's visit exhibits a disturbing ruthlessness, especially considering the large number of bishops who also strongly and very publicly opposed the invitation and award to the "Abortion President." Notre Dame is not a Catholic University. That should be made official.
We present two commentaries and one article today on the hits against the pro-life movement because of the Tiller murder. The commentaries are must reads. There have been numerous excellent responses in recent days emphasizing that we should not only avoid weakening our outspokenness against abortion, but should instead proclaim the hard truths about abortion with even greater courage. Yes, you read that right.
Fr. Corapi puts the whole abortion issue in a perspective that heightens the complicity of Notre Dame and others in the demise of America and the unavoidable responsibility of pro-life citizens to act to save not only the unborn, but the nation itself. There is no longer any possibility of security in avoiding personal responsibility to be outspoken and active against abortion and its related evils. Grassroots people and especially business, religious, political, academic and other leaders - you snooze, we all lose - everything that is worth anything. The restoration of a culture of life must finally take FIRST priority.
Adult stem cells prove their amazing worth again, but Barack Obama has given the green light to unethical embryonic stem cell research that has produced nothing but tons of money from taxpayers for exorbitant, useless, unethical research programs.
LifeSiteNews is not for the faint-hearted, but it is for those with a brave heart for the truth and for the threatened lives of the most innocent and vulnerable. We do not remotely care about political correctness or safe, popular causes or worldly respect. You can get all that ad nausea from most of the mainstream media. From LifeSiteNews you get what is, not what others want you to think.
Please keep us in mind. It takes a lot of work and resources to produce LifeSiteNews each day. Your generous financial support is much needed.
Steve Jalsevac
Co-founder and Managing Director
LifeSiteNews.com - Thursday June 4, 2009
* UN Report Says Pro-Life Laws Constitute Violence against Women
* Notre Dame Not Seeking Leniency for Arrested Pro-Life Protesters: Thomas More Lawyers Now on the Case
* Genocide Awareness Display Vindicated in Highest Slovak Court after Police Disruption
* Pro-Life Leader Responds to National Post Article Blaming Pro-Life Movement for Tiller Murder
* Fight Erupts Over Backroom Dealing and "Mind Game" in New York Same-Sex "Marriage" Bill
* Family Breakdown in Canada Costs $7 Billion Annually: New Research
* Anti-Catholic San Fran City Resolution OK: 9th Circuit Court Panel
* Adult Stem Cells Found to Cure Blindness – Three Patients Cured
* Spanish Feminists Seek to Lower Age of Consent for Abortions to 13 Years
* One-Child Policy Would Make Australia Unsustainable says Australian Pro-Life Advocate
* Prominent Homosexual Activist James Kirchick Defends Pro-Life Movement in WSJ over Tiller Murder
* EU Equality Proposal Discriminates against Religious Believers: Romanian Pro-Family Group
* Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus Endow Professorship of Gender and Sexuality to the Tune of $1.5 Million
* Fr. Pavone Emphasizes Biggest Danger From the Killing of George Tiller
* Father Corapi on the "Flash Point" in Western Society
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UN Report Says Pro-Life Laws Constitute Violence against Women
By Alex Bush
GENEVA, Switzerland, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new UN report, titled "15 years of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences (1994-2009) - A critical review," states that "criminal sanctions against all forms of abortions and contraception" imposed by the state constitute an act of violence against women.
"Such state policies and measures infringe upon women's liberty, security, and life," the report says.
The report continues on to argue that if a state does not readily provide contraception or "family planning services" to women then it is committing an indirect act of violence against women because they are not recognizing, nor enabling, "women's sexual autonomy."
The U.K.'s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) responded to the report, calling it an "extreme pro-abortion anti-family report."
Pat Buckley of SPUC told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), to whom the report was given, that "Irrespective of what the report says, there is not and never can be a human right to abortion."
"The idea of trying to create a right to terminate the life of the most vulnerable human beings, by tearing them from their mothers' wombs, is in fact the very essence of violence against women and their babies."
SPUC's is urging "government representatives to study the report carefully, as it appears to contain many unacceptable and disturbing claims against the value of human life, the status of the family and the dignity of women."
The report has yet to be approved by the UNHRC, which is meeting until June 19th, when it will decide whether or not to adopt the report.
Related LifeSiteNews.com Coverage:
Abortion-Pushing UN Committee Must be Held Accountable
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/041110a.html
United Nations Tells Morocco to Decriminalize Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04111002.html
Notre Dame Not Seeking Leniency for Arrested Pro-Life Protesters: Thomas More Lawyers Now on the Case
By Kathleen Gilbert
SOUTH BEND, Indiana, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Thomas More Society attorneys appeared in St. Joseph County Criminal Court to defend two prominent pro-life advocates against trespass charges brought this morning by local prosecutors in the wake of protests at the University of Notre Dame. The attorneys join the fight with pro-life attorney Tom Dickson, who is representing dozens more pro-lifers arrested at the campus.
Laura Rohling and Jane Brennan went onto the Notre Dame campus to educate students about the after-effects of abortion, based on their own personal experiences with abortion. Ms. Brennan, author of "Motherhood Interrupted," is a frequent guest on Catholic TV and radio. She serves as regional coordinator in Colorado of "Silent No More," a group which brings public attention to the plight of women who have experienced emotional and psychological trauma following abortion. Ms. Rohling serves as assistant regional coordinator of that group.
Brennan and Rohling, like dozens of other pro-life advocates who travelled across the country to protest President Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame, were arrested for criminal trespass upon entering campus.
Witnesses say that only individuals who bore a pro-life display of protest - including a large cross, photographs of aborted children, and images of Mary - were arrested, while other passersby and pro-Obama demonstrators were allowed to roam free.
While South Bend prosecutor Michael Dvorak is pursuing charges against the pro-lifers, defense attorneys say they are concerned that the University has not sought leniency for the protesters.
"The Thomas More Society is urging the University to request that these trespass charges be dropped," said Tom Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Society. "Such a magnanimous gesture will go far toward healing the divisions that have arisen between Notre Dame and the pro-life movement, in light of recent events."
The Society has assembled an all-"Fighting Irish" team, including President and Chief Counsel Thomas Brejcha, Notre Dame class of '65, Executive Director Peter Breen, Notre Dame Law class of '00, and South Bend attorney David Wemhoff, Notre Dame class of '79, in defense of Ms. Rohling and Ms. Brennan.
"What's vitally needed is dialogue about pro-life issues of abortion, stem-cell research, euthanasia, marriage, as well as about capital punishment and peace issues rather than confrontation in South Bend's criminal court," Brejcha continued. "The pro-life movement is the next stage of America's civil rights movement, and Notre Dame is not Birmingham."
The Thomas More Society has a history of partnership with the University of Notre Dame. The late Fr. Ned Joyce, former Executive Vice President of the University, was a regular financial supporter of the Society. Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, former President of the University, wrote fundraising letters in support of the Thomas More Society's successful defense of peaceable, non-violent abortion protests in the landmark United States Supreme Court case, NOW v. Scheidler.
To contact University of Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins:
Office of the President
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN
46556
Phone: 574.631.3903
Email: president@nd.edu
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Pro-Life Protesters Arrested on ND Campus to Return to South Bend to Face Charges http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052902.html
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comGenocide Awareness Display Vindicated in Highest Slovak Court after Police Disruption
KOSICE, Slovak Republic, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The highest court of the Slovak Republic ruled in favor of a pro-life group Tuesday in its lawsuit against police. Attorney Dr. Alan Bohm together with Alliance Defense Fund attorneys represented the Centre for Bio-ethical Reform Europe, which filed suit after police disrupted a peaceful pro-life rally that was held in full compliance with domestic law. The court ruled that police violated the pro-life group's constitutional right to free speech.
"Pro-life advocates should not be discriminated against and silenced for expressing their beliefs and making people aware of the truth," said Europe-based ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, co-counsel in the case. "The court agreed that the display at the rally was completely legal and couldn't be considered scandalous, since it condemns violence rather than advocates it."
CBR Europe held its "Stop Genocide" rally to inform people about the atrocities of genocide, including abortion. They used a series of large, mobile billboards which juxtaposed images of abortion with those of other widely recognized forms of genocide. Slovak police, however, asserted that the images of aborted babies were too graphic to be shown in public and threatened to confiscate them.
The judges observed at a hearing Tuesday that CBR Europe's display does not advocate violence or any breach of human rights. They concluded that because the display clearly condemns all forms of violence, it cannot be considered scandalizing. The court determined police violated the free speech rights of the group's members and awarded monetary damages as well as reimbursement of attorneys' fees.
"Had this decision gone the wrong way, its effects could have gone far beyond the Slovak Republic," Kiska explained. "Activist judges in other countries - including the U.S. - look for selected decisions to import into their own rulings in an attempt to bolster their conclusions with global support. They won't find anything this time."
A published decision in the lawsuit, Centre for Bio-ethical Reform Europe v. Slovak Republic, is expected in about a month. The suit was filed with the Constitutional Court on April 30.
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comPro-Life Leader Responds to National Post Article Blaming Pro-Life Movement for Tiller Murder
By Stephanie Gray, Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform
June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Editor's Note: On June 2, Colby Cosh of the National Post published this article, in which Cosh blamed the pro-life movement for the murder of Kansas late-term abortionist George tiller. What follows is the response of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, the Canadian affiliate of the organization that was specifically named by Mr. Cosh in his piece, "Who's to blame for George Tiller's Murder."
Colby Cosh is completely wrong when he says, "If you believe that abortion is tantamount to murder... then you should be willing to stand up and celebrate the murder of Dr. George Tiller."
Perhaps those who support violence (through abortion) in the face of difficult life circumstances don't comprehend when other people don't resort to violence in the face of difficult life circumstances (a society where abortion is legal). But nonetheless, that's our point. Take a message from the pro-life textbook, Mr. Cosh: killing people isn't the way to deal with problems. It's the reason why we are more than just "anti-abortion."
Furthermore, abortionists could be offering their "services" on every street corner, but whether they kill unborn human beings is dependent on one person: the woman. While not overlooking the fact that some women are pressured to abort, or are not fully informed, nonetheless, the abortionist will do nothing without a woman laying her body down to be vilely entered in order to dismember, decapitate, and disembowel her child's body. As a result of this fact, analogies about intervening in other acts of violence break down.
A toddler may be taken away from a mother who may drown that child in the bathtub, but the unborn cannot be separated from their mothers. And so one must intervene by appealing to the heart and mind of the woman and those in society who influence her: educating about who the baby is, showing what abortion will do to the baby, informing her what abortion will do to her, and offering her loving support throughout the pregnancy and after birth.
With Cosh's rhetoric, I am reminded of the clergymen who were critical of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s controversial approach. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King responded by saying, "In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? ...We must come to see that ... it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber."
But since Mr. Cosh doesn't seem to support that philosophy, I wonder if he's willing to take responsibility for the consequence of his comments. Given that he's named Jim Hughes and my organization's parent affiliate, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), and implied that we were at least in part responsible for violence against Tiller, will he take responsibility for his rhetoric if advocates of legal abortion take it upon themselves and direct violence towards us?
Click here to hear an interview with Stephanie Gray, Executive Director, CCBR on World Tonight June 3, 2009 in regard to the Tiller murder.
Fight Erupts Over Backroom Dealing and "Mind Game" in New York Same-Sex "Marriage" Bill
By Peter J. Smith
ALBANY, New York, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With less than three weeks to go before the end of New York's legislative session, a fight is brewing over what one senator has called a "mind game" being played over the same-sex "marriage" bill by its chief proponent. Backroom deals over the contentious bill, however, have still not gained a solid majority in the state Senate to pass the measure.
The political maneuverings of the bill's chief sponsor, homosexual state senator Tom Duane (D-Manhattan), has angered the Senate's foremost opponent of same-sex "marriage," Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx), who yesterday stated he found Duane's attempts to manipulate his fellow senators into forming a majority on the issue a "disgrace."
Duane has stated publicly that he has the majority of the Senate's 62 votes to pass, a claim made highly dubious by Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith's continued reluctance to bring the bill to a vote.
"It is a disgrace that Senator Duane is playing this mind game with his colleagues and with the public," stated Senator Diaz. "If Senator Duane has the votes, he should release the names. If not, then he should be ashamed of himself. "
A recent NY1 survey tallies only twenty committed "yes" votes – all Democrats, and only two of them upstate representatives. On the other hand, 22 Republicans and 6 Democrats have stated they will vote "no." In a senate not famous for bipartisan cooperation, and narrowly split 32-30, Democrats to Republicans, the loss of six Democrats puts the passage of the bill into doubt.
Ten Senators – an even split of Democrats and Republicans – told NY1 they were still undecided. However, four senators refused to state their position at all, one of whom said it was the kind of answer the new Democratic leadership deserved for its treatment of the Republican minority.
"Since we haven't been receiving the kind of help that I think that we should be afforded as members of the Senate from this new majority, I'm not in any way shape or form wanting to make it easy for him to decide whether he's gonna bring that bill to the floor or not," GOP Sen. Jim Alesi from the Rochester area told NY1.
However Diaz challenged those senators who are staying mum on their commitment to vote for the same-sex "marriage" bill, saying they "should be man or woman enough to take a stand and stand by his or her convictions."
"If any Senators are unwilling to release their names prior to voting for the homosexual marriage bill," stated Diaz, "they are sending a clear message to the gay community, and to the whole State of New York, that these Senators are unwilling to let the public know, and that they are ashamed to be publicly associated with the gay community."
According to a Siena Research Institute poll of 622 respondents conducted May 18 – 21, support for same-sex "marriage" has slipped, showing New Yorkers are now evenly divided 46 – 46 percent on the matter. The poll also indicates a greater majority of New Yorkers – and sizable constituencies of both parties – would be upset if the Senate passed the measure: 39 percent said they would be "very upset" and an additional 37 percent said they would be "somewhat upset."
The same-sex "marriage" bill was approved May 12 in the Democratic controlled state Assembly by an 89 – 52 margin. Gov. David Paterson, one of the main forces behind the bill, (see coverage) says he will sign it once the Senate has given its approval. The Senate has until the end of the legislative session, June 22, to vote on the measure.
The NY 1 survey of New York State Senators position on the same-sex "marriage" bill can be found here.
To view the results of the Siena Research Institute poll, click here.
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
NY Governor to Introduce Homosexual "Marriage" Bill
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Family Breakdown in Canada Costs $7 Billion Annually: New Research
June 3, 2009 (Ottawa) - The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada released new research yesterday on the cost of family breakdown in Canada at a briefing on Parliament Hill. "Private choices, public costs: How failing families cost us all" examines the relationship between poverty, families and government.
The authors, Rebecca Walberg and Andrea Mrozek, quantify government spending directed at poverty alleviation for broken families through welfare, child care costs and housing. They find that cost to be close to $7 billion annually. If family breakdown decreased by half, a conservative estimate of savings is close to $2 billion annually.
The report can be read in full, here.
The in-depth, quantitative assessment examines the links between broken homes and poverty alleviation measures. Consistently, not only in Canada but in all OECD nations — lone parent households are more likely to live in poverty. "Certainly the main concern around family breakdown is the emotional toll," say the authors. "But the fiscal costs are evident, and those can be more readily measured."
The report highlights the costs province by province, discussing why and how stable marriages contribute to a stronger economy. "If we are serious about reducing poverty," say the authors, "especially children and women in poverty, we must address the effects of family breakdown."
"This calls all of us to reconsider the value currently placed on family today, without pointing fingers. We may believe that family structure doesn't matter; but the data show the best thing you can do for your kids is raise them in a stable, married-parent home."
Some of the data in the report highlight the higher proportion of lone-parent families living below the Low Income Cut-off (LICO) and the higher proportion of lone-parent families with children on welfare. The data is troubling, say the authors, given that Canadian statistics show the percentage of married parents is falling, while the percent of lone parents and those living common law is rising. In 1961, 92 percent of families were married; 2006 census data indicates that has fallen to 69 percent.
International research, particularly from the United Kingdom, points to family breakdown as one of the pathways to poverty.
Walberg and Mrozek say that they undertook the study in the belief that providing Canadians with the facts about single parenthood, divorce, growing up without two parents, and the emotional and financial hardships that accompany family breakdown in general will help them understand the likely consequences of the different choices available to them in their own lives. Long term solutions to limit the consequences of poverty, they suggest, must involve encouraging stable, two-parent homes for children, primarily because this benefits the children but also because marriage acts as a public good.
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comAnti-Catholic San Fran City Resolution OK: 9th Circuit Court Panel
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A San Francisco City Board's resolution condemning the Catholic Church because of its moral teachings on homosexuality does not violate the Constitution's prohibition of government hostility toward religion, says a panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. (See the ruling here)
The anti-Catholic resolution, adopted March 21, 2006, was challenged by the Thomas More Law Center, a national Christian legal advocacy group based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on behalf of the Catholic League and two Catholic residents of San Francisco.
The city board's resolution was issued in response to a directive from Cardinal William Levada, in which he instructed Catholic Charities of San Francisco to follow Church teaching and not begin adopting children to homosexuals. The resolution refers to the Vatican as a "foreign country" meddling in the affairs of the city and proclaims the Church's moral teaching and beliefs on homosexuality as "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "insulting and callous," "defamatory," "absolutely unacceptable," and says that Church teaching shows "insensitivity and ignorance."
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center remarked, "The policy of San Francisco is one of totalitarian intolerance of Christians of all denominations who oppose homosexual conduct. My concern is that if this ruling is allowed to stand, it will further embolden anti-Christian attacks."
The Thomas More Law Center will seek review by the full court and said that, if necessary, the case will be brought to the United States Supreme Court.
The Law Center's lawsuit claimed that the City's anti-Catholic resolution violated the First Amendment, which "forbids an official purpose to disapprove of a particular religion, religious beliefs, or of religion in general."
Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney who argued the case, stated, "Our constitution plainly forbids hostility toward any religion, including the Catholic faith. In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco have abused their authority as government officials and misused the instruments of the government to attack the Catholic Church.
"Their egregious abuse of power now has the backing of a federal circuit court. This decision must be reversed. Unfortunately, all too often we see a double standard being applied in Establishment Clause cases."
According to Catholic doctrine, allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would actually mean doing violence to these children. The Church teaches that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.
The Law Center argued that the "anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message to Plaintiffs and others who are faithful adherents to the Catholic faith that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, favored members of the political community."
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comAdult Stem Cells Found to Cure Blindness – Three Patients Cured
Researchers hopeful the procedure could be applied to other organs
By Patrick Craine
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Medical researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have used simple contact lenses cultured with stem cells from a patient's own eye to return sight to sufferers of corneal disease.
The researchers worked with three patients who were each blind in one eye. The procedure involved scraping less than a millimeter of tissue from the sides of the cornea of each patient's good eye, culturing the contact lens with the stem cells in that tissue for ten days, and then having the patient wear the contact. Within two weeks the stem cells had begun attaching themselves to the patients' corneas and replenishing the damaged cells.
Within that short a span, the reported results were remarkable. Two of the patients were legally blind before the procedure, but can now read the big letters on the top of the eye chart. The other patient could read the top few rows of an eye chart, but can now pass the vision test for a driver's license.
After eighteen months, the improvement in the patients' vision has remained. "We're quietly excited," said team leader Nick Di Girolamo, as reported in The Australian. "We don't know yet if [the correction] will remain stable, but if it does it's a wonderful technique."
"The procedure is totally simple and cheap," says Dr. Di Girolamo on the UNSW website. "Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient's own serum, and is completely non-invasive."
Dr. Stephanie Watson, who conducted the procedure, commented further. "The operation is relatively non-invasive. The patient merely comes into the hospital for a couple of hours to have their eye prepared and the lens put in place, and then they're able to go home," she said.
Dr. Di Girolamo is hopeful that this procedure could be used to repair other parts of the eye, or even other organs. "We're very excited about this technique because we think it might be applicable to other major organs of the human body such as the skin, because after all, the skin behaves in a very similar manner to the cornea," says Dr. Di Girolamo in a video put out on UNSW TV.
This research is another example of the remarkable success of adult stem cells, which have yielded a host of treatments for numerous diseases. Embryonic stem cell research, on the other hand, which tends to grab most of the headlines due to controversy over its ethicality, has yet to produce a viable treatment for a single condition.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Success Stories with Adult Stem Cells Coming in Almost Too Fast to Track
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05012007.html
LifeSiteNews.com's Stem Cell Feature
http://www.lifesitenews.com/features/stemcellembryo/index.html
Spanish Feminists Seek to Lower Age of Consent for Abortions to 13 Years
Deliver petition with 12,000 signatures to Spanish government
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
MADRID, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Governmental Coordinator of Feminist Organizations has gathered 12,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the Spanish government depenalize unlimited abortion on demand, provide abortions in public hospitals, and lower the age of consent for abortion to 13 years.
"We want the text [of the law] of the government not to be so restrictive, so that we truly have one of the most advanced norms in Europe like the socialist parliamentarians say," said Yoland Iglesias, a spokesman for the group.
The socialist government is proposing a new law that will depenalize abortion on demand during the first 14 weeks, but will leave criminal penalties in place for abortions after the 14th week that do not fall under an exception (such as rape or fetal deformity).
The feminists' demands clash starkly with the wishes of a majority of Spaniards, who are opposed even to the socialist government's proposal to lower the age of consent to 16, let alone 13, according to a recent poll.
Another poll, taken two weeks earlier indicated that a plurality of Spanish women are also opposed to removing existing criminal penalties for abortion.
Although all abortion is technically illegal in Spain, there is currently no criminal penalty for abortions carried out under certain conditions, including a threat to the life or health of the mother, fetal deformity, and rape.
Because abortion remains illegal in Spain, it is not carried out in public hospitals.
In contrast to the pro-abortion feminists, a group of pro-life women are gathering signatures for their own "Manifesto of Women Against Abortion."
"Abortion is ethically and legally unacceptable, not only because it annihilates a defenseless human being, but because it involves violence inflicted on the dignity of the woman," the Manifesto states. "With this manifesto we expressly renounce the supposed 'right to abortion' that others endeavor to achieve for us."
Related Links:
Manifiesto de la Coordinadora Estatal de Organizaciones Feministas (Manifesto of the State Coordinator of Feminist Organizations)
http://www.deigualaigual.net/es/opinion/lilith/2848-manifiestoporabortolibre-corriente-alterna
Manifiesto de Mujeres contra el aborto (Manifesto of Women Against Abortion)
http://www.mujerescontraelaborto.com/?p=3
One-Child Policy Would Make Australia Unsustainable says Australian Pro-Life Advocate
Policy calls for tax penalty for more than two children because of concerns about global warming caused by to many children
By Hilary White
June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In April, a leading population control group in Australia issued a call for the government to institute a one-child policy in order to drastically reduce the population from its current 21.3 million to 7 million. But a sustainable Australia, said Anthony Ozimic, an Australian and the political secretary of Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), must be based on the understanding that people are the country's most valuable primary resource.
Australia's biggest problem, Ozimic said, is too few people to take advantage of its abundant natural resources. In a letter to John Smeaton, head of SPUC, Ozimic said his family came to Australia from Europe to help build the country's oil and gas infrastructure.
"Australia," he said, "has always been a country of pioneers, whether it be explorers of Australia's vast habitable areas or scientists finding better ways to supply food, water and energy."
"A radical cut in Australia's population would mean cutting Australia's best natural resource - its people, and the future pioneers among them," he continued.
But Australia's below-replacement fertility rate and high abortion rate, he said, raise concerns about the future. Problems like "sustainability [and] pollution, will not be addressed if fewer potential future scientists and engineers are born."
Australia is among the majority of industrialized western nations with low birth rates and high rates of immigration, that is experiencing significant aging of its population. According to the most recent statistics, Australia's birth rate stands at 1.78 children born per woman, while the rate needed to maintain a stable population is 2.1. In addition, the median age for women is 38.1 years, higher than the age at which it is easy to conceive children.
Nevertheless, calls continue for the suppression of the already low birth rate. In 2007, the Medical Journal of Australia published an article by a medical professor advocating a one-child policy and a higher rate of taxation for parents who have more than two children. Professor Barry Walters of the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, wrote that, instead of receiving a "baby bonus," parents should be forced to pay an upfront tax of $4,390 USD for each child born after their second child, and up to $700 annually thereafter.
"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," Walters wrote.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Institute One Child Policy for a "Sustainable" Australia : Population Control Group
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042404.html
Prominent Homosexual Activist James Kirchick Defends Pro-Life Movement in WSJ over Tiller Murder
By Alex Bush
June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, James Kirchick, a prominent homosexual activist, defended the pro-life movement, saying that "the left" is trying "to smear 'Christianists' as akin to Islamic extremists." He defended pro-lifers from attacks from pro-aborts who jumped on the opportunity to smear the pro-life movement with the murder of George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortionist.
Kirchick pointed out that within hours of Tiller's murder, every pro-life group "in the country denounced the attack," saying that there are "no appreciable number of people in this country, religious Christians or otherwise, who support the murder of abortion doctors."
"The organized antiabortion movement has always opposed violence against abortion providers," Kirchick said, noting that this uniform and consistent opposition to murder has "never stopped opportunistic prochoice activists, however, from conflating their passionate rhetoric with the behavior of individual criminals."
He evidenced his point by saying that "Mike Hendricks of the Kansas City Star accused anyone who had criticized Tiller as a murderer (Tiller aborted healthy, nine-month old fetuses) of being an 'accomplice' to his death."
Kirchick also noted that some "liberals" in the United States call the social conservative Evangelicals and Catholics "homegrown terrorists." He cites a few examples of this inflammatory rhetoric, such as Chris Hedges, a former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief, who compared conservative Evangelicals to Nazi "brownshirts" and Christine Amanpour, from CNN, who "equated Christian (and Jewish) fundamentalists with Muslim extremists."
Kirchick said, however, that "if the reactions to the death of Tiller mean anything, the 'Christian Taliban,' as conservative religious figures are often called, isn't living up to its namesake."
"If 'Christianists' were anything like actual religious fascists they would applaud Tiller's murder as a 'heroic martyrdom operation' and suborn further mayhem," he said.
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Related LifeSiteNews.com Coverage:
Abortion Proponents "Exploit" Tiller Killing, Label Pro-Life Advocates "Domestic Terrorists"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09060110.html
UK, American, Canadian Pro-Life Groups Condemn Tiller Murder
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09060105.html
Catholic Prof and Evangelical Leader Blame Catholic Church, Republicans, "Religious Leaders" for Tiller's Murder
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09060209.html
Commentary: President Obama Calls Tiller Killing a Heinous Act of Violence but Ignores Heinous Violence of Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09060107.html
EU Equality Proposal Discriminates against Religious Believers: Romanian Pro-Family Group
By Hilary White
ROME, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The leading pro-family organisation in Romania has warned that the European Union is setting a "dangerous precedent" with efforts to include "sexual orientation" into a new equality directive. "Forcing sexual orientation non-discrimination on religious bodies is discriminatory to religion," the Alliance of Romania's Families (AFR, Alianta Familiilor Din Romania) said in a legal brief. The EU's proposed directive is directly "hostile to religion" and conflicts with freedom of speech protections, they explained.
"The directive will likely have the effect of preventing religious bodies from promoting the authentic biblical view on sexuality or sexual immorality in general and from criticizing it."
The EU's Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council is preparing to implement a directive prohibiting "discrimination" on the basis of religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation. The proposal came from the EU Commission in 2008 and is part of the effort to consolidate all the European Union's "equality" measures.
Dr. Peter Costea, AFR president, said the directive is internally contradictory in that the inclusion of sexual orientation itself poses a direct threat to the protection of the rights and liberties of religious believers.
"Religion and sexual orientation are not analogous grounds for non-discrimination," Costea wrote, "but mutually exclusive in most respects."
The directive, he said, is poorly thought out and fails to consider the existing conflicts between religious freedom and the goals of the homosexualist movement. "Europe's religious tradition is largely incompatible with the relatively new notion of sexual orientation non-discrimination," he said.
Compared to Europe's well-developed religious and legal moral concepts, the notion of "sexual orientation" is a recent development and is largely undefined in legal terms. It is one "in constant flux without well defined or stable perimeters."
"Religious doctrine, on the other hand, is largely stable and for most of its adherents it is inflexible on certain fundamental issues, sexual orientation being paramount among them."
In the UK, similar legislation proposing to unite all of Britain's existing non-discrimination laws is being criticised by religious liberty watchdogs as a threat to religious liberties. It was revealed this week that the Labour government has paid £35,000 to an anti-religion campaign group, the British Humanist Association, to produce "guidelines" on how the new law will suppress the expression of religious belief in public and in the workplace. Currently, dozens of individual cases are being heard in courts and employment tribunals of Christians who have run afoul of existing "equality" legislation and workplace rules by expressing their religious beliefs in public.
Costea points out that whereas there is "virtual unanimity" of agreement on the protection of religion, age and disability, sexual orientation is not a comparable category. Age and disability are unavoidable natural conditions, he wrote, and religious belief is a matter of "deep conviction which binds the conscience and most individuals cannot act, or be forced to act or think in opposition to it."
But a person's sexual activity, he said, "is a matter of choice."
The AFR, he wrote, believes "that the law should not protect choices from discrimination especially when such choices amount to nothing more than mere fads."
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comHarvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus Endow Professorship of Gender and Sexuality to the Tune of $1.5 Million
By Alex Bush
CAMBRIDGE, MA, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Harvard University has received an endowment worth $1.5 million to fund a "gender and sexuality" professorship from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, reports the Harvard Gazette. The new professorship has been named the F.O. Matthiessan Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality.
Named after F.O. Matthiessan, who was a homosexual literary critic and faculty member at Harvard, this is the first endowed named chair in so-called "LGBT studies."
Mitchell L. Adams, who oversees the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, said that the formation of a new chair is "an extraordinary moment in Harvard's history and in the history of this rapidly emerging field." He continued, "And because of Harvard's leadership in academia and the world, this gift will foster continued progress toward a more inclusive society."
The professorship will allow the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to invite lecturers to teach on homosexual topics for a semester at a time.
Harvard President Drew Faust thanked the Gay and Lesbian Caucus for supporting the new professorship, calling LGBT "studies" a "burgeoning area of scholarship."
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comFr. Pavone Emphasizes Biggest Danger From the Killing of George Tiller
Commentary by Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life
June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The pro-life leadership has gone out of its way – and rightly so – to condemn the violence that took the life of abortionist George Tiller on Sunday. I join with those voices, as I always have done, that declare that the end never justifies the means, and that violence has no place in the effort to end abortion.
I have been asked what I think the biggest negative effect of this killing will be on our pro-life movement. Does it tar the movement's reputation? Yes, it does, despite the fact that those who kill abortionists are always disconnected from pro-life organizations. Does it make the government reach too far in clamping down on First Amendment activity against abortion? Yes, it does and it will.
But those are not the biggest dangers.
The biggest danger is the enemy within. It is the fear and self-doubt to which we can all too easily fall victim. It is the voice inside that makes us feel guilty for saying "Abortion is murder" or "Abortion is a holocaust" or "The babies who are being killed need to be defended now." It is the fear inside that keeps us from going out to the abortion mills and intervening to save the children scheduled to be killed there each day.
The biggest danger is that some will listen to those in the pro-abortion movement who try to lay blame for violence on us and who, as one person wrote on my blog, think that saying "Abortion is murder" should be prosecuted because it leads to violence against abortionists.
The Church teaches us that we have to look evil in the eye. John Paul II, in "The Gospel of Life, said that we have to call evil by its proper name. This is no time to shrink back from the reality of what is going on every day in abortion. Children are being killed, and the reason it continues is that too many of our fellow citizens are blind to it.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, responded to criticisms that the civil rights activists were fomenting violence. No, he said. That's like saying the person who owns money is fomenting the activity of the robber. To expose the violence that is already occurring, to call it what it is, and to sound the alarm that it has to stop, is not to foment violence.
The pro-life movement is a movement of non-violence. As Ghandi and Dr. King taught, and as we teach, non-violence is not passivity, and it is not obscurity. It is a force. It is a clear and strong response against violence, in whatever form that violence takes.
Let the outcry against Tiller's murder be loud and clear. And let the outcry against the murders he committed – and that other abortionists commit -- be loud and clear as well.
Back to Top | Print this Story | Email to a Friend | View Story on LifeSiteNews.comFather Corapi on the "Flash Point" in Western Society
"Nothing will ultimately go well for the United States or any other country until the injustice of all injustices is remedied"
Commentary by Fr. John Corapi
June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Flash point: The point at which something is ready to blow up. That has been my perception of Western society in general for some time now. Perhaps, a train wreck waiting to happen would be another way to put it. All evil can claim its ultimate origin in moral evil. Those that deny objective standards of morality merely facilitate the demise of their society. When it happens they will be nowhere to be found.
That apparently large numbers of people seem to be intellectually and morally numb is not news, but the near light-speed evaporation of our way of life is. Actions have consequences, and sometimes the consequences can't be seen this side of eternity. That does not mean they aren't real. You will be seeing some of the consequences very soon, however, not the worst, but the most immediate.
Personal liberty has already begun to be compromised. Various governments, including the United States, now own car companies like General Motors and Chrysler, mega insurance companies, soon perhaps health care and energy. Injustice is beginning to be seen from the smallest of individuals to the largest of corporations. The only problem with that is that governments have never been able to operate anything profitably, efficiently, or equitably. The little guy and the large corporation will all be equal opportunity recipients of heavy-handed injustice very soon.
The government is about to dictate what car you can drive, how you insure it, what your bank can pay you or not, what kind of heating you have in your home, if you can have air conditioning or not. And, oh, if you eat a Twinkie your health insurance premium is going up. If you get sick, perhaps the Twinkie did it, and you aren?t covered.
You might say that the government needs to control things to keep us safe, etc. That might work if the people in government could be trusted. They can't, but we elected them. We get what we deserve, and many chickens are about to come home to roost.
One of the inherent difficulties with a democratic republic is that it is only as good as the people in it. When a people lose their moral equilibrium, live in sin, and suffer the consequent loss of wisdom, then that nation's days are numbered.
Why? How have we come to this? It can be traced to the most compelling moral issue of our times, and we can't escape from it, no matter how uncomfortable it is - abortion and other life issues.
No matter what other rosy picture is painted by those that would have you believe all is well, God is not a disinterested spectator. Regardless of the high sounding rhetoric of the day, seeming progress in this or that area, it is an illusion.
Nothing will ultimately go well for the United States or any other country until the injustice of all injustices is remedied. Until every human being is respected and reverenced, from the moment of conception to the last moment of natural life, no one will be safe and secure.
Whether it is the helpless infant in the womb or the misguided and/or evil abortionist on the wrong end of a bullet, all deserve the safety and security of the law. Only God can in justice and wisdom decide when life begins and when life ends. When we attempt to usurp God's job description we always come up short.
This is republished from the most recent newsletter from SOLT http://www.fathercorapi.com/
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