Group wants pro-abortion Catholics removed
MANASSAS, Va. – The Cardinal Newman Society has written to 75,000 people, asking for assistance in its campaign to have pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia academics removed from their positions in U.S. Catholic universities. They seek to remove the likes of Fr. Kevin O’Rourke, a bioethicist at Loyola University, who has argued that it is morally permissible to remove food and fluids from disabled patients, and Daniel Maguire of Marquette University, who has stated that, “The idea of a little cluster of stem cells being a person goes against the longest Christian tradition in existence and makes no sense at all.”
Glamour dismisses ABC link
PALOS HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer has criticized women’s magazine Glamour, for denying a link between abortion and breast cancer. Glamour claimed that the link had been disproved, but Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer said: “If the link was ‘disproved,’ why did British researcher Patrick Carroll present new research to the Joint Statistical Meetings in Minneapolis on August 10, showing abortion to be the ‘best predictor of British breast cancer trends.’” Malec added: “We challenge Glamour to find just one scientist who has disproved the biological explanation for the link. No scientist dares to challenge the explanation, because it makes good physiological sense.”
MAP decision splits Mexican government
MEXICO CITY – The government of Mexican President Vicente Fox is split over Health Minister Julio Frenk’s requirement that hospitals and public health clinics provide the “morning-after pill” free of charge. Interior Minister Carlos Abascal has asked Fox to reconsider the policy. Two candidates looking to succeed Fox as leader of the PAN in 2006, Santiago Creel and Felipe Calderon, oppose the pill. Cardinal Norberto Rivera called the pill a “weapon against innocent children.”
GAP-like display raises pro-abort hackles
LODZ, Poland – Through most of July, there was a Genocide Awareness Project-like presentation in Lodz, Poland. The display of aborted children, juxtaposed with pictures of the Holocaust and the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides, lead Elisabeth Rosenthal to write in the International Herald Tribune complaining of the growing “conservative” movement in Europe, which “has made powerful inroads in countries where a full array of women’s health services were once taken for granted … including Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania and even the Netherlands.” Joseph Meaney, international director of Human Life International, recently said, “There are now a lot of pro-life groups working in Europe, but they are fairly young – formed in the last five or 10 years.” The graphic depiction of abortion as genocide was expected to travel to other eastern European cities. Only four European nations – Ireland, Malta, Poland and Portugal –have any legal protection for the unborn.
Britain launches public consultation
LONDON – The British government’s department of health has launched a public consultation on the laws and regulations on embryo experimentation and assisted reproduction. So-called sex selection for social reasons, the creation of human-animal hybrids (chimeras) and the welfare of children conceived artificially are among the issues to be considered. The deadline for responses to the consultation is Nov. 25. Also, the government has issued its response to the House of Commons science and technology committee report on reproductive technologies, saying not very much at all. Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, commented: “The government is attempting to camouflage its openness to new anti-life practices by issuing a relatively conservative response on the even more radically anti-life proposals of the Commons science and technology committee.” Ozimic urged “as many people as possible respond to the consultation, telling the government loud and clear that they will not tolerate another slide down the slippery slope.” SPUC announced it plans to publish a pack to help people respond to the consultation.
British agency calls for more contraceptives
LONDON – The Daily Mail reported that the Family Planning Association has called for increased contraceptive services and earlier abortions, which it says will save the National Health Service £1 billion a year. Their claim is based on “research” that estimated millions would be saved in maternity services and abortion costs if abortion waiting times were cut so that women could undergo chemical abortion or surgical abortion under local, rather than general, anaesthetic. Fiorella Nash of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children reacted: “The FPA represents a blinkered, doctrinaire approach to pregnancy: their ultimate aim is to ensure that more lives end in abortion at minimal cost.” Putting aside the moral arguments, Nash lambasted the FPA’s argument as “entirely false,” saying, “All healthy economies invest in people, particularly the younger generation. Abortion deprives a country of its future.”
MAP promoters criticized
LOTHIAN, Scotland – Professor Anna Glasier, clinical director for sexual health in Lothian, Scotland, charged the Family Planning Association in the U.K. with distributing “misleading information” about the “morning-after pill.” She said the FPA overstated the effectiveness of the morning-after pill and criticized the easy availability of the pill, arguing that young girls are being encouraged to think of it as an alternative to contraception. Glasier is quoted in The Scotsman as saying that the FPA’s “leaflet about emergency contraception is incredibly positive and says that it will prevent 95 per cent of pregnancies and you can use it as often as you like. That’s the wrong message.”