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Science Only Has to be Skin Deep
November 30, 2007
by Maura Butler
It’s been all over the news this week – embryonic-like stem cells created from skin. What great news, right? Scientists in Wisconsin and Japan have announced they can now take adult skin cells and tweak them in the lab so they create pluripotent stem cells that can be coaxed to develop into any cell or tissue type in the body. Now we don’t have to destroy embryos. Even Ian Wilmut, the guy who first cloned Dolly the sheep, has forgone his multi-million dollar cloning grant to pursue this new research. And this decision is certainly not based on ethics but on science.
But wouldn’t you know some folks in Congress, like Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) want to keep politicizing this debate. (Although she claims it is the other way around in the New York Times article linked above.) She still wants to pass her funding bill for embryo-destructive research. The Washington Post agrees, saying we must keep all avenues of research open – even if they have proven useless and there are more promising avenues to follow. Instead of focusing on the research that proves more effective and efficient, legislators want to keep doing the other unproductive and destructive one too. What sense does that make?
Even the scientists who don’t agree that embryonic stem cell research is unethical DO agree that this latest alternative of deriving stem cells from skin cells rather than embryos is good science. And furthermore, these very same scientists believe that it should replace embryonic stem cell research altogether.
The politicians are the ones saying that destroying embryos is morally neutral, not the scientists. When you consider that the earlier rallying cry of the pro-embryonic stem cell politicians was to listen to scientists, it’s curious that those very same scientists are being ignored. These actions lead many to think this isn’t really about successful science at all, but rather about perpetuating an anti-life political agenda at any cost.
Secret Land of Planned Parenthood
November 16, 2007
By Maura Butler
In order to avoid protests, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) bought some land to build a huge facility in Denver, Colorado; but they didn’t tell anyone. In fact, they purchased the property under a different name. PPRM didn’t feel like dealing with protesters and delays. When you are in a dirty business, I guess you resort to dirty tactics.
Word got out when they broke ground earlier this month, and it has Colorado pro-lifers steamed. The Colorado Catholic Bishops issued a statement through the Colorado Catholic Conference naming the purchaser, Fuller 38 LLC, and the contractor, the Weitz Company LLC. They go on to discuss facts about PPRM, like how PPRM reports providing 8,800 abortions to people from five states last year alone.
When you are in the business of getting in between parents and their kids, handing out information and paraphernalia detrimental to health and morality, and when you kill over eight thousand babies a year, you want to keep things hush hush.
Coloradoans, the facility is being built at 7155 East 38th Avenue, and the cross street is Pontiac, a block and a half west of Quebec. The secret’s out!
WHO’s Statistics are They Using?
November 09, 2007
By Maura Butler
Imagine you are a judge. The witness is describing the actions of the defendant committing a crime. But then the witness discusses how his facts might be questionable. Would you trust his testimony? No judge in his right mind would. But that is just the type of thing the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the UN Population Fund want you to do when it comes to their case for abortion.
In order to bolster support for abortions worldwide, these organizations are attempting to show that pregnancy is a health risk to women. They recently highlighted that over 500,000 women throughout the world die from maternal complications of pregnancy. These organizations repeatedly use this questionable statistic to encourage a doctrine of abortion on demand for all women. But these same organizations admit that this number is impossible to estimate. Most developing countries don’t record mortality statistics, much less those specific to pregnant women.
For some of their studies these organizations even rely on “public source data” like journal articles, unpublished documents or other unsubstantiated reports. The information can be unreliable. When conducting their own studies, the sample sizes can often be small, thus providing anecdotal stories, but useless for actual public health data. Imagine interviewing five women, four of whom have had an abortion – that’s a whopping 80% of those interviewed! So you can see how a small number of interviewees could skew data.
Abortion-on-demand becomes the creed of many of these international organizations, and they hide behind noble phrases like “women’s health”. Let’s hope the United States doesn’t become a worldwide promoter and supporter of abortion for all. We need to change the path we are on now because it’s headed in that direction.
Bonded to Lies
November 07, 2007
By Maura Butler
Check out the language at the bottom of this “public question” regarding a bond to fund embryonic stem cell research from the New Jersey 2007 General Election ballot:
“The purpose of providing these funds is to promote research that could benefit State residents afflicted with diseases and severe injuries such as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, sickle cell anemia and spinal cord injuries.”
Are they kidding? Do they have any interest in communicating the truth to voters? Top stem cell scientists all over the world have wiped Alzheimer’s off the list of diseases embryonic stem cell research could help. Almost all stem cell scientists, particularly the most reputable ones, have said cure are decades away. And many scientists have said embryonic stem cells are scientifically interesting but will most likely provide little or no treatments, much less cures.
At least the drafters of this bond have the courtesy to use the word “could” in the above language. But guess what, folks from New Jersey are pretty smart. Yesterday they voted NO on this bond. Victory! …for now.
Keep Out of My Wallet
October 26, 2007
By Maura Butler
The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) wants you to pay for abortions. It doesn’t matter that you are socially or morally opposed to abortions. They think it is your tax-paying duty to pay for killing unborn children and the psychological damage to the women they claim to serve.
Within the first month he took office, President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy. This policy prevents our tax dollars from funding abortions in other nations. NARAL was hopping mad and is now leaning on members of Congress – whom they helped elect – to vote against this policy. The likes of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton are gearing up to make you pay for overseas abortions.
It’s not enough that at home we have to fund Planned Parenthood with our hard earned money; or that many states fund abortions with tax dollars. Now they want us to pay for abortions in other countries! When will it end?
What is even more absurd is that NARAL is claiming that funding international abortions is a moral duty. NARAL plans to flood the offices of members of Congress with hundreds of compasses, a symbol of how they have supposedly lost their moral compass by refusing to fund international abortions. They actually use the phrase morally wrong when discussing denying the world's poorest women abortions.
What can you do to stop this? Contact Congress by clicking here and make a difference today.
They want us to keep off their bodies? Well we want them to keep out of our wallets!
Fishing for Cures in Barren Waters
October 12, 2007
by Maura Butler
Two states this week have turned the spotlight once again on embryo-destructive research. Missouri and Massachusetts are trying to entice scientists to their states and clone human beings. Of course they are not putting it that way.
In fact, a year ago, Missouri voters passed a controversial ballot initiative deceitfully claiming to ban human cloning. The amendment to the state Constitution banned implanting a cloned human embryo into a woman’s uterus, but paved the way for cloning humans in the laboratory. The cloned human embryos would subsequently then be destroyed for their stem cells. Now, a 2008 ballot measure has reignited the debate. The new measure wants to ban human cloning outright leaving cloning advocates up in arms.
Yesterday, the Massachusetts Public Health Council reversed a restriction passed by former Governor Mitt Romney stating that embryos could not be produced "with the sole intent of using the embryo for research." The rule now refers to a prohibition against donating embryos specifically for research. With this ruling, people intent on expanding embryo-destructive research hope this will open the door to ease all embryo research restrictions.
No one seems to be interested in the fact that, to date, not one single patient has been successfully treated with stem cells derived from embryos. Despite massive amounts of private and public money being dumped into killing nascent human life, not a single useful therapy has been developed. The FDA hasn’t approved a single clinical trial for use on humans. Even the NIH admits embryonic stem cells provide no treatments. So why do we keep having to fight this fight when we are all supposed to have noble goals of cures for patients?
Verizon Rocks! – not an “outrage” but worth noting
October 03, 2007
by Maura Butler
Last week, the Fortune 500 communications company Verizon called the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL Pro-Choice America) “controversial” and “unsavory”. How fantastic! Let’s all switch our phone and internet to Verizon!
NARAL wanted to participate in a program for automatic text messaging and Verizon said no – that its policy was to refuse “issue oriented” text-messaging programs from any group that “seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” However, after fear of major legal action, Verizon backed down and allowed NARAL to use the text messaging service.
Although Verizon retracted their original stance, it shows that the country is no longer accepting this radical agenda of abortion on demand, and groups like NARAL are losing the fight.
Roosevelt High School Cancels Dr. Alveda King
September 26, 2007
by Maura Butler
Dr. Alveda King, niece of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was scheduled to speak at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa this week. The former principal of Roosevelt High had invited Dr. King, but the new principal, Mrs. Kathie Danielson, canceled Dr. King’s appearance. . The reason is because Dr. Alveda King was to speak the truth to students, but these days, the truth is what frightens people most.
Dr. King continues her uncle’s fight for civil rights. An exceptional speaker, she is the Director of African American Outreach for the Gospel of Life, minister, author, former Georgia State Representative and former college professor. She speaks on the horrors of abortion, and in particular what it does to the Black community. Dr. King spreads the truth about Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger – that she was a eugenicist and wanted to weed out minorities and other “unfit” human beings from society. Earlier this year, Dr. King caused a firestorm when she said, “That is why Planned Parenthood clinics are where minorities live.”
Apparently Mrs. Kathie Danielson and some parents at Roosevelt High School don’t want their children to hear the truth. Shouldn’t our public schools be a forum for debate and discussion on topics like abortion that affect every American? A free society needs the free exchange of ideas. Our children are only hearing one side of the exchange, and it is creating deeper wounds and scars in our society. (Share your thoughts with Principal Danielson by emailing her at kathie.danielson@dmps.k12.ia.us .)
“Human-Animal” Embryo Gets the Green Light in the U.K.
September 18, 2007
by Maura Butler
For the first time in the history of the world, human-animal hybrid embryos will receive government funding. England’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority approved merging human cells with animal eggs in order to create an embryo – then destroy it fourteen days later for its stem cells.
Why do this? For one, embryonic stem cell research is not going anywhere fast due to a host of problems including host rejection and tumor formation. So researchers have turned to cloning. This, in theory, eliminates rejection because cloning makes an identical twin, thus the cells will match the host.
But also they have turned to making science fiction into fact with these hybrids because women are intelligent. The embryonic stem cell researchers are running out of eggs. Women don’t want to go through the onslaught of dangerous drugs so a scientist can harvest their eggs – a very precious resource. So scientists have turned to animals to provide the eggs. They take an egg from a cow, remove the genetic information, and insert HUMAN DNA. Then after a quick zap of electricity – Viola! – You have an embryo: a part animal, part human, embryo that will be killed in fourteen days so scientists can harvest its stem cells.
One scientist even admitted the idea seems horrific saying, “It does seem a little abhorrent at first analysis…” Well, sir, maybe you should go with your gut on this one! He justified the research though, saying they are only using a tiny amount of cow. In all fairness, this is true. The resulting stem cells will have less than one percent of animal. But should we stroll unwittingly down this slippery slope based on a ratio? No, that is precisely why we should halt.
This is a great assault on the dignity of human beings. We are being used as toys in the playground of the science lab. And frankly, this assaults the dignity of animals as well. To mix whatever you want together in a test tube or Petri dish just to see what happens has NEVER been good science.
The government of the United Kingdom actually proposed banning human-animal hybrids last year but obviously reversed their opinion. Thankfully, most countries who are leading the way on stem cell research have banned the creation of human-animal hybrids – the United States, Australia and Canada at the top of the list.
Human Embryos Destroyed to Help Treat Rats After Heart Attack
August 31, 2007
by Maura Butler
They are at it again – touting the greatness of embryo-destructive research without giving any nod to adult stem cells. The Geron Corporation, a California-based biotechnology firm, announced last week that their research using human embryonic stem cells will heal patients after a heart attack sometime in the future. Firstly, the researchers destroyed human embryos to help rats recover from a heart attack. If that is not enough of an outrage, the CEO of Geron, Tom Okarma, falsely claimed, “The only stem cell on the planet that makes bona fide cardiac muscle cells is an embryonic stem cell... No other cell can do it.”
Right now, there are about fifty clinical trials using adult stem cells to treat real human patients with heart problems and over 2,000 patients have already been treated. In fact, in the past five years alone, at least twenty four articles have been published about this in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals. For one of the many examples of actually and already treating human patients – not rats – one has to look no further than VesCell.
It is amazing how people in the industry continue to try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. Not only does embryonic stem cell research destroy human lives, embryonic stem cells are years, even decades away from treating real live human patients. But adult stem cells are providing cures today. This fact is routinely ignored both in the media and by prominent researchers working for biotech giants. It is an injustice to suffering patients and the embryos killed for company gain.
Embryonic stem cell advocates claim the need to focus on cures and ending suffering. If they were to take their own advice, they would stop the massacre of innocent human life and focus on where the cures already are – adult stem cells.
Infant Body Parts Found in Eastern India: Sex Selection Abortions Continue
July 24, 2007
Officials found plastic bags stuffed with infant babies' body parts and skulls yesterday in an abandoned well in eastern India, the AP reports. Police believe a nearby abortion clinic used the well to dispose of the body parts from female fetuses and newborn girls killed in the clinic.
Investigators suspect the nearby medical clinic performed the abortions and killed infants at the parents' request because they were female, said Yogesh Bahadur Khurania, a senior police official in the eastern state of Orissa. Khurania said police were still trying to determine how many babies had been dumped in the well near the Krishna Clinic. However, the CNN-IBN television news channel reported authorities in Orissa believed investigators had found as many as 37 bodies.
The police have investigated female infanticide in Orissa since the discovery of five female fetuses in an abandoned house on July 14. Khurania noted that police are also investigating if the clinic in Nayagarh, roughly 56 miles west of Bhubaneswar, determines the sex of fetuses to screen for female babies.
Many Indian families value male children over female children, who are viewed as a liability due to the large dowries the bride’s family is required to pay the groom’s family. Girls often do not receive the same education as boys, and many do not receive adequate medical treatment. As a result, many Indian families resort to abortion to prevent female births, though gender selection and selective abortion are illegal. When abortion is not an option, girl babies are often starved to death.
India legalized abortions in 1971 as a means to curb population growth, but the number of abortion facilities is limited. In 1994, India banned gender selection and selective abortion. Nevertheless, last year, an international team of researchers estimated that up to 10 million female fetuses had been aborted in the past 10 years in India, a country of about 1.1 billion people. The result is a gender ratio increasingly dominated by men — in the 1991 census, there were 945 women for every 1,000 men, and in the 2001 census, the number of women dropped to 927 women per 1,000 men.
The government of India likes to claim that it is fighting sex-selection abortion, with laws condemning it and new state-funded assistance programs to support families with young girls. Unfortunately, the lack of political will to effectively confront the very cultural attitudes that allow women and girls to be treated as property creates a tragic outcome. These attitudes transcend class, as even wealthy families murder their baby girls. Thousands are killed every year, as families try and try again to conceive the more lucrative baby boy.
U.K. Grants Approval for Cosmetic Abortions, Allows Abortion of Babies with “Severe Squint”
June 26, 2007
By: Kellie Fiedorek, SBA List Intern
According to the London Daily Telegraph, the U.K. Human Fertilization and Embryonic Authority (HFEA) licensed a fertility clinic to screen embryos for a genetic defect that causes a severe squint.
With the growing advances in medical genetics and prenatal testing, this type of “cosmetic abortion” is growing in popularity, resulting in yet another threat to innocent life. It reflects society’s grave misunderstanding of life and the dignity of the human person, namely the idea that we are the arbiters of life and have the right to choose the features and characteristics our children should have. The mystery and beauty surrounding the birth of a child is quickly dissipating as society begins to view having a child like ordering jewelry or a new pair of shoes from a catalog.
Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, whom HFEA granted the license, was asked whether he would screen babies for hair color. He replied that hair color “can be a cause of bullying, which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it.” If we were to abort children for every possible trait or characteristic that could lead to problems and hardships in their lives, the human race would no longer exist. In fact, some of our country’s greatest leaders attributed their success to lessons they learned during times of trial and tribulation in their past. Furthermore, Grudzinskas’s attempt to disguise the reality of what occurs in “cosmetic abortion” by saying it will prevent suicide is illogical. Why would you kill someone to prevent them from killing themselves?
The idea of choosing your child’s hair color, IQ, and likelihood of obesity by genetic manipulation already raises many ethical questions, but to kill a child because they do not meet a particular family’s check list is outrageous. To allow doctors to kill children just because they do not possess a particular trait reduces the inherent dignity of the human person to nothing more than data or a specimen used in scientific research. Even worse, it fosters an attitude of intolerance and discrimination against those who fail to meet our contrived standards of the perfect human being.
In the midst of a self-serving world that shuns hardship and inconvenience, now to the point of welcoming abortion, euthanasia, and other elements of the culture of death, we must question this appalling use of scientific knowledge. Instead, we need to promote a culture that only accepts moral and ethical science, not science that destroys human life.
Britain Poised to Legalize Human-Animal Hybrid Embryos
May 21, 2007
According to recent media reports, Britain is poised to legalize the creation of human-animal hybrids in response to requests by British embryonic stem cell researchers.
This change flies in the face of British public sentiment, which is opposed to such research. In an official government report released last December, the British Department of Health noted "that there is considerable public unease with the possible creation of embryos combining human and animal material, and particularly to the prospect that such entities could be brought to term." (Review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act: proposals for revised legislation)
Ignoring public concern about the moral implications, British officials claim the urgent need to "circumvent the need to use scarce human eggs" justifies the proposed legislation which would allow the creation of animal-human hybrids as long as they are killed within fourteen days and never implanted in a womb.
This development is particularly disconcerting, considering the current U.S. debate over embryonic stem cell research. As British scientists have already discovered, there aren't enough human eggs to go around. Thus, researchers are resorting to ethically questionable tactics, like the substitution of animal genetic material to continue their research. Will American taxpayers soon be forced to subsidize the creation of human-animal hybrids right here in our own country? It may sound like science fiction, but it's real, and perhaps, too close for comfort.
Rudy Giuliani Claims His Donations to Planned Parenthood Were Made to Support Adoption Programs
May 10, 2007
GOP Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani came under fire this week after a DC-area newspaper uncovered evidence the former New York Mayor and his wife contributed $900 to Planned Parenthood over the course of several years.
Many Pro-Life Americans were already skeptical of Giuliani's self-described "personal" opposition to abortion. But this recent revelation that both he and his ex-wife donated their personal funds to the nation's largest abortion provider will do little to endear Giuliani to pro-life voters.
Yesterday, Giuliani attempted to explain himself on Laura Ingraham's radio show, claiming his donations were given to support adoption programs. If Giuliani truly intended to support adoption, he could have chosen a better agency to support.
According to Planned Parenthood's most recent Annual Report, Planned Parenthood clinics across the country performed 180 abortions for every one adoption referral in 2004.
Rudy Giuliani would like the American public to believe he is "personally pro-life," but his actions tell a much different story.
To learn more, read today's story on lifenews.com.
The Desperation of Embryonic Stem Cell Researchers
April 16, 2007
By Katelin Beer, SBA List Intern
Look around you. We live in a world of science and technology. It’s a world of nanochips, bluetooth and wireless! Medicine, too, is on the cutting edge of technology. There is a drug or surgery for nearly every ailment. Why, then, are these same doctors and scientists insistent on forging their way down a dead-end road, leading to nowhere and wasting precious time? I am referring to embryonic stem cell research, a hot topic in American medicine and politics.
On Monday, March 19, 2007 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni expressed his frustration about Bush Administration limits on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Back in 2001, President Bush limited the project to the use of only existing embryonic cell lines. No funding, however, was to be allotted for any new cell lines, thereby limiting the NIH to only the twenty-two that were usable. Over the past seven years, however, embryonic stem cell researchers using the existing lines have yet to discover any new treatments or cures for diseases.
At the end of his rope and having emerged with no promising results, Zerhouni lashed out at the President, calling him “shortsighted.” In doing so he hoped to convince the nation as to the necessity of unfettered access to your tax dollars to expand federal embryonic stem cell research programs. For Zerhouni, the problem wasn’t the lack of results from embryonic stem cell research, it was a lack of money (He makes this argument despite the proliferation of private sector funds that are available for this research). He told Congress,
“I think it’s important for us not to function with one hand tied behind our back here. To sideline NIH in an issue of such importance is shortsighted.”
Breaking with Bush administration policy, Zerhouni called upon Congress to repeal the President’s policy preventing additional public funds for new embryonic stem cell research. We can be relatively confident that Zerhouni’s complaining fell on deaf ears, for, last spring, the President vetoed Congress’ first attempt to repeal this pro-life policy. President Bush has also recently committed to veto successive attempts by the 110th Congress to roll back these same restrictions on stem cell research.
The urgent commitment to embryonic stem cell research by Zerhouni and others is puzzling when one considers the incredible advances made in other, ethical types of stem cell research. In a report published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the stark contrast between the two types of stem cells is explored, proving that there is no comparison – while adult stem cell research continues to show promise, embryonic stem cell research is a losing battle.
The report begins with a presentation on the “advantages” of embryonic stem cells, as claimed by advocates for embryonic stem cell research. The irony is, however, that many of these “advantages” are actually disadvantages in disguise. For example: embryonic stem cell research advocates boast that embryonic stem cells have the capacity of “rapid proliferation.” The truth of the matter is that “this quality is actually responsible for causing serious problems,” According to the USCCB, “Rapid growth is not always a desirable quality, as clearly seen with weeds in a garden or cancer in the body.” Another term for this rapid growth: ‘tumors’! In fact, embryonic stem cell experiments done on rats caused brain tumors to be formed in as many as 20% of them. This dangerous result is hardly promising.
On the brighter side, adult stem cells have proven to be everything that the embryonic are not. They are easily adaptable and less frequently rejected by the body. Adult stem cell researchers have found success in developing treatments for Parkinson’s, Diabetes, spinal cord injuries, Heart Disease, and countless other fatal ailments of the body. While these studies are in the experimental stage, it is safe to say that these treatments are leaps and bounds ahead of anything that has been developed from research on embryos.
Why, then, is it so necessary to destroy human life to achieve an unpromising result? In addition to the loss of innocent human lives, investing in more embryonic stem cell research would mean one more victory for pro-abortionists. Tacit approval for research on embryos lends credibility to the pro-abortion argument that unborn children do not have any intrinsic value. Thankfully we have pro-life legislators and pro-life President to stand up to these irrational calls for taxpayer funded embryonic stem cell research.
Abortion Providers Appreciation Day
March 16, 2007
By Katelin Beer, SBA List Intern
What did you do last Saturday? Did you send a basket of muffins to your local abortion provider just to let them know you care? Why not? That’s what the nation’s abortion activist groups encouraged people to do in honor of the eleventh annual Abortion Providers Appreciation Day. Every year, pro-abortion activists from across the country celebrate March 10th as a day to remember those who provide women with abortions. The date itself was strategically chosen, as it is the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. David Gunn, the first abortionist to be killed in the wake of Roe v. Wade.
The National Abortion Federation (NAF) drafted a petition that supporters can sign, which praises the work of the “physicians” and staff of abortion facilities across the country. The petition itself is outrageous and the rhetoric is extremely disturbing, affecting those who know little of the issue. It states:
Abortion providers are much more than highly trained medical professionals: they are also heroes… Putting their lives on the line, abortion providers are the ones who make choice a reality for women.
The petition continues on to declare:
Abortion providers continue to display steadfast bravery and unwavering dedication to preserving women’s lives and health.
The ACLU, NOW, and several other militant pro-abortion websites have all gotten into the mix, calling for a show of support for abortionists all across America. What’s more, all of these groups cite discrimination and persecution as the main reason why such a Day of Appreciation is in dire need. RefuseAndResist.org encouraged their readers to “Use [their] imagination, creativity and dedication to help create a climate at clinics where women, doctors and staff can hold their heads high without feeling shamed...”
But, why would abortion clinic workers feel ashamed? If what they were doing was something honorable and praiseworthy, no disgrace should be involved! Is this not a day to be extolling the “heroic” work of these individuals? Heroic acts, however, are typically celebrated and not shamed. So we ask again: What are the abortionists ashamed of? Perhaps they aren’t as heroic as the NAF pretends!
To counteract the spirit of this day, Fr. Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life, released a statement in March of 2000 on the very same issue. Demonstrating extreme compassion, but firm resolve he stated:
We see abortion providers as our brothers and sisters, and respect their lives as much as we respect the lives of unborn children. Yet it is precisely because of our respect for them that we listen carefully to the pain and anger they have because of abortion. Abortion psychologically destroys the doctors who perform it. In January of 1998, for example, a New York abortionist told the New York Times magazine, “I guess I never realized I would find [performing abortions] as unpleasant as I do. I really don’t enjoy it at all. It’s not a rewarding thing to do.”
In light of this, let us stand up along with the ACLU, NOW, and NAF on their day of appreciation. Our goal, however, is a far more effective one. Let us come to the aid of abortionists everywhere by uniting in the fight against abortion. Nothing can stop the shame and disgrace that comes along with the killing of an unborn child. In order for this guilt to be quieted once and for all, we need to turn to a Culture of Life!
Girl Forced to have an Abortion by her Parents
February 28, 2007
By Katelin Beer, SBA List Intern
Every morning we wake up, grab a cup of coffee, and turn on the 7 o’clock news and we ask ourselves, “What is this world coming to?” This past month, the answer arrived in the form of a bitter blow to the pro-life movement.
The situation occurred in Turin, Italy, where 13 year-old Valentina was forced, against her will, to abort her unborn child. Valentina’s mother cited that they did not have the money to support an infant and suggested that her daughter hide the pregnancy and subsequent abortion from the baby’s 15 year-old father. Valentina valiantly refused, however, and resolved to keep and raise her unborn child. Angered by her decision, the young girl’s parents took her to court to have the issue settled by the government. Judge Giuseppe Cocilovo ruled against Valentina, citing Italian law, which proscribes that minors are not allowed any say in whether their own baby may live or die. Rather, it is the “right” of Italian parents to determine the path which their pregnant daughter must chose – whether they choose an abortion or giving an innocent, unborn child a chance to live.
The consequences of such a ruling were readily apparent in this particular case. Only days later, Valentina was admitted to a psychiatric ward for suicidal behavior. With a broken heart and an aching conscience she sobbed: “You have made me kill, and now I kill myself, I kill myself!” Furthermore, she displayed her inner turmoil as she cried: “I am not crazy, I am only evil like a dog for what my parents and the judges have obliged me to do.” How can the state deny this young girl’s plea? They decreed that she was not old enough to determine what was best for herself. Do they really believe, however, that she is better off now than she would have been had she been allowed to keep her baby?
The Catholic Church in Italy has taken Valentina’s side and, in a public statement, the Archbishop of Torino said, “The unborn baby is a life and I defend life whatever the situation. Society must take care of this child.” His intercessions fell on deaf ears.
Two situations have occurred within our own borders that speak of a similar mindset in America. One case involved the parents of a 19 year-old woman who kidnapped their daughter at gun point and tried to force her to have an abortion. Fortunately, the girl escaped and her parents’ efforts failed. The second situation occurred five months ago in Georgia where the mother and cousins of a 16 year-old girl attempted to abort her unborn baby themselves twice by coercing her to drink turpentine. The effects that this had on the baby are, as of yet, unknown. Regardless the result, both America and Italy need a change of heart and a change of law. We cannot allow these cases of forced murder in our country or in any other!
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