Pro-LIFE NEWS

Vol. 19 No.4 - Autumn/Fall  2002                                                                                    Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042

Contents:

- Only Fifteen Cared
- Editorial
- How They Voted
- Fears For Medical Practice in Victoria
- Action Please Write Now !
- Child of Rape Tells the ProLife Story
- Freedom March - Melbourne
- Surprise, Mom I'm Anti-Abortion
- "All their tomorrows depend on your love"
- Worth the Fight
- World View

 Victoria's Health Legislation Bill 2003 (Research Involving Human Embryos and Prohibition of Human Cloning)

We print here the names of the 132 members of Victoria's Parliament. The bolded names are the names of the only truly pro life members of our Parliament. These were the men and women who in April 2003 voted against sacrificing the lives of countless human embryos, the tiniest members of the human race, to experimentation, who voted against treating the smallest members of the human race like laboratory rats. All in the absence of any evidence that human embryos have effected one cure for any disease and in the presence of increasing evidence that adult stem cells are doing just this. These are the names all prolifers will need to print indelibly on their minds so hat in the next State election no prolifer casts a vote for any of these anti life politicians.

Knowing only too well that the vote would undoubtedly go against these tiny babies, I nevertheless gravitated to Parliament on the evening of the debate in the Legislative Assembly. I have always felt it must be awfully lonely to die alone, 'unknelled and unknown', so I sat in the gallery of Victoria's Parliament in some sort of symbolic gesture of solidarity with my fellow human beings, to demonstrate there are some of us here who care about their fate. It was galling to have to listen to the Health Minister Bronwyn Pike justify the sacrifice of these embryos on the basis that it was "life affirming", since Christ had offered His life for others. Just before Easter too. She would seem to have completely missed the point that, unlike Christ, she was not offering up her life for others, she was offering up the lives of others, who unlike Christ, had not chosen to die for others! And she would call herself "pro-choice"!

Victoria State Parliament, Melbourne

There were some brave speeches. Labor M.P. Christine Campbell did not hesitate to compare human embryo experimentation to infamous Nazi experimentions and reminded her fellow legislators that if she couldn't speak what she felt was the truth in Parliament, she couldn't speak it anywhere. Young first time Labor M.P. James Merlino was prepared to take a clearly unpopular stand, regardless of the consequences. The Liberal Party's highly intelligent Robert Clarke delivered a speech that reminded me of the expression "pearls before swine." Prolife Independent Russell Savage's genuine concerns were subjected to sneers from the Liberal Member for Doncaster, Victor Perton and in the Upper House, Labor M.P. Theo Theophanous delivered what some prolifers believed was the finest speech against embryo experimentaion they had heard.

But what of so many others of the 132 members, those who like to tell us they are 'pro life' and could have been expected to vote against this anti life legislation? Surely, as responsible legislators they had 'swotted up' on the issue? It could not have been ignorance? I came away convinced that if not lazy and ignorant, those Victorian legislators who could be expected to "know better", must simply be lacking in courage. And then I thought to myself: " But no politician, surely, is going to be 'shot at dawn' for defending human life?" That made me think of someone whose courage, as a fellow nurse, has always inspired me. Edith Cavell, the First World War nurse who was shot at dawn, for protecting her patients. She could have chosen to save herself but really did forfeit her own life for others. If only our Victorian Parliamentarians had her courage!

Denise M Cameron
Editor

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Whatever the former Governor- General Dr. Peter Hollingworth's guilt or innocence of sins of commission or omission concerning the sexual abuse of children by members of the Anglican clergy, let's have done with hypocrisy in this country! Let all of us examine our consciences with regard to our own sins of commission or omission regarding child abuse in our community.

The Australian Democrats and Labor's Carmen Lawrence wanted Dr. Hollingworth to resign. Yet one of Senator Stott- Despoja's more recent visits to Melbourne was for photo shoot outside an East Melbourne abortuary defending the abortion killings inside. Abortion is just another name for child abuse in the womb. When abortion was legalized in Western Australia, Carmen Lawrence celebrated with champagne. All the Labor Premiers wanted Dr Hollingworth to go. But did Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin protest when Baby J, aged five and a half months and weighing 515gms. was left to die 80 minutes after an abortion in Darwin? Premier Jim Bacon first called for Dr. Hollingworth's removal a few short months after he legalized abortion in Tasmania. Victorian Premier Steve Brack's Government has just voted overwhelmingly to allow laboratory experimentation on the smallest of unborn children. And with all those Emily's Listers in Queensland's Parliament, Premier Peter Beattie should take care that after pillorying the former Governor- General, child abuse in the womb isn't legalized in his State.

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When the Medical Treatment Act 1988 was debated in the Victorian Parliament, Pro-Life Victoria along with Right To Life Australia campaigned against the legislation, fearing how it may be interpreted by medical practitioners and ultimately by a Court. Proponents of the legislation argued that there would be no significant change to medical practice.

The decision of Justice Morris in the Victorian Supreme Court (29 May 2003) allowed the legal guardian of a woman to refuse the tube feeding of nutrient-enriched liquid through a tube to the stomach. The 68 year old woman with severe dementia was not in imminent danger of death.

Reporting of the judgment in the daily press has not given the emphasis to the intentions of those wanting to remove the woman's feeding tubes but Justice Morris was reported as stating that: "Continued feeding is doing no more than postponing the natural dying process." It is of greater concern if the justification for this judgment is interpreted in the medical profession as permitting quality of life decisions that it is in the best interests of a person that action is taken to bring about death as the intended outcome. Homicide law has always been heavily dependent on intention and this must remain the case.

It is alarming that a judgment like this can alter medical practice in this State if its justification does not clearly enunciate the principles which have governed ethical medical practice over centuries.

The judgment immediately raises concerns for treatment of vulnerable people incapable of expressing their wishes. It raises concerns for the treatment of the mentally handicapped and it is likely to increase the push for euthanasia involving further changes to the law. There will continue to be a push for active measures intended to cause death and there will be a push to extend the number of cases affected. As Archbishop Denis Hart notes in his article below: "All too often 'hard cases make bad law'."

Below we reprint the press release of Archbishop Denis Hart prior to the judgment (13 May 2003) and a comment following the judgment by consultant ethicist Dr. Nicholas TOntiFilippini. The Catholic Church opposed the application by the legal guardian to the Supreme Court to allow the removal of feeding tubes from the woman.

The recent announcement that the Public Advocate will ask the Supreme Court to rule on whether a woman's tube-feeding and hydration should be removed has major implications beyond the distressing events that have led her family to this point.

It may set an important precedent for court-made law in Australia, as similar cases have overseas. That, in turn, may change the way we care for and relate to elderly, handicapped and unconscious people for years to come.

The Catholic Church here rejects two extremes. First, the attitude of "feed people up no matter what" and second, the attitude that "they're better off dead, so why continue feeding?"

Neither law nor morality requires that the elderly and sick be force-fed. Therapeutically futile or overly burdensome treatments should not be used, nor should attempts be made to keep people alive forever with artificial life-support. While never abandoning those in need, we recognise the limits of all human endeavour. There comes a time when death ought to be accepted. The goal then is to ease people's suffering as much as possible, so that they may die comfortably, with dignity, at peace with God, themselves and others.

On the other hand, we must always remember that life is a precious trust and that we have a grave responsibility towards the lives of those of whom we are guardians. The more vulnerable people are, the more vigilantly we must protect them and ensure that they receive appropriate care. Good medical and nursing ethics have always insisted that we may never deliberately hasten death. We all know that can be done by withholding basic needs, as easily as by giving them poison. We can kill by neglect.

Compassion requires that we care even when we can't cure. Continuing to care for a patient is a fundamental way of respecting the bonds of solidarity to which they are entitled. It says that even if they are at a very low ebb, not expected to get better, they still matter, and matter very much. It says that even if some other treatments are properly withheld, we will still treat them as one of us. Like everyone else, they are entitled to be fed and kept warm, clean and comfortable.

That's why the Code of Ethics for Catholic Health and Aged Care Services in Australia declares that "Nutrition and hydration should always be provided to patients unless they cannot be assimilated by a person's body, they do not sustain life, or their only mode of delivery imposes grave burdens on the patient or others. Such burdens to others do not normally arise in developed countries such as Australia."

In some other countries law courts have failed to strike the balance between the extremes of inappropriate feeding of the dying and deliberate starvation. All too often "hard cases make bad law". The Bland case in Britain, for instance - in which courts ordered the removal of an unconscious man's feeding-tube - left the law so "confused" and "misshapen" (to quote the judges) that a major parliamentary inquiry had to be held. The case has been much criticised by legal academics and social commentators but it remains on the books. As a result many disabled and elderly people find themselves without the ordinary protection of law and many health workers find their consciences violated.

It is vital that our courts do not take the same path.

It is clear that this is what the euthanasia lobby wants. They know - as every health professional knows -that law and medicine already allow the withdrawal of inappropriate forms of care. But euthanasia advocates have been looking for a test case with which to get our courts to drastically alter the laws protecting human life.

At a time when reverence for human life is being corroded in some quarters and when pressures on health and aged care resources are considerable, there is a real risk that marginalised people - the poor, the very sick, the unconscious - will be neglected or abandoned. No society can permit that.

There is also a risk that church hospitals and nursing homes, and health professionals across the board, will find themselves being directed by guardians or tribunals to stop feeding patients and so hasten their deaths. This would be a major violation of many people's consciences; a violation that no court should support.

Our hearts go out to this woman and her family. To use them as a test case or as pawns in some campaign is a failure of respect. That failure highlights the fact that at the heart of this complex case the key issue is reverence for human life and dignity.

Most Reuerend Denis Hart Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne - Published in The Age, May 14 2003

Comment - Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini PhD

There are circumstances in which nutrition and hydration are unreasonable such as

a) The patient's system is shutting down and nutrition and hydration would actually hasten death;

b) The only available means of delivery would be overly burdensome;

c) Death is imminent and inevitable and nutrition and hydration is futile because it would not prolong life or serve to relieve distressing symptoms.

The decision by Justice Morris of the Victorian Supreme Court is troubling because it appears that the judge thought that it was relevant that the treatment was artificial rather than natural. That is a vague and irrelevant distinction that the Parliament rejected when it passed the Medical Treatment Act 1988. The Parliament decided instead to hold that the Act might not be used to withdraw the reasonable provision of nutrition and hydration. That was to allow for cases such as those listed above and it was open to Justice Morris to find on that ground.

The problem with the decision is that doctors and hospital staff will now hold that it is no longer necessary to use anything "artificial" to maintain a person's life. It's mere "artificiality" or non-naturalness may now be considered sufficient grounds to declare something not to be reasonable care.

Those of us who do depend on artificial treatment have been made more vulnerable to neglect.

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Pro -Life Victoria asks that its members write to and ask for a review and clarification of the Medical Treatment Act.

• Mr. S. Bracks, Premier, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne 3002
• Mr. R. Hulls, Attorney General, 55 St. Andrews Place, Melbourne 3002
• Mr. R. Doyle, Opposition Leader, Parliament House, Melbourne 3002

It is vital that these political leaders know a large number of people are concerned by the implications of this Supreme Court judgment. Particularly we express our concerns on the previous page in the paragraphs in bold typeface.

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Conceived in a rape at knifepoint 33 years ago and now a mother of adopted children, American prolife speaker Rebecca Wasser Kiessling is herself pregnant.

She and her husband Robert - "A godly man of character who honoured me throughout our courtship despite the horrible mistakes of the past" - are expecting their first child.

Patting her stomach gently, Kiessling introduced Corrina to a large crowd at an annual breakfast at Holy Redeemer Church, and received loud applause in return.

A convert to Catholicism, a family law lawyer and spokesperson for Feminists for Life, Kiessling has become the poster-woman for children conceived by rapists or through incest, telling her touching life-story an average of 50 times a year at schools, churches and other locations. As well she has appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and CNN's Talk Back Live, and her story, "My father was a rapist," was told in Glamour Magazine in August 1999.

Kiessling challenges the belief among some that an abortion is acceptable for women who have conceived through a rape. "Whenever you identify yourself as pro-choice or whatever you make that exception, what that means is you could stand before me, look me in the eye and say to me, "I think that your mother should have been able to abort you." That is the reality which I lived. It hurt."

Kiessling sees her task as putting, "a face to the issue" and does it by telling her tragic but redeemed life story wherever she goes.

Adopted by a Jewish family shortly after her birth, Kiessling attended the musical based on Little Orphan Annie, which made her wonder about her biological parents.

Unable to petition for information because of her age, she had to wait until she was 18 to apply. Kiessling said she was "just devastated" when she learned she had been born out of brutal rape. "I recall thinking "Who would love me and have a family with me because, after all, socially deviant behaviour is genetic, right? That's what I had believed."

Questions plaguing her, Kiessling contacted her birth mother almost 15 years ago, who "filled me in with some horrific details," she said. The mother, a petite woman, was on her way to a grocery store at night when her rapist, "jumped out of the bushes with a knife, cut open her clothes with the knife and then basically brutally raped her every way possible," said Kiessling. "And that was how I was conceived."

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by Elizabeth Hayt, New York Times

For her high school class in persuasive speech, Afton Dahl, 16, chose to present an argument that abortion should be illegal. She graphically described the details of various abortion techniques, including facts about fetal heart development.

"The baby's heart starts at around 12 to 18 days, so it's murder to kill someone with a heartbeat," Miss Dahl said recently, recalling the argument she used in class in January. "I don't believe in abortion under any circumstances, including rape. I think it would be better to overturn Roe v. Wade."

Miss Dahl, a sophomore, attends Red Wing High School in Red Wing, Minnesota, a small city that is the home of Red Wing shoes and a town where a majority voted for Al Gore for president. Miss Dahl's abortion views are not something she learned from her parents: her mother, Fran Dahl, 47, maintains that abortion should be a woman's choice.

"Nowadays kids don't grow up knowing or being aware of what was going on when abortion was illegal," said Mrs Dahl, a former nurse. "It's not a choice that I would have taken personally, but for the failure of women I want to see the right to an abortion maintained."

This contrast between mother and teenage daughter illustrates a trend noted in polls: that teenage and collegeage Americans are more conservative about abortion rights than their counterparts were a generation ago. Many people old enough to have teenage children and who equate youth with liberal social opinions on topics like gay rights and the use of marijuana for medical purposes have been surprised at this discovery. Miss Dahl was one of numerous students in her class who chose to make speeches about abortion, and most took the anti-abortion side.

"I was shocked that there were that many who felt so strong enough and confident enough to speak about being prolife," said Nina Verin, a parent of another student in the class (whose oral argument was about the war in Iraq). "The people I associate with in town are pro-choice, so I'm troubled - where do these kids come from?"

A study of American college freshmen shows that support for abortion rights has been dropping since the early 1990's: 54% of 282,549 students polled at 437 schools last autumn by the University of California at Los Angeles agreed that abortion should be legal. The figure was down from 67% a decade earlier. A New York Times /CBS News poll in January found that among people from 18 to 29, the share who agree that abortion should be generally available to those who want it was 39%, down from 48% in 1993.

"Abortion isn't a rights issue - it's become for increasing numbers of young people a moral, ethical issue," said Henry Brady, a professor of political science and public policy at Berkeley who has taken surveys in this area. "They haven't faced a situation where they couldn't get an abortion." experts offer a number of reasons why young people today seem to favour stricter abortion laws than their parents did at the same age. They include the decline in teenage pregnancy over the last 10 years, which has reduced the demand for abortion. They also cite society's greater acceptance of single parenthood; the spread of ultrasound technology, which has made the fetus seem more human; and the easing of the stigma once attached to giving up a child for abortion.

Ten to 15 years ago, adoption was generally portrayed as an effort to find parents for needy children. Now, that has changed - infertile couples are desperately seeking children.

Young people are idealistic, they think sacrifice is a good thing, particularly conservative Christian kids. One of the main sacrifices you can give is the gift of a child to a deserving couple.

The most commonly cited reason for the increasing conservative views of young people is their receptiveness to the way anti-abortion campaigners have refrained the national debate on the contentious topic, shifting the emphasis from a woman's rights to the rights of the fetus.

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Prolifers do tend to be charitable, generous and loyal people, This is a great strength of our movement,

Nonetheless, for most of us, the capacity to give each year when asked is limited, "Giving later" is another possibility.

You may wish to consider a bequest to ProLife Victoria in your will as a means of "giving later" and ensuring that your support lives on.

Making a will is a personal and private matter. It is easy to postpone until another day but it is important in that it ensures that your estate is distributed as you would wish.

Enquiries ProLife Victoria, 9878 6796

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By Kathryn Jean Lopez - National Review Editor

 

Friday night, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (Rep.) and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, received an award from the Sisters of Life, the order of religious sisters founded by the late John Cardinal O'Connor in 1991. The Sisters were established, according to the late Cardinal Archbishop of New York, to "restore to all society a sense of the sacredness of human life."

It's a story he has told a few times now - most recently at his commencement addresses this year at St. Joseph's University and Christendom College - but that not enough people have heard. It's a reminder that the fight is often worth the effort, even when you technically lose in the eyes of most of the world - and you may not always know the fruits of your work, either.

Here's the story, as Santorum tells it; he was fortunate enough to find out ProLife Senator Santorum how he won during what would have otherwise been considered a legislative defeat: In 1998, I was on the floor of the United States Senate debating the override of the President's veto of the partial-birth-abortion bill. The next morning was to be the vote. We did not have the votes to override the president's veto. The debate had ended that night, it was eight o'clock. The Senate was wrapping up, but there was something inside me that felt that I had to say more, even though there was no one left in the chamber besides the presiding officers. I went back in the cloakroom and called my wife. She picked up the phone and we have six little children and they are all seemingly at once crying in the background, and I said, "Karen, the vote's tomorrow. We are not going to win and everybody's gone. But something tells me I need to say more." And through the din of the children crying, she said, "well, of course, if that's what you need to do, do it."

NAMIBIA - The government of Namibia has ruled out liberalising abortion law for at least the next 10 years. Dr Libertina Amathila, the Namibian health minister, appeared to support legalised abortion, but said that pressure from religious groups meant that the people would not accept it. A law dating from 1975 outlaws abortion in Namibia in most cases, although there are a number of exceptions. A draft law to liberalise the law further was proposed in 1996, but was shelved three years later in the face of vigorous pro-life campaigning.

PHILIPPINES - A Catholic priest in the Philippines has won both praise and condemnation for his refusal to give communion to women who are using abortifacient intrauterine devices (IUDs). Fr Joseph Schwegmann insisted that women had the devices removed before they could be re-admitted to communion, and at least 24 women have heeded him. While the pro-abortion Population Commission condemned the priest's stand, the Vicar General of his diocese praised him and insisted that the use of IUDs was a grave sin. The IUD - also known as the coil - is thought to work by preventing the implantation of a newly conceived embryo in the lining of his or her mother's womb. This means that it causes an abortion. Intentionally procuring an abortion results in automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church pending repentance and absolution.

USA - Two opinion polls in the US have indicated the existence of a growing generation gap on the issue of abortion, with younger people being far more likely to oppose abortion than their parents or grandparents. In a Zogby poll, one third of respondents aged between 18 and 29 believed that abortion should never be legal, compared to 23% of those aged 30 to 64 and 20% of those aged over 65. A similar poll conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, found that people aged between 15 and 26 were about 10 percentage points more likely than older people to support restrictions on abortion.

UNITED KINGDOM - A woman who recently aborted her 20-week-old unborn child after he was diagnosed with Down's syndrome has written about her experience in The Guardian. She describes the screening procedure, her sense of disgust at having to begin the abortion process herself through the taking of a tablet and "the ultimate betrayal" as her baby moved and kicked inside her, unaware that he was about to die. Though the feature is broadly defensive of eugenic abortion, the author goes on to describe the negative effect it has had on her life; her antipathy towards pregnant women, her sense of guilt at "the terrible, dirty act" and her need, at the sight of a Down's child, "to explain myself and apologise a million times over. Apologise for somehow doubting their right to be in this world."

from Guardian May 2003

UGANDA - The teenage pregnancy rate in Uganda has dropped from 45% in 1995 to 31% this year, according to a report prepared by the Ugandan health ministry. The decrease has happened without the promotion of abortion, which remains illegal in most cases. The news appears to contradict the views of a number of South African MPs who urged Uganda last week to legalise abortion because of high rates of sexual abuse and moral degeneration in the country.

USA - The Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, has refused to attend graduation ceremonies at a Jesuit college today because the main speaker is a pro-abortion political commentator. Rt Rev'd Daniel Reilly revoked his agreement to visit Holy Cross college because of Mr Chris Matthews' stated views. He said he could not let his attendance signify agreement with anything less than a prolife position. The college president said that support for abortion was "arguable within Catholic thought". 

from LifeSite May 2003.

USA - A second trial involving the use of tissue from aborted foetuses to treat Parkinson's disease has had the same catastrophic results for patients as another trial last year. In the latest trial at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, 13 of the 23 patients with Parkinson's disease who received transplants of aborted foetal tissue developed severe and uncontrollable movements. It is reported that the results of the trial will come as a major disappointment to proponents and donors of such research, such as the actor Michael J Fox.

from the LifeSite December 2002.

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