Pro-LIFE NEWS

Vol. 20 No.2 - Spring/Summer 2003/4                                                                         Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042

Contents:

- Unborn Babies 'Smile for the Cameras'
- Editorial
- Partial Birth Abortion Ban - An Important first Step Towards Ending Abortion in America
- Defining The Legal Status Of  The Unborn
- The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
- Why BBC Was Wrong About AIDS Prevention
- The Predators of Planned Parenthood
- Picture Parade
- World View
 

New scan techniques suggest range of emotions in womb

"Does the fetus smile because it is happy, or cry because it has been disturbed by some event in the womb?" Campbell asks, according to Sky News. His pictures reveal fetuses moving their limbs at just eight weeks. Campbell says the new images could help answer questions such as, "Do babies with genetic problems such as Down's Syndrome have the same pattern of activity as normal babies?

Also, he wonders, "Why does a fetus blink when we assume it's dark inside the uterus?"

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The Melbourne Age newspaper is to be congratulated for its front page report October 17, that the first comprehensive list of euthanasia victims compiled by German Government archivists has been released recently in Berlin. It confirmed the historical fact that it was the killing of a five month old disabled child, Gerhard Kretschmar by Hitler's doctor Karl Brandt, that was the catalyst for the Nazi euthanasia program resulting in the 'mercy killing' of 300,000 mentally and physically handicapped people. Not by the Gestapo in concentration camps, but by doctors and nurses in 296 medical facilities. The "hard case" of Gerhard Kretschmar was the excuse for which Hitler had long been waiting. Dr. Brandt testified at Nuremberg that this child provided the Nazis with the excuse to embark on creating a master race.

Whenever opponents of euthanasia raise the spectre of Nazism in relation to euthanasia, prolifers are labelled "offensive" or "scaremongers." The Jury is in now. German medicine made the Nazi holocaust possible. In the forward to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the writer George Santanyana wrote "'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it." We should be looking to our legislators for protection from Dr. Nitschke and other euthanasia doctors. Eugenics practised by reproductive technologists and geneticists should be outlawed. All our emphasis should be on supporting the disabled, curing the sick ethically and palliating the dying. Otherwise we will become "silent witnesses of evil deeds" as Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a film of whose life so prophetically opened here the same day as this report appeared, said of Germany.

Denise M Cameron Editor

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ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN The signing of the long awaited ban on partial birth abortion represents a small but important first step toward ending abortion in America, according to Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Low Centre. The bill signed by President Bush prohibits doctors from partially delivering a baby, and then killing the baby by puncturing its skull.

Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Low Centre commented on the significance of the legislation. "The ban on partial birth abortion is significant in that it represents an important first step towards providing legal protection for innocent human life at its earliest stages. I applaud the President and Congress for enacting this important first step toward ending abortion in America."

Thompson continued, "We must keep in mind that this law prohibits only the medical procedure used to kill approximately 5,000 of the 1.3 million babies aborted each year. These babies can still be killed using other medical procedures while in the womb. And these unborn babies are being killed by procedures no less horrific and barbaric. We have a long way to go."

Law Centre attorneys have been carefully monitoring the legislation, and are now preparing for a legal battle likely to end up in the Supreme Court, "We have reviewed this legislation carefully, and believe it properly addresses the problems the Supreme Court found in its decision three years ago," said Thompson. We have been in regular contact with members of the United States Senate and are prepared to represent them in defending this law all the way to the Supreme Court."

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PARIS, December 6, 2003 -Parliaments and courts in several countries continue to deliberate over what legal status unborn children may possess. The most recent case comes from France, where the lower house of Parliament approved an amendment to a bill that would make it a crime to cause a pregnant woman to miscarry against her will, the British Daily Guardian reported November 29.

The proposal is still to be considered by the Senate, where press reports say it faces an uphill battle. The proposal arose after a court case involving a woman who had lost her baby after being hit by a car. An attempt to convict the offending driver failed, with the court determining that the fetus was not recognized as a person under French law.

Earlier this year a similar law was recommended for the Australian state of New South Wales, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, June 26. The proposal came from retired Supreme Court Judge Mervyn Finlay, in a review of the state's manslaughter legislation. As in France the cause originates in the case of a mother who lost her unborn baby in a car accident.

Current state law does not classify a child as human until he or she draws breath. All Australian states other than New South Wales and South Australia have legislation making the killing of an unborn child an offence, with penalties ranging from 10 years in jail to a life sentence.

In his report, Finlay found that "the Some Progress Made in Past Months status of the fetus capable of being born alive is not merely that of a body part of its mother" and he recommended the introduction of the offence of "killing an unborn child." He proposed that for legal purposes a fetus be considered a child at 26 weeks. Finlay also suggested that the death of a fetus due to a criminal act at earlier than 26 weeks be considered an aggravating factor at sentencing.

In the United States, legislators have also debated the introduction of laws giving some form of legal status to unborn children. Pennsylvania and Texas have considered the issue in past months. U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania wrote on the issue in an opinion article for the Philadelphia Inquirer last June 8. Commenting on the discovery in San Francisco Bay of the body of Laci Peterson, who was carrying her unborn child, Santorum noted that California law recognizes that the homicide of an expectant mother has two victims.

With the approval in Pennsylvania of a similar law, there are now 26 states that consider the harming an unborn child as a crime. Santorum lamented that this still leaves nearly half of the United States without such protection. "As lawmakers, we have a duty to make justice available where gaps and loopholes in the law exist for innocent victims who have suffered maliciously intended harm," he said.

Florida battle

Courts have also been active in the legal debate over unborn children. Florida was the centre of a battle earlier this year as Governor Jeb Bush intervened to ask that a guardian be appointed for the fetus of a mentally retarded woman. After a protracted battle Judge Lawrence Kirkwood approved that the woman, known as J.D.S., complete her pregnancy, The Sun-Sentinel reported June 26.

On several occasions the judge had ruled against the petitions of Bush to appoint a guardian for the fetus. However, the judge did finally accept the medical plan recommended by J.D.S.' court-appointed guardian, Patti Jarrell. The plan proposed the woman continue with her pregnancy. J.D.S. became pregnant after being assaulted while in the medical facility where she is cared for.

The decision came a month after a similar case led to the woman in question undergoing an abortion. Judge Arthur Rothenburg authorized the abortion for the mentally handicapped woman, and he also gave permission for doctors to sterilize the woman, the Associated Press reported May 23.

Courts have also handed down a number of decisions concerning convictions made under laws recognizing the legal status of unborn children. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a South Carolina woman convicted of homicide for causing her baby to be stillborn due to her use of cocaine, Reuters reported October 6.

The court refused to review an appeal by Regina McKnight who had challenged the constitutionality of the law. McKnight gave birth in 1999 to a stillborn, 5-pound baby girl after a pregnancy estimated at between 34 and 37 weeks. She tested positive for cocaine, and an autopsy of the baby revealed traces of cocaine. Prosecutors said McKnight had been responsible for her daughter's death because she used crack cocaine even though she knew it could kill her fetus.

A South Carolina law makes it a crime to cause the death of a child under the age of 11 while committing abuse or neglect if the death occurs under circumstances manifesting "an extreme indifference to human life."

Another conviction for causing the death of an unborn child came in Massachusetts. Roberto Madruga was sentenced to two years jail after pleading guilty to being drunk when his pickup truck collided with a car, injuring a female passenger and causing her to lose her fetus, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Earlier, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that an unborn fetus is a person under state law, the AP reported Aug. 22. By a 6-2 vote the court ruled in favour of a woman's right to pursue a wrongful death claim, after she said that a mistake by her doctors caused her to suffer emotional distress and have a miscarriage. The fetus being carried by Tracy Tucker was 19 weeks old at the time.

Previously, the law allowed people to sue for the wrongful death of a newly born, or prematurely born, fetus that would have been expected to live. With this decision the court extended the right to file a lawsuit under the wrongful death statute to cover non-viable fetuses.

The case dates back to 2001, when a county judge declined to dismiss Tuckeris lawsuit and allowed all parties to ask the Supreme Court to decide whether the wrongful death claim was legal.

Focus on the fetus

Medical experts are also paying greater attention to the fetus. Earlier this year one of Britain's leading neurological scientists said that fetuses might develop consciousness long before the legal age limit for abortions.

Baroness Greenfield, a professor of neurology at Oxford University and the director of the Royal Institution, said there was evidence to suggest the conscious mind could develop before 24 weeks, the upper age where abortions are permitted in Britain, The Daily Telegraph reported March 10.

"Given that we can't prove consciousness or not, we should be very cautious about being too gung-ho and assuming something is not conscious," she said. 'We should err on the side of caution."

Greenfield also noted that the British Home Office has extended legislation that originally gave legal protection to mammals, to include an octopus and even a mollusk. If a mollusk can be attributed with being sentient, and now has Home Office protection, then my own view is that we should be very cautious on making assumptions," she said.

In his address May 22 to members of the Italian pro-life movement John Paul II stated: "There can be no true peace without respect for life, especially if it is innocent and defenceless as is that of the unborn child." 

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Life begins at 14 days, according to the Anglican Church in Australia. Anglican primate Peter Carnley made the statement at the annual scientific meeting of the Fertility Society of Australia in Perth. Once this was understood, he claimed, 'troublesome difficulties fall away' surrounding issues such as IVF and embryo research. [The West Australian, 5 November] Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey challenged Dr Carnley, stating that human beings must be treated with dignity from the moment of conception to natural death.

Emeritus Professor Ted Watt of Western Australia's Coalition for the Defence of Human Life had this letter published in The West Australian.

The question when life begins, in the human species or in any other species, is not a religious question. It is a question for a cell biologist. Why would anyone address this question to a bishop (unless he also happened to be a cell biologist?)

Dr Carnley (5 November) does not sound like a biologist. He shows ' no sign of understanding that the embryo (in any species) is genetically complete from Day One, and that its development, to Day 14 and for the rest of its life, is controlled by its own genetic material, which is present in full from the beginning, not from some later stage.

The possibility of twinning during the first 14 days is a red herring. Artificial twinning is possible in theory, and occasionally works in practice, not only during the first 14 days but at any stage in life, as Dolly the Sheep has shown. If someone were to clone Dr Carnley tomorrow, would that prove that the Dr Carnley we see today is only a 'genetically novel kind of cell', and not an 'individual human being with rights to care?'

Dr Anne Jequier is quoted as saying that Dr Carnley's 'arguments' (as she called them) 'made sense'. They may make financial sense for the XF industry, where Dr Jequier works. It is hard to see that they make any other kind of sense.

It is clear enough why the Fertility Society might want to clone Dr Carnley or, failing that, to have him speak at their conference in Perth. The Fertility Society is the voice of the IVF industry, and the IVF clinics need people like Dr Carnley to calm public disquiet over their massive destruction of human beings at the embryonic stage in their lives, by casting his mantle as Anglican Primate of Australia over these horrifying practices.

But Dr Carnley's support is of little value to the Dr Strangeloves of the XF industry. It has no religious force. To report his statement as if it were a definitive statement of the Church is to misunderstand the role of the Primate in the Anglican Church. He does not speak for the Anglican Church, but only for himself And what he has to say is not impressive, either as science or as logic.

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As I watched the recent episode Sex and the Holy City of ABC television's Foreign Correspondent, a note lay on my kitchen table." Type writer ribbons for Eric P' While the BBC's Panorama production tried to convince its viewers the poverty, malnutrition and spread of the Aids in Third World countries was due to the teachings of the Catholic Church on chastity, fidelity. contraception and abortion, I thought of the desperate phone call from Eric in the Philippines.

Sitting in a shanty hut with a Filipino mother and her children, a reporter cited the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion as the cause of such poverty in the Philippines. This is a lie. Last July, Imee Marcos, quoting figures provided to her by the Commission on Population, told the Philippines Parliament thousands of abortion clinics are thriving in Metro Manila alone, with over 1000 abortions performed in the country daily. Why did Eric want typewriter ribbons? To type letters against abortion to his country's newspapers. For years he has written against the anti life, imperialistic policies of International Planned Parenthood and the failure of successive non-democratic & democratic governments to embrace land reform. 1, 000 abortions a day has done nothing to eliminate poverty, hunger and Aids in the Philippines. If journalists were as compassionate as they appear on such programs, they would expose their real causes. Until they outgrow their juvenile Catholic bashing, the women and children whose plight they so illogically blame on Pope John Paul II, will continue to suffer so iniquitously.

Denise M Cameron Editor Pro Life Victoria

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Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Director Says... Science Backs Up Church's Emphasis on Chastity

A recent television program on AIDS prevention failed to note that scientific evidence indicates the Catholic Church is right when it advocates abstinence and marital fidelity, says a pro-life observer.

John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said as much in an open letter to the director general of BBC in response to the network's program "Sex and the Holy City."

The program, which was screened to coincide with the recent 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II, claimed to investigate the Church's teachings on sexuality.

Smeaton shared with ZENIT the scientific and empirical evidence that contradicts the BBC's statements, which he thinks implied that the Pope's personal views on contraception and abortion are causing misery and death in the developing world.

Q: What inspired you to write this open letter to the BBC? Smeaton: The BBC continues to command a great deal of influence and respect around the world, but it remains accountable to virtually no one. When it makes unsubstantiated and misleading allegations of this nature, the results are very damaging for all those who work to protect human life.

SPUC is not a religious organization, but the Panorama program attacked the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion and human sexuality that we share. We felt duty bound as a Society to expose its one-sided and inaccurate coverage of this subject.

Q: What were your main points of contention with the BBC program?

Smeaton: From beginning to end, the program presupposed that the Church's prohibition of abortion and birth control was the major cause of poverty and suffering in the developing world. This view was never once challenged in the course of the program. In the part of the program that dealt with Nicaragua, cheap pro-abortion tactics were used unashamedly, such as the use of unreferenced figures for maternal death through illegal abortion and the portrayal of pregnant child rape-victims as the norm. In the section on Manila, outdated Malthusian arguments were used to present contraception as the magical answer to poverty and homelessness.

In the part about Kenya, the program went so far as to suggest that the Church was condemning people to death from AIDS by "peddling rumour and superstition."

We are not saying that the issues do not warrant scrutiny. Our major complaint is that the BBC made no attempt at presenting a balanced, honest and accurate report.

Q: What are the problems with using condoms as the primary solution to stopping AIDS?

Smeaton: The major problem is that they are not safe. This is not even a contentious point. The condom manufacturers themselves point this out. The issue of viral leakage is certainly open to dispute but, even simply taking into account the danger of a condom's rupturing or slipping off, the risk of HIV transmission is very real.

Condom use may reduce the risk of transmission, but to spread the message that condom use prevents AIDS is a dangerous lie. It is no good saying that the risk is "only 15%," or "only 1 in 10 when we are talking about human lives.

We have to ask ourselves whether the decision-makers and birth control advocates would be quite so cavalier if we were talking about a terminal condition that was transmitted non-sexually. For example, would health care professionals advise a chain smoker at serious risk of lung cancer to smoke cigarettes with better filters rather than giving up smoking altogether?

Worse, would they advise him to give his wife and children masks to reduce the amount of smoke they breathed in so that he could smoke freely around the house rather than telling him to act responsibly and not expose them to any risk at all?

The second major problem is that condoms encourage irresponsible behavior because people believe themselves to be better protected than they actually are. A paper entitled "Condoms and Seat Belts: The Parallels and the Lessons," which was published in a UK medical journal called The Iancet, noted that "a vigorous condom promotion policy could increase rather than decrease unprotected sexual exposure if it has the unintended effect of encouraging a greater overall level of sexual activity."

The figures bear this out. Botswana has the highest distribution of condoms, but 39% of the population is infected with AIDS. However, when the archbishop of Nairobi made the same point in a reputable medical journal, he was accused of talking "scientific nonsense."

Q: Are there independent scientific studies that back up objections to condoms?

Smeaton: Yes there are. First, to reaffirm my previous point, there is not a single scientific study I have come across that promotes condoms as 100% effective.

All reputable studies admit a failure rate caused by a variety of factors. Besides the ones already mentioned, latex is a natural substance that can degrade if stored in unsuitable conditions, if exposed to extremes of temperature or if stored for an extended length of time.

Condoms are also used incorrectly in many cases. Studies often refer to "ideal" or "consistent and proper" use compared with "typical" use, where the failure rate and associated risks are higher.

To give a couple of examples, the U.S. National Institute of Health study on condoms that was cited in the Panorama program gives a failure rate of between 1.6% and 3.6%. It also quotes an estimate from National Surveys of Family Growth that suggested that 14% of couples experienced an unintended pregnancy during the first year of "typical" condom use.

With any failure rate connected with pregnancy, one has to bear in mind that a woman can only become pregnant for between five and seven days of her cycle whereas a person can be infected with HIV at any time. Also, while a conception involves the creation of a new life regardless of how the couple considers the child, HIV infection can only ever be a tragedy.

Q: Could you explain why programs based on promoting abstinence and marital fidelity maybe preferable to massive distributions of condoms?

Smeaton: Programs based on abstinence and marital fidelity are always preferable to condom distribution in the fight against AIDS -- and it is not just the Church that tells us this. The World Health Organization and the condom companies say so, too.

Now, condom companies are not exactly supporters of the "theology of the body," nor are they guardians of Christian marriage. However, even the makers of Durex condoms say quite clearly that "for complete protection from HIV and other [sexually transmitted infections], the only totally effective measure is sexual abstinence or limiting sexual intercourse to mutually faithful, uninfected partners."

The logic of abstinence and marital fidelity programs is beautifully simple and straightforward. If a person sleeps around and uses a condom, they run the risk, however reduced, of contracting HIV; yet no one has ever died as a direct result of virginity.

It is the same if a man and a woman are faithful to one another in marriage, having abstained beforehand. The Church's teaching on human sexuality is not the idealistic dream that the Panorama program claimed. It is the common-sense system by which billions of people have lived over generations.

Q: What is the success rate of AIDS prevention or reduction in areas that have abstinence and marital fidelity programs compared with areas where condoms are distributed?

Smeaton: Uganda is perhaps the biggest success story in the fight against AIDS and much of its achievement is because of changes in sexual behavior, particularly emphasis on abstinence and fidelity.

Condoms have been promoted as a last resort, but a report by USAID on Uganda found that condoms were not a major factor in the decrease in HIV transmission. In fact, the decline in transmission rates began before the widespread promotion of condoms.

Critics of abstinence claim that people are not strong enough to resist, but this is unsubstantiated propaganda. In one district of Uganda, it was noted that fewer than 5% of 13- to 16-year-olds were sexually active in 2001 compared with 60% in 1994, a significant change in sexual behavior achieved in just seven years.

Unlike some of its neighbouring countries, Uganda has had a decline in HIV transmission for well over a decade and 98% of people with no education are aware of AIDS -- one of the highest awareness rates in the world.

Q: What are the best ways of changing public attitudes and the conventional wisdom about using condoms to fight AIDS?

Smeaton: We need to circulate honest, accurate information. The facts speak for themselves. Governments and aid agencies need to put aside their anti-family agendas and put their energies into programs that actually make a difference.

The public needs to be made aware that abstinence and monogamy are positive and beneficial choices for individuals and for society. No one should be condemned to die because of Western resistance to responsible sexual behavior based on a model of marital fidelity.

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... by Michelle Malkin - @ 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Planned Parenthood's outspoken activists re main stone-cold silent about Holly Patterson. She's the teenager who died of tragic complications from taking the abortion drug cocktail RU-486, which she obtained from a northern California Planned Parenthood clinic in September. Holly and her unborn child suffered a painful, bloody and prolonged death. Patterson was seven weeks pregnant when she received the chemical abortion regimen. After seven days and two desperate trips to a hospital emergency room seeking help for intense cramping and bleeding, she succumbed to "septic shock, due to endomyometritis (inflammation) due to therapeutic, drug-induced abortion," according to an Alameda County coroner's report. The silence of the abortion lobby speaks volumes: Ho-hum. Just one (sic) more innocent casualty in pursuit of the almighty "right to choose." Nothing to see here. Move along.

While Patterson's family mourns and the Food and Drug Administration investigates, Planned Parenthood continues to dispense the abortion kill pills to pregnant teens - and it continues to entice young people to its abortion clinics with a glitzy, MTV-like website offering "sexuality and relationship info you can trust." Called "Teenwire.com," the Planned Parenthood site is chockfull of colourful graphics, hip jargon, voluminous health advice, and lots of exclamation points:

"Check out our interactive colour diagrams of female and male anatomy!"

"Sex talk live!

"Got Lube?"

I want both guys!"

"Masturbation: Go there!

Amid explicit discussions of "dry humping," oral sex, masturbation and encouragement for "queer and questioning" teens, the Teenwire.com site issues a stern note to parents who might be trying to monitor what kind of sex education propaganda their kids are reading. Planned Parenthood lectures mothers and fathers that "this website is for teens. This is their place. Take a look around the site if you like, but please do not register on the site."

Translation: We're the experts. You are meddling parents. Bug off and butt out.

Teenwire.com's readers are advised by Planned Parenthood legal experts to call a free hotline number for confidential pregnancy tests and private abortion counselling. Responding to a 14-year-old girl nicknamed "devilchik" who writes a letter asking the experts if she can get an abortion without her mom's permission, the Planned Parenthood advisers supply a list of state laws regarding parental notification and consent. California, where Holly died, has no parental involvement requirement. In a section titled "Yikes! the experts enthusiastically explain the 'Judicial bypass' process for circumventing parents altogether when a teen wants to take RU-486 in secret.

The website pounds home the blithe message that "abortion is a very safe procedure" akin to taking an aspirin or getting tonsils removed. Shamelessly courting repeat customers, the website also mentions several times to its teenage audience that second abortions are no big deal. Ignoring the untold number of American women who suffer from post-abortion trauma, the Planned Parenthood experts also tell young girls that abortion "poses little danger to a woman's emotional and mental health. Although a woman may feel some regret or remorse, the most common emotion after an abortion is relief."

Teenwire.com's section on abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) reads like a cheerleading pharmaceutical press release. "It's finally here! crows Planned Parenthood writer Susan Motamed. 'It's time-tested and supersafe," she informs teens. "Not one woman has died from using mifepristone with misoprostol to end pregnancy," Teenwire.com falsely asserts. Unmentioned are the approximately 400 adverse events linked to RU-486 by its manufacturer, including haemorrhaging, bacterial infections and the deaths of three women in North America, including 18-year-old Holly.

Predators win the trust of their victims by luring them away from their closest loved ones, speaking their language and telling them what they want to hear. Planned Parenthood subverts parents and dispenses death pills to vulnerable teens like candy - cheap! easy! super-safe! But as Holly's dad, Monty, sobbed at a press conference after his daughter's RU-486-induced homicide: 'There's no quick fix for pregnancy, no magic pill ... They told her it was safe, and it killed her."

Put that in capital letters, Planned Parenthood experts. File it on your website under "Yikes! in memory of Holly Patterson and her child who never had a chance.

But as Holly's dad, Monty, sobbed at a press conference after his daughter's RU-486induced homicide: There's no quick fix for pregnancy, no magic pill ... They told her it was safe, and it killed her. "

Michelle Malkin's column is syndicated by Creators Syndicate and appears in about 100 newspapers nationwide. Her book, "Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores," is a national best seller and now available at ShopNetDaily. All copies of the book sold at ShopNefflaily are personally autographed. 

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Above: Members of Prol-ife Victoria at Right to Life Australia's Annual Conference Dinner, July 11. Left from back: Greg Guest, John Morrissey Denise Cameron; and right from back: Andrew Rabel, Genevieve Gill, Peter Beriman Klara Doroszlay & John McElholum.

Left: Assembly of God's Youth Pastor, Geoff Kwan addressing the Freedom to be Born March, September 13.

Left: Starting out young. Bernadette O'Brien, 2 year old daughter of Ben & Tanya, the Helpers of God's Precious Infants, on the steps of Victoria's State Parliament.

Left: Jim Wallace, of the Christian Coalition speaking at September 13 Freedom to be Born March.

Left: Youthful prolifers line up in readiness for Freedom to be Born March on September 13.

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BRAZIL San Paulo Scientists at the University of San Paulo in Brazil say that they have successfully treated spinal injuries with adult stem cells, BBC reports. The researchers took stem cells from the patients' blood and introduced them into the damaged areas. 12 out of 30 of the patients responded to electrical stimulation of their paralysed limbs. Professor Tarciscio Barros said: "Two to six months after treatment, we found that patients were showing signs of responding to tests. We still hope we may yet see improvements in the other patients too but already this is a real breakthrough."

from SPUC November 2003.

SCOTLAND - A 'sex tsar' is to be appointed to deal with Scotland's high rate of teenage pregnancy and STD. Scotland has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe, with rates of chlamydia infection rising by 30% last year. A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland commented: "This shows it is time to tackle behaviour and deal with causes rather than symptoms. We would like this tsar to say to young people that multiple casual sex relationships are a bad idea." [The Telegraph, 10 November]

Archbishop Mario Conti called upon Scotland to take 'a long hard look at abortion and allied issues' as they remembered those killed in war this Remembrance Sunday. In an article published in the Sunday Herald, he wrote: "While we recall with pride the lost generations sacrificed in conflicts of the last century on this Remembrance Sunday, at the same time we should recall - this time with shame -the silent holocaust of Scotland's children, whose names will never appear on any memorial, but whose loss will continue to be felt in the years ahead."

from The Sunday Herald November 2003.

LATV1A - Politicians in Latvia have demanded the resignation of Ingrida Cieene the health minister after she admitted carrying out abortions after taking office. Her actions were condemned by the chairman of the governing First Party as deeply immoral and unethical.

from The Universe November 2003.

UNITED KINGDOM -London - British Govt. Supports Euthanasia of Mentally Handicapped - While the current British government says it opposes euthanasia, it supports upcoming legislation that would legalize passive euthanasia, or euthanasia "by neglect on mentally incapacitated adults. A draft of the Mental Incapacity Bill is being prepared for presentation to Parliament.

An attempt to clarify difficult medical and financial decisions for those unable to do so themselves as a result of illness or accident, it opens the door to starvation and dehydration of those suffering from dementia, stroke or traumatic brain injury, as well as other illnesses. If passed, the Mental Incapacity Bill would be the first comprehensive law in the world to allow "euthanasia by neglect," could require the denial of treatment to patients not in danger of death, and force doctors to assist in the starvation or negligent death of those in their care.

from LifeNews.com November 2003.

UNITED KINGDOM -Students Emulate UK Life League Tactics And Show Abortion Images At Cambridge University - On 23rd October, students led by Patrick Leahy (director of Student LifeNet) showed images of abortion in front of the notoriously politically active Kings College at Cambridge University. The demonstration was the first of its kind in a university setting. The demonstration was a huge success. Over 500 students saw the images and a number spoke to us - many of whom admitted their minds had been changed. It was clear from the impression given from others, who argued against us, that they were now unsure of their position on abortion, said Patrick.

from Student LifeNet November 2003.

UNITED KINGDOM - A Church of England curate has explained her reasons for taking legal action over the late abortion of a baby with cleft palate. The Reverend Joanna Jepson, a Cambridge graduate, was born with cleft palate and had corrective surgery as a teenager. She said: 'We bend over backwards not to discriminate (against people with disabilities) in society, yet when it comes to the unborn we are seeing a level of eugenics in action. I want to see the law tightened so that the eugenics agenda does not become widely accepted or accepted at all."

from The Times November 2003.

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