Category: Abortion

Given current demographics, we can predict that coming soon to a Chinese audience will be a Made In China version of the game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? But the prize on the Chinese version of the show will not be a million dollars but a woman eligible for marriage:

"China will have more than 23 million men unable to find wives by 2020 because so many more boys are being born than girls, according to a study.

"The widespread practice of aborting female foetuses [i.e., fetuses] is being blamed for creating a generation of bachelors who will pose increasing social problems, it says.

"These men are known as ‘bare branches’ because they will never bear fruit. History suggests that they will give rise to higher crime rates and political instability. Their number might encourage China to become more authoritarian or seek an outlet for their energies through war."

GET THE STORY. (Use BugMeNot.com if you get nabbed by the Evil Registration Requirement.)

Of course, Americans don’t usually discriminate on the basis of the sex of the child. In America, unborn babies have an equal opportunity to be aborted. So, in America, we may one day have a game show titled Who Wants To Live?

And modern man thinks the ancient Greeks and Romans who abandoned unwanted babies to the vagaries of the elements were barbarians.

Plato said "Let me write the music for the country, and I care not who writes the laws.".

Musician Nick Cannon has written a song and made a video that is not just open to a pro-life interpretation, but is unmistakeably, powerfully and movingly pro-life. It is called Can I Live?. In the song and the video, his spirit travels back in time to the day his mother went to an abortion mill and almost took his life. He pleads with her to think about what she is doing, and she literally RUNS out of the clinic and into a new life as a mother.

It is a stunning accomplishment, and not just in a spiritual and artistic sense; the video is ranked #2 on BET (Black Entertainment Television). Given the kind of amoral stuff I often see on BET, this is a very good thing.

Catholic Exchange has an article on the song, with lyrics and a link to go and watch the video.

I don’t know much about Mr. Cannon’s music outside of  Can I Live?, but he has clearly set the bar very high now, both for himself and other artists. I’m going to buy the song, and possibly the album, after I check out the rest of the material.

In our ever-continuing national schizophrenia, our government is now worried that unborn babies are being exposed to pollutants while in their mothers’ wombs:

"Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report released on Thursday.

"Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.

[…]

"’Today, chemicals are being used to make baby bottles, food packaging and other products that have never been fully evaluated for their health effects on children — and some of these chemicals are turning up in our blood,’ said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who plans to co-sponsor a bill to require chemical manufacturers to provide data to the EPA on the health affects of their products."

GET THE STORY.

In other news, The Daily Planet was unable to obtain a comment from Senator Frank Lautenberg on the remarkable disconnect between his concern for the environmental safety of unborn children and his 100-percent voting-record rating by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL).

Catholic World News carries a story (in a follow-up to an earlier piece) concerning a troubling new way of doing business at the United Nations. In preparation for the upcoming Millenium Development Circus Summit, a series of "informal " hearings is being held to give non-governmental groups (NGOs) an opportunity to address the General Assembly and perhaps influence the proceedings.

Thing is, though, all those conflicting points of view can be confusing (especially if you have already made up your mind) so in order to streamline things a bit, the organizers of the hearings (a special task force appointed by GA president Jean Ping of Gabon) decided to invite only those NGOs that will tell them what they want to hear: that abortion is a basic human right. The task force chose a number of radical pro-abortion groups to address the GA, but not one pro-life/pro-family group was allowed to speak. There was, therefore, simply no rebuttal at all to the pro-abortion groups repeated calls for universal abortion-on-demand.

Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. Amabassador to the U.N., has now made a formal complaint (thank God) on behalf of the conservative NGOs that were excluded from the hearings. Will it make much difference? I’m afraid that the fact of their exclusion in the first place says all we need to know about the agenda of the U.N..
The U.S. should withhold payment of our dues to the U.N. (we are by far their biggest contributor) until such time as the pro-life and pro-family NGOs are allowed to address the General Assembly, the GA president is replaced, and a new task force appointed for future hearings.

GET THE STORY.

The working document for the synod of bishops scheduled for this Fall has a section in it dealing with the reception of Communion by those who support abortion. The following story touches upon the matter (though it fails to make clear the nature of the document, which is devoted to the theme of the Eucharist rather than to abortion).

EXCERPTS:

The Catholic Church has produced a new document for bishops across the world to examine that says Catholics who support legalized abortion should refrain from taking communion because they are out of step with church teachings.

The Vatican said pro-abortion Catholics are not taking their faith seriously and those who take communion and support abortion are behaving in a scandalous manner.

"Some receive communion while denying the teachings of the Church or publicly supporting immoral choices in life, such as abortion, without thinking that they are committing an act of grave personal dishonesty and causing scandal," the document says.

"Some Catholics do not understand why it might be a sin to support a political candidate who is openly in favor of abortion or other serious acts against life, justice and peace," the document reads.

The 88 page document is intended for Catholic bishops to examine in October and it contends that, because of abortion and other concerns such as rampant divorce, that Catholics have destroyed the sacrosanct nature of communion.

GET THE STORY.

We’ll have to wait and see what the bishops do based on this working document (it’s a kind of preparatory brief for the bishops to deliberate on prior to and during the synod). Unfortunately, there’s no English translation of the whole document out at the moment (at least the Vatican’s web site didn’t have an English version last night, though it had several in other languages HERE).

Will keep y’all posted.

The working document for the synod of bishops scheduled for this Fall has a section in it dealing with the reception of Communion by those who support abortion. The following story touches upon the matter (though it fails to make clear the nature of the document, which is devoted to the theme of the Eucharist rather than to abortion).

EXCERPTS:

The Catholic Church has produced a new document for bishops across the world to examine that says Catholics who support legalized abortion should refrain from taking communion because they are out of step with church teachings.

The Vatican said pro-abortion Catholics are not taking their faith seriously and those who take communion and support abortion are behaving in a scandalous manner.

"Some receive communion while denying the teachings of the Church or publicly supporting immoral choices in life, such as abortion, without thinking that they are committing an act of grave personal dishonesty and causing scandal," the document says.

"Some Catholics do not understand why it might be a sin to support a political candidate who is openly in favor of abortion or other serious acts against life, justice and peace," the document reads.

The 88 page document is intended for Catholic bishops to examine in October and it contends that, because of abortion and other concerns such as rampant divorce, that Catholics have destroyed the sacrosanct nature of communion.

GET THE STORY.

We’ll have to wait and see what the bishops do based on this working document (it’s a kind of preparatory brief for the bishops to deliberate on prior to and during the synod). Unfortunately, there’s no English translation of the whole document out at the moment (at least the Vatican’s web site didn’t have an English version last night, though it had several in other languages HERE).

Will keep y’all posted.

Alberto Gonzales says he’s not a candidate for the Supreme Court.

EXCERPTS:

President Bush could still select his Attorney General as the next Supreme Court judge, but Alberto Gonzales, who has become the most talked about potential jurist, says he’s not a candidate for the high court.

Swinging through Denver to inspect a Justice Department office there, Gonzales told the Denver Post he’s not seeking an appointment to replace outgoing pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

"I’ve been asked since 2001 whether or not I’d consider going on the court, and I’ve consistently said, ‘I’m not a candidate for the Supreme Court’ — and that remains true today," Gonzales said.

"I love being attorney general. My job, currently, is to help the president make this decision," he added.

It’s not a lock-down, but it’s a positive straw in the wind.

GET THE STORY.

… no matter how small, in the words of the great philosopher Dr. Seuss.

Pope Benedict XVI’s first book published since his election to the papacy, noted in a previous post by Jimmy, will include a defense of the Church’s commitment to fighting for all life, even the lives of those the greater culture deems "insignificant":

"In his first book published since his election as Pope, Benedict XVI rejects the suggestion that the Church has given up its fight for the right to life of the unborn, instead emphasizing that ‘There is no such thing as "small murders."

"’Respect for every single life is an essential condition for anything worthy of being called social life,’ he wrote, as reported by Reuters news. The book, The Europe of Benedict, in the Crisis of Cultures — only available in Italian — is a compilation of three sermons delivered between 1992 and April 2005 by the Pope while he was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"’Why don’t we resign ourselves to the fact that we lost [the abortion] battle and dedicate our energies instead to projects where we can find greater social consensus?’ Pope Benedict XVI asks rhetorically. ‘Recognising the sacred nature of human life and its inviolability without any exceptions is not a small problem or something that can be considered part of the pluralism of opinions in modern society,’ he answers."

GET THE STORY.

Now, what I want to know is when the Pope’s new book will be translated into English.

… no matter how small, in the words of the great philosopher Dr. Seuss.

Pope Benedict XVI’s first book published since his election to the papacy, noted in a previous post by Jimmy, will include a defense of the Church’s commitment to fighting for all life, even the lives of those the greater culture deems "insignificant":

"In his first book published since his election as Pope, Benedict XVI rejects the suggestion that the Church has given up its fight for the right to life of the unborn, instead emphasizing that ‘There is no such thing as "small murders."

"’Respect for every single life is an essential condition for anything worthy of being called social life,’ he wrote, as reported by Reuters news. The book, The Europe of Benedict, in the Crisis of Cultures — only available in Italian — is a compilation of three sermons delivered between 1992 and April 2005 by the Pope while he was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"’Why don’t we resign ourselves to the fact that we lost [the abortion] battle and dedicate our energies instead to projects where we can find greater social consensus?’ Pope Benedict XVI asks rhetorically. ‘Recognising the sacred nature of human life and its inviolability without any exceptions is not a small problem or something that can be considered part of the pluralism of opinions in modern society,’ he answers."

GET THE STORY.

Now, what I want to know is when the Pope’s new book will be translated into English.

It used to be said that a particularly attractive person had a face "to die for." Well, now we might say that such a person has a face "to kill for."

"Aborted foetuses [sic; i.e., fetuses] from girls and young women are being exported from Ukraine for use in illegal beauty treatments costing thousands of pounds, The Observer can reveal. The foetuses are cryogenically frozen and sold to clinics offering ‘youth injections,’ claiming to rejuvenate skin and cure a raft of diseases.

"It is thought that women in the former Soviet republic are being paid £100 a time to persuade them to have abortions and allow their foetuses to be used in treatments. Most of the foetuses are sold in Russia for up to £5,000 each. Some are paid extra to have abortions late in their pregnancy."

As usual, the true horror of the story is obscured by the term foetus. (And, of course, the term becomes even more obscure for non-British, English-speaking readers more accustomed to the spelling fetus.) It comes from the Latin for "offspring," but has become a euphemism to obscure the humanity of the unborn child. Go through the story mentally replacing child and children for foetus and foetuses to get a gauge of the international outrage the story might have inspired had the less-euphemistic terms been used.

That said, one unnamed Ukrainian journalist had a particularly incisive comment on the case:

"Ukrainians, accustomed to tales of illegal privatisations [sic] and government corruption, are not surprised. ‘They used to say we were selling Ukraine,’ said one reporter. ‘Now we are selling Ukrainians; moreover, in parts.’"

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Some Have Hats for the link, and a special nod to SHH’s commenter Sr. Lorraine for this observation on the story: "It reminds me of what Jesus said in the Gospel, about people who look beautiful on the outside but inside are like dead men’s tombs.")