| Cameroon Becomes Latest Nation to Resist UN CEDAW Committee on Abortion |
| by Samantha Singson |
| January 15, 2009 |
| New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The committee that monitors state compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) will begin a new session in Geneva next week, but even prior to the meeting six of the eight states who will be reviewed have already been questioned on abortion. |
| In a stinging written response to the CEDAW committee’s advance questions, Cameroon fired back that “abortion is murder.” |
| CEDAW does not mention abortion, but the committee has courted controversy for years by pressuring over 65 countries to liberalize their abortion laws. |
| In a written communication to the Cameroon government, the CEDAW committee asked the government to account for how they have implemented CEDAW’s previous recommendations to “review the abortion law and increase access to, and availability of, contraception.” |
| The government of Cameroon provided a lengthy written answer to the question and repudiated the tendency to “elevate” abortion to “the rank of a right and dignity.” Cameroon continued that abortion “is portrayed as a freedom without mentioning that the mother exercises this freedom to the detriment of the child’s.” |
| The Cameroon response lists the risks associated with abortion, including death, intestinal aspiration, hemorrhaging, infection, sterility, ectopic pregnancy, future miscarriage, perforation of the uterus and distress. Cameroon warned that new ideologies and scientific and technical progress “must not lead to an erosion in basic values.” |
| Cameroon emphasized the traditional African philosophy that “recognizes the permanent bond that links societies and families to their ancestors” and how children are a “bridge between generations past and present, while representing future prospects for communities.” |
| Therefore, any abortion performed for any reason “other than to save the life of the mother or child, impedes the expression of this vital social dynamic.” |
| Cameroon also reminded the CEDAW committee of an aspect it feels is overlooked – “the tremendous joy that the possibility of having a child brings to women, as well as to men and families.” |
| Cameroon asks the members of the committee to “Think for a moment of the anguish felt by the many couples who do not have children; think of the thousands of women and men who, in spite of their comfortable material existence, desperately want a child, even if it means adopting just one child.” |
| While the recommendations of the CEDAW committee are non-binding, abortion activists have brought litigation in various countries citing human rights treaty bodies, like the CEDAW Committee, in challenging laws against abortion. Such arguments helped convince the Colombian constitutional court to liberalize that country’s restrictions on the practice. |
| CEDAW critics will be watching the next session closely to monitor the performance of several newly elected committee members such as Violet Tsisiga Awori of Kenya and Barbara Evelyn Bailey of Jamaica, who were high-ranking members of non-government organizations that advocated for abortion rights in their respective regions. |
| Along with Cameroon, the CEDAW Committee will also be reviewing the country reports of Armenia, Dominica, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Libya and Rwanda. |
| (LifeNews.com Note: Samantha Singson writes for the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. This article originally appeared in the pro-life group's Friday Fax publication.) |
| ***************** |
| Why I am Pro-Life: New Canadian Caucus Leader Expands on Abortion Opposition |
| by Rod Bruinooge |
| I think it is essential for a society to value its unborn citizens. The importance we give our offspring pre-birth affects the importance we place on them post-birth. In Canada in 2008, our citizens have no legal value while in the wombs of their mothers. We are completely alone in the world in this regard. Most Canadians would agree that you should not be able to remove your kidney and sell it on eBay to the highest bidder. Although it's your body and your kidney, this would not only be a poor bioethical choice, but it is in fact illegal under our laws. Most Canadians would also agree that an unborn child in the ninth month of gestation, moments away from delivery, should not be eligible for an elective abortion. However, regardless of the fact that this would be an extremely poor bioethical choice, it is in fact legal. As such, Canada has far greater protections for human kidneys than we do for human fetuses. By assigning no legal worth to our unborn children, we set the stage for a society that continues to lose out on natural community growth. The study of demographics in our country speaks clearly on this topic, and the numbers are stark. Is there a correlation between our nation's collapsing birth rate and our legal and social devaluation of the unborn? Of course there is. |
| Pregnant British Teen, Rape Victim, Glad She Didn’t Have Abortion |
| London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A British teenager who was a victim of rape recently shared her story with the London Daily Mail about how she is glad she didn’t have an abortion and loves her daughter despite her father’s crime. Elizabeth Cameron says she’s not sure what she will tell her daughter when she is old enough to understand the story behind her birth. “When new people ask, I say I have nothing to do with him - which is true,” she says. “But I'm not sure yet what I will tell Phoebe herself when she is old enough to ask. Hopefully, one day, I will get married, and then Phoebe will have a father and it won't be such an issue.” That Phoebe exists at all almost defies belief. Practically everyone who knew exactly how Elizabeth had fallen pregnant - doctors, siblings, even her own father - urged her to have an abortion as soon as possible. The only person who pleaded with her to at least consider having the child was her mother, Sarah. “Everyone, save for mum, thought I should have an abortion,” she says. “My dad even made an appointment at the clinic, and they showed me the little blob on the scan, I presume, to convince me that it was just a mass of cells and the whole thing would be over quickly. But I couldn't go through with it. At school, my friends - most of whom didn't even know about the rape - couldn't understand why anyone my age would want to have a baby rather than an abortion.” Yet Elizabeth grew to love her daughter. “It was surprisingly easy to love her as she grew inside me, but I have to admit I was scared my feelings would change when I saw her.” |
| Argentina Judge Rejects Abortion for 12 Year-Old Girl on Mental Health Grounds |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| September 29, 2008 |
| Buenos Aires, Argentina (LifeNews.com) -- Although a judge in Australia has allowed an abortion for a 12-year-old girl, another one in Argentina has denied the request and cited mental health ground for doing so. |
| The Hispanic girl was impregnated through rape but the judge ruled her mother can't make her have an abortion after hearing evidence that the abortion could cause her mental health problems. |
| Justice Germán Ferrer noted that expert witnesses testified that "after analyzing the whole situation, above all the psychological and social aspects of the child, [the experts] came to the conclusion that today the interruption of the pregnancy could produce a personality disturbance in the child that could result in irreversible psychiatric pathologies such as psychosis.” |
| The Elliot Institute says it is not surprised the judge noted the psychological issues involved. |
| “Indeed, evidence suggests that, in addition to causing the death of her unborn child, abortion is likely to harm, not help, this girl and others like her,” the group noted. |
| The group cites one of the only studies done on women who became pregnant from sexual assault showing that nearly 80 percent of the women who aborted a pregnancy conceived in sexual assault reported that abortion had been the wrong solution. |
| The study, done in 1995 and published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders finds most women who had abortions said that abortion only increased the trauma they were experiencing. |
| In many cases, the victim faced strong pressure or demands to abort and in some cases, especially those involving teenage girls, was even forced to have the abortion by others and none of the women who gave birth to a child conceived in sexual assault expressed regret or wished they had aborted instead. |
| “Further the survey found that in almost all the cases where the victim became pregnant through incest, abortion was chosen by the perpetrator to cover up the incest and the victim rarely, if ever, had a say in the matter,” the Elliot Institute noted. |
| “And studies of women who had unintended first pregnancies found that women who aborted were more likely than those who carried to term to have subsequent depression,2 anxiety3 and substance abuse,” the group added. |
| Other research found that teens who abort an unintended pregnancy are more likely to experience negative mental health outcomes than are teens who carry the unintended pregnancy to term, the study noted, too. |
| Ireland Forces European Union to Back Down on Pro-Abortion Africa Plan |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 21, 2007 |
| Brussles, Belgium (LifeNews.com) -- Delegates to the European Union from Ireland have been successful in forcing it to moderate its support for an African plan that promotes abortion continent-wide. The African Union approved the pro-abortion Maputo Plan of Action, a non-binding resolution, in January and pro-life advocates have opposed it ever since. |
| Several African nations signed up to support the Maputo plan, which is seen as a move towards population control that could promote abortions and even forced abortions or sterilizations like those seen in China. |
| It urges African countries to "enact policies and legal frameworks to reduce incidence of unsafe abortion” and to “prepare and implement national plans of action to reduce incidence of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion." |
| According to a Catholic World News report, the Irish delegation to the European Union questioned support for the plan at a meeting of European foreign ministers. |
| The Ireland lawmakers said an EU motion to support it would violate previous EU policy against officially endorsing abortion in other nations. |
| CWN reports that a MEPs reached a compromise agreement where the EU would support the plan only "within the context of EU policies." |
| In February, a leading pro-life congressman told a conference in Nigeria that the problem in Africa is not illegal abortions but a lack of basic health care, doctors and medical facilities. |
| Debunking the myth, Smith noted "it is false to claim that abortion will be safe if it is legal." |
| "Abortion is never safe for the child and can harm the woman physically, emotionally and psychologically whether legal or illegal," he explained. |
| Smith said that "complications from childbirth can be treated and women's lives saved if they have access to safe and sanitary birth delivery centers, delivery kits, trained birth attendants, antibiotics, clean blood transfusions and prevention and treatment of obstetric fistula." |
| The congressman added that an organized pro-life movement is needed in African nations like Nigeria because of the ratification of the Maputo plan. |
| Brazil Health Conference Rejects Abortion in Suggestions for Government |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 21, 2007 |
| Brasilia, Brazil (LifeNews.com) -- Delegates to a national health conference in Brazil have rejected including abortion in a list of health care policy recommendations for the nation's government. Abortion advocates have been working overtime there to legalize abortion despite polls showing a strong majority of citizens there support its pro-life laws. |
| Participants at the 13th National Conference of Health voted on 400 various health care proposals, including a measure supported by pro-abortion groups to legalize abortion. |
| According to an Agencia Brasil report, 70 percent of the 2,627 delegates rejected the proposal and it will not be included in the final report sent on to government leaders. |
| The news agency said abortion was presented as a "public health problem" with claims that there are a large number of illegal abortions in the South American nation. Reportedly, delegates booed the presented of the pro-abortion measure during their presentation. |
| Clovis Boufleur of the Ministry for Children told Agencia Brasil that the vote “reflects the thinking of the Brazilian people." |
| “Abortion does not resolve the health problem in Brazil,” Boufleur explained. |
| In fact, an August 2006 poll by Datafolha published in Folha de Sao Paulo found some 63 percent of Brazilians say they favor the current law banning abortions. |
| Only 17 percent of Brazil residents want to change the law to legalize abortion and some 11 percent want abortions banned in all cases, including life of the mother or rape and incest. Another 9 percent had no opinion. |
| The Datafolha poll featured interviews with 6,969 Brazilians and had just a two percent margin of error because of the large sample size. |
| Also, a Pew Research firm poll from October 2006 found that 79 percent of Brazil residents said abortion was never justified, 16 percent said sometimes justified and just 4 percent said abortion was always justified. |
| The feeling of Brazilians is important because Brazil’s socialist-leaning president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Brazilian health minister Jose Gomes Temporao want to legalize abortion. |
| They have already announced a plan to distribute the morning after pill, which can cause abortions in limited circumstances, at no cost. |
| Temporao claimed as many as 200,000 women were having illegal abortions and suffering from life-threatening complications as a result. He abortions abortion legalized even though legal abortions still hurt women physically, emotionally and spiritually. |
| Cardinal Eusebio Oscar Scheid, the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, told a gathering of 10,000 people earlier this year that the church would not back down from supporting the law. |
| A new debate on abortion would be the second after the government backed down from a bill it sent congress in 2005 to try to legalize abortions. |
| If approved, the legislation would have legalized abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy and up to 20 weeks in cases of rape or incest, if the mother's life is at risk, or if the unborn child is unlikely to survive after birth. |
| Only Cuba, Mexico City and Guyana have legalized abortions in Latin America, but abortion advocates in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay are trying to authorize abortions there. |
| Europe Proceeds With Death Penalty Day Over Poland's Abortion Protest |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 9, 2007 |
| Brussels, Belgium (LifeNews.com) -- The European Union will move ahead with a day to protest the death penalty despite objections from Polish officials, who wanted to include a condemnation of abortion as well. Polish leaders say nations are united against death penalty and insist the event should be used to mark the deaths of people from abortion. |
| The European Day Against Death Penalty will go ahead tomorrow after the Council of Europe approved a resolution to that effect. |
| Krzysztof Bosak, Polish member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, says any discussion of protecting human life should acknowledge those people who lose their lives to abortion or euthanasia. |
| "If we are to discuss life issues, let us be honest and not hypocritical," he told Polskie Radio. "It is not death penalty, but abortion and euthanasia that kills millions of innocent European citizens every year. This is a real problem that should be highlighted." |
| "As for values, it is not Poland who should be ashamed but abortion and euthanasia supporters who pretend to be pro-life when it comes to death penalty," he added. |
| Spanish Justice Minister Mariano Sanchez Bermejo previously vented his frustrations at Poland for holding up the event. |
| "Twenty-six countries in the EU want to celebrate a symbolic day against the death penalty but only one, Poland, is against," he said. |
| Poland, Ireland and Malta are the only three European nations that ban abortions. Portugal, which recently approved legislation allowing abortions up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, was the prime sponsor of the death penalty event. |
| The eastern European nation isn't likely to change its stance on the event as its ruling government leaders are fighting for pro-life votes in advance of an election scheduled for October 21. |
| Portugal was the first European nation to ban the death penalty, in 1876, and it hopes the continent will endorse its proposal for a day to mark the abolition in other countries as well. |
| Uganda Vice President Says He Can't Support Legalizing Abortion There |
| Kampala, Uganda (LifeNews.com) -- The second highest ranking official in the African nation of Uganda has said he doesn't support the legalization of abortion there. Vice President Gilbert Bukenya's comments come after a group of 10 leaders of African nations in June said their countries should allow abortions. |
| Representatives of Uganda attended the June conference, where leaders said abortion should be legalized because of claims of thousands of women dying from illegal abortions. |
| Responding to the call, Bukenya spoke at a Catholic church in the in Masaka District and said abortion contradicts the values of the African people. He spoke as leader of the Ngabi clan and discussed the unwritten laws that the people of Uganda have followed for centuries. |
| "The practice might be legal in some western countries, but we cannot adopt it here because our cultural norms are different," Professor Bukenya said. |
| "As a member of Parliament, I will definitely oppose any proposal to adopt such abnormal and immoral practices," he added. |
| Calls from other leaders to allow abortion appear to ignore evidence in industrialized nations that access to better health care, not abortion, reduces maternal mortality. |
| Catholic bishops in the southeastern African nation oppose abortion and highlighted that point. |
| "A state which legalizes abortion most definitely abdicates a very basic reason for its own existence," the bishops said in a statement. |
| The bishops said that it is "important ... to note that abortion has never put an end to women's social distress but that it simply adds a personal tragedy," adding that "there is no reason or motive that can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of another's life." |
| While reducing illegal abortion deaths is the prime motivation for legalizing abortion, leading researchers say proponents are relying on faulty numbers. |
| Dr. Randy O'Bannon, Education Director for National Right to Life, has said that the number of illegal abortions in developing countries is likely inflated. |
| According to the United Nations World Health Organization, 68,000 women die annually due to unsafe abortions. |
| "The precision implied in such numbers is highly misleading," O'Bannon says. He adds that such figures "are based on meager data and a lot of assumption-laden extrapolations." |
| Many of these countries do not maintain detailed birth or mortality records, much less abortion statistics, making even the roughest of estimates problematic," he explained. |
| WHO also relies on what is calls "public source data" to provide illegal abortion death guesses. Typically, a "public source" is a journal article, report, or unpublished document, often from a pro-abortion organization, raising questions about its objectivity. |
| O'Bannon says these sources of information are unreliable. |
| Amnesty International's Malta Branch Will Not Actively Advocate Abortion |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| August 23, 2007 |
| Valleta, Malta (LifeNews.com) -- Amnesty International's recent decision to endorse abortion for victims of sexual abuse put some of its local chapters in nations that prohibit abortion in a quandary. On Thursday, the Malta AI affiliate said it would not join its international parent in actively campaigning for abortion. |
| The decision puts AI Malta in league with its Ireland counterpart, which has also indicated it will not actively promote overturning the pro-life laws of the western European nation. |
| Like Ireland, Malta is one of the few European nations to make abortion illegal and AI Malta’s spokesperson Jean Pierre Gauci indicated the human rights group's decision to endorse abortion will not change the way the Malta group operates. |
| He told the Malta Today newspaper that Amnesty doesn't expect his group to push to overturn the pro-life laws of the tiny island country. |
| “The decision was motivated by the situation in countries like Sudan, where women are systematically raped by militias and face death by stoning if they commit adultery,” Gauci said. |
| Gauci made it clear that the group would also not push for any new law in Malta allowing abortions in cases of rape or incest. |
| According to the newspaper, AI Malta did not participate in last week's international conference in Mexico City where national chapters voted to reaffirm the pro-abortion position the group's executive committee adopted in April. |
| Because it has only been active for a few years, AI Malta did not have a vote there. |
| Amnesty International's Ireland affiliate is the only other group to indicate it would go a slightly different direction from its parent group. |
| While the parent group and other national chapters may actively promote abortion in their nations or in other countries, Ireland's chapter will not push abortion there. The group will remain affiliated with Amnesty International and provide funding and support for it and its other programs. |
| TAKE ACTION: Tell Amnesty International that you want it to reverse its decision to support abortion. Go to http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/engindex to contact the group and express your opposition. Also, use the group's web site to find your national affiliate and tell them you oppose the idea. |
| Ireland Amnesty International Affiliate Won't Promote Pro-Abortion View |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| August 19, 2007 |
| Dublin, Ireland (LifeNews.com) -- The Ireland affiliate of Amnesty International will not promote the human rights group's pro-abortion position. It says it cannot back legal abortions in cases of rape and incest or when the woman's life is in danger because the position runs counter to the pro-life laws of the European nation. |
| Noeleen Hartigan, director at Ireland's Amnesty International office, confirmed to the Irish Times newspaper that the branch is opting out of supporting the policy. |
| The abortion policy, which has prompted outrage across the globe and calls from Catholic leaders for a boycott, will likely come up at AI Ireland meetings in the coming weeks. |
| The pro-life group Family & Life in Ireland told LifeNews.com it supports the group's decision. |
| "Amnesty International Ireland made its decision not to promote the new policy following a two-year consultation with members," the group said. |
| Meanwhile, a former AI member, Mary Stewart, told the Irish Times that she send her membership card back to the group in protest after it reaffirmed its executive committee's pro-abortion vote on Friday. |
| "I joined Amnesty because of its strong opposition to the death penalty but now opposition to the death penalty does not apply to unborn babies," she told the newspaper. |
| With their official backing, AI will now move ahead with plans to promote abortion in areas like Darfur and to try to get nations in places like Latin America and Africa to overturn their pro-life laws prohibiting abortions. |
| But it will have less support because of a boycott by Catholic leaders. |
| A senior Vatican official and a top American bishop have already called on Catholics worldwide to boycott the group because it supports abortion. |
| Before the vote, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, promised Catholics worldwide would boycott the human rights group. |
| "If in fact Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, Amnesty International has betrayed its mission," he said. |
| Bishop William Skylstad, president of U.S. Catholic bishops' conference, echoed the call for a boycott in July. |
| He said the decision to endorse abortion "undermines Amnesty's long-standing moral credibility, diverts its mission, divides its own members (many of whom are Catholic or defend the rights of unborn children), and jeopardizes Amnesty's support by people in many nations, cultures and religions." |
| Though AI took the position to respond to violence against women, Skylstad said it simply subjects women to more violence. |
| "A far more compassionate response is to provide support and services for pregnant women, advance their educational and economic standing in society, and resist all forms of violence and stigmatization against them," he added. |
| A Catholic layman, Peter Benenson, founded Amnesty International in 1961. |
| TAKE ACTION: Tell Amnesty International that you want it to reverse its decision to support abortion. Go to http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/engindex to contact the group and express your opposition. Also, use the group's web site to find your national affiliate and tell them you oppose the idea. |
| * * * * * |
| * * * * * |
| Nontraditional Pro-Lifers Attend March for Life |
| Washington, DC -- Scattered among tensof thousands of pro-life advocates |
| in Washington on Wednesday were Democrats, homosexuals, and feminists |
| marching to the beat of a different drummer. They were all participants in |
| the annual March for Life, which began near the Washington Monument and |
| ended at the U.S. Supreme Court. |
| Protecting the unborn from abortion is just one reason why a handful of |
| the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (P.L.A.G.A.L.) carried its |
| pro-life banner from the Washington Monument to the footsteps of the U.S. |
| Supreme Court. |
| P.L.A.G.A.L. member, Andy Spedden, said he and fellow members traveled |
| from all parts of the country to "affirm human life because human rights |
| start when human life begins." |
| Spedden said P.L.A.G.A.L. is part of the "non-traditional" pro-life |
| movement along with other organizations representing feminists and college |
| students. |
| Unlike most gay and lesbian groups, they oppose abortion. |
| "Typically, the gay and lesbian rights movement has held that because what |
| a woman chooses to do with her body and what we might be assumed to choose |
| to do with our body correlates," Spedden said. "We maintain a difference |
| between the issues of private sexuality and abortion." |
| Jessica O'Connor-Pitts, a member of Feminists for Life, condemned |
| prominent feminist groups including the National Organization for Women |
| (NOW), NARAL-Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood for promoting |
| abortion as part of their so-called empowerment message to women. |
| "I think it shows a failure to really consider the effects of abortion on |
| women and society," O'Connor-Pitts said of the feminist groups' |
| pro-abortion agenda. |
| "Women need more choices than just being pushed into the choice of |
| abortion," O'Connor-Pitts said. "We don't think abortion really meets the |
| needs of women." |
| O'Connor-Pitts said her group believes women are misled by traditional |
| feminist groups into believing that abortion is an acceptable way to |
| handle an unwanted pregnancy and its various complications. |
| "We think women turn to abortion because they don't have family support, |
| because they lack financial resources [and] because they may have other |
| fears and concerns," O'Connor-Pitts said. "Women deserve better than |
| that." |
| Meanwhile, pro-life Democrats carried the message that their party ought |
| to be pro-life. |
| "The [Democratic] Party supposedly is a 'big tent' party with no room in |
| it for people who care about life issues," said Democrats for Life (DFL) |
| National Vice-President Bill Pierce. "That's the problem." |
| For example, DFL Executive Director Kristen Day said the Democratic |
| National Committee (DNC) has ignored repeated attempts from her pro-life |
| organization to provide a hyperlink to the DFL's website, despite a |
| 'conscience clause' in the DNC's by-laws. Day said the by-laws recognize |
| ideological differences between members. |
| "Our message is out that you can be pro-life and Democrat," Day said. |
| "They have all the other pro-abortion links on there and there's no reason |
| why they shouldn't link to us." |
| Jay Ware, the national treasurer of DFL, said the Democratic Party has |
| become recognized as the political party of pro-abortion advocates. But |
| nothing could be farther from the truth, he said. |
| "There's a lot of pro-life sentiment at the base of the party. People who |
| are African-American or Hispanic or union voters ... these people aren't |
| automatically pro-choice," Ware said. "It's just time for the party to get |
| some candidates out there to represent us [and] it's about time that the |
| base of the party starts demanding it." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Nontraditional Pro-Lifers Attend March for Life |
| Source: Cybercast News Service; January 23, 2003 |
| * * * * * |
| Gov. Davis banned from Children's Home |
| By ALEXA H. BLUTH, Associated Press Writer |
| Published 4:50 p.m. PST Thursday, December 19, 2002 |
| SACRAMENTO (AP) - Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was banned from playing Santa Clause on Thursday at a Sacramento Catholic home for troubled children because he supports abortion rights. |
| Despite a 20-year tradition of California governors delivering Christmas gifts to the St. Patrick's Home for Children, the school's director barred Davis from school grounds unless he would ask forgiveness for and disavow his views on abortion. |
| Monsignor Edward J. Cavanaugh, director of the home since 1952, asked the governor to sign a letter declaring that he repents "of ever having promoted the killing of innocent unborn children." |
| "We don't let any pro-abortion people in our grounds here," Cavanaugh said. "He should get his life together and he should change his whole philosophy on the unborn. He should stand up for the sanctity of human life." |
| Davis refused to sign the letter, and instead invited children from the home to the state Capitol to fetch their gifts. |
| "He's entitled to his point of view and I'm entitled to mine. I'm unapologetically pro-choice and I'm not changing my position," Davis said. "Having said this, the tradition is about children, not grown-ups, I didn't want the kids to be disappointed." |
| Since 1981, state officials have provided about a dozen children at the rehabilitation home with gifts from their wish lists. Former governor's - including Jerry Brown, a Democrat who supported abortion rights - have visited the school to deliver the gifts. |
| Davis has not been personally going to the Sacramento school, aides said, because he usually spends the holidays in Los Angeles. |
| Cavanaugh said of Brown's visit, "This was before this thing became an issue." He also claimed that Davis used his visit "for political purposes." |
| By ALEXA H. BLUTH, Associated Press Writer |
| Published 4:50 p.m. PST Thursday, December 19, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| Abortion: The Great Incest Cover-Up ... A Young Mother's Story |
| by Denise Kalasky |
| [ProLifeInfo.org Note: Excerpted from "Victims and Victors: Speaking Out |
| About their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual |
| Assault." Copyright 2000, David C. Reardon, Julie Makimaa, and Amy Sobie.] |
| I was a victim of incest, one of the "hard cases" for abortion. I |
| was raped by my father when I was 15 years old. It was not the |
| first time, nor would it be the last. However, this time, I |
| became pregnant. |
| One night, I became very sick and my parents took me to the |
| hospital. I believe now that they knew I was pregnant since they |
| took me to a different hospital than normal. The emergency room |
| doctor discovered that, along with a very bad case of the flu, I |
| was 19 weeks pregnant. |
| My father flew into a rage, accusing me of all sorts of things, |
| and demanding I have an abortion. The doctor informed me that I |
| was pregnant and asked me what I wanted. I had seen the "Silent |
| Scream" and knew that abortion was murder. In spite of the pain |
| and guilt I felt, knowing who the father of the baby was, it was |
| far better to have a baby than the alternative to kill it. I |
| refused to have an abortion. |
| My father flew into an uncontrollable rage and demanded that I |
| consent to the abortion, or that the doctor do it with or without |
| my permission. The doctor refused because of my wishes. My father |
| demanded that an abortionist be found regardless of the cost. |
| Within one hour, this man arrived at the hospital, talked with my |
| parents and decided to do the abortion, without speaking to me. I |
| refused and tried to get off the examining table. He then asked |
| three nurses to hold me while he strapped me to the bed and |
| injected me with a muscle relaxant to keep m from struggling |
| while he prepared to kill my baby. |
| I continued to scream that I didn't want an abortion. He told me, |
| "Shut up and quit that yelling!" Eventually, I was placed under |
| general anesthesia and my child was brutally killed. |
| I was told that an abortion would solve my problem, when it was |
| never really the problem in the first place. I was told, "Your |
| parents know what's best," when they obviously were only |
| concerned about their own reputations. I was told, "You made the |
| right decision," when I was never given a choice. More important, |
| where was my baby's choice? |
| I grieve every day for my daughter. I have struggled to forget |
| the abuse and the abortion. I can do neither. All I think of is, |
| "I should have done more, fought more, struggled more for the |
| life of my child." |
| My situation may not be common, but I know it's not unique |
| either. The emotions and problems I've had to deal with as a |
| result of my abortion are common. The trauma of the rape and |
| abuse were only intensified by the abortion. The guilt of knowing |
| my baby is dead is something I will have to live with for the |
| rest of my life. |
| I was violated and betrayed over and over by my father, who God |
| created to love and protect me. I was humiliated, hurt, and |
| violated again by the abortionist. |
| I have talked with "pro-lifers" who consider my abortion |
| acceptable, under the circumstances. I want to tell people, "If |
| you really want to be compassionate, give this mother the |
| opportunity to choose life for her child. If you really love the |
| mothers who have been victimized, don't let them be exploited |
| again by someone who will make a profit from their dead child a |
| memory that will haunt them for the rest of their lives." |
| The next time you hear of the "hard cases," please remind people |
| that every crisis pregnancy is difficult for the mother. If you |
| believe these cases are hard, you're correct they are extremely |
| hard for the mother. But if you choose abortion, it's an |
| IMPOSSIBLE situation for the baby. |
| The mom needs love, support and understanding, not the pain of |
| allowing herself to be violated again in order to kill her child. |
| Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the pain involved, |
| that helpless, innocent child has no voice, no defense, and no |
| chance, unless we offer real love and real compassion to the |
| mother. |
| My abortion was over five years ago. God is still healing me, but |
| it has been a difficult fight. Although I'm actively pro-life, |
| very few people know my story. It's still very difficult to share |
| with people. |
| "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm |
| 147:3) God bless you! |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Abortion: The Great Incest Cover-Up ... A Young Mother's Story |
| Source: The Elliot Institute; December 11, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| British Mom Refuses Abortion on Her Disabled Unborn Child |
| London, England -- A young British woman is defying medical advice in a |
| desperate bid to give her unborn baby the chance of life. |
| Doctors say the child, one of twins she is expecting, has no long-term chance |
| of survival and have advised an abortion. |
| The 19-year-old mother-to-be, who is being cared for at the region's leading |
| neonatal unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, is expecting the twins in just |
| over a month. |
| One of the babies, a girl, is believed to be perfectly healthy but the second |
| child, a boy, has a serious heart defect which doctors say is inoperable. |
| The mother was told about her child's fatal abnormality a month ago but |
| doctors advised her that an abortion would not be possible until very late on |
| in pregnancy because of the risk of triggering labour and jeopardising the |
| survival of the healthy twin. |
| However the woman, who has not been identified, has decided after weeks of |
| consideration not to terminate her child's life. She intends to give birth |
| naturally to the twins. |
| Len Fenwick, chief executive of the Newcastle Hospitals Trust, was not in a |
| position to comment. "We cannot make any comment in respect of the individual |
| circumstances of this particular patient," he said. |
| There are very strict guidelines drawn up by the Royal College of |
| Obstetricians and Gynaecologists which all hospitals must follow regarding |
| abortions. |
| The legal limit for an abortion is 24 weeks but a hospital has the legal |
| right to do an abortion right up until full term if they believe the mother's |
| or an unborn child's health is at risk. |
| The ethics surrounding late-term abortions are governed by a hospital's |
| ethics committee, as are other controversial medical procedures such as |
| switching off a life support machine. |
| The abortion would involve injecting a fatal dose of potassium chloride |
| directly into the baby's heart, which immediately triggers labour and the |
| birth of the dead baby soon afterwards. There are around 100 such late-term |
| abortions carried out each year in the UK. |
| There have been criticisms by pro-life groups that all abortions, including |
| those after 24 weeks -- the stage at which a child could survive if born |
| prematurely -- are morally wrong. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: British Mom Refuses Abortion on Her Disabled Unborn Child |
| Source: The Journal; November 11, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| Hollywood Feminists Offer Voice to Pro-Life Movement |
| by Raymond J. Keating |
| Can someone be both a feminist and a pro-lifer? I must confess to having |
| found such a scenario bewildering. A pro-life feminist seemed like an |
| oxymoron to me. |
| But just last week I discovered that feminism not only has deep historical |
| roots in opposition to abortion, but there also is an organization today |
| called Feminists for Life of America. |
| I came across this unexpected information because I happen to be a fan of the |
| television sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond." (Who says you can't learn |
| anything worthwhile from watching TV?) |
| Perplexed? Let me explain. |
| Actress Patricia Heaton plays Debra, wife of Ray, on "Everybody Loves |
| Raymond." From reading her new book - "Motherhood & Hollywood: How to Get a |
| Job Like Mine" - I learned a bit more about Heaton over the past month or so. |
| Her book is quite engaging, including a good dose of irreverence, lots of |
| laughs, along with some worthwhile observations on career, friends and |
| family. In addition, Heaton's Christian faith comes through as she writes |
| fondly, and often amusingly, about growing up in a devout Roman Catholic home. |
| Today, Heaton calls herself "a staunch Presbyterian," and exhibits a healthy |
| perspective on what's ultimately important in life. She writes, "So much of |
| the world is all about distracting us from the reality of God, our Father. |
| The Great Spirit. He loves us. We need to love Him and each other." |
| I also found out that Heaton is pro-life, and apparently not shy about |
| expressing her views on issues such as abortion. In fact, she serves as |
| honorary chair of Feminists for Life. |
| Feminists for Life president, Serrin Foster, praised Heaton for being "the |
| first celebrity who was willing to speak out on our behalf," by taking "a |
| stand for women and for children." Foster noted that it's not easy to take a |
| pro-life stand in overwhelmingly pro-choice Hollywood. |
| But Foster mentioned a few other prominent names who have voiced their |
| pro-life beliefs, including Margaret Colin, who has appeared in assorted |
| movies including "Independence Day" and "Three Men and a Baby" and is |
| co-chair of Feminists for Life, Kate Mulgrew from "Star Trek: Voyager," and |
| Mel Gibson. |
| Even more interesting than the Hollywood aspect, though, is the history. |
| Foster told me, "Feminists for Life continues the tradition of the early |
| American feminists who opposed abortion." She noted that such luminaries as |
| Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who "started the women's |
| movement in America," worked "to enact anti-abortion legislation." The |
| group's Web site presents assorted facts about the anti-abortion positions of |
| early feminists. |
| For example, the women's paper published by Anthony and Stanton - "The |
| Revolution" - strongly editorialized against abortion. And in a letter, |
| Stanton wrote, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is |
| degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be |
| disposed of as we see fit." |
| Foster hit on something when she said to me: "I think most people think that |
| they have to choose between children and women, and we're saying refuse to |
| choose, because women deserve better and every child deserves their chance at |
| life." |
| Many people believe that only conservatives are pro-life. Just note my |
| reaction at finding a feminist pro-life group, as well as my surprise |
| whenever I hear about a liberal opposing abortion. |
| In contrast, though, also consider Star Trek's Mulgrew calling herself a |
| liberal Democrat in the group's publication, "The American Feminist," while |
| also declaring, "Life is sacred to me on all levels. Abortion does not |
| compute with my philosophy." |
| To the extent that such political biases can be diminished through groups |
| like Feminists for Life and high-profile voices like Heaton, the better the |
| chance that more people will come to support both the innocent lives of the |
| unborn and the women - married or not, working inside or outside the home - |
| who carry the awesome responsibility of childbirth. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Hollywood Feminists Offer Voice to Pro-Life Movement |
| Source: Newsday; November 5, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| The Decision That Changed My Life: Keeping My Baby |
| by Maya Angelou |
| At age three, after the dissolution of her parents' marriage, the poet, |
| playwright and director Maya Angelou was raised, until age 14, in Stamps, |
| Arkansas, by her paternal grandmother. Angelou's eloquent series of five |
| memoirs includes I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and, most recently, A Song |
| Flung Up to Heaven (Random House). Here the 74-year-old recounts the most |
| important even of her life, a daunting decision she faced after she |
| returned to San Francisco as a teen to live with her mother: |
| "When I was 16, a boy in high school evinced interest in me, so I had sex |
| with him -- just once. And after I came out of that room, I thought, Is |
| that all there is to it? My goodness, I'll never do that again! Then, when |
| I found out I was pregnant, I went to the boy and asked him for help, but |
| he said it wasn't his baby and he didn't want any part of it. |
| I was scared to pieces. Back then, if you had money, there were some girls |
| who got abortions, but I couldn't deal with that idea. Oh, no. No. I knew |
| there was somebody inside me. So I decided to keep the baby. |
| My older brother, Bailey, my confidant, told me not to tell my mother or |
| she'd take me out of school. So I hid it the whole time with big blouses! |
| Finally, three weeks before I was due, I left a note on my stepfather's |
| pillow telling him I was pregnant. He told my mother, and when she came |
| home, she calmly asked me to run her bath. |
| I'll never forget what she said: "Now tell me this -- do you love the boy?" |
| I said no. "Does he love you?" I said no. "Then there's no point in ruining |
| three lives. We are going to have our baby!" |
| What a knockout she was as a mother of teens. Very loving. Very accepting. |
| Not one minute of recrimination. And I never felt any shame. |
| I'm telling you that the best decision I ever made was keeping that baby! |
| Yes, absolutely. Guy was a delight from the start -- so good, so bright, |
| and I can't imagine my life without him. |
| At 17 I got a job as a cook and later as a nightclub waitress. I found a |
| room with cooking privileges, because I was a woman with a baby and needed |
| my own place. My mother, who had a 14-room house, looked at me as if I was |
| crazy! She said, "Remember this: You can always come home." She kept that |
| door open. And every time life kicked me in the belly, I would go home for a few weeks. |
| I struggled, sure. We lived hand-to-mouth, but it was really heart-to-hand. |
| Guy had love and laughter and a lot of good reading and poetry as a child. |
| Having my son brought out the best in me and enlarged my |
| life. Whatever he missed, he himself is a great father today. He was once |
| asked what it was like growing up in Maya Angelou's shadow, and he said, |
| "I always thought I was in her light." |
| Years later, when I was married, I wanted to have more children, but I |
| couldn't conceive. Isn't it wonderful that I had a child at 16? Praise God!" |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: The Decision That Changed My Life: Keeping My Baby |
| Source: Family Circle; October 8, 200, Page 56 |
| * * * * * |
| Miss America Censored on Her Abstinence Message |
| Washington, DC -- Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, yesterday said pageant |
| officials have ordered her not to talk publicly about sexual abstinence, a |
| cause she has advocated to teenage girls in Illinois. |
| "Quite frankly, and I'm not going to be specific, there are pressures from |
| some sides to not promote [abstinence]," the 22-year-old woman from Urbana, |
| Ill., told The Washington Times. |
| In her first visit to Washington since winning the crown Sept. 21, Harold |
| resisted efforts by Miss America officials to silence her pro-chastity |
| opinions. |
| "I will not be bullied," Harold said yesterday at the National Press Club, |
| as officials tried to prevent reporters from asking questions about her |
| abstinence message. Harold, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of |
| Illinois, was "furious" as she arrived for yesterday's press conference, an |
| acquaintance said. |
| George Bauer, interim chief executive officer of the Miss America |
| organization, and other pageant officials had sternly directed her to talk |
| only about the issue of youth-violence prevention and to say nothing about |
| sexual abstinence, said Harold's acquaintance, who asked not to be named. |
| "They laid it on her coming over here" not to promote teen chastity, the |
| acquaintance said before the press conference began. "She's furious about |
| it." |
| Bauer did not respond to inquiries made yesterday through Miss America |
| corporate headquarters in Atlantic City, N.J. The pageant has traditionally |
| been skittish about sexual subjects, and at one time forbade Miss America |
| -- and even contestants -- to be alone in a room with any man, even fathers |
| and brothers, without a chaperone. |
| Harold has advocated premarital chastity through the years as she traveled |
| about Illinois on behalf of Project Reality, a Chicago-based nonprofit that |
| has been a pioneer in the field of abstinence education. By the time she |
| won the Miss Illinois crown in June, Miss Harold had presented that message |
| to more than 14,000 young people. |
| Since 1990, Miss America and affiliated state pageants have required |
| contestants to adopt an official "platform" issue. Harold won the Miss |
| Illinois contest with her platform of "Teenage Sexual Abstinence: Respect |
| Yourself, Protect Yourself." But state pageant officials instead selected |
| "teen violence prevention" as her Miss America contest platform because |
| they deemed it more "pertinent," her father told an Illinois newspaper. |
| Yesterday, Harold said, she is "still in the process of coming up with what |
| it is that I can say," in interweaving her pro-chastity views with her |
| official platform. |
| After winning the Miss America crown, Harold said a young girl from an |
| inner-city Chicago school sent her an e-mail asking her to continue the |
| abstinence campaign. "She said, 'You changed my life because of what you |
| said, and now I made the decision to be abstinent because of what you said. |
| And I really hope that as Miss America you continue to share that because |
| it changed my life and I think it can change lots of others.'" |
| Said Harold: "And I would hate to think that there are kids all over the |
| country who now wonder, you know, 'Did I make the right decision in making |
| that commitment, if this person who inspired me to do it no longer is |
| willing to share that commitment on the national stage?' And so I would |
| feel a hypocrite if I did not." |
| Harold said abstinence education is an important component of |
| youth-violence prevention because violence is directly related to sexual |
| permissiveness and promiscuity. "I think that if a young person is engaged |
| in a promiscuous lifestyle, it makes them vulnerable to other risk factors, |
| so I definitely see a tie-in there," she said. |
| "Many victims of sexual harassment believe what is said about them, and |
| they become very promiscuous. When they're called a whore, when they're |
| called a slut, they think, 'That's what I want to be,' and so they engage |
| in a pattern of self-destruction that can be very detrimental to their |
| lives. |
| "And when I went through that experience, I took the opposite approach, and |
| said I'm going to believe in who I am. I'm not going to be defined by what |
| other people think about me. And so I felt very, very fortunate that I had |
| parents, I had a faith community who reinforced this decision, and I was |
| able to speak about this. I didn't take the route of becoming promiscuous; |
| I took the route of reaffirming what I believed was right and stood for it. |
| And I was very fortunate to be able to speak to thousands of young people |
| about this." |
| The new Miss America had meetings yesterday with Attorney General John |
| Ashcroft and Surgeon General Richard Carmona. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Miss America Censored on Her Abstinence Message |
| Source: Washington Times; October 9, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| New Country Music Single Deals With Past Abortion |
| Nashville, TN -- Tim McGraw began his career as a country radio hitmaker with |
| the lyrical |
| controversy of "Indian Outlaw." Eight years later, another more sober McGraw |
| song is again sparking consternation among some listeners. |
| The lyric of "Red |
| Rag Top," the first single from McGraw's upcoming Curb album (due Nov. 26), |
| deals with an abortion and its emotional aftermath. While most country radio |
| programmers support the song and say that listener reaction has been |
| positive, others report complaint calls, and a few have pulled the song or |
| refused to play it altogether. |
| Written by Jason White, "Red Rag Top" begins as a coming-of-age song about |
| the relationship between an 18-year-old woman and the 20-year-old narrator. |
| But in the second verse, the woman is pregnant, and the narrator sings, "Life |
| was fast and the world was cruel/We were young and wild/We decided not to |
| have a child/So we did what we did and we tried to forget/ And we swore up |
| and down there would be no regrets." |
| In the song's final verse, the couple has long broken up, and the narrator |
| sings, "You do what you do and you pay for your sins/And there's no such |
| thing as what might have been/ That's a waste of time." |
| WSM-FM (Live 95) Nashville pulled the song after a handful of spins because |
| of listener complaints about the lyrics. Program director Kevin O'Neal, who |
| says he "was just being safe," has since reversed that decision. "I think the |
| song is reality," he adds. "We're not in the censor business." |
| But WCOS Columbia, S.C., operations manager/PD Ron Brooks says he is |
| "unlikely" to ever play the song again because of a strong negative reaction |
| from his audience. "Abortion is the most divisive issue in our nation, and it |
| is a very hot topic in this part of the country," Brooks explains. "I think |
| it is bad business to play a song that is likely to alienate 40% to 50% of |
| the audience. This is not a 'political correctness' controversy, like 'Indian |
| Outlaw.' It is a true, broad-reaching social and political issue." |
| Such controversy doesn't appear to have held the record back on Billboard's |
| Top Country Singles & Tracks chart. It debuted at No. 34 a few weeks ago, |
| rising to No. 18 this week. |
| Curb Records VP of promotion and media strategy Carson James says he has |
| heard very little negative feedback from radio. "It's about three things: |
| pain, loss, and regret," he says of the song. "It's country personified." |
| WYAY (Eagle 106.7) Atlanta PD Steve Mitchell agrees. He fielded a complaint |
| "from a father who was riding in the car with his son [who] asked what they |
| meant about not keeping the child. To anyone who would complain, I would |
| simply say, 'Next time, listen to the whole song.'" |
| Several PDs, like KMLE Phoenix's Jeff Garrison, note that "country songs have |
| always been about real life. 'Red Rag Top' is another great song about life." |
| That's how McGraw's manager, Scott Siman of rpm management, sees it. "Tim, |
| when he heard the song, recognized that it was a real song about real issues |
| and things people have to deal with," he says. "He views it as truly a slice |
| of life." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: New Country Music Single Deals With Past Abortion |
| Source: Billboard; October 6, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| Black Americans to Hold March for Life in Birmingham |
| Birmingham, AL -- Nearly 50 years ago, blacks and whites marched on |
| Birmingham, Alabama, to protest the city's segregation laws. It was the |
| beginning of the modern Civil Rights movement. In less than two weeks, blacks |
| and whites will again march on Birmingham -- this time for the most |
| fundamental of all civil rights, the right to life. |
| Beginning on October 12, black pastors and pro-life leaders in Birmingham |
| will lead others on a three-day march through the city to bring attention to |
| the disproportionate number of black babies aborted every day. The nation's |
| largest black pro-life organization, Life Education and Resource Network |
| (LEARN), is hosting the march. Its theme is "Say So," as in "If you love the |
| children, say so!" |
| "More black babies are killed in a three-day period by abortion than were |
| ever lynched in the history of America," said Damon Owens, LEARN's national |
| spokesman. |
| According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's December 2000 |
| report, black women account for 36 percent of all abortions performed, even |
| though blacks represent 12 percent of the population. |
| In 1996, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood's research arm) |
| reported: "Blacks, who make up 14 percent of all childbearing women, have 31 |
| percent of all abortions and whites, who account for 81 percent of women of |
| childbearing age, have 61 percent." |
| "Abortion is the number-one killer of blacks," said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, |
| LEARN's national director in North Carolina. said. "We're losing our people |
| at the rate of 1,452 a day. That's just pure genocide. Sanger's influence and |
| the whole mindset Planned Parenthood has brought into the black community … |
| say it's okay to destroy your people. We bought into the lie." |
| Hunter and leaders from other chapters of LEARN, including Pastor Clenard |
| Childress (director of LEARN New Jersey) and Elder Ceasar LeFlore (of LEARN |
| Chicago), are bolstering the march on Birmingham. Star Parker, founder of the |
| Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, is expected to deliver the keynote |
| address. Participants include adults who, as children, participated in the |
| Civil Rights struggle nearly a half century ago in Birmingham. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Black Americans to Hold March for Life in Birmingham |
| Source: Concerned Women for America; October 3, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| Hollywood Celebs Take Pro-Life Message to TV Shows |
| New York, NY -- Helping to shatter the myth that Hollywood celebrities are |
| ubiquitously pro-abortion, two high-profile women -- former supermodel |
| Kathy Ireland and Patricia Heaton, Emmy-winning actress for her role on the |
| CBS comedy, "Everybody Loves Raymond" -- challenged that notion by speaking |
| openly about their pro-life views. |
| Ireland appeared Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," where |
| Alan Colmes, the show's resident liberal, pressed her on the abortion |
| issue. Here is a small excerpt of their conversation: |
| COLMES: We played a little clip from last time you were on the show. And I |
| asked you if you had a liberal position. And for those who didn't see it |
| earlier, you said yes, I'm liberal about the rights of the unborn child. |
| Now I think I'm conservative on abortion because I think the government |
| should not be involved. And that this is not a governmental issue. It's a |
| personal issue. So wouldn't I then have the conservative position here? |
| IRELAND: Is it all right for the government to allow the murder of an |
| innocent human being? The evidence I see tells me the unborn is a human |
| being. From the moment of conception, a new life comes into being with a |
| complete genetic blueprint. The sex is determined. The blood type is |
| determined. |
| IRELAND: If you can, Alan, if you can show me evidence that the unborn is |
| not a human being, I will gladly join the pro-choice side. If you can show |
| me any evidence. It's very clear and simple. |
| Last time I was on, you said we're not going to resolve this right now but |
| it's very simple. The bottom line is this. If the unborn is not a human |
| being, have as many abortions as you want, whenever you want. It doesn't |
| matter. No justification is necessary. If, on the other hand, the unborn is |
| a human being, no justification is adequate unless another human life, that |
| being the mother, is in danger. |
| (later in the show) |
| HANNITY: Kathy, welcome back. Sean Hannity here. You know, since the last |
| time you were |
| on, we had an enormous amount of e-mail from people that were frankly |
| shocked that |
| somebody as famous, well known as yourself, take such a strong pro-life |
| position. Are |
| there more of these famous people that are just not willing to state these |
| things |
| publicly? |
| IRELAND: I know it's not a popular issue. And I was always pro- choice. I'm |
| a person who |
| always has and always will fight for the rights of women. And even though I |
| became a |
| Christian at age 18, I remained pro- choice because I believed it was a |
| woman's choice. |
| But the moment that I learned that the unborn was a human being, not part |
| of the woman's |
| body.. |
| HANNITY: Yes. |
| IRELAND: ...but its own individual human being, I have no choice but to |
| defend the most |
| vulnerable among us. |
| HANNITY: Well, it's admirable, because I agree with you on the position. |
| And especially |
| with what modern technology now offers in terms of our ability to see |
| inside a woman's |
| womb. |
| IRELAND: Absolutely. |
| HANNITY: And the heart beating and the fingers and the toes. |
| IRELAND: You really can't argue with it. Technology has come a long way |
| since Roe vs. |
| Wade. |
| Heaton, meanwhile, appeared Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly |
| Factor." Heaton came on the show to talk about her new book, "Motherhood |
| and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine," but host Bill O'Reilly quickly |
| shifted the discussion to her pro-life views. Here is a part of their |
| conversation: |
| O'REILLY: All right. A couple of interesting things in your book, and we -- |
| put it this |
| way, ladies and gentlemen. If we have somebody on here, the book's not |
| going to be a dog. |
| If the book's bad, we're not going to have them on here. |
| So you are pro-life in a town... |
| HEATON: That's right. |
| O'REILLY: ... that is almost 100 percent pro-choice. How does that impact |
| on you? |
| HEATON: Well, you know, I'm a chairman of Feminists for Life, and so I |
| think that, because |
| of that, we have an interesting stand that most people don't -- haven't |
| heard before, |
| which is being pro-life can be a feminist issue. |
| The early feminists were pro-life. And really abortion is a huge disservice |
| to women, and |
| it hasn't been presented that way. So -- so it's a -- there's a sort of an |
| in for me |
| because of that take on it. |
| O'REILLY: Do you take any heat from your peers out there? |
| HEATON: I did. I mean, I did originally. I vote Republican because of my |
| pro-life stance, |
| and, of course, that was a real hot-button issue when Bill Clinton was |
| first elected. |
| I mean, people really -- I wore a Quayle-Bush button, and literally people |
| would stop and |
| look at the button the and look at me and give me dirty looks and, you |
| know, say nasty |
| things to me. |
| O'REILLY: But, still, I mean, if Susan Sarandon or Barbra Streisand were |
| here, I mean, |
| they wouldn't talk to you. They would turn their back on you. |
| HEATON: You know what? It's not that polarized. I mean, people know me |
| first as an actress |
| and friend. |
| O'REILLY: Would you ban abortion? |
| HEATON: As -- Feminists for Life -- what we're trying to do is support |
| women, and so what |
| we want to do is for -- reach women on campus -- college campuses so that, |
| when they get |
| pregnant, they can find housing. They can find money they need to stay in |
| school. |
| O'REILLY: So you're giving -- you're putting an alternative track out there. |
| HEATON: Yes. I think pro-choice is a ridiculous -- you know... |
| O'REILLY: But it all comes down to... would you ban it if you were a |
| Supreme Court justice? Would you vote to ban it? |
| HEATON: Yes. |
| O'REILLY: You would? |
| HEATON: Yes. |
| O'REILLY: OK. Now that, obviously, takes guts in Hollywood because, in |
| Hollywood, there's |
| a subtext that, if you don't play the game, you know, you could lose jobs. |
| HEATON: Yes. |
| O'REILLY: Did you ever think of it? |
| HEATON: Yes, I've thought about it. On a personal level, as a Christian, it |
| will not be Barbra Streisand I'm standing in front of when I have to make |
| an accounting of my life. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Hollywood Celebs Take Pro-Life Message to TV Shows |
| Source: Fox News Channel; September 30, 2002 |
| * * * * * |
| MISS AMERICA: THE REST OF THE STORY |
| You've heard about the spat between the two Miss North Carolinas, taking |
| their tiara tussle to court for a chance to compete in the Miss America pageant. |
| But have you heard about Miss Illinois Erika Harold, who actually captured the |
| crown? It seems Ms. Harold is at the center of something a lot more |
| scandalous than topless photos, something so racy, that much of the press won't even |
| touch it with a ten-foot pole. Ms. Harold is into abstinence. |
| As a University of Illinois graduate with plans to attend Harvard Law |
| School and practice public policy law, Ms. Harold partnered with Project Reality, |
| an Illinois-based nonprofit centered on abstinence education, and with |
| Abstinence Clearinghouse, a national educational organization that promotes |
| abstinence. |
| "She came to us four years ago," said Libby Gray of Project Reality. "She |
| was running for Miss Illinois and wanted to focus on abstinence. She found us |
| and actually she's helped us to find the other pageant winners" that had |
| abstinence as their platforms. |
| The influence she and other titleholders have had on members of Congress |
| has been quite noteworthy. "They are wonderful because they're young, they're |
| in touch with young people all the time," said Michael Schwartz, Concerned |
| Women for America's Vice President of Government Relations. |
| "These are winners, and I don't mean they came in first at a beauty |
| pageant," said Schwartz, who worked with Ms. Harold in 1999 while she was lobbying |
| legislators. "When they give their testimony about how good abstinence is, |
| they're very convincing." |
| Gray does believe that the media is warming up to the idea of abstinence, |
| pointing to Miss Wisconsin 1999 Mary Louis Kurey, another Project Reality |
| spokesperson who was asked several times to appear on Politically |
| Incorrect. |
| "Each time it was harder and harder to convince the audience that she |
| wasn't believable," said Gray. |
| * * * * * * * |
| OTTAWA ARCHBISHOP BLASTS CATHOLIC HEALTH MINISTER OVER ABORTION |
| OTTAWA, Jan 19, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais soundly |
| rebuked Catholic Health Minister Allan Rock in an interview with the Ottawa |
| Citizen published today. The archbishop told the paper that Rock's actions |
| to promote the funding of abortion "make my blood boil," and urged Catholic |
| voters to "raise a stink" about the funding of abortion. "The fact that we |
| do not have a law to protect the rights of the unborn ... should not lead us |
| to quietly accept abortion as a right, as a medically necessary procedure. |
| Life is at issue here," Gervais said. |
| The archbishop lamented that although the Church teaches abortion is evil, |
| there is not one major political party in Canada that is pro-life, even |
| though nearly half of all Canadians call themselves Roman Catholic. He |
| called on Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Rock, both Catholics, to come out |
| of the closet on the pro-life side of the issue. "Catholic politicians |
| should be making their private opinions public. Religion is not a private |
| affair. It is a public issue," he said. Pro-life leaders, while very |
| praising of the archbishops comments, tend to believe the evidence is |
| substantial that Chretien, Rock and other prominent Liberal Catholic |
| politicians are in fact not in the closet on the abortion issue. Steve |
| Jalsevac |
| of Campaign Life Coalition notes that "their practical support for abortion |
| access, funding and promotion nationally and internationally has been |
| extreme". |
| The Citizen reports that Archbishop Gervais was stunned that the mainstream |
| media totally ignored a letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic |
| Bishops on the issue, released January 10. (see the LifeSite coverage here |
| http://lifesite.net/ldn/2001/jan/010111.html#1) He is sending out the letter |
| to all Ottawa priests to disseminate the information to parishioners. |
| Archbishop Gervais' statement was given front-page coverage in the Ottawa |
| Citizen, and has shown that the media remains much more attentive to |
| familiar local church authorities than to bureaucratic organizations without |
| a face such as the CCCB |
| * * * * * * * |
| Source: Muncie Star Press; January 25, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * |
| DFjosephMD@aol.com |
| Source: Cybercast News Service; May 31, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * |