Planned Parenthood and Affirmative Action

AIDS in Africa: Abstinence Works

By Carrie Gress

BALTIMORE, Maryland, FEB. 27, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In the fight against AIDS, abstinence-based programs that focus on changing behaviors rather than handing out condoms simply work better, says an AIDS expert.

Matthew Hanley has been a HIV/AIDS technical adviser at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for the last seven years and is the author of the forthcoming book "Avoiding Risk, Affirming Life: Science, Love, and AIDS."

In this interview with ZENIT, Hanley comments on the programs and principles that have led to dropping rates of HIV prevalence in Africa.

Q: You seem to be something of a lone voice in the wilderness promoting Catholic principles in the fight against AIDS, and yet so much of the research is showing that this approach is really what is heading off the disease. How and where is this actually working?

Hanley: First, actual changes in patterns of sexual behavior have led to the most significant reductions in HIV prevalence. Take the well-known case of Uganda, where the prevalence rate dropped from 15% in 1991 to a little over 5% in 2001. Behavior change was so thorough in Uganda that by the mid-1990s, 95% of adults in that country said they had only one partner or none at all. But it is not only Uganda.

continue reading here: http://www.zenit.org/article-21909?l=english

"Distress"

A UK woman was found hanged-- suicide-- after the abortion of her twins. The story includes a very telling quote from her doctor:

Recording a verdict of suicide, Dr Carlyon said: "It is clear that a termination can have a profound effect on a woman's life.

King without a Crown

Sweet video by Matisyahu for a song called 'King Without A Crown.' The title is fitting for this blog, considering that when we reject the dignity of every human being, we reject the dignity Christ our King has given each of us so that we are walking around without our crowns...

The fight for Lauren Richardson's Life

Why is our society so focused on death? Why is it that sometimes people think is is great when a disabled person can "overcome their disability" yet other times there is no time given to that disabled person to do so? Suddenly they are viewed as a "waste:" a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of food, a waste of water.
I like to think that people aren't that hypocritical, but sadly, stories like Lauren's are out there too many times!!

Let us all pray for Lauren, that she does not meet the same end as Terri. Let us pray for a softening of people's hearts that they will see life for what it is: a gift from God. We cannot continue to discard this gift of life like waste.

PTSD in Post Abortive Women

According to Planned Parenthood, there is no such thing as Post-Abortive Stress Disorder, a grouping of symptoms resembling those of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is commonly researched in war veterans as well as children exposed to violence and abuse. It is also prevelant in women who have experienced sexual abuse, though excluded from the usual list of trauma, is the devestating abuse of abortion. Sadly, because of the abortion industry's money-making agenda, the results of research linking these symptoms to abortion is often left unpublished and unseen leaving this devastating disorder untreated. This is a great article talking about one of these studies done in South Africa, where the pro-abortion agenda is being masked by words like "population control" and "reproductive health". How letting women suffer the agony of post-abortion stress without acknowledging their struggle as a legitimate disorder is hardly in the interest of women's rights. Though, coming out with valid research proving that abortion hurts women may curb enthusiasm for this "service" to women. http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/feb/08021316.html

Marriage in PA MUST BE PROTECTED!

Here is an update from PA4Marriage.com:

Great news! The Marriage Protection Amendment is here. Senate Bill 1250 (SB 1250) has been officially introduced in the Pennsylvania State Senate with 17 bi-partisan co-sponsors. The bad news is that those who oppose our amendment are visiting State Senators urging them to vote against SB 1250.

Your help is needed now. Beginning Monday, February 18th through Friday, March 7th, most of our Legislators will be in their home offices. Please encourage your family and friends to make one brief district office visit to your state senator and ask them to support SB 1250. Just click on the Citizen Action Center at www.pa4marriage.org for district office locations.

We must get the amendment through the PA Senate and House by June for a successful "first round".

Fathers are Essential for Well Adjusted Children

I read this article and I immediately thought: "Wow....I wish this would make it into the regular, mainstream media and T.V." Maybe if more men realized that they are called to protect women and children our world might be a much better place and NO man would ever bring any woman to an abortion clinic. Unfortunately too many times the real role of a man and the father of the child is taken out of the equation.

Abortion is one way that men feel that they can "get off the hook" or "fix things," when in reality, one day in the future, they will face the terribly painful fact they too took the life of their child and at the same time allowed the child's mother to be injured and violated.

I think too many times in our modern society good men have not been given enough credit. This has forced many other men to "the sidelines." I pray that God blesses those men that are out there everyday providing for their families and those who are loving husbands, fathers, brothers and uncles and who are taking up their God-given responsibility to protect women and children.

More studies show harm to women through abortion

A study released this month in the BMC Psychiatry journal shows the increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder in women who undergo surgical abortion. Surprised? We shouldn't be. Our bodies aren't meant for abortion, they're meant for nourishing life.

The focus of the study was to examine the difference in PTSD prevalence depending on whether the woman received local anesthesia or IV sedation.

The researchers compared levels of pain and psychological outcomes among women who had received a local anesthetic versus those who had received IV sedation. Women who had received a local anesthetic had higher levels of pain before and during abortion and were more likely to experience PTSD symptoms, but researchers found no difference in symptoms over a longer period of time.

If you know someone who is hurting after abortion, visit this the newly-released "Abortion Changes You" website.

Should Terminally Ill Patients be used as Guinea Pigs?

At first glance you may think this article doesn't have much to do with pro-life. However, as previous posts have mentioned, there is a very slippery slope out there when it comes to medical science. Although there are thousands of people who are involved in medical research, for good reasons, and who I am sure care very much for the betterment of society and life in general, the end can NEVER justify the means.
This article is an example of how far we have slid down the "slippery slope." We must remember that no matter a persons state in life (healthy, terminally ill, unborn, vegetative) they still have dignity and must be respected as a person made in the image and likeness of God. People cannot be used like guinea pigs because they are viewed as "no longer useful" to society, because everyone's life has a purpose, whether society understands it or not!

Huge insight from Ignatius Insight: Slippery slopes are slippery

http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/02/down-the-slippe.html

Embryos Created with DNA from 3 people

I almost didn't believe this article when I began reading it. But then I realized: our world has less and less respect for the beginnings of human life, so of course this would be considered a "medical breakthrough" as opposed to the threat to humanity that it really is.
The "process" that these scientists are talking about is all too reminiscent of the Holocaust. Remember, there were plenty of scientists working on the Jewish people back then, to "test" things so that they could figure out how to make the perfect race. Our society really hasn't come that far. Not only do the days of the Holocaust haunt us, but they actually are still with us. According to this article the Hitler mindset is alive and well in London, and so is the slavery mindset, because those poor little embryos are the tiniest of human beings and their lives are at the mercy of a scientist.

'We Live in Times in Which There Is a Great Cultural War'

Bishop Aquila's Address on Absolutes in Life Issues

BALTIMORE, Maryland, JAN. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo gave Nov. 15 to Loyola College in Baltimore, titled "The Sanctity of Human Life from Conception to Natural Death." The presentation was part of the Loyola Alive Seamless Garment Series: http://zenit.org/article-21609?l=english

Two Random Thoughts

1. I've been reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis for a class with The Personalist Project that some of us GenLifers are taking. I highly recommend the book to the point that I believe it ought to be required reading in schools.

In it Lewis criticizes very thouroughly a prevailing idealogy of our day which attempts to undermine value as such, but in reality has no firm basis or ability to do so. That last sentence is a gross injustice to the book, so please read it yourself. Lewis, though, talks about those who attempt to deny the truth and validity of 'traditional' values, but who, at the same time, attempt to determine how our next generations will be by way of eugenics or re-education.

In their arrogance they deny the voice of our ancestors, they deny the 'The Democracy of the Dead,' as well as deny our successors their ability to determine their own course, and even their ability to live, if we consider abortion as a means of ataining eugenicist ends.

So some, though not all, 'liberal' minded people, who deny the validity of truth which exists in the past, simply because it is in the past, not only aim their chronological superioty complex towards the past, but also into the future, thus isolating our age in a big cushion of arrogance thinly clothed in the guise of 'individual autonomy,' which in reality is not each individual's ability to choose the good for themselves, but the rhetoric of the few individuals trying to determine the destinies of others by arbitrary means in order to achieve their own whims and fancies.

In reality they are not 'liberal' at all, if we understand the word as 'generous, freely giving,' on the other hand, they are closed-minded dogmatic fanatics of the worst degree.

2. Anyone who defends and supports partial-birth abortion is either ignorant or a barbarian.

If they are ignorant then only education is needed to show them the truth.

If they know what partial-birth abortion entails, and still support it, then they are a barbarian. In the case of public figures who support partial-birth abortion, or have in the past, these are the worst of barbarians. A barbarian is most dangerous when he does not look like a barbarian, and our modern day barbarians are dressed in suits and ties and smiles, these are much more dangerous then the former type. A barbarian in a suit with a smile is much more dangerious than the one in the animals skins, helmet, and shield.

Who we're fighting for