Category: Pro-Life

Planned Parenthood Kills Record Number of Babies; Brings in Over $36 Million Profit in 2002-2003

Another article brought to our attention by Ken Shepherd, whom we love: “Catholic Bishops Eye Possible Crackdown of Pro-Abortion Pols.”
I’m not for driving off the confused and the under-catechized, but I am wholeheartedly in favor of contending in public for the Faith. Identify those who publicly oppose their own Church, lament their betrayal, and do penance on their behalf. In the end, though, if they do not repent, then recognize that they have cut themselves off from the living waters of the sacraments, and impose the proper penalty.
The time has long passed for convincing. The time has come for driving the wolves away from the sheep — which is what the pointy end of the crozier is for, after all. Sure, the media will go nuts, but Jesus will love the bishops for it, and so (much less importantly) will faithful Catholics. Nobody ever died of embarrassment, and anyone ashamed to uphold the Gospel of Christ won’t make it to heaven anyway. It’s a couple of decades past due, but it’s never too late to defend the faith. Do it!

Ken Shepherd, who often frequents the comment boxes of Catholic Light, passes along this story about Howard Dean’s pro-death views.
I do not use “pro-death” loosely. He favored — no, favors — the judicially sanctioned killing of Terri Schindler Schiavo, and mocked Governor Jeb Bush (R-Badass) for intervening to save her life. He also thinks killing isn’t a public act, but a private one.

“I as a physician would not be comfortable administering lethal drugs,” Dean explained, “but I think this a very private, personal decision, and I think individual physicians and patients have the right to make that private decision.”

In the Roman Empire, the paterfamilias, or patriarch, had the power to kill children he deemed unworthy of life, and the civil law had little to say about it. Far from being an advance in civilization, turning premeditated killing into a private act is retrogression of a very high order.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center offers a helpful guide to Catholic teaching on medical ethics and how it applies to decisions for a patient in danger of death. It mentions some of the main points that should be included in a morally sound “Advance Directive” document to regulate medical decisions in case a patient is incapacitated.

The Register reports that Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, a Catholic hospital, has been performing “early induction” procedures to terminate pregnancies of children with unsurvivable abnormalities.
The president of Alaska Right to Life, Ed Wassell, contacted the hospital about what appears to be a form of abortion.

The only therapeutic reason given by hospital officials for early induction was “to relieve familial distress,” according to Wassell.
Providence officials did tell Wassell that if Archbishop [Roger] Schwietz told them to stop performing the procedure, they would.
From then on, Wassell said, Right to Life stopped talking with the hospital and started talking with the archbishop to persuade him to take action.

Abp. Schwietz asked the hospital to suspend the use of the procedure and, with the help of Boston’s National Catholic Bioethics Center, got the hospital to tighten up its policy somewhat. He thinks the new policy is in compliance with the bishops’ medical-ethics directives.
These directives say (among other things):

49. For a proportionate reason, labor may be induced after the fetus is viable.

Is the reason sufficient?