• Let us pray that God has mercy on our country for killing about 3 million more people than the equivalent number of people who voted in 2004 in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Florida, and California (the 6 most populous states) combined!
• Let's offer up our fast so that abortion, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, euthanasia, and all other sins against life will be driven out of our country.
• Let's not allow issues of life to get lost in the jumble of other campaign promises - the abortion issue is already the forgotten step-child of American politics, trotted out once every 4 years to make a candidate look promising, and then locked away in the attic for another 4 years.
• Let's make next Tuesday a "Primary of Prayer and Fasting", because "this kind [of demon] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting."  (Matt 17:21)

QIAN'AN, China — Yang Zhongchen, a small-town businessman, wined and dined three government officials for permission to become a father.

But the Peking duck and liquor weren't enough. One night, a couple of weeks before her date for giving birth, Yang's wife was dragged from her bed in a north China town and taken to a clinic, where, she says, her baby was killed by injection while still inside her.

"Several people held me down, they ripped my clothes aside and the doctor pushed a large syringe into my stomach," says Jin Yani, a shy, petite woman with a long ponytail. "It was very painful. ... It was all very rough."

Some 30 years after China decreed a general limit of one child per family, resentment still brews over the state's regular and sometimes brutal intrusion into intimate family matters. Not only are many second pregnancies aborted, but even to have one's first child requires a license.

Seven years after the dead baby was pulled from her body with forceps, Jin remains traumatized and, the couple and a doctor say, unable to bear children. Yang and Jin have made the rounds of government offices pleading for restitution — to no avail.

This year, they took the unusual step of suing the family planning agency. The judges ruled against them, saying Yang and Jin conceived out of wedlock. Local family planning officials said Jin consented to the abortion. The couple's appeal to a higher court is pending.

The one-child policy applies to most families in this nation of 1.3 billion people, and communist officials, often under pressure to meet birth quotas set by the government, can be coldly intolerant of violators.

Botched abortion shocks Italy
August 27, 2007

Rome - A botched abortion in which a healthy twin foetus was terminated instead of its sibling with Down syndrome has reignited the abortion debate in Italy and raised allegations of eugenics.

"The time has come to re-examine the abortion law" that dates back to 1978, wrote leftist Senator Paola Binetti, who is close to the Vatican, in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"What happened in this hospital was not a medical abortion but an abortion done for the purposes of eugenics," she said, referring to the belief that the human species can be improved through selective reproduction.

The abortion was performed on a 38-year-old woman in Milan in June, but news of its outcome has only recently become public. Doctors blamed the mistake on movement of the foetuses between the examination and the abortion. [ed.: How about blaming the mistake on trying to kill a baby in the first place?]

"They wanted to kill the sick foetus and save the healthy one and what didn't work properly in this business was the selection," Binetti wrote.

Jesse Ramirez Jr.'s awakening, which friends called "a miracle," occurred after his sister, parents and other relatives went to court and obtained an emergency order for feeding and hydration tubes to be reinserted, reversing a directive given by his wife, Rebecca Ramirez.

Judge Paul Katz announced the news Tuesday during a Maricopa County Superior Court hearing. Relatives had been in a three-week battle over the 36-year-old postal worker's fate, and who should control it. Ramirez suffered brain injuries in a May 30 automobile accident. He regained consciousness on Sunday.

"He is awake," confirmed Judith Morse, an attorney appointed by Katz to investigate legal, ethical and medical issues. "He is able to respond to verbal commands. He is aware of who he is and who his family members are." No further information about Ramirez's condition was available.

Let's hope that we, as a society and a culture, learn from the Terri Schaivo mistake and err on the side of life.

Tags: euthanasia Terri Schiavo Jesse Ramirez Phoenix pro-life coma brain dead

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Tags: birth control pro-life blood clot science research side-effect sex teen

The New York Sun published an opinion piece called, "The Second Holocaust", which gives a detailed account of a scary (and very possible) scenario of a showdown between Iran (specifically under Pres. Ahmadinejad) and Israel that results in Iran nuking Israel.  More importantly, it details the reasons why this is a political possibility.

However, the focus of this post is on whether this is theologically possible.  There are some (including this comment poster) who hold that, because the Bible says that God would protect Israel, that it can never be nuked without also nuking the faith of every Christian and Jew.  However, this is not true, neither from the viewpoint of Catholic theology, nor from history.

As a Catholic, our interpretation of the Book of Revelation is that the New Israel (i.e., The Church) is the one that Christ founded and will protect for all time.  The nation/land of Israel is not specially protected in this respect, because through Jesus, God has created a New Israel, not built with stone and by human hands, but built on people and by the blood of the Lamb.

Eventually, "heaven and earth will pass away".  Does this not also include the real estate known as Israel?  In that respect, we expect a new heaven and a new earth to replace this world.  However, Christ's Church will continue past the end of the age.  His Church starts here on Earth as the Church Militant (still fighting the temptations of the world), but continues in Heaven as the Church Triumphant, the exultant Bride of Christ.

Therefore, there is no promise of protection of a parcel of land, just as there is no promise of protection from bodily harm for the faithful - martyrs have been made at every age and time.  The loving care of the Father is that he will protect us from those that "may harm the body but cannot harm the soul".  Let us pray for the souls of all those in the Middle East, because eventually, this entire world will pass away - parts of it possibly from nuclear annihilation, but the world in total by Christ's Second Coming.  We should be more concerned with saving eternal souls, rather than whether or not temporal real estate belongs to one tribe or another.  After all, the nation (or kingdom) of Israel has come and gone several times through human history, but the Jewish people and their faith have been preserved, regardless of location.

The Book of Revelation is not, primarily, an "end times" book.  If you read The Lamb's Supper, you will see that much that the evangelicals believe about this book of the Bible is patently false.  The "revelation" in the last book of the Bible is that what goes on at the Mass on Earth is the wedding feast of the Lamb in Heaven.  Our sacrifice of the Eucharist on Earth is exactly the same sacrifice on the Heavenly Altar, with all the angels singing "Holy, Holy, Holy".  This eternal city, the New Jerusalem, The Church, is the protected and beloved Bride of Christ, and this should be our focus - the salvation of souls.

Tags: Israel Ahmadinejad Iran Holocaust Church

Noah Benton Markham was rescued from Hurricane Katrina 16 months ago.  However, he "entered the world" this morning via c-section, according to the AP news article.

Embryo saved after Katrina is born
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 16, 8:56 AM ET

COVINGTON, La. - Sixteen months after being rescued as a frozen embryo from a hospital flooded by Hurricane Katrina, Noah Benton Markham entered the world Tuesday morning and was greeted by his cheering family.

The 8 pound, 6 1/2-ounce boy was born by Caesarean section at 7:23 a.m. CST at St. Tammany Hospital. He was in good shape, doctors said.

Before the procedure Rebekah and Glen Markham had decided that if their baby was a boy, he would be named after the biblical builder of the Ark. A girl would have been Hannah Mae -- Hannah means "God has favored us."

Interesting choice of words.  He entered the world today, and yet the hurricane that hit New Orleans (which, last I checked, was a part of "the world") nearly destroyed him 16 months ago.  So, which is it?  Did he enter the world today, or did he enter 16 months ago?

The point is this: this child was saved by Roman Pyrzak, lab director for The Fertility Institute of New Orleans, and it makes headlines.  What are we to do about all those other frozen children (including any other Markhams who are in stasis)?

Were these children saved, just to be ripped apart for medical experiments?

Were they saved just to be thrown out?

Or were they saved in order to be birthed, so that they could be "born again" and saved by the Blood of Christ?

The answer lies in the free will of men and women.  What will we choose?

UPDATED: Thu, 18 Jan 2007  10:55:10 - The headline has changed!!!

Embryo saved from flood is now a boy
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 16, 2:04 PM ET

Rescued from a great flood while he was just a frozen embryo in liquid nitrogen, a baby boy entered the world Tuesday and was named after the most famous flood survivor of them all, Noah.

Noah Benton Markham — 8 pounds, 6 1/2 ounces — was born to 32-year-old Rebekah Markham by Caesarean section after growing from an embryo that nearly defrosted in a sweltering hospital during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So, is the new headline implying that, even though the embryo possessed a Y-chromosome, it was not a boy until it grew some more in the womb? (Remember that the baby wasn't even technically "born", i.e. passing through the birth canal.  Noah was removed via c-section.)  What kind of scientific and categorical determination is being made here by an AP reporter?  If not, then why the headline change and overwrite of the link?  The link that had the prior headline is now at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070116/ap_on_re_us/katrina_rescued_embryos_3

Words are how we process and express thought and the words we use (or don't use) say a lot more about our message than our message alone says.  This change of words is an attempt to remove life from the cycle of life, because we aren't supposed to believe in a divine creator (and therefore a divine purpose behind creation).

But we're supposed to believe in an unbiased mass media...

Tags: abortion pro-life stem cell science research