One Woman at a Time

“What struck me was their obvious vitality & love.” So wrote Charles Lewis, a Catholic convert regarding the Sisters of Life operating in Toronto. They created a community of “helpers” who donate funds, collect food items, drive the women to medical appointments, pray, and offer friendship to those who are often poor and alone. The Sisters are trying to change the world one woman and one baby at a time.

The order was founded in 1991 under the guidance of their spiritual father in New York, Cardinal John O’Connor. Their mission is to help women who want to have their babies but who are facing financial and emotional hurdles. They also counsel women who have come to regret their abortions. “It’s easy to forget, amid all the talk of what’s wrong with the Church, there is an eternal goodness that will outlast all the so-called controversies.” [Charles Lewis, Natl. Catholic Register, 10/22/23]

Likewise, recognizing the dignity and sanctity of all human life, U.S. Bishops have been promoting Walking with Moms in Need, a grass-roots initiative through which Catholic communities walk alongside local pregnant and parenting women in need. Many parishes and dioceses have joined the effort. One such example is in the Diocese of Paterson, NJ, with its 3-step strategy for parishes. Level 1 involves getting parishioners educated about the program and its goals. Level 2 includes gathering & providing essentials for moms such as diapers, clothing and food. Level 3 involves volunteering to accompany moms to appointments & more. Information about the nationwide effort is found at http://www.walkingwithmoms.com.

Young Americans are Dying?

Auto accidents, homicide, suicide & drug overdoses, in that order, are the leading causes of deaths of Americans aged 1 to 19. Boys have mortality rates roughly twice those of girls. Distractions from cell phones have made driving more deadly in recent years. Black teens accounted for nearly two-thirds of homicide victims ages 10 to 19, mostly via guns.

School closures, canceled sports and limits on in-person socializing worsened an already growing mental-health epidemic among young people. Social media helps fuel it by replacing successful relationships with a craving for online social attention that leaves young people unfulfilled, and exposes them to sites that glamorize unhealthy behaviors. Fentanyl, more potent and riskier than heroin, has spread broadly to every corner of the illegal drug market, including numerous fake fentanyl-laced pills. U.S. authorities are trying to slow the spread of xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that can cause severe wounds and is increasingly mixed into the fentanyl supply. Cartels are replacing heroin with less-expensive, easier to make fentanyl. [extracted from Wall Street Journal, 5/18/23]

Federal 15-Week Abortion Ban?

The idea is being floated as a way to create political consensus over a divisive issue. While grateful for all restrictions on the killing of innocent children, a 15- week ban poses critical problems:

1. Pro-life states have enacted abortion restrictions much more stringent and effective. A federal ban will put pressure on those states to water down their existing life-saving measures.
2. Over 95% of abortions are performed before 15 weeks. Thus, the overwhelming majority of abortions in this country would still be completely legal.
3. By 15 weeks, a baby’s arms & legs are formed and moving, organs are in place; the heart has been beating for over 2 months. Human life should be protected from conception, but even in states where we can only achieve incremental abortion restrictions, 15 weeks is too far.

Now is NOT the time for face-saving compromise. [extracts from Life Legal Defense Foundation, In Brief, Oct/Nov 2023]

Which Religion Promotes Abortion?

• Most Islamic nations severely restrict abortion, citing
  the Koran: “Do not kill your children for fear of poverty.
  For it is we who shall provide sustenance for you as well
  as for them.”
• The Buddhist Vinaya monastic code specifically
  forbids monks & nuns to perform abortions; traditional
  Buddhist ethics condemn it as a form of homicide.
• The reverence for life and hatred of violence in the
  Hindu concept of ahimsa strongly discourages abortion.
  Early Hindu Vedas hold that abortion is worse than
  killing one’s parents.
• The Talmud condemns bloodshed against the child in
  the womb.
• The earliest Christian catechism, the Didache, in a
  teaching reaffirmed across two millennia, commands
  Christians not to procure an abortion, placing it among
  murder, infanticide, child rape. [National Review, 7/31/23]
• What religion do proponents of abortion follow today?

Artificial Contraception & Society

Since the use of contraceptives became widespread, promiscuity has increased dramatically, as have sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, single motherhood and fewer marriages. If sexual intimacy is disconnected from having babies, many no longer see why it should remain in marriage. Homosexual acts became seen by many as having the same value as heterosexual acts. We have not “redefined” marriage as undefined it. Widespread confusion and misunderstanding have resulted from disconnecting sex and procreation. We have separated what God has joined: this is never good. [Msgr. Charles Pope, Our Sunday Visitor, 11/19/23]

Addressing Declining Births

Modernity’s “birth dearth” seems to be worldwide. South Korea reduced birth rates with national propaganda. The Chinese did it through tyranny. The U.S. has done the same by contraception and praising individual independence. Centuries ago, David Hume traced the decline in the populousness of nations to a lack of hope and faith in the future. Some say it is caused by materialism, that humans are just another species, one that has overreached and must be curtailed. Others say that it is our belief that we can overcome nature, be free from unchosen bonds and slavish bodies, that encourages people to skip parenthood; it is today’s temptation that we shall be like gods. [letters to editor, First Things, Aug/Sept 2023]

Some nations Like Australia and Hungary have instituted pronatal policies such as paying bonuses to families that have more children. Hungary provides such fiscal relief and has policies to promote stronger families. Hungarian President Katalin Novak said: “We protect parental freedom. The right to raise children does not belong to the state, nor to NGOs, nor to the knowledge industry and the media, but to parents. Anyone who has a child is ready to fight at any time to ensure that their child can live in peace and freedom. Families pass on their values from generation to generation in the face of every difficulty, every challenge.” [C-Fam, Letter from the UN Front, Oct. 2023]

But advocating for pronatalist policies alone will not stem the tide of our declining birth rates. We have to welcome families in our culture. We have to encourage a workplace culture that values work-life balance and prioritizes family time. We should encourage employers to adopt family-friendly policies that can create an environment where employees feel supported in their roles as parents. Moreover, we should work to shift cultural attitudes toward larger families, challenging stereotypes that may discourage people from having more children.” [editorial, Our Sunday Visitor, 9/27/23]

Super Bowl Champ Speaks Out

Plenty of smart and talented people are successful but remain unhappy. In the end, Harrison Butker said, no matter how much money you attain, none of it will matter if you are alone and devoid of purpose. By insisting that our human gifts are God-given, his speech at a secular school and his alma mater, Georgia Tech, was open to the transcendent truths of faith.

Brandishing his wedding ring, Butker smiled, saying: “This is the most important ring I have right here.” He said kicking in Super Bowl LVII, the most watched football game of all time, gave him happiness, but only temporary happiness. “None of these accomplishments mean anything compared to the happiness I have found in my marriage and in starting a family. Sadly, we are encouraged to live our lives for ourselves, to have loyalty to nothing but ourselves and make sacrifices only when it suits our own interests.” He concluded: “Focus on meaningful relationships and know that with or without the spotlight, your life has value and you are meant for more.” [Fr. Pat Briscoe, Our Sunday Visitor, 5/21/23]

Short Films

[Salvo magazine, Fall 2023]
• Groomed (at DailyCaller.com) tells the story of a California mother who fought to rescue her adolescent daughter after her daughter’s mind was virtually abducted by a combo of sex-ed school instructors and transgender activists online. Five years later, her daughter is recovering, but with no thanks to professional medicine or counseling. Worth watching solely for seeing what trans activists are perpetrating on children.
• XXX is a free YouTube documentary by sex-addiction therapist Roane Hunter on internet porn’s effect on the brain. The “Coolidge Effect” is when the brain’s reward system seeks ever-increasing novelty to get an ever-diminishing dopamine rush. The film (language warning) drives home the urgency of the risks porn poses to us all.

ProLife Ballot Defeats

Ohio voters’ passage of an amendment to the state Constitution guaranteeing the right to one’s own reproductive decisions including abortion, election of a proabort to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, and other losses, serve as a reality check about where we are as a nation when it comes to protecting the lives of the unborn.

Reasons given include deceptive ballot language,media bias, and twice the campaign spending by proabortionists over pro-lifers. But the fact is that legalized abortion enjoys wide support around the country, a result of having 50 years of Roe that produced an abortion mentality in our laws, schools, workplaces, news and entertainment industries. So we must work increasingly to convert hearts and minds to a culture of life, respecting the inherent dignity of every human being. [extract from editorial, National Catholic Register, 11/19/23]

Voting This Month

Though many moral issues are before us, not every one is equal. A 2-page flyer “We Care, We Vote” states: “We vote conscientiously because we are people of faith. Out consciences are formed through studying Scripture and the teachings of the Church, examination of the facts, and prayerful reflection.” But some folks are so engaged with daily TV news and opinion shows that politics has become their primary basis for judging the world. Many voters adopt views that are purely secular, based on political party allegiance. Christians, though, have a higher moral basis to make judgements. The USCCB highlights key issues (note the very first one):

• Issues that directly affect human lives- such as abortion and euthanasia- are fundamental and demand serious consideration.
• Our Constitution heralds religious liberty in the First Amendment, yet increasingly people of faith are fighting to retain this basic right.
• There is a move to redefine marriage. The marriage of a man and woman is the foundation of the family and an essential core element of a flourishing society.
• The growing disparity between rich and poor means most of the world’s resources are in the hands of a small percentage of its people. The federal budget is a moral document and must prioritize the poorest and the most vulnerable among us.
• The millions of undocumented persons living in the USA deserve our compassion. There is an immigration problem, and we need a humane solution to it.
• War, terror, and violence have caused thousands of lost lives. We must work for just solutions to conflict throughout the Middle East, and beyond.

[https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithfulcitizenship/parishes-and schools/upload/catholics-carecatholics-vote-bulletin-insert.pdf]

Pew Research Center Survey on Marriage

40% said they are very or somewhat pessimistic about the institution of marriage and the family. Just 25% are very or somewhat optimistic. Just 23% called being married as either extremely or very important to living a fulfilling life while 26% of Catholics said likewise. Just 26% said the same about having children while 31% of Catholics said the same.
[Our Sunday Visitor, 10/8/23]

Human Trafficking in Our Town

“Thanks for covering the film Sound of Freedom. The reality is sex trafficking of children and adults happens in every U.S. community, rural and urban. Children need to be rescued, but adult men and women need to be
rescued, as well, and given the opportunity to begin the healing process from the complex trauma they have experienced. Another great resource is U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking. These efforts show the world that Catholic nuns are forerunners in this challenging work.” [letter to Nat. Catholic Register from Sister Shirley Fineran, OSF, Sioux City, Iowa, 10/22/23, who founded Lila Mae’s House for women who have been sextrafficked since childhood.]

New York ranks 4th behind California, Texas and Florida for human trafficking which is now the second most profitable criminal activity after illegal drugs. Human beings are sold for labor and sold for sex. Traffickers do not want pregnant workers. So they force the women to abort their babies. Sadly, many are trafficked by romantic partners and family members, including parents. [Circle of Life Newsletter, Good Counsel Homes, Fall 2023]

Britney Spears Pressured to Abort Baby

In her upcoming memoir, The Woman in Me, pop star Britney Spears reveals she had an abortion, and not because she wanted one. “If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. Yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.” Spears started dating Timberlake when she was 17 and he was 18 in 1999. The two singers broke up in 2002. “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” writes Spears.

“I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” writes Spears. Sadly, it’s common for women who have an unexpected pregnancy to be pressured by others to have an abortion. A 2023 survey by Charlotte Lozier Institute, surveying women ages 41- 45, found that a whopping 60% who had abortions felt they faced “high levels of pressure to abort.” But if this is an issue of women’s rights and choices, why do these moms facing unexpected pregnancies have to shoulder so much pressure? Shouldn’t it be their choice? We can start with men: If you’re having sex with a woman, you need to be ready to step up to be a dad. (Yes, birth control fails.) [Katrina Trinko, The Daily Signal, 10/17/23]

Couples Plan Their Family Naturally

FAbM Base gives practical & scientific information and support for those learning and practicing fertility awareness in all stages of life. Family planning is done without putting chemicals into a woman’s body, without devices or surgery. The group’s website provides loads of useful info and resources.

“By treating hormonal and fertility issues, we embrace the worth and dignity of the whole person. Scientific information of fertility awareness and the community necessary for successful practice are valuable for every woman, no matter her faith or stage of fertility. Science shows ovulation is a sign of health, and our resources promote holistic care based on this evidence. We do not promote use of hormonal contraception or artificial reproductive technology because  shows that these are not good for women. We welcome all to learn about their bodies and find the support they need through our extensive resource databases, the stories we share honestly and without censorship, and factual information regarding alternative natural methods.” [https://fabmbase.org]

Margaret Sanger’s Wish

In the USA, black women have the highest abortion rate of any racial group, and the highest abortion-related mortality rate. The 20th-century eugenics movement specifically targeted Blacks and other racial minorities in order to reduce their birthrates, by promoting contraception, abortion and coercive measures such as forced sterilization. Yet, legalized abortion hasn’t narrowed the persistent wealth gaps between racial groups in the USA. In recent testimony before Congress, Dr. Monique Wubbernhorst noted that abortionists have killed an estimated 17 million American babies of African descent, at the cost of not only their lives, “but all of their descendants and, families and their hopes, dreams and contributions to our society.” [Letter from the UN Front, C-Fam, Sept. 2023]

Speaking Up Against Hate

Catholics led the way with other groups to hammer the LA Dodgers when they honored an anti-Catholic group of gay men dressed as nuns. The FBI is now in the spotlight regarding its spying on Catholics. Mothers are being more vigilant than ever about what is going on in public schools. And surveys indicate that Catholics want their clergy to be more vocal. [William A. Donohue, Catalyst, October 2023.]

Germans March for Life

Pro-life marches were held simultaneously in Sept. in two German cities for the first time, drawing over 6,000 participants. Besides Berlin, the annual demonstration against abortion made its debut in Cologne. Both marches were met with counter-protests. [Our Sunday Visitor, 10/1/23]

In My Mother’s Womb

A new book expresses the mysterious unfolding of a life in a mother’s womb from the unique point of view of the child. The story imagines what the child is seeing, hearing, thinking, and feeling. In diary form week by week, the little soul enthralls the reader with wonder at the vibrant growth and development of the human person that occurs before birth. With accompanying Scripture verses and stunning artwork for each week, this book provides a fresh encounter with life and the Author of Life. Pre-order at www.osvcatholicbookstore.com

Helping Singles Meet

CatholicMatch is the largest exclusively Catholic singles community to help singles meet more people who are better matches faster than anywhere else, including the mega sites. Its Match Portrait® coupled with Temperament profiling and advanced search features combine both the art and science of why two people click at the deepest level, helping individuals find their perfect match. CatholicMatch claims thousands of confirmed marriages: “our results speak for themselves. If you’re looking for a relationship with someone who shares your faith, this is the place.” [ htpps://www.CatholicMatch.com ]

Fairness in Girl’s & Women’s Sports

In a Parent Resource Guide booklet that responds to
transgender extremist policies, the Family Policy Alliance
and other groups present the negative consequences when
society regards bodily sex as irrelevant. [for copies of the
booklet, contact info@njfpc.org]
In a section on sports facts, citing published medical
research, we discover the following:

• There is a 10% performance gap between male and
  female athletes in most sports. It hasn’t narrowed as
  women train harder
• Men have higher hemoglobin levels–their body can
  oxygenate muscles more quickly and efficiently
• On average, males have 66% more upper-body muscle
  and 50% more lower-body muscle than females
• Women’s speed world records are about 90% of men’s
  speed world records. Each year, hundreds of men easily
  beat the world’s best time in women’s marathon
• On average, men have broader shoulders, larger feet and hands, giving them an advantage in sports like volleyball, swimming and basketball

The booklet concludes with sample opt-out letters, public records requests for school boards, and studies showing the majority of children with gender dysphoria accept their biological sex by adulthood. “Many school boards are pressured by outside activist groups to pass policies that treat bodily sex as irrelevant. By respectfully speaking out, you can help to ensure that school boards hear what the research makes clear: our sex does not change according to our feelings, and school policy that ignores that fact ends up hurting our kids.”

This monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert. Since 2013 it has had over 30,000 readers and is now posted on three diocesan websites. To receive each month’s free issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Another Election Coming

“I encourage all eligible Catholics to vote and to be guided in your voting by an informed conscience,” writes Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney (Paterson Diocese, NJ). He cites the U.S. Bishops document on forming one’s conscience on topics such as Human Life, Promoting Peace, Marriage and Family Life, Religious Freedom, the Poor and Economic Justice, Health Care, Migration, Catholic Education, and Combating Unjust Discrimination. [Visit the USCCB website for the full document.] “There is a compelling argument that, if the value of Life itself is not respected and protected, then there is no ‘point’ in speaking about some of the other important issues.” Being against the killing of the unborn means caring for both babies and their mothers. Bishop Kevin states: “We are the Church, called by God, to untiringly advocate for the reverence of the gift of life at all stages.” [The Beacon, 10/28/21]

USCCB Issues 2023 Theme for Respect Life Sunday: “Radical Solidarity” to be courageously pro-woman, promoting a choice that truly protects, accompanies, and supports women and their children.

Parents Sue to Opt Out of LGBTQ+

An interfaith group of Maryland parents has asked a federal appeals court to allow them to opt their children out of classroom instruction pertaining to books containing LGBTQ+ themes (such as gay romance) to which they object on religious grounds. Becket, a Washington-based religious liberty law firm, is representing the group of parents, including Muslims, Jews, Catholic and other Christians, as they sue the school board in federal court over the Montgomery County Public Schools policy. [Our Sunday Visitor, 9/17/23] 

Parents have “the first responsibility for the education of their children” according to The Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Mothers and fathers retain the right to both teach their children the morals imparted by the Church and to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions.” (¶2229) 

Fed. Govt. Continues to Push Abortion

• Dept. of Health & Human Services (DHH) is taking away the conscience rights of health care workers.
• DHH has a taxpayer-funded national abortion hotline.
• Dept. of Defense is using taxpayer dollars to cover the cost of abortions for female medical personnel.
• Dept. of Veterans Affairs is turning VA hospitals into abortuaries, even where pro-life laws prohibit this.
• FDA continues to allow the sale of abortion pills despite weak medical research support. 

[Population Research Institute Review, Sept.-Oct. 2023] Editor’s question: Why is the federal administration promoting these policies?

Addiction: Moral Failing at First, Medical Problem Thereafter

Addiction can take many forms. One of the most widely experienced addiction today is pornography. At first, it’s curiosity and bad moral decision-making. Then, in short order, the dopamine high needs to have stronger, more outrageous, stimulus. And down the dark path one goes. Medical science says it is difficult to stop. Porn creates unrealistic expectations. Porn degrades the opposite sex. Porn eats away at one’s family. Porn addiction uses up life’s valuable time. Porn, like other addictions, shackles us and reduces our freedom as humans.

But addiction can be professionally helped. Therapy intervention is available. See IntegrityRestored.com for comprehensive assistance. “Catholics in Recovery” is a great online group, focused on men’s recovery Also, covenanteyes.com (use “integrity30″ for 30 free days) helps monitor your online use. “Fight the new drug” is a secular group that also provides sound advice. These can help those addicted to pornography get back their life, get back their family, and achieve freedom again. [For more details, listen to the podcast of Trending with Timmerie using the Relevant Radio app, 9/19/23]

Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

for 2022 estimated at least 5 million were children. Overall, human trafficking rakes in a monstrous $150 billion annually, with child trafficking accounting for $35 billion, now surpassing the arms trade & on pace to sur pass the drug trade as the world’s fastest growing illegal enterprise (International Organization of Migration, 2022 report). Sadly, the U.S. ranks #1 in both production and consumption of child pornography and sits among the top three as a destination country for sex trafficked children. For example, in 2010 Atlanta, Georgia recorded 7,000 online requests for sex with underage victims (children) in just one month (Shapiro Group, 2010). 

In the 1990s and 2000s, the rise of modern day slavery brought reports of India’s red-light districts onto the world stage, because of ministry work overseas and the 

award-winning movie Slum Dog Millionaire, which ex posed gruesome trafficking rings in India. The blockbuster hit Taken also opened people’s eyes to trafficking, depict

ing young women being abducted from one country & sold to another. The film Amazing Grace partnered with the anti-slavery movement to expose the issue. The powerful line, “God’s children are not for sale” is at the heart of the movie taking the nation by storm, Sound of Freedom. 

Our border is an abundant source feeding the expanding business of selling children. In 2022, the U.S. Custom and Border Protection Agency reported that over 150,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the border. Approximately 85,000 children are unaccounted for, not including those children coming with families that are indebted to cartels nor do they account for children being used by adults, mostly young males, who are NOT their relatives. None of the children will be able to pay the debt owed as the fee for bringing them across the border. They become indebted to their captors for life. Nothing is deterring these criminal/ terror organizations from growing their illegal businesses. 

Americans have crossed the Rubicon and we cannot go back. It is time to rescue our children! [Trayce Bradford, Children Are Not For Sale, Eagle Forum Report 9/23]

In the Name of “Diversity”

Public schools continue to be ground zero to eliminate knowledge of God-derived rights and obligations from our children: 

• 1962: Prayer forbidden (Engel v. Vitale)  
• 1963: Bible reading banned (School District of Abington Township v. Schempp) 
• 1980: Ten Commandments banned from public spaces (Stone v. Graham) 
• 2000s: some schools distribute condoms, some teach graphic sexual content in primary schools, some sponsor drag queen presentations, some allow young children to “decide” their gender and not tell parents

ACTIVITIES: for Respect Life Month many events and activities are held in support of life. The Life Chain project is planned for the afternoon of October 1st, Respect Life Sunday. Each year, Life Chains form in hundreds of cities nationwide for a public, prayerful, peaceful stand for Life. Also, 40DaysforLife prayer vigils worldwide began on Sept. 27thand end on November 6th. For a local vigil, visit https://www.40daysforlife.com/ Also, check church & right to life groups in your area for other activities such as guest speakers and conferences, processions and masses for life.

Pregnant Mom w/Cancer: “No Abortion” 

Just over a year ago, 30-year-old mother Tasha Kann was diagnosed with a rare and malignant brain tumor called Anaplastic Astrosytoma Grade lll. She was approximately 20 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby girl. Doctors said that her best chance of survival & more time was to abort the child & immediately begin chemotherapy and radiation. However, Tasha didn’t want to end her baby’s life, even if it meant her own life would come to an end sooner. 

According to Tasha’s GoFundMe, “After much research & many prayers, Tasha decided her best out come from this disease would be to continue her pregnancy and fight it as naturally as possible, refusing chemo and radiation.” Gracey Joyce Kann was born last October, healthy and lovely. Tasha’s cancer had been growing from her central nervous system. The prognosis lessened from years to 12 months, yet Tasha is now at 14 months. When making the decision about her care, Kann said her faith was the biggest factor. 

“Every single day, I look at my beautiful baby and think about how easy it was for them to tell me to abort – like she was nothing,” Kann told Fox News Digital. She is now getting expensive immunotherapy that will cost over $100,000 per year. Her community and family have always been & always will be there to support her. She is not giving up. [Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, 9/12/23]

 Students Afraid of Princeton Professor

Earlier this month, Princeton Univ. professor Robert P. George was slated to give a talk at Washington College in Chestertown, MD, including “a discussion of the importance of free and open discourse during college of the great questions of human life.” College President Mike Sosulski emailed students: “It is incumbent upon us as a community to create & maintain an environment where everyone feels safe to share their ideas, even those that may be controversial or offensive.” Sosulski himself attended George’s talk. 

But “Protesters at Washington College were successful in silencing the speaker,” reported The Star Democrat, a local Maryland paper. Students were outraged about his long history of bravely defending & articulating conservative principles about traditional sexual morality & abortion. “As faculty tried to attempt to help continue the lecture, it proved futile. Fast-tempo music began blaring, whistles constantly blew, and there was even a little dancing in between the tables.” 

The Washington College protesters aren’t some crazed outliers. A new survey of college students reveal horrifying views about free speech. 31% of students say they believe that it’s always or sometimes acceptable to shout down a college speaker to prevent him from speaking, according to the survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse. More than half (57%) agree that a speaker who thinks abortion should be completely illegal should definitely or probably be blocked from giving a campus speech. Shockingly, 11% of students say they think it’s always or sometimes acceptable to use “violence to stop a campus speech.” [Katrina Trinko, DailySignal.com, 9/16/23]

Alabama: Court Upholds Law Protecting minors

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction against an Alabama law that protects minors from gender-transition hormone treatments. The unanimous decision found no “constitutional right to treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.” The court said it is “undisputed that the medications can cause loss of fertility and sexual function. Some families will not fully appreciate those risks and some minors experiencing gender dysphoria ultimately will desist and identify with their biological sex.”

“This case revolves around an issue that is surely of the utmost importance to all of the parties involved: the safety and wellbeing of the children of Alabama,” it said. “But it is complicated by the fact that there is a strong disagreement between the parties over what is best for those children. Absent a constitutional mandate to the contrary, these types of issues are quintessentially the sort that our system of government reserves to legislative, not judicial, action.” The 11th Circuit’s decision in favor of Alabama could hold major implications for the other states in its jurisdiction, Florida and Georgia, where judges have issued a preliminary injunction against similar laws. [Joshua Arnold, The Washington Stand, 8/23/23]

Sept. 9: National Day of Remembrance

Thousands will mark the day as both celebration and mourning as they remember the 65 million unborn babies who were aborted under Roe v. Wade. Eric J. Scheidler, exec. director of the Pro-Life Action League, one of the groups sponsoring the event, said “On this 11th annual National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children, we visit the burial places of aborted children and other memorials put up in their honor — and we solemnly pray for God to heal the deep wounds of abortion in our society. With over 185 services scheduled in the U.S., including 36 at the burial places of aborted children, there’s likely to be a Day of Remembrance prayer service near you,” he added. “It’s not a protest or rally. It’s not held at an abortion facility or government office. It’s a prayerful opportunity to remember, and to heal.”

The gatherings will include testimonies from women who regret their abortions, reflections by clergy of various faiths, music, prayer, mourning for aborted babies and celebration of the end of Roe. Priests for Life, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society & Scheidler’s group want to remind Americans of the horrors of abortion. The grave-side services expose how every abortion results in the death of an unborn child, and that child’s body must be gotten rid of by some means, whether incinerated or thrown in the trash, cut up for scientific experiments or, in some cases, buried. Pro-life leaders also hope the day will bring mercy and healing to the tens of millions of mothers and fathers of aborted
babies.

For more information and a list of locations, visit NationalDayofRemembrance.org. [Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, 8/28/23]

Massachusetts: Foster Parents Denied

Mike & Kitty Burke allege that the commonwealth denied their adopting children due to their Catholic religious beliefs concerning marriage, sexuality, and gender. During interviews, they affirmed their willingness to love and support any child, regardless of orientation or gender struggles. Their application was rejected with their religious views labeled “not supportive.” The couple believes that the states’ rejection is discriminatory and filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Dept. of Children & Families for violation of their religious liberty. [Our Sunday Visitor, 8/27/23]

Court Limits Access to Abortion Pills

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided in part with a federal judge’s decision in Texas to curtail access to mifepristone. The court held that the Food and Drug Administration failed to adequately take into account safety concerns when it loosened access to mifepristone in 2016. The FDA extended the window when mifepristone could be used to terminate pregnancies from seven weeks’ gestation to 10 weeks and reduced the number of in-person visits patients were required to make from three to one. Then, in 2021, it removed a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed only in clinics, medical offices and hospitals, thereby allowing it to be administered through telehealth and sent by mail.

Attorney Erin Hawley of the Alliance Defending Freedom said: “we are very pleased with the Fifth Circuit’s decision. It restores the original 2000 safeguards to a dangerous chemical drug regimen.” Katie Daniel, the state policy director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group, hailed the ruling: “The FDA ignored science and its own rules when it rubber-stamped Democrats’ reckless mail-order abortion scheme. We won’t rest until the FDA and the profit-driven abortion industry are held accountable for the suffering they’ve inflicted on women and girls, as well as the deaths of countless unborn children.” [NBC News, 8/16/23]

Iowa: Judge Blocks Abortion Ban

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a ban on most abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, passed by the Iowa Legislature. It prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks, but includes exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. However, an Iowa judge issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the new law, thus reverting the state to its previous legal abortion limit oat 20 weeks of pregnancy. “I will fight this all the way to the Iowa Supreme  Court where we expect a decision that will finally provide justice for the unborn,” Reynolds said. [Our Sunday Visitor, 7/30/23]

“Family planning is contraception AND abortion.”

So said Ann Furedi of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service based on findings that over 50% of women having abortions had been using at least one form of contraception, and 25% had used methods considered “most effective.” She said: “women cannot control their fertility though contraception alone.” U.S data show similar findings: about half of abortion patients said that they used a contraceptive method in the month they become pregnant.”

Assoc. professor Melissa Moschella (Catholic U.) siad there is no evidence that widespread access to contraception reduces abortion rates. Where contraception becomes the norm, people have an expectation that they can engage in sexual activity without worrying about consequences.” And since no method is 100% effective, more unplanned pregnancies result. In his encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope St. John Paul IIworte that contraception and abortion are “fruits of the same tree.”

Oral contraceptives have potentially serious adverse health effects. Moral theologian Pia de Solenni said “most women don’t feel good when they’re taking hormonal birth control.” More women are questioning the physical effects the pill has on their bodies. “Article after article acknowledges that women report a variety of adverse effects including depression.” [Lauretta Brown, National Catholic Register, 8/27/23]

Michigan: Famer’s Religious Liberty Win

A federal court decision in favor of a Catholic orchardist in Michigan, who announced that his farm would not host same-sex weddings, and was banned from a farmers market as a result, is being hailed as a victory for free speech and religious liberty. In the decision, the judge said Country Mill Farms and the owner Stephen Tennes “were forced to choose between following their religious beliefs and a government benefit for which they were otherwise qualified.”

The farm includes a cider mill and donates produce to the Greater Lansing Food Bank. It also hosts events such as wedding shower and birthday parties from August through Thanksgiving, according to its webpage. The judge’s decision notes that Tennes “Stopped running haunted houses, something his father started, because the practice was not in line with his faith. He has declined to host bachelor and bachelorette parties for the same reason.” [Kurt Jensen, Our Sunday Visitor, 8/28/23]

Warren Buffett’s Dark Side

The “Wizard of Omaha” is America’s most revered investor and famous penny pincher whose wealth is $100 billion. The dark side? The biggest funder of abortion in human history poses as America’s most celebrated philanthropist. Since 2002, Buffett has poured $41 billion into four foundations, each of which bankrolls groups expanding abortion-on-demand policies nationwide or even sustain the UN’s population control campaign in impoverished countries. “Warren Buffett has never spoken publicly about his views on abortion,” the New York Times observed in 2010. “But in the 1990s [his foundation] helped finance the research and development of the [mifepristone] pills that induce abortion… [and] helped finance a lawsuit to overturn the ban on so-called partial-birth abortion in Nebraska.

For decades, Buffett’s committed a fortune de to his belief that humans will reproduce ourselves into oblivion, endangering global supplies of food, housing, and even human survival. Since 2003, Ipas has received over $422 million from Buffett family foundations. Ipas invented and markets manual vacuum aspiration technology, literally sucking embryos and fetuses from the womb in more than 100 countries. Another under-the-radar group is Pathfinder International, which used its funding to overturn the U.S. Mexico City Policy, a ban on federal funding of groups that perform abortions overseas.

In the past decade, Pathfinder used close to $1 billion from USAID to abort Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans and push looser abortion policies in poor countries. Pathfinder was seeded in the 1950s by Clarence Gamble, heir to the Procter & Gamble soup fortune, himself a committed eugenicist and ally of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger who sat on the group’s board. Many are familiar with Sanger’s “Negro Project of the South” to expand birth control and abortion to southern blacks; she got the idea from Clarence Gamble, the project’s funder. EngenderHealth is a little-known group that provides abortions in poor countries. Even less well-known is its original name: The Sterilization League of New Jersey, one of a crop of sterilization advocacy groups created by eugenicists in the 1930s.

Advocates for Youth is one of the lead transgender groups grooming schoolchildren for gay sex, pedophilia, and HIV – thanks to $29 million from Buffett. We’ve recorded its vision for sex education in classrooms, which includes teaching second-graders about sexual consent, fifth-graders about “trusted adults” whom they “can talk to about relationships” (invariably sexual), and tenth-graders about the latest medical breakthroughs that make living with HIV tolerable. [Hayden Ludwig, Restoration of America, 8/28/23]

Next Month: October is Respect Life Month when many events & activities are held in support of life. The Life Chain project is planned for the afternoon of October 1st, Respect Life Sunday. Each year, Life Chains form in hundreds of cities nationwide to make a public, prayerful, peaceful stand for Life. For a location near you, see https://www.lifechain.org Also, 40DaysforLife prayer vigils worldwide will begin Sept. 27th and end on November 6th. For a local vigil, visit https://www.40daysforlife.com/ Also, check church and right to life groups in your area for other activities such as guest speakers and conferences.

This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Every Picture Worth 1,000 Words

New trucks are being converted by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform into rolling billboards to target 34 California State and University campuses. To educate the public & college students, the themes will invoke the dangers of abortion pills that are now being dispensed in student health centers. Some of the signs will address the “trans” mania also sweeping American college campuses. “Nor do we believe that biological men should be permitted to menace real women in women’s prisons or shelters. We also oppose policies which permit biological men to consistently defeat and often injure real women by invading in women’s sports and posing as real women.” [CBR newsletter, June 2023, cbr@cbrinfo.org]

Assisting an abortion for the first time

Abby Jonson dropped the ultrasound probe and ran, crying, from the procedure room. Despite two of her own abortions, she was shocked by the images on the screen: the first-trimester fetal human had limbs, movement, and a heartbeat: “What was in this woman’s womb just a moment ago was alive. It wasn’t just tissue, just cells. That was a human baby, fighting for life! What I told people for years, what I believed and taught and defended, is a lie!” Johnson came to view abortion as morally impermissible. She quit her job at the clinic and ultimately became a pro-life activist. [Heidi M. Giebel, The “Unplanned” Effect: Impact of Fetal Ultrasound Images, Life and Learning XXXII, June 2022.]

Contraception and Abortion

Modern medicine continues to promote the use of contraception to prevent unintended pregnancies. People have come to believe that only through contraception can women have control of their lives. Health professionals provide unmarried sexually active adolescents, especially African Americans and the poor with the pill, the condom, and more recently the use of the IUD and implants. These approaches are not solving the problem of unwanted pregnancy & abortion, and they promote the likelihood of catching an STD.

Reducing abortion will only happen when a true understanding of human sexuality, marriage, and the conjugal act can be effectively communicated and lived. The only way to decrease abortion is through chastity-based human sexuality programs for teens and their parents, marriage preparation that includes Natural Family Planning, and the understanding that women’s roles and careers are not contingent on eliminating their human fertility. Not seeing the link between contraception and abortion eliminates strategies for effective change in our culture to become a culture of accepting life. [Richard J. Fehring, The Influence of Religiosity and Contraception on the Odds of Abortion, Life and Learning XXXII, June 2022.]

Genetic Editing: Respect for Human Life

13-year-old Alyssa with aggressive leukemia is now in remission thanks to the experimental gene editing CRISPR technology. After exhausting all known treatments, she received a dose of donor immune cells genetically modified to attack the cancer. Though it will be years before doctors know if she will remain cancer free, the treatment took effect in only 28 days.

Genetic manipulation is laudable morally when its goal is healing and its methods are aimed at the good of the individual. It becomes problematic when it simply uses the person or, in some cases, causes the demise of the individual for the sake of research. Using individuals as simply means to a greater end demeans that human life.

Catholic bioethics seeks to apply the Church’s moral wisdom to both new and existing questions of medical practice, research, and technology. For example, to harvest DNA from a woman’s egg or embryo, risky egg extraction is needed. Using cells from the embryo results in its destruction. Thus, on embryo is destroyed for the sake of another. “Medicine” that treats some human life as expendable is morally unacceptable by failing to respect the dignity of every human life. Yes, a world where genetic selection occurs (“designer” babies) is appealing. As philosopher Chris Kaczor says: “This brace new world, even if populated with only beautiful people, is an ugly creation in which the gift of a child becomes a consumer product.” Couldn’t those monies be better spent on research to cure diseases?

The Catholic storytelling podcast “Brave New Us” explores the many facets of genetic editing. Samantha Stephenson, author of Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad, dives into topics such as the role of disability in God’s kingdom and also asks big questions: “What makes a life valuable” and “What does it mean to be human.” Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. [Stephenson, Our Sunday Visitor, 7/16/23]

Helping Couples

• “I can just say that even though I love being a pediatrician, I love, love teaching Natural Family Planning to couples. NFP gives them tools for lifelong intimacy, intimacy that is in addition to the conjugal sexual union.” (Maria Meyers, MD)
• “It is a beautiful experience in teaching women/couples the very foundation of how our bodies and fertility work. For medical problems, the ability to help women work with their body and work toward finding and treating the root cause is not only a better long-term solution for their health but is truly respectful of their body & God’s creation.” (Brittany Kudrna, DNP, FNP-c)
• “It was wonderful to see women (and their partners) come to understand their cycles and persevere with NFP despite all society’s pressures to contracept. And it was a great joy to help engaged couples return to chastity before their marriage if they had become sexually active.” (Kathleen M. Raviele, MD, Ob/Gyn) [R. J. Fehring, Building a Culture of Life Through a University Institute for NFP, Life and Learning XXXII, June 2022.]

Blockbuster Film Thriller

In its first two weeks, sleeper smash hit Sound of Freedom crossed the $100 million mark. The film made headlines opening on the Fourth of July by beating Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for the day with $14.2 million. The movie, billed as a political thriller, stars The Passion of the Christ‘s Jim Caviezel as the real-life Tim Ballard, who worked as an agent for the Department of Homeland Security before embarking on his own quest to bring child traffickers to justice (Ballard founded his own anti-trafficking organization, dubbed Operation Underground Railroad). The picture placed third over the July 7-9 weekend with an impressive $19.7 million from 2,634 theaters, then coming in second in the July 14-16 weekend with $27.3 million from 2,852 locations, a rare 39% weekly jump. Cinema owners rushed to carry the movie as other summer offerings struggle to find a foothold. Over the July 21-23 weekend it played in 3,287 theaters. [Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 7/20/23]

Do They Serve Women or Babies?

Pro-life pregnancy centers began sprouting in the U.S. as repeal of criminal abortion prohibitions arose on state legislative agendas in the late 1960s. Although most pregnancy help leaders identify with the pro-life movement, the typical center identifies itself as a ministry or service provider rather than an activist organization. If pregnancy centers have a hidden agenda behind the claims to provide practical and emotional support through unplanned childbearing, it is to transform the lives of women clients through sharing faith-based messages rather than to stop all the abortions that they can. [Laura S. Hussey, The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies?, Univ. Press of Kansas, 2020.]

Abortion’s Impact on Society

“As we stand here on this day, quite literally thousands of unborn children will be sacrificed before the sun sets in the name of the new ethic. Such a situation cannot continue indefinitely without doing irreparable damage to the most cherished principles of humanity and to the moral sensibilities of our people. The issue at stake is not only what we do to unborn children, but what we do to ourselves by permitting them to be killed. With every day
that passes, we run the risk of stumbling down the path that leads to the devaluation of all stages of human life, born or unborn.

What kind of society is it that will abide this sort of senseless destruction? What kind of people are we that can tolerate this mass extermination? Abortion, which was once universally condemned in the Western World as a heinous moral and legal offense, is now presented to us as not only a necessary, sometime evil, but as a morally and socially beneficial act. The Christian counsel of perfection which teaches that the greatest love consists in laying down one’s life for one’s friend, has now become an injunction to take another’s life for the security and
comfort of one’s own. The world of abortion is one in which black becomes white, and right wrong, in which the powerful are authorized to destroy the weak & defenseless, a world in which the child’s natural protector, his own mother, becomes the very agent of his destruction.” [Senator James Buckley, from his address introducing his Human Life Amendment on the U.S.; Senate floor, 5/31/1973. Reprinted in the Human Life Review, Spring 2023.]

Last fall, answers to a Gallup poll question revealed some of the lowest rates of American optimism in decades. Too many Americans do not see the light that comes with believing in a higher power and in its ability to redeem even those of us who seem beyond saving. Liel Leibovitz, First Things, 4/23]

Femininity is Not a Function of Stilettos.

Or red lipstick. Or even skirts and dresses. Drag queens are not showcasing femininity when they don their costumes on stage, and neither are any female politicians when they don their red lipstick. Femininity is not a measure of fashion choices or makeup usage. Drag queens insult me because they reduce femininity to an appearance that can be purchased and painted on. We who believe in biological sex as an essential part of our
human and personal identity ought to be sure we do not
fall prey to the same error.

My female body has matured through the trials of puberty, the decades-long challenges of menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, and nursing. I will never bond over any of these experiences with a man, a (male) drag queen, or a trans “woman,” even if we swap dresses, wear matching shades of lipstick, or hire the same surgeon to reconfigure our chests. Masculinity and femininity can’t be bought. Our (gender) identity is given to us freely at the moment of conception. My body, with its uniquely feminine powers, makes me a woman. Not my wallet.

Being pro-choice defaces a woman’s femininity—built by God to nurture life—more than ugly shoes ever could. Some women scorn their femininity in a parody just as grotesque as a man dressed in drag. [letter, Gina Loehr, First Things, April 2023]

This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Lila Rose Slams Hookup Culture

Pro-life leader Lila Rose caught the attention of millions of people online on May 9 when she defended abstinence until marriage & monogamy on “Whatever” a popular dating podcast. Rose, the president and founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, offered a number of compelling arguments about marriage and sex throughout the three hour podcast, despite some rough & crude language used by panelists. “That’s where the power of love comes in, a love that doesn’t leave, a love that isn’t based on feelings or desire, but a love that’s based on choice,” Rose said. “And I think deep down we’re all wired for that. … I think deep down we want a love that stays, a love that lasts, and it is possible for everyone.” [LifeNews, 5/17/23] 

Gender Confusion Everywhere

Is there a religious or ideological bias in those who promote the transgender idea? The American Medical Assoc., Amer. Academy of Pediatrics, Amer. Psychiatric Assoc., and Amer. Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry all have spoken out against state laws to restrict access to “gender-affirming medical care” for children, including both hormones and surgery. Yet none of these organizations object to restrictions of children’s rights to express their self identity in the form of permanent tattoos. Many, many states have absolute bans on tattoos for children, and others have strict parental notification and consent laws. Jim Riley of Innervision Tattoo (Nevada) says he wouldn’t tattoo a minor even with parental consent: “Of all the people I’ve tattooed in my 20+ year career, it’s very common to hear the phrase ‘I got this tattoo when I was 15 and now I hate it. Can you cover it up?’ Let’s face it, when we’re teenagers we don’t have the foresight to know what we will like when we are in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.” [J. Sciortino, WSJ, 5/15/23]

The Department of Education under the current administration has proposed a new rule that would generally require sports programs to allow athletes to compete according to, not their sex, but their gender identity. Permitting any male to compete against females undermines the long-standing goals of equal opportunity for women & girls. [National Review, 5/1/23]

Transgender rights are among a slew of hot-button issues driving states in opposite directions. New proposals include bans on gender-affirming treatment for minors, limits on discussing gender identity in primary schools, and prohibitions on transgender students competing on school sports teams that align with their identified gender. [S. Armour, WSJ, 4/24/23]

The Archdiocese of Portland, OR, has adopted a model policy on dealing with transgender students: designations and pronouns should accord with biological sex; restrooms and locker rooms should be organized according to biological sex; no person should have on site or distribute medications for the purpose of gender transition; parents are the primary educators of their children and should be involved in any psychiatric or medical decisions regarding their children. [Catholic League, Catalyst, April 2023]

He Thought Abortion Was Good Medicine

Dr. John Bruchalski’s book Two Patients: My Conversion from Abortion to Life-Affirming Medicine (Oct. 2022) tells his pro-life story as an OB/GYN. At first, I adopted the mindset that abortion was good medicine for women. I grew up during the so-called “sexual revolution.” My faith journey outside of my family and parish in the 1970s and 1980s told me that my conscience was my supreme guide and the Church could not force me to change my mind. My journey into studying the scientific taught me that what my faith taught me was backward, dangerous and a curse on women and science and medicine.

The change came for me in early 1989. I was an OB/GYN resident practicing so-called “good medicine.” Cognitive dissidence was building up inside me. At night I was visiting a pregnancy resource center, getting to see the faith of an evangelical community rescuing women from abortion. During the day I was performing atrocities as an honorable and caring OB/GYN. Yet medical data in our journals were clearly indicating the
dangerous side effects of abortion and its association with mental illness, preterm birth, and breast cancer.
But with each abortion I performed my heart grew harder and harder, darker and darker.

Then an honest Catholic NICU doctor, Dr. Debbie Plumb, challenged me to stop treating her patients, these babies, as tumors to be cut out and discarded. I went to Medjougorie and became a redeemed sinner. I was touched in the sacred font of Divine Mercy through the assistance of His Blessed Mother. By 1994 I had
founded Tepeyac OB/GYN. My heart was exploding in fire to share what merciful, life-affirming medicine
could be with other practitioners and with patients.

Rather than seeing fertility as something to be controlled and shut off and polluted with class one carcinogens,
fertility awareness is utilized fully. Rather than considering unborn children as sexually transmitted diseases, the unborn child is our second patient. Rather than treating embryos as property to be used, children and progeny are to be unconditionally loved and nurtured. Rather than seeing the underserved as someone else’s problem to be fixed and a waste of precious time, we do what we can to accompany our patients. Rather than pitting mom against her child in elective abortion, we collaborate with regional pregnancy centers. Rather than seeing a sick unborn child in the womb as a sump for pain and needless suffering and ending the life of the person/child with that illness, we offer perinatal hospice. It is the breaking of the unity of reason with faith that led to the sterilizing tables in the 1930s, the gas chambers in the 1940s, and now to the abortion mills and chemical abortions of today. In a post-Roe world, we must continue the political and the advocacy and the scientific inquiry. We must serve human flourishing, collaborate with fertility, and not treat our children as sexually transmitted diseases to be altered or eliminated. Through God’s grace, and in sacrificial relationship with others, we can provide a light in the darkness and show that the way of medicine going forward must be
toward care, healing and wholeness. [Zoe Romanowsky interview, 1/19/23, https://aleteia.org/]

Salt-N-Pepa Singer Rejected Abortion to Save Her Singing Career

Cheryl James of the hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa said the entertainment industry tried to pressure her to abort her daughter. In an interview, James said her daughter was one of the best things that ever happened to her. James, the “Salt” of the group, and Sandra Denton, or “Pepa,” spoke about balancing their careers with raising their children even though many in the entertainment industry told them that they could not do both. “You just have to know that it’s something that you’re capable of handling if you want a kid and a career. And it’s definitely harder. Having my girls, besides finding Jesus, is the best thing that I’ve ever experienced, my kids,” she said.

Other celebrities have shared similar stories about the pressure female entertainers face to abort their unborn babies. Earlier this year, former Pussycat Dolls lead singer Kaya Jones told of the “train of trauma” she suffered after having three abortions as a young woman. Jones described the entertainment industry as almost like a sex trafficking ring that objectifies women and girls and, when they become pregnant, pressures them to abort their unborn babies. Later, Jones said she found forgiveness and healing in Christ. [M. Bilger, LifeNews.com, 5/9/23]

Mutilated Animals Left at Clinic

The FBI and local police opened an investigation after three mutilated animals were left on the property of a pro-life pregnancy center in Orlando, Florida. All of the clinic’s services are free and it mostly serves minority
women. The director Bob Perron thinks the clinic was targeted “because we don’t support or refer for abortions
because we know that that hurts women & their families. We are just a medical clinic trying to help moms.” A doorbell camera may have recorded part of the targeting. There have been more than 60 attacks on pro-life
pregnancy centers since May 2022 when it was reported that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. Yet, there have been only six reported arrests. Many Catholic churches, a maternity home, political organizations, billboards and ads, a political figure, and a memorial have all also come under pro-abortion attacks since last May. [Excerpt from Joe Bukuras, 5/16/23: © 2023 EWTN News, Inc. Reprinted with permission from CNA, www.catholicnewsagency.com]

Abortion Pill Safety The FDA only requires fatal complications from mifepristone to be reported. In other words, “if the woman has to go to the emergency room if she has excessive
bleeding, if she is in the ER on life support for days and days and days, if she recovers from that, the FDA says, ‘Don’t tell us about it. Only tell us if she dies,’” U.S. Sen. James Lankford said. And because of the lack of reporting, OB-GYN Dr. Donna Harrison said doctors cannot provide good information about its risks to their patients. Research indicates that emergency room doctors take care of more than half of abortion pill complications. [Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, 5/10/23]

Three Parent Baby?

An English Catholic bishop has denounced the first reported births of “three-parent” babies in the UK as
“deeply concerning.” Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster said the creation of babies by mitochon- drial donation treatment (MDT) was unethical because the process involved the destruction of two embryos to
create a single new life. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, the British regulator, has
permitted the creation of 30 babies by pronuclear transfer although “less than five” have been born.

The procedure assumes that the nucleus and the mitochondria can be transferred without any consequence. Yet Paul Knoefler, a researcher and professor of cell biology and human anatomy at the University of
California, Davis, writes that “there is strong evidence that the mitochondrial genome, for example, ‘talks to’ the nuclear genome, and has ‘pervasive effects on cellular and organismal functioning.’” Professor David Albert Jones, director of Anscombe, said: “This is a new and unnecessary technique that does not add to the safety of IVF involving an egg donor, but adds further risks.” [Simon Caldwell, Our Sunday Visitor, 5/15/23]

This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Court Allows Abortion Pill – For Now

The Supreme Court blocked the effect of a lower-court order that was poised to limit access to the pill, which is used in more than half of U.S. abortions. The Court’s action was not a decision on the merits of the case; instead, the justices were deciding whether the pill could remain available during a law suit by medical associations and individual doctors. FDA-approved access to mifepristone would remain until litigation concludes in the lower courts and the Supreme Court itself has an opportunity to review those decisions—a time line that likely will take many months. 

New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the FDA to reimpose a pre-2016 regimen for administering the drug. That included limiting its use to the earliest weeks of pregnancy, requiring three doctor visits, & precluding mailing pills to patients. Arguments in the case are set for mid-May. 

“The FDA must answer for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by failing to study how dangerous the chemical abortion drug regimen is,” said Erik Baptist, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the plaintiffs. “We look forward to a final outcome in this case that will hold the FDA accountable.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/22/23] 

How Safe is Mifepristone?

The Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology and Research:: about 0.01% of patients who receive penicillin will experience a true anaphylactic allergic reaction. A Canadian study of mass antibiotic prophylaxis with penicillin showed that, of 2,707 people receiving the drug, only 5 experienced what could be classified as a serious adverse event, a rate of 0.18%. According to pro-abortion sources, the abortion pill sends 6% of women who take it to the emergency room or urgent care for complications. This is a rate that is 33 times higher than that of penicillin. And it is 107 times greater than the rate for complications from acetaminophen/Tylenol.” [www.LiveActionNews.com] 

The Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the rate of abortion-related emergency room visits by women taking the abortion drug increased more than 500% between 2002 and 2015, resulting in the death of millions of unborn babies.

A 2009 study “Immediate Complications After Medical Compared With Surgical Termination of Pregnancy,” in Obstetrics and Gynecology found a complication rate of approximately 20% for the abortion drugs compared to 5.6% for surgical abortions. Hemorrhages and incomplete abortions were among the most common complications. 

For Working and Stay-at-Home Mothers

Chef, dietician, nurse, cosmologist, lawyer, physician, judge, spiritual director, moral compass; teacher of discernment, manners, temperance and modesty; life coach, home organizer, chauffeur, referee, head janitor, and example of faithfulness and respect to her husband. For all the mothers who read “Goodnight, Moon” twice a night for a year and then read it again, just one more time. Her calling, along with fatherhood, is the greatest and highest vocation on earth. 

Said Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty: “The most important person on earth is a mother: She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral, a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this, to be a mother?” 

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who don’t. This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can’t find the words to reach them.  This is for the mother who gave birth to babies they’ll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes. This is for the mothers whose priceless art collections are hanging on their refrigerator doors. [Christian Action News, 5/22] 

Doctor-Assisted Suicide on Steroids

Over the last few years, Canada’s doctor-assisted
suicide program was originally restricted to those facing
“reasonably foreseeable” natural death. In 2021 it was
expanded to those whose illnesses need not be terminal.
Now the government wants to cover ‘mature minors,”
including those as young as 12, who are deemed “fit” to
make an end-of-life decision. These policies are widely
popular. We should not be surprised. As Leila Mechoui
explains in Compact magazine: “State-administered
euthanasia on-demand is the logical endpoint of a society
built on secular humanism and utilitarianism. These
frameworks preclude any appeal to an absolute authority
beyond the individual. The ultimate expression is as a
state-protected ‘right’ to a ‘dignified’ death.” The future
of the West: a culture of death under the sign of choice.
[First Things, March 2023]

Recommended: Nefarious

The movie trailer, billboards & print ads seem to promote this movie as a horror film, but it is, according to one viewer, “amazing, with Catholic/ Christian themes.” And it has top quality production value.

Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited

In a book of penetrating essays, Mary Eberstadt shines a light on the ideological extremism of our times. Since her 2012 book, we’ve seen the introduction of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, a further plunge in birth rates, a decline of the American life span, the rise of “revenge porn,” and the proliferation of dating apps. Beyond these is the sudden proliferation of gender clinics promising to “affirm” the gender identity of young people by feeding them off-label puberty blockers and scheduling surgeries that will make them infertile and in many cases incontinent. All this was accompanied by a ferocious surge in identity politics, a rising tide of intolerant secularism, levels of reported teen depression never before recorded, and a deadly opioid epidemic. 

 Writes Eberstadt: “Children today are considerably less likely to have siblings — and by extension, cousins, aunts, and uncles — than they were sixty years ago. Almost 30 percent of all households consist of just one person. Some 40 percent of all children lack a biological father in the home. A world of fewer and weaker family ties is one in which deprived people are furious about things they do not have or no longer know.” 

To put it starkly, in the name of human freedom, we have unwittingly created a society in which children on the whole experience less love and commitment in their lives than ever before. “The vast majority of incarce rated juveniles have grown up in fatherless homes,” she writes. “Teen and other mass murderers almost invariably have a filial rupture in their biographies. Absent fathers predict higher rates of truancy, psychiatric problems, criminality, promiscuity, drug use, rape, domestic violence, and other tragic outcomes.”

Clearly, the social contagion of nonbinary and trans identity among young girls on the verge of puberty is related not just to family breakdown but to the ubiquity of violent pornography, which makes female sexuality look like an occasion for male abuse and contempt.  Eberstadt’s arresting thesis is that the decline of family life — traceable in massive drops in general fertility — is a preview of defection from the Christian church, not the reverse. Religious families do not divorce as often, and they have more children. Those who are defecting from the family way of life, by not marrying and not experiencing the primordial shift of mind brought on by fatherhood and motherhood, have fewer reasons to turn to the church for encouragement and guidance. “Social science confirms that people who have robust social bonds are more likely to thrive than people who do not,” she writes. [book review by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 3/2/23] 

Fewer In-Person Connections

Your editor received an email message from Prime Video saying that you can watch a movie alone but with your favorite people through a chat program. “It’s almost like watching side-by-side in real life, without having to share your popcorn.” What fun – all by myself!

A Tough Mother’s Day?

Your editor got a recent email message from, of all places, Ancestry.com. It started out by saying: “We realize that for some, Mother’s Day may be a tough time.  If you’d prefer not to receive emails about our 2023 Mother’s Day Sale, you can opt out below.” Maybe I should opt out of their entire site. 

No Wi-Fi in College Residence Halls?

How can a college produce graduates who build lasers, engineer software systems, launch their own metadata startups, and have successful technology careers? Thomas Aquinas College states that its Catholic liberal arts education does by helping students learn about reality, about nature and nature’s creator, about man and man’s relationship to the world, to other men, & ultimately to God. The college does not have Wi-Fi in its residence halls, prohibits electronic devices in the classroom, asks students to read ancient texts and contemplate the works of long-dead masters.

Summer Program for High Schoolers

Thomas Aquinas College offers a High School Great Books Program at both of its campuses. In New England, it is July 9-22; in California, it is July 16-29. The college says: “Ask the big questions and explore the answers, forging new friendships to last a lifetime.” [www.thomasaquinas.edu/summerprogram] 

School Choice

The President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) claims school choice starves “public schools of the funds they need to suc ceed.” Research has found, however, that school choice boosts per-student funding in public schools, and more than 20 high-quality studies have found neutral-to positive effects on students who remain in public schools subject to school choice. [www.JustFacts.com]

This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu