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

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health 

is the 2022 Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade that had falsely asserted a constitutional right to abortion. On its June anniversary, Bishop Kevin Sweeney (Paterson, NJ, Diocese) wrote: “While the Dobbs decision was certainly welcome, it also teaches us that ‘changing laws’ is only part of building a Culture of Life in the midst of what sadly seems to be, more and more, a Culture of Death. We need to ask for the inspiration and gifts of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord might use us as instruments to touch and change people’s hearts so that all may see that life begins at the moment of conception. We need to truly ‘Walk with Moms in Need,’ offering to expectant moms & families all the love, support, and help that they may need to say ‘Yes’ to the gift of life.” [The Beacon, 6/22/23]

Since 2009, the Knights of Columbus have supplied more than 1,500 ultrasound machines to pregnancy centers.

Catholic School Has Student Arrested

That Canada is becoming less tolerant comes as no surprise, but even so a Catholic high school getting one of their 16-year-old students arrested is a bit of a shock, especially when the heart of the issue is his religious beliefs. Josh Alexander believes there are only two genders, that people can’t switch genders and that male students shouldn’t use girls’ washrooms. “I said there were only two genders and you were born either a male or a female and that got me into trouble.” Expressing those views in a classroom discussion on gender at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School (Ontario) got him suspended. When he showed up again for class, the school had police arrest him. It appears we are now so intolerant that we cannot stand people defending their religious beliefs in a classroom at a supposedly religious school. The problem may be that, instead of Christian principles, the area’s Catholic District School Board takes its guidance from the policies issued by the Ontario Human Rights (OHR) Commission and directive issues by the Ministry of Education. [Michael Higgins, nationalpost.com/opinion/2/8/23]

Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”

The song is not about his romantic interest. “She” is the newly born daughter of the renowned blind composer and performer who issued the song in 1976:

We have been heaven-blessed.
I can’t believe what God has done.
Through us, He’s given life to one.
But isn’t she lovely? Made from love

The singer recognizes that couples partner with God in the creation of human life. He says that in a loving family, a child is created in an act of love. That child is a walking symbol of that act of love. A child is not conceived every time a couple comes together. But the creation of a child is God’s blessing of the conjugal act. [Bobby Neal Winters, Salvo #65, Summer 2023.]

Mama Bear Apologetics

Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Love Out God’s Design- Hillary Morgan Ferrer

This book for moms explains that Christians are increasingly urged to give lip service to the god of sex. From young ages, our children are being desensitized and groomed to pay homage. This excellent primer identifies the tactics being deployed against our children, and empowers them to know and embrace the beauty of God’s design for gender and sex.

The Sexual Revolution

Peter Elliott, retired bishop

The book explains how hook-up culture, same sex “marriage,” abortion, pedophilia, sex trafficking,
transgenderism and the porn industry all have their roots in the movement we’ve come to call the sexual revolution. Elliott explains that when someone says, “I’m gay,” a more truthful response would be, “No, you are a man.” “Why.” he suggests asking, “define yourself by one element in your life – that you happen to have same sex attraction?” People now identify themselves only by
their sexual orientation. Doing so creates an “identify game reinforced by ideological and political power.”

Honoring the Greatest Pro-Life Leaders

Legacy of Life, is a new, engaging, easy-to-read history of the pro-life movement in America. A team of authors assembled this work to inspire generations of new leaders in “the greatest human rights struggle in history.” Among the lives honored are Mother Teresa, Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson, Francis Schaeffer, and 46 others. [LegacyofLifeBook.com]

Who Will Defend Unborn Babies?

• The abortion giant Planned Parenthood kills nearly 60
  babies for every single individual prenatal service that it
  renders.
• Its adoption referrals totaled 1,800 for the year, but it
  aborted over 370,000 babies.
• It also dispensed 543,000 abortion pills, a number not
  counted in its abortion totals.
• Though it is responsible for 40% of the 930,000
  abortions in America annually, it continues to claim it is
  “not really in the abortion business.”
• Last year, it received $670.4 million in taxpayer funds.                                                 [American Center for Law & Justice, www.ACLJ.org]

Serving Women

In Sienna Women’s Health (Michigan), there’s the usual stuff of a modern-day pregnancy center such as a reception area with comfortable seating, a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, & rooms for pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and discussions of alternatives to abortion. “We define our success by being a safe space for women to consider their options and not to
give in to what the culture is telling them, that abortion solves problems,” says Yarimar Cherney, center operator.

Like many other such centers, it doubles as a thrift store that stocks clothes for newborns, toys for toddlers, and high chairs for hungry kids. Mothers can acquire them by enrolling in parental-education programs, earning points that function as currency. The most striking feature of these rooms may be the fresh scent of the most popular items, which are disposable diapers. Last year, the center gave away 39,000 to the moms of young children. Despite hundreds of attacks on such
centers over the past two years, they now number over 2,000 across the nation and continue to serve moms in need. [John J. Miller, National Review, 6/26/23]

When Does Human Life Begin?

We know that well over 80% of people think that it’s absolutely important to stop abortions that take place in the third trimester. And over 60% consistently say that abortion should be illegal in the second trimester. The reason is that it’s pretty obvious what you see when you look at an ultrasound–a baby that is fully human and fully alive. The reality is that every biology textbook posits that life begins at conception. As a scientific matter, we can establish that the same
baby that deserves protection during the second trimester equally deserves protection earlier. [Erin Hawley, senior counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom.]

Fighting Online Child Exploitation

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasized that the voices of Catholics are crucial in advocating for the protection of children and vulnerable individuals in legislation being proposed in Congress. The bishops’ letter highlighted their firsthand experience with the devastating impact of child exploitation and stressed the need for safeguards to shield children from internet pornography. The bishops urged lawmakers to consider three moral principles rooted in Catholic social teaching: respect for life and dignity, the importance of the family, & the necessity of community and participation. [Our Sunday Visitor, 6/25/23]

Google recently announced that it would automatically blur sexually explicit images in search results– a request that the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has been making to Google since 2013. Children could easily stumble on sexually explicit images even by entering an innocent search term. In fact, research shows that most children are first exposed to pornography accidentally. Now there is one more level of protection. NCOSE is thrilled that Google has taken this positive step forward to help create a safer internet. [https://ncose.salsalabs.org/safe-internet-brochure _02022023_copy1]

Pregnancy is Not a Disease

Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst, renowned medical professor and senior research associate at the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, Notre Dame Univ., and a former professor at Duke University School of Medicine, frequently testifies in Congress about the humanity of unborn babies and debunks false claims about abortion. In a recent hearing, she asked Senate lawmakers wanting to legalize abortion on demand: “If abortion is health care, what disease are you treating?”

She said the goal of an abortion is to kill a human being, which is not health care. Abortions do not treat or prevent diseases. “Abortion not only poses risks to the mother, it is always lethal to an embryo or fetus, an unborn child, a human being, a member of the human family, not a clump of cells or a potential child.”

Forced to Accept Contrary Views?

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there have been nearly 300 incidents of arson and vandalism perpetrated against American Catholic churches since May 2020. These attacks are unjust and have no place in civil society. Our civic officials must condemn them and work to protect our places of worship.

Not every assault on the free exercise of religion is so clear. Will Catholics be able to hold their views on marriage and family life in their workplace? Will we be forced to accept the redefinition of marriage and forced to promote actions or teaching contrary to the Catholic Faith? Religious exemptions, conscience protections and conflicts between religious beliefs and certain laws or policies require ongoing vigilance and dialogue.

Religious liberty is not merely an abstract concept but a cherished value that underpins the fabric of American society. The Catholic Church teaches that it is a fundamental right rooted in the inherent dignity of every person. Let us unite in defending religious liberty, for in doing so we strengthen the very foundations upon which our great nation was built. [editorial, Our Sunday Visitor, 7/2/23]

Save These Resources (voxvitae.org)

• Pregnancy Help and Counseling
  24/7 live chat: 1-800-712-4357
  Optionline.org
• Abortion Pill Reversal (call within 24-48 hours)
  24/7 hotline: 1-877-558-0333
  Abortionpillreversal.com
• Adoption
  Call/text anytime 1-800-923-6784
  Lifetimeadoption.com
• Legal Help
  Lifelegaldefensefoundation.org
• Healing after Abortion
  Rachelsvineyard.org
• Abortion Clinic Workers
  Abortionworker.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

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

Life Choices

Fallout from 50 Years of Roe

• We were told before Roe that with legal abortion, every child would be wanted and therefore child abuse would decline. But child abuse has skyrocketed since Roe. Saint Mother Teresa said: “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell others not to kill one another?”
• Abortion pills are marketed as safe. But the emotional and physical ramifications will be horrendous, as documented in other nations that have used these pills.
• Abortion has undermined the Hippocratic Oath that physicians “do no harm.” Our nation now has a scene of devastation with 64 million unborn babies dead.
• Millions of mothers have participated in the destruction of their own preborn babies. Some have been hardened in their hearts, other have felt terrible regret. [Christian Action News, 3/23]

Child Predators Make TikTok ‘Every Parent’s Nightmare’

This was the headline of a report in the Wall Street Journal (2/16/23) in which law-enforcement officials found that the platform has become a danger zone. Pre-teens and teens “spend more time there each day than on any other social-media platform. Billions of videos are uploaded to the site each month, many starring young people singing, dancing and talking about their personal lives.” Nothing prevents young users from falsifying their birth dates when registering, so they can get access to the full platform including private talk messages with others. Investigators have found many adult males follow children’s postings.

Abortion Pill Can Be Reversed

Nationwide chemical abortions account for more than 50% of all abortions. The method involves two steps: the first abortifacient drug (mifepristone or RU- 486) is given at the clinic or taken at home, killing or weakening the baby. The second, misoprostol, is taken usually at home 24-48 hours later, to expel the baby. But the first drug doesn’t always end the baby’s life.

The hearts of some women may change during the 24-48 hour period. They may profoundly regret taking
the first abortion pill. An Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) protocol is supported by the Amer. Assoc. of Pro-Life
Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Reversal can occur with multiple doses of natural hormone progesterone. To date over 4,000 babies have been born following use of the APR protocol. There are over 350 doctors & 40 pregnancy medical centers that offer APR. Any woman questioning her decision to terminate her baby’s life after taking the first pill should consult a physician immediately at the APR Hotline: 877-558-0333. [Nat. Right to Life, The State of Abortion in the U.S., 1/2023]

To Help Women Make An Actual Choice

When a woman finds the Sisters of Life, they don’t tell her not to have an abortion. They love her back into life and make an actual choice possible. The Sisters say that many young adult women have never had a birthday party thrown for them. Birthdays are a priority for the Sisters. If you don’t know your life is special, how are
you ever going to make room for another life?

Visiting one of their convents on any given day often will involve bumping into women who were long ago pregnant and now are picking up supplies or human support. The Sisters help with housing and job skills &
immigration applications. They are mothers to mothers, free to be self- sacrificial love to women who maybe never before saw what that looks like.

Now the Associated Press instructs writers to make clear that ministries and other places that provide pro-life pregnancy support must be labeled “anti-abortion counseling centers” to describe what many of us typically call pregnancy-resource centers or crisis-pregnancy centers. Yes, they exist to provide alternatives to abortion — parenting or choosing adoption. These places help facilitate actual choice. And women are free to leave and have an abortion.

Avail (NYC), Aid for Women (Chicago), Bella (Denver), Birth Choice (Dallas), Mary’s Shelter (Virginia), Mother Teresa Home (Buffalo), Good Counsel Homes (NJ & NY) are just a few examples of centers and networks that help and house and love women and their children for life. I have no objection to you knowing that the people who run these beacons of light in a culture of death are opposed to abortion. But AP’s description is as inaccurate as it is limiting. These resources save lives and not just of unborn children. [Kathryn Jean Lopez, Our Sunday Visitor, 2/19/2023]

In a Jan. 31 video, Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of
Winona-Rochester, Minn., reacted to a new state abortion law
that has been called “the most extreme bill in the country”: I
don’t know why abortion is really debated anymore in our
country, but this strikes me as just the worst kind of
barbarism. And in the name of, I don’t know, subjectivity,
and freedom, and choice and all this, we’re accepting this
kind of brutality.”

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Pop Singer Confesses Abortion Regret

Kaya Jones, a former singer for the Pussycat Dolls, said her past abortions still haunt her to this day. As someone with a public platform, she spoke out on Fox News, explaining “how she had her first abortion as a teen when her birth control medication failed.”

We’ve been saying for years that birth-control methods sometimes fail. When they do, women are set up for abortion. Contraception and abortion are fruits of the same tree. “The former singer also argued that abortion led to a breakdown in respect between men and women in the culture. What you’re showing men is that you
don’t value yourself or your seed or their seed, and in return they don’t value us as women because we’re willing to do these things to ourselves and to our children. Even if I become a mother tomorrow and happily married and all is well, I’m still going to regret the three children that I did not have.”

Millions of people have been harmed by the perverse dogmas of the sexual revolution – children of divorce; refugees from the hook-up culture and the LGBT subculture; people who regret their years of cohabitation; and women who regret their abortions. The Ruth Institute is one organization that helps victims of the sexual revolution recover from their experiences and become advocates for positive change. [Jennifer Roback Morse © 2023 EWTN News, Inc. Excerpt with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com]

During Lent, Devote an Hour a Week

During Lent, Devote an Hour a Week 40 Days for Life is an internationally coordinated 40-day campaign that aims to end abortion locally through prayer and fasting, community outreach, and a peaceful all-day vigil in front of abortion businesses.

The visible, public centerpiece of 40 Days for Life is a focused, 40-day, non-stop, round-the-clock prayer
vigil outside a single Planned Parenthood center or other abortion facility in your community. It is a peaceful and educational presence. Those who are called to stand witness during this 24-hour-a-day presence send a powerful message to the community about the tragic reality of abortion. It also serves as a call to repentance for those who work at the abortion center and those who patronize the facility. To find a local campaign near you, look up locations at https://www.40daysforlife.com/

Nazi Holocaust and Life

In Richard Hurowitz’s book In the Garden of the Righteous, we learn of many heroic acts of people who were not Jewish but willing to risk all to help save Jews from the Holocaust. The ten rescuers featured in the book were honored at Israel’s Holocaust memorial with the title Righteous Among the Nations. Religious belief and concern for humanity motivated them to act rather than stand by, as many others did, in silent complicity. The rescuers all shared the belief that every human being deserves respect. Similar arguments are made today by pro-lifers to end abortion and assisted suicide. Every human life from conception to natural death deserves respect and dignity as children of God.

Apply for Pro-Life Internship

“Before This Summer, I Never Even Considered Doing Pro-Life Work, Much Less Making It A Career. Now, Defending The Preborn Is What I Feel Called To Do With My Life.” Heidi Whaley 2020 Intern

Dear Student:

Tired of putting your heart and hard work into pro-life efforts that go largely ignored? Want to do something that ends abortion instead of just fighting it? Not sure how to be effective? CBR may be just the place for you! Our Summer 2023 Intern Program is from May 21 to August 11 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Final application deadline is March 29, 2023. (Must be 18 or older by May 21, 2023) to apply. Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance into the program by April 3rd. Visit: https://AbortionNo.org/intern

Hiding Students’ Decisions from Parents

USAID, which serves as the “world’s premier international development agency,” recently released a guide that promotes ways of integrating people who identify as LGBTQ into the American education system. The ninth principle has provoked a negative reaction from parents as it states education systems should “protect students’ privacy.”

This means that USAID is working to ensure that students have the ability and right to, as the agency says, “hide their sexual orientation or gender identity from family and close friends.” Students would not only be
encouraged to keep their “sexual orientation” to themselves, but intentionally hide it from the people they
are most connected to. “American parents are fighting every day against this outrageous principle that teachers know a child better than their parents,” said co-founders of Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich. [USAID Encourages Students to ‘Hide Their Sexual Identity’ from Parents, Abigail Olsson, The Washington Stand, 2/4/23]

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

Issues We Face

Highlights from Fall 2022 issue of Human Life Review (www.humanlifereview.com):

• Vicki Thorn was the founder of Project Rachel in 1984 in her Milwaukee archdiocese to console and heal women mourning their aborted children, a process that could take years for some. Today, Project Rachel is a nationwide ministry of the Catholic Church. Vicki, who died in 2022, is a hero to countless women (and men) who have repaired abortion-damaged lives
• Christopher Reeve (film’s Superman) and Michael J. Fox both promoted embryonic stem cell research, which has had little to show for its promises. A Nobel Prize-winning
  discovery revealed that adult stem cells could be used in place of stem cells from human embryos that are killed. “Healing born bodies need not be done at the expense of unborn human lives.”
• Regarding gender reassignment surgery: “If our pet dog leaped from our second-story window under the delusion it was a bird, we would not benignly endorse its choice of identity … Why don’t we react to our fellow deluded humans with similar seriousness?”
• Murchison, in “Farewell Roe,” says: “We seem as a nation, as a people, to desire a little of this and a little of that: not wholesale permission to abort and not a wholesale prohibition either.” States can now each make their own policies. “But in a moral debate, you need moral premises.” A vote or referendum won’t get the job done. “A multitude of women, over the past half-century, have grown accustomed, thank you, to the opportunities of deciding this or that ….” But at the same time, “moral codes binding on persons of both sexes have eroded.” Hence, it is okay, even a “right,” to abort a developing human being. “The pro-life cause in the 21st century consists in continuing, against hardship and rebuke to proclaim the moral worthiness of life yet unborn. We are not there, when it comes to abortion, nor anyplace close. Not yet.”

That is what the pro-life movement is about. We are not simply anti-abortion as we are so often painted to be. We are pro-life, pro the mystery of life, pro the wonder of life, pro the joy of life. And we are impelled to share this message with everyone. We need to bring the Gospel of Life
to the heart of every man and women and to make it penetrate every part of society.
John Cardinal O’Connor (1920-2000)

Caregiving is Pro-Life

The encyclical Gospel of Life recognizes the full range
of threats against human life… war, poverty, life….
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you
welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and
you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Matthew 25:34-36

How do you feed the hungry? You shop for your mother and stock her cupboard with nutritious food, take her out to lunch, or cook for her. You visit her in the nursing home, sit with her and her friends in the dining room, assisting those who need help by cutting their meat or spoon-feeding the weak.

How do you help the thirsty? You take your father out for a cup of coffee at his favorite coffee shop or split a beer with him while you watch Sunday football together. You give him ice chips to relieve the awful dryness, and swab his mouth when he cannot swallow.

You welcome a stranger by visiting with your beloved aunt who has forgotten who she is and who you are, reintroducing yourself every time. You clothe the naked when you do your uncle’s laundry. You care for the sick every time you accompany your mom to visit the doctor, bathe her feverish head, hold her in your arms to comfort her, change her diaper, and in a hundred other
gentle ways. You visit the imprisoned when he is a shut-in, unable to go where he wants to go. You keep him company and play Rummy or Checkers to pass the long hours.

You may not be able to add days to the life of a loved one, but you can add life to their days. [The Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (halovoice.org)]

Take a Pill, Kill a Baby

After consulting with a doctor who is not pro-life, a woman can be prescribed chemical abortion, that is, abortion by two pills, which now accounts for more than 50% of all abortions in the USA. New York is now an official “sanctuary state” for abortion, offering abortion pills free to anyone. New Jersey Governor Murphy is also pushing this, as are several other states. Walgreens, CVS & Rite Aide will provide them over the counter.

Such pills put a woman at serious risk as they force her body to go into labor and expel the baby. The abortion is done in her home, in her bathroom, and sadly she will witness all that happens there. These pills can only be taken within the first 10 weeks after conception but no ultrasound is required before they are given. Because women no longer have to take the first dose of the abortion pills in the presence of a physician, it is impossible to know no whether they actually take the drugs or not – or whether abortions are forced on them without their consent.

Imagine the fallout for women as they deliver their dead baby alone without any follow up. What about women who are past the 10-week period? Who will be there if they see the remains and how will they process that? What if there are complications? The Life Legal Defense Foundation is currently involved in two malpractice lawsuits involving young women who were seriously injured by abortion drugs. When taken in the second trimester, abortion pills can cause uterine rupture, excessive bleeding, and other life-threatening injuries.

Two studies have found that chemical abortions have four times the complication rate as surgical abortions. One study used comprehensive data from the California Medicaid program from 2009 to 2010. Another analyzed 42,000 Finnish women who obtained abortions between
2000 and 2006. Loosening the regulations on chemical abortions will only increase those risks. [Michael New, LifeNews.com, 1/13/23]

The 2023 label removes the requirements for pill dispensers to advise patients that, should they require emergency care after taking the drug, they ought to let the emergency department healthcare providers know that they are undergoing a medication abortion.

With the government’s elimination of common-sense restrictions on dispensing abortion drugs, data on abortion rates and complications are unreliable at best. According to the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute, only 28 states require abortionists to report post-abortion
complications. This is exactly what Planned Parenthood and other abortionists want: zero factual reporting, zero accountability. It is clear what the federal administration leadership really wants. Thankfully, a lawsuit has been filed against the FDA. One of the plaintiffs is the American Assoc. of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Motherhood must be treated as a great end and a great task
in itself. For with it is connected the mother’s work in giving
birth, in feeding, and in rearing. No one can take her place.
Nothing can take the place of the heart of a mother always
present. True respect for work brings with it a proper esteem
for motherhood. It cannot be otherwise. The moral health of
the whole of society depends on it.
Pope St. John Paul II

Actor Who Plays Jesus in The Chosen

“Today, we are under an assault on our sense of virtue, enduring an affront to the innate holiness that we are all called to, an attack on the family structure, and the sacredness of the gift of life.
As followers of Jesus, we are charged to be the standard bearers who defend & preserve
the dignity of every human, but especially the most vulnerable which begins with the initial
stages of life, and continues over life’s stages. You are here today for the noblest and worthiest of causes: to allow the unborn to enter into the world.” [March for Life 2023: speech of Jonathan
Roumie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYY2-wf-cl0]

Monetary Value of Marriage

Today, young Americans are delaying marriage while they wait for career success. Nearly 60% of them live together without the commitment of marriage. Yet cohabitating couples have only 25% of the net worth that married couples have in the same age group. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2019, for the ages 25-34.) It seems that the emotional commitment in the marriage vow is a driver of success. Marriage actually means “for richer for richer”; it is the unmarried couples who get the “for poorer” part. Plus, many other riches, in addition to money, come with marriage.

Those in successful marriages know that their bond with another person is far more important than any career goal. All of society suffers from instability when marriage rates drop. Maybe the hard reality of cold cash can reverse this troubling culture that undervalues the
beauty of marriage. [Anne Schlafly Cori, EagleForum.org, 11/13/22]

For High School Students

• Students who will be entering their senior year of high school in the fall of 2023 are invited to apply for the 2023 summer program sessions. This will mark the 25th year of this wildly popular program, “The Best Week Ever,” which boasts close to 4,000 alumni since 1999. Each year, hundreds of high school students spend a week on campus, described as one of the best weeks of their lives, ranking it on average 4.8 out of 5. Applicants can choose any one of five weeks offered. This is the most popular, well-attended, highly-ranked pre-college summer program of its kind. Attendance is competitive, and with a waiting list each year, students should not delay applying at www.christendom.edu
• Teens and college students displayed creative signs at January’s March for Life. “Human rights begin in the womb” was one; another quoted Dr. Seuss’s “Horton Hears a Who;” “Unborn Lives Matter” another. See all: https://www.lifenews.com/2023/01/20/28-of-the-best-m
  arch-for-life-signs/

Pornography Addiction

Plenty of bad stuff comes from our computer, smart phone or tablet. Any addiction to gambling, videogames or porn drives our brains to want more and with more intensity, causing us to ignore more important aspects of our lives such as work, family, school. Parents of students should be alert and make use of programs such as
Covenant Eyes (forwards screen shots to a designated accountability partner) or Accountable2You.

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

New Year & New Start To Promote the Dignity of Human Life

Rally for Life – in D.C. or Home State?

Many supporters of human life again will be attending the national March for Life in Washington, DC, on Friday, January 20th. Especially positive are the ever-increasing numbers of high school and college students who enliven the whole day with their singing, praying and enthusiasm for the goal of respecting life from conception to natural death. Others arrive the day before and attend programs, galas and evening church services.

One notable program, Life Fest, is being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Sisters of Life who invite everyone to attend a morning rally featuring dynamic speakers, music, Holy Mass, and more. Held at the D.C. Entertainment and Sports Arena, the program runs 7:30-10:30 am on Jan. 20th, right before the March for Life.. LifeFest2023.com asks: Why Life Fest? The answer: Because Every Human Person Is Made in God’s Image; Because Our World Is Crying out for Healing; Because Love Is the Answer.

Some state respect life groups are planning rallies for later in the year. For example, New Jersey is planning a Rally for Life on Saturday, June 24, 2023, 11 am – 1 pm, outside the State House Annex in Trenton to celebrate the anniversary of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

What Do Love & Marriage Mean Today?

For most people today, “marriage is about love.” The precise meaning of the word “love” is never spelled out too clearly, but most people seem to simply agree with President Barack Obama, who said that “love is love.” But this rejects thousands of years of wisdom about male-female relationships. Until very recently marriage was identified not as a sexual-romantic union dissolvable at will but as an subordination of feeling and “personal happiness” to the goal of a stable family for the raising of children. Today, both in no-fault divorce and in universal cohabitation, our society has clearly embraced the “love” union model, except ironically we now call it … marriage, out of cultural nostalgia or for the sake of respectability.

Our culture rejects that “marriage is between a man and a woman” when the dominant understanding rejects
as essential the possible bearing and raising of children (and thus sexual difference). But research indicates that both male and female parents serve best the welfare of children.

Today’s views reflect an inadequate understanding even of love itself. Ultimately, if one reflects deeply about the experience of love, one discovers what Servant of God Luigi Giussani called “the law of life”: Life is fulfilled only in making a complete, unconditional gift of self. This is what people really, though confusedly, seek in affective relationship. A love that can end is not a completely true love, because a gift that can be revoked is not a true gift.

This is the deeper reason why the bearing of children (at least as a possibility) is intrinsically part of the
definition of marriage, making it a “natural” institution rather than a mere legal fiction. The birth of a child can-
not be undone & literally “incarnates” the parents’ love.

Catholics need to keep advocating for public policies that support childbearing and reward parents who live with their children. But the more fundamental task is to give witness (in a society that has largely forgotten it) to the “great mystery” of the natural coming together of man and woman in a fruitful, indissoluble union. [excerpt from Carlo Lancellotti, Commentaries, 12/9/22]

Marriage & Divorce Declined in 2020

How did the pandemic affect existing marriages and relationships. While both marriage and divorce rates fell by double digits in 2020, a few more years of data are needed to determine the longer-term impact. 74% of married couples surveyed in late 2020 felt the pandemic strengthened their marriage, and 82% said it made them feel more committed.

Among singles, 74% are now looking to find a partner who wants to marry. This is the second year in a row where far more singles are eager for a committed long-term relationship compared with the prepandemic survey of 2019. Young people are much more inclined to focus on attributes that increase the odds of long-term relationship success. For years “physical attractiveness” has ranked among one of the topmost desirable attributes in a potential partner. This year, it has been knocked out of the top five most-desired traits. Instead, 92% of singles now rank “emotional maturity” & “comfortably communicating their needs & wants” among the most important traits. And the top attribute most singles are looking for is someone they can trust and confide in. This bodes well for longer, healthier relationships.

An important factor keeping marriages together is a strong desire to want the relationship to succeed. Just like most things in life, even in a relationship, if you really want it to work, you will pick the right priorities and make the right trade-offs to increase the odds of success. Also important are kindness and generosity—to yourself and your partner. [excerpted from Shar Dubey, Wall St. Journal, 12/15/22]

Adoption Fills a Mother’s Waiting Arms

As I hold my youngest baby in my arms, I am grateful for the choices his birth mother made that led him to
become a part of our family. I’m thankful for the radical hospitality she showed by carrying him for nine months and doing all she could to keep him healthy and safe. I’m thankful for the hours she spent poring over the profiles of waiting families and discerning which one she wanted her son to join. I’m especially thankful she chose us!

I’m thankful for the brave love shown by all my sons’ birth mothers and for all those women who choose life for their children. Being asked to be the mother of another woman’s child is the greatest gift I have ever received. If we can promote adoption as a good and empowering choice for mothers to make when they’re unable or unwilling to welcome a child, adoptions will certainly rise.

I pray that when faced with an unplanned, unwanted or crisis pregnancy, women will choose life for their babies
and see adoption as an empowering choice. I pray, too, that a waiting mother’s empty arms will soon be holding
a baby of her own.
[Excerpts from Leigh Snead, “Brave Love,” 12/18/22, © 2022 EWTN News, Inc. Reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com]

Hiding Truth Through Euphemism

For more than 50 years, pro-abortion activists have used euphemisms to hide the various horrible aspects of abortion. The Associated Press Stylebook sets the usage and grammatical format for hundreds of news agencies, laying out style and terms in an alphabetized book several hundred pages long. “Do not use the term ‘late-term abortion,’” the stylebook said in a December post on Twitter. “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [ACOG] defines late term as 41 weeks through 41 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and abortion does not happen in this period.”

“This is absurd,” said LifeNews, a pro-life group. “When SCOTUS came up with three trimesters in 1973, late-term was understood to be post viability or the 3rd trimester. Redefining it to be the 6 days before term is not medicine; it’s propaganda designed to gloss over late-term abortions.” Another on Twitter said: “Is ‘Late-term abortion’ too aggressive a way to describe stabbing a viable unborn baby in the heart with a needle containing potassium chloride & delivering its lifeless corpse? The ghouls populating our elite class traffic in euphemism because they have nothing else.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote: “Partial-birth abortion is the term Congress has used to describe a procedure that crosses the line from abortion to infanticide. The doctor delivers a substantial portion of the living child outside his mother’s body — the entire head in a head-first delivery or the trunk past the navel in a feet-first delivery — then kills the child by crushing his skull or removing his brain by suction.”
[excerpt from Joseph Curl, DailyWire.com, 12/8/22]

I was staring at my phone, weeping.

[This is what Kate Bachelder Odell wrote in the Wall St. Journal (12/14/22) in reviewing a book on motherhood by Jessica Grose.]

“My second son, then 7 days old, had flunked his hearing screening at the hospital, and since then I’d been harassed via emails, texts and phone calls that he needed more testing and might be deaf. It would ultimately prove a false alarm, but I couldn’t know that as I stared down at my baby. My husband corralled everyone in this mass meltdown into bed. It would be unwise, he told me, to continue reading about cochlear implants on the internet.”

The demands, uncertainties and complex emotions that accompany the arrival of children can be intense and
overwhelming. Ms. Grose concedes that raising children is easier now than in the past. She also says today’s parenting is “uniquely difficult in the amount of information we get about what we’re supposed to be doing.” A clinical psychologist reports many of her clients cite social media as a source of their “anxiety, jealousy, shame, guilt.”

In a revealing remark, one psychology professor tells Ms. Grose that “being forced to stop or reduce working” during the pandemic “took an emotional toll on moms.” But women often divert time or attention away from paid labor when they have kids. For most, the relationship will be far more valuable later in life than the few years of marginal retirement contributions they’d gain from working while paying for expensive child care. Overwhelming moments arrive, then pass. What you can handle will expand; what overwhelms you now will soon be routine. Life will be suffused with far more focus, substance and meaning and less self- absorption. Children will prevent you from pursuing personal ambitions at all costs—and thank God for that guard rail.

Aside from just having a ministerial preference for the unborn,
we also serve the poor, the imprisoned, the marginalized, the
oppressed, the sick and the aged. Whatever we need to do to
uphold the image and likeness of God in humanity is what we
do. Deacon Kevin Cummings, Archdiocese of Kansas City,
KS, on the pro-life apostolate, Deacons of Hope, that he
started with Deacon Doug Hemke, Kansas City-St. Joseph
Diocese, Missouri.

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

by Frank Tinari, Ph.D., Life Education Council Board of Trustees

Human Life Begins at…

Life: “This is rudimentary biology”

•  “With the fusion of the sperm and the egg, a new human life begins. This is rudimentary biology — it has been settled science since the early 19th century. (Dr. Michael R. Egnor, prof. of neurosurgery & pediatrics, State Univ. of NY, Stony Brook, Evolution News, 2022)
•  “At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature.” (American College of Pediatricians)
•  “Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.” (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 5th ed., Moore & Persaud, 1993, Saunders, p. 1)
•  “The new cell is a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” (Obstetric Nursing, 1980, p. 136, Sally B Olds)
•  “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. … The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote.” (Human Embryology & Teratology, 2nd ed., 1996, pp. 8, 29, Ronan O’Rahilly & Fabiola Miller)
•  “Each human begins life as a combination of two cells, a female ovum and a much smaller male sperm. This tiny unit, no bigger than a period on this page, contains all the information needed to enable it to grow into the complex structure of the human body. The mother has only to provide nutrition and protection.” (Clark, J., ed., The Nervous System: Circuits of Communication in the Human Body, Torstar Books Inc., Toronto, 1985, p. 99) [excerpts from: 44 Quotes From Medical Textbooks Prove Human Life Begins at Conception, LifeNews.com, 11/1/22]

“Aside from just having a ministerial preference for the unborn, we also serve the poor, the imprisoned, the marginalized, the oppressed, the sick and the aged. Whatever we need to do to uphold the image and likeness of God in humanity is what we do.” Deacon Kevin Cummings, Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas

Former Abortion Director is Now Pro-Life

Reflecting upon his time with MSI, an abortion mill, Kevin Duffy describes how he “always knew that abortion involved taking a human life but I felt, at the time, confident in the belief that women would undergo abortions regardless, so it was better for these to take place in hygienic and safe conditions.” But when MSI began to promote self-managed DIY drugs, Mr Duffy felt deep concerns regarding the safety and well being of women. “Increasing numbers of women are presenting with incomplete abortions at facilities after self- administering abortion pills which they had bought in local drug shops.”

Mr. Duffy left MSI in March 2019. In 2020, the announcement that women in the UK could get abortion drugs through the mail prompted him to conduct a project which exposed the lack of safeguards and recklessness of the UK’s DIY home abortion scheme. 26 sets of calls were made, resulting in 26 packets of abortion drugs being sent out to women who essentially did not exist. Duffy said: “To think that after just two phone calls taking no more than an hour in total, a woman who doesn’t exist, is not pregnant, is not registered at the recorded GP surgery, who misleads the service provider about her medical history and her gestational age, even changes her gestational age mid-process, is able to obtain the abortion pills, a service for which the abortion provider is paid by the government. And they called this a fantastic advance in women’s healthcare.”

“Women are not being well served and are missing out on essential clinical assessments. They are left to manage the expulsions on their own at home—and with no follow-up care afterwards. This is a long, long way from the comprehensive, safe abortion care that the abortion industry claims to provide.” Mr Duffy became the
Executive Director of the largest UK pro-life group, saying: “I decided to put my knowledge and experience at the service of the pro-life movement. I am certain that the false narratives of the abortion industry which claim to ‘care about women’ can be defeated and a culture of life which truly cares about the well-being of women and safeguarding of human rights can be restored, so that one-day abortion will be rendered unthinkable.” [The
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, UK, 11/25/22]

Abortion Rate Drops 20% Since 2010

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released abortion data for the year 2020. Even though there was an overall reduction in the incidence of abortion, abortions increased in 29 of the 47 states that reported data. Of concern is the large increase in chemical abortions. From 2019 to 2020, the number of chemical abortions increased by 17.9%. Overall, the share of all abortions that were chemical abortions rose from 43.7% to 53.4% during that period. Under the current federal administration, the FDA allows women to get a chemical-abortion drug with no personal medical exam. The U.S. abortion rate fell by more than 20% since 2010. Overall, pro-lifers have succeeded in reducing the abortion rate by approximately 50% since 1980. The long-term decline in the U.S. abortion rate is very solid evidence of the positive impact of pro-life service, educational and legislative activities. [Michael New, Ph.D., LifeNews.com, 11/28/22]

The problem with “the wise and the learned” is not that they’re educated but that they are trying to govern and run their own lives on their own terms rather than living in obedience to God, with an attitude of receptivity like a child.
Bishop Robert Barron, Daily Gospel Reflection, 11/29/2022

A French Pro-Marriage Campaign

The U.S. could learn from one French organization that promotes marriage. “Based on the father/mother/child relationship, the family structure favors the renewal of ages and the stability of society,” states the website of La Manif Pour Tous (Demonstration for
All). It argues that children are not commodities to be traded and that mothers and fathers contribute to the public good by the raising of their children. “The family is the fundamental foundation of any society: the source of its human, cultural and economic wealth; an eminent place of solidarity, dignity, freedom and love.”

Children are the future of a society. They are also society’s most vulnerable members. La Manif argues: “Because it requires parents to provide for the moral & material direction of the family as well as the education of the children and the preparation of their future, marriage also protects the fruit of their love.” Civil marriage, then, protects the defenseless, whether spouse or child. [Fr. Patrick Briscoe, Our Sunday Visitor, 12/4/22]

A Woman’s Value

Drawing on her experience on America’s Next Top Model and her work as a fashion model, Leah Darrow exposes the lies we are told about our worth being tied to our appearance. She invites us to look again at the real meaning of beauty. In her book, The Other Side of Beauty: Embracing God’s Vision for Love and True Worth, she shows how we can reclaim true and lasting beauty–the kind that doesn’t depend on self-doubt, exploitation, or comparison–when we reflect God’s glory and embrace our value as he made us to be: strong, brave, and free. She says: “Only when we learn to see ourselves as God does can we leave behind our culture’s definitions and demands and find lasting joy.” [https://www.leahdarrow.com/home]

LGBTQ + CNM?

LGBT activists privately hope to break having only two partners in a marriage, “to infect the straight world” with polyamory, and to “radically alter” or abolish marriage altogether. The practice, and advocacy, of non- monogamous “marriage” is one of the secrets buried in the LGBT movement’s closet. Kimberly Rhoten of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition announced that non-monogamy is “as large as the LGBTQ population in the United States.” The LGBTQIA2S+ movement has announced the latest addition to its ever-growing acronym: CNM, which stands for Consensual Non-Monogamy, or open relationships of the variety common in the LGBT community.

LGBT extremists view same-sex marriage & polygamy as ways to redefine, and ultimately abolish, marriage. Activist Masha Gessen admitted that “It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.” Similarly, LGBT activist and journalist Michelangelo Signorile encouraged the LGBT movement to undermine “society’s moral codes” and “radically alter an archaic institution.” Christians’ argument that same-sex marriage will degrade the institution is coming to fruition.

Experts have long known two things: monogamous couples report higher levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction, due precisely to their exclusivity. “On a scale from 1 to 10 rating how crucial fidelity is to a successful marriage, young women’s average score was 9.8 and young men’s average was 9.7,” wrote Alan J. Hawkins of the National Marriage Project. Surveys consistently show that nine out of 10 Americans believe extramarital sexual relations are immoral. So how can social engineers break down widespread moral rejection of promiscuity? The same way they broke down public opposition to homo-sexuality: by declaring it is an inborn trait.

A stream of propaganda defining sexual preference fetishes as immutable traits has changed American morality. In 1972, 74% said “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” is “always wrong.” In 2018, 58% said such relations were “not wrong at all.” Similarly, the few Americans who view polygamy as “morally acceptable” has nearly quadrupled since 2006.

“The concept of sexual freedom is promotion of the acceptance of deviant sex” said Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth. Adopting an anything-goes sexual standard, and equating all relationships by labeling them “marriage,” is the next step toward abolishing the institution altogether, as same-sex marriage and polygamy advocates admit. [Ben Johnson, Same-Sex Marriage Advocates: Polygamy Is Next, The Washington Stand, 11/28/22]

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