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

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

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

mails children a free book each month from birth until they are 5 years old. These high-quality books are chosen by experts in publishing & education, and are based on the child’s age. There are no eligibility requirements for the book club; any child can join.

Parton’s mission is to foster a love of learning in children, making the experience of reading fun and meaningful. Since the program’s inception in 1995, it has distributed more than 172 million children’s books to young readers worldwide.

Children get books appropriate for their age on subjects including nursery rhymes, letters, safety, diversity, and school preparation. Audio and braille books are also available. The first title that children receive is always The Little Engine That Could, and the last title is always Kindergarten, Here I Come! Your child will get at least 60 different books if you sign them up at birth. That’s a lot of reading!

To see if the program is available in your area, visit the availability page and enter your zip code. If the program is available, go through the steps of registering your child (submitting your mailing address & info about your child). [See: https://imaginationlibrary.com]

Many Young Women Feel Pressured

to sleep with and cohabitate with dates and boyfriends to try to win them over and perhaps one day marry them. These kinds of relational mistakes on the part of a young woman often lead a man to ask the proverbial question: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? The unique influence or leverage that a young woman has with a potential future husband is squandered away.

A woman who is not sexually available before marriage is perceived and approached differently by men; they have to put in the effort to woo and win her. In contemporary hook-up culture, meanwhile, young women give themselves away for nothing & men don’t have to woo anyone or bother with the complexities of interpersonal relationships or real-life intimacy skills.

Also, many men are drawn into the addictive world of pornography and similarly devalue women by reducing their gifts to a single highly sexualized dimensions. This disrupts healthy patterns of attraction and courtship that are meant to lead to male-female friendship, bonding, and marriage.

The remarkable gifts of a women – her “feminine genius” as Pope St. John Paul II used to refer to it – including the gift of her sexual nature and her interpersonal acumen, need to be esteemed and safeguarded. Over the course of civilization, these gifts have built up the family, protected children, supported men through the bond of marriage, and, more broadly, strengthened the life of society itself. We need great courage and resolve today to protect and advance these precious gifts. [Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, National Catholic Bioethics Center, The Beacon, 3/9/23]

Easter: Every Human Life Worth Saving

An implication of the Easter event is that Jesus’ extraordinary claims about himself were ratified. Jesus assumed a divine prerogative. When his band of Apostles saw him alive again after his death, they came to believe that he is who he said he was. For believers ever since, if the crucified and risen Jesus is divine, there is a moral imperative to make him unambiguously the center of our lives. He fought, not with the weapons of the world, not with an answering violence, but rather with a word of pardon: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead showed that this spiritual resistance was not in vain. Human beings killed God, and God returned in forgiving love. [Bishop Robert Barron, Wall St. Jnl, 4/3/21]

Mobile Pregnancy Van Parks Outside Planned Parenthood

When Idaho banned virtually all abortions, Planned Parenthood set up an abortuary a few miles over the border, in Oregon. That clinic is just a 45-minute drive from Stanton Healthcare in Meridian, Idaho, specializing in serving women with unexpected pregnancies by providing professional medical care, practical and emotional support, women’s wellness care, and a special outreach to refugee and marginalized communities. Stanton has affiliates across the country.

Stanton Healthcare is deeply troubled that the Ontario Planned Parenthood is engaged in “abortion trafficking” as it attempts to move abortions across state lines. Linda Thomas, Director of Stanton’s Community Outreach, states: “Planned Parenthood is aggressively continuing their profit-driven agenda of abortion as the solution for women facing unexpected pregnancies. They are actively sending Idaho women across state lines. Of the women we see at Stanton who are considering abortion, a full 90% report feeling pressured to do so by someone they trust. Abortion is not the option women choose when they have the support they want & deserve.”

Brandi Swindell, CEO and Founder, said: “Stanton Healthcare could not remain silent or indifferent so we brought our 37-foot, state-of-the-art, mobile medical clinic right next door to Planned Parenthood to serve the women of Oregon and Idaho. While Planned Parenthood treats women as a commodity for profit, Stanton Healthcare is dedicated to providing women with unexpected pregnancies hope and tangible support at no charge.” [www.LifeNews.com, 3/10/23]

Why Boycott Hersheys?

The Hershey Company is facing boycotts and backlash in response to a new ad campaign from Hershey Canada, using a male activist who identifies as a transgender woman as a spokesman for International Women’s Day. While the other four people chosen are actually women, the inclusion of a male dressed as a female in a campaign promoting a holiday dedicated to women has drawn widespread criticism.

In 2021, both Mars, Inc. and Nestle USA joined an op-ed in support of transitioning kids & decrying state laws that protect women’s sports. After years of these firms supporting the erasure of women, it appears that Americans are fed up. Recently, #BoycottHersheys hit number one trending on Twitter. Here are three great alternatives to trans-idolizing chocolate companies like Hershey’s:

• Equal Exchange, a fair-trade worker co-op founded in 1986, specializes in chocolate, coffee, tea, and snacks it sources from 40 small farmer organizations worldwide. It regularly highlights how churches around the world use its products in fostering fellowship, teaching their congregations about the importance of fair trade.
• Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, a family business, continues to bear her name and celebrate her legacy as a female small business founder. Gertrude’s descendants also operate the Hawk Family Foundation, which funds nonprofit organizations and private schools that seek to positively impact children, seniors, those currently incarcerated, and returning citizens. The fund will not contribute to causes that support abortion.
• Läderach, a chocolate company, was dropped by Swiss Air Lines in 2020 for its owner’s pro-life and pro-family views. While simultaneously running his luxury chocolate company, Jürg Läderach was known for his advocacy defending unborn children, upholding natural marriage, & fighting the pornography epidemic — all values that directly impact the human dignity of women. Leadership of the company is now under son Johannes. [Joy Stockbauer, The Washington Stand, 3/5/23]

Gender Transition Surgery?

The U.S. Bishops on March 20 issued new guidance that Catholic health care institutions must not perform gender transition interventions, whether surgical or chemical, on a person regardless of their age. Such interventions “do not respect the fundamental order of the human person as an intrinsic unity of body and soul, with a body that is sexually differentiated.”

“The Hippocratic tradition in medicine calls upon all healthcare providers first and foremost to ‘do no harm,’ the statement explains. “Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person.” The document was developed in consultation with medical ethicists, physicians, psychologists, & moral theologians.

With more than 600 hospitals and 1,600 long-term care and other health facilities across the United States, Catholic health ministry is the largest group of nonprofit health care providers in the nation, according to the most recent data from the Catholic Health Association.

The statement said “particular care should be taken to protect children and adolescents, who are still maturing and who are not capable of providing informed consent. The body is not an object, a mere tool at the disposal of the soul, one that each person may dispose of according to his or her own will, but it is a constitutive part of the human subject, a gift to be received, respected, and care for as something intrinsic to the person.”

The U.S. bishops say Catholic health care providers must continue to search for solutions to problems of human suffering, but in ways “that truly promote the flourishing of the human person in his or her bodily integrity. As the range of what we can do expands, we must ask what we should or should not do,” the bishops explain. “An indispensable criterion in making such
determinations is the fundamental order of the created
world. Our use of technology must respect that order.”
[John Lavenburg, https://cruxnow.com, 3/21/23]

Film to See: Unexpected

This fun, funny and uplifting film puts at its center relatable characters dealing with the vicissitudes of life. There are no glib answers; instead, we see flawed yet good-hearted people find the courage to get up when they’ve been knocked down, without super heroes, but with trust in God. And it is no accident that the film ends with a beautiful rendition of the hymn “His eyes are on the sparrow.” In an interview with Christian Headlines, co-producer Patricia Heaton said: “What that song signifies is that the lives that you’re watching in this movie–they’re small lives, they’re people you might pass on the street, never notice, never get to know–but everybody has a story. Everybody’s known to God.” [Maria McFadden Maffucci, Human Life Review, 3/23]

The case does have far-ranging implications, because ADF is requesting that the court set aside the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and misoprostol for chemical abortion purposes. “At the same time,” said Baptist, “it’s a reasonable [ask], because the FDA, from beginning to end, has failed to follow the plain requirements of the law.”

>> LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE <<

‘Reckless’ FDA

CatholicVote and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) filed an amicus brief in the ADF vs. FDA case from concerned members of Congress.

“The FDA’s reckless decisions to approve and deregulate chemical abortion drugs put the profits and political agenda of the abortion industry over the law and abundant evidence that abortion drugs present harm to women, girls, and their unborn babies,” the brief stated.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute submitted a brief detailing the lack of medical research and data in the United States surrounding chemical abortion regimens concluding:

The FDA has made an unjustifiable and unreasonable risk-benefit assessment regarding chemical abortion. The end result is over-the-counter abortion provision dissociated from the medical system entirely, except, of course, for the emergency room physicians who will be called upon to care for the myriad complications.

A full list of the court’s amicus briefs can be found on ADF’s website.

Biden Administration Attempts Work- Arounds

The lawsuit followed upon the Biden administration’s aggressive response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The Department of Justice has taken steps to promote chemical abortions even in states like Texas that have robust abortion restrictions.

Attorney General Merrick Garland established a “reproductive rights task force” in July following the Dobbs decision. One of its express purposes is to “monitor and evaluate all state and local legislation and enforcement actions that threaten to… ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety.”

Late last year, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) assured the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that federal law does not prohibit sending abortion drugs by mail. The OLC memo states that “federal law does not prohibit the use of” either drug, which are both FDA approved for no other purpose than to kill and expel an unborn child from a mother.

The use of mail services to send abortion pills directly to women and the sale of mifepristone at the retail level without medical oversight are a sharp departure from past norms. While abortion promoters, including officials within the Biden administration, have endeavored to present the controversial move as safe and routine, the maneuver has been bumpy.

As CatholicVote reported in early February, even the Food and Drug Administration warned of safety concerns over mifepristone as recently as last year:

The FDA also recently voiced concerns over the safety of abortion-by-mail for mothers as demand for chemical abortion pills surged following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

LifeNews Note: Erika Ahern writes for CatholicVote.

(LifeSiteNews) — First Lady of the United States Jill Biden encouraged young Kenyans to continue spreading propaganda about contraception and “safe sex” at their churches and schools, all while wearing a Rosary around her neck.

As part of her five-day trip to Namibia and Kenya last week, Biden participated in multiple events pertaining to the “empowerment of women and youth.” On Saturday the First Lady stopped by the Shujaaz Konnect Festival in Nairobi, Kenya, where she dropped in on a watch party for “MTV Shuga,” an African drama series that aims to promote “sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

According to press pool notes compiled by Washington Post reporter Jada Yuan, the Rosary-sporting Biden commended Kenyan youth attending the festival for their willingness to learn about and discuss “safe dating and safe sex.”

“[I] really applaud you for wanting to learn more about [the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] and HIV/AIDS and financial literacy and safe dating and safe sex,” she said. “You know, these are issues that really all people need to talk about them [sic]. Yet, somehow, they don’t, and the consequences of not talking about it are so dire. So, I love seeing the young people here.”

The Shujaaz Konnect Festival is organized by media company Shujaaz Inc. and the MTV Staying Alive Foundation, with the help of PEPFAR and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by President George W. Bush to help people afflicted with AIDS, which is still a major cause of death in African countries.

At the “MTV Shuga” watch party itself, Biden led a discussion about what the attendees learn from the show and how they share those lessons with others. One of the participants, per the press pool notes, emphasized the importance of “using a condom” to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes the AIDS disease.

The First Lady then asked if the show promotes other types of “prevention for safe sex” like “birth control pills,” to which another participant answered, “contraception for unintended pregnancy prevention and PrEP for HIV prevention.”

Then Biden followed up with, “Then so do you go into your neighborhoods or your churches or your schools and then do you spread the word further?” And when she received a “chorus of yeses,” she asked and got an affirmative answer about them being “ambassadors for this program.”

“Okay, that gives me a better picture,” she added.

Kenya is a majority Christian country, with 85% of the population identifying as Christian and one-third of all Christians identifying as Catholic. LifeSiteNews recently visited Africa to report on the heroic individuals resisting the Western-led imposition of pro-abortion, pro-contraception, and pro-LGBT ideology.

Despite professing to be Catholics, the First Lady and her husband, President Joe Biden, have long been outspoken advocates of “abortion rights” and gender ideology.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration pressured the African country of Benin to remove its name from the pro-life Geneva Consensus Declaration, which declares that abortion is not a human right.

In January 2021, LifeSiteNews reported on a group of Africans who unsuccessfully pleaded with Biden in a video message not to resume funding for organizations that provide abortions. Biden repealed the so-called “Mexico City Policy,” a Trump-era policy, on his ninth day in office.

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.”

Nursing Degree TUITION FREE

Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing tuition-free at the University of Mary. The selective program for
aspiring nurses helps students reach their God-given potential in the classroom, in the workplace, & in life. Students graduate in less than three years and receive an all-expense-paid pilgrimage to Europe. Visit www.umary.edu/NursingAcademy

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

John Emmett Mulholland of Randolph, NJ, formerly of Fanwood, NJ passed away peacefully on Thursday, February 16th at the age of 89.  Born in 1933 John was raised with his sister Anne in Long Branch NJ.  He was active in Scouting, earning the Eagle Scout Award.  He graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School.

John earned a BS degree from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.  He served two years in the US Army and then began his career as Assistant Dining Service Director at Illinois Bell Telephone Company and Assistant Manager of Restaurant Operations for Marshall Field, Chicago.   Later he joined Bamberger’s Department Stores where he rose to vice president of food service administration.  After leaving Bamberger’s he became a financial investment counselor.

In 1957 John married his beloved Mary Ellen and together they shared 58 wonderful years and raised four children.  John was a dedicated father with a contagious zest for life. He was active in leadership of the Boy Scouts and Indian Princesses.  He enjoyed family time, taking vacations, and spending time around the pool with family and friends. He was always up for a game of Tripoli, Spoons, Left-Right-Center, and being challenged at chess.  These good times are memories that will be cherished by his children and grandchildren.

Throughout his life, John demonstrated a tremendous faith in God.  He was active in the Catholic Church and attended an annual men’s retreat at San Alfonso Retreat House for over 20 years.

He shared God’s love by his actions.  He welcomed less fortunate youth from New York City’s Fresh Air Fund for multiple summers.  Working through the Healing the Children organization he hosted children from other nations while they received specialized medical care in American hospitals.  One of those children, Mimi, returned to receive multiple surgeries and is still a welcome member of John’s family.

His greatest passion was his commitment to ensure the right to life for the unborn.  John organized, contributed, protested, and prayed in defense of all human life. He co-founded the Life Education Council.

John is survived by his daughters Ellen Brown, Patricia Dunne (William), Edward Mulholland (Gretchen) and 9 grandchildren.  He was preceded in death by his daughter Katherine Sooy and his beloved wife Mary Ellen.

The family will be receiving friends at Resurrection Parish, 651 Millbrook Ave, Randolph, NJ Saturday, February 25th, 10:30 am to noon followed by a funeral mass beginning at noon. The funeral mass will be live-streamed at: https://resurrectionparishnj.org/live-stream

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made, in his memory, to Life Education Council, PO Box 734, Far Hills, NJ 07931