According to the EWTN program schedule an interview we taped with Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life for his “Defending Life” program will air at 4:30 p.m. Central Time, Tuesday afternoon. That’s April 1. We always hesitate to announce radio and TV programs, because often as not they turn out to be wrong. But that’s what we were told. And you’ll be watching EWTN, and if I’m wrong at least you’ll be tuned into something acceptable, unlike some networks that I was supposed to be on and wasn’t. I don’t recall exactly what we talked about, since the program was pre-recorded last summer at Mother Angelica’s studios in Ironwood, AL.
Twenty-Nine Years of Action News Hotline
As the Action News Hotline nears its 29th anniversary, old timers will recall that it started out as a once-a-day message lasting three minutes maximum. When we began recording this phone message in 1974 there were no web-sites, no rapid fax machines and no e-mail, but we saw a need to help pro-lifers everywhere find out the real news about the abortion battles beyond the distorted, biased or silent-on-the-issue secular media.
Twenty-nine years goes by quickly, and now we have many large boxes filled with action news reports encompassing the whole history of the pro-life movement, day by day. While we continue to record Action News, our website runs these daily news items, and will from time to time feature some of the highlight Action News reports.
We ask our callers to pass on the word to your friends that they can call our Action News Hotline number (773-777-2525) every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a new report, or read it online. In the early days I got the news on each day by noon. For some reason we rarely get it on now before the end of the day, so we advise callers to wait until after 5:00 p.m. to call the new Action News Hotline.
Partial Birth Abortion Bill Passes Committee
According to Life Advocacy Briefing for March 31, the House judiciary committee sent the partial-birth abortion ban legislation to the full House by a vote of 19-11. The House committee rejected six weakening amendments, all of which were offered by pro abortion democrats. The various defeated amendments would have made medical exceptions, changed the title, and removed prison sentences.
Nor does the bill include what Life Advocacy Briefing calls a “wart” added to the measure by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and supported by 51 Senators, endorsing Roe. v. Wade. The Senate version still has the “wart” embedded in it, but it should be removed in committee when the bill passes the full House. President Bush says he will sign the bill into law.
UNPF Abortion Program Targets Iraqi Refugees
In Iraq, the United Nations Population Fund has already announced that it will deploy mobile obstetric care surgery units to perform abortions and distribute manual abortion kits and abortifacient drugs to refugees as they flee Iraq. This, despite the native people’s cultural values and religious convictions opposing abortion. The UN group describes its handy-dandy home abortion kits and drugs as reproductive health essentials badly needed by Iraqi refugees.
Court Gets Another Chance To Review Roe
The Supreme Court will have another chance to review the 1973 obscene abortion ruling when it looks at Donna Santa Marie v. Whitman, a case of a 16-year-old girl forced by her parents to undergo an abortion against her will. The pro-abortion federal court in New Jersey is citing Roe as the basis for going ahead with the abortion against the will of the victim.
Seven-hundred post abortive women have signed on as amicus curiae supporting the plaintiff’s petition. Among these 700 are Norma McCorvey, the Roe of Roe v. Wade, and Sandra Cano, the Doe of Doe v. Bolton.
Also among the 700 women is Rosa Acuna who asked her doctor if he was aborting a baby and he told her “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a blob of tissue.” But several weeks after the botched abortion, nurses told Acuna that the abortionist had left “part of her baby” inside her. She suffered psychological damage.
Estrada Nomination Still Stalled
The United States Senate is into its seventh week of stalling with the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation says this situation will determine whether the Republican party is going to be controlled by the Democrats or not. If they pull back during this stalemate they will forever need sixty votes to confirm a judge to any court. Stay tuned.
Mississippi Report Unmasks Abortion Dangers
So much for safe, legal abortions: a recent report shows that Medicaid in Mississippi has paid for treatment for more than 600 women in the last six years who got botched abortions from its only two abortion mills left in the state. The figures come from state Medicaid records showing a total expenditure of nearly 2 million dollars for medical aid, so this includes only women who couldn’t pay for their own medical repair. Mississippi has laws regulating abortion mills and are subject to health inspections, but these rules and inspections are simply ignored.
