Ann and I will be attending a special pro-life celebration for the Diocese of Gary on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, at St. Mary’s Parish in Griffith, IN at the invitation of Fr. Ted Mens. Celebrating 6 p.m. Mass before the our talk is Bishop Dale J. Melczek.
Annunciation Talk in NW Indiana
Fr. Mens and I go way back to the early days of the pro-life movement. I won’t soon forget his help in confronting Sen. Birch Bayh at. St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, IN back in June of 1977. Fr. Ted was our diplomatic advisor who tried to get me a couple of minutes to talk to the graduation assembly before Bayh address.
We will be speaking on the spiritual nature of the pro-life movement and the obligation to be active members of the Church Militant. A story on the event appeared in the March 21 Northwest Indiana Catholic.
Planned Parenthood Watch
In other news, a woman in Billings MT sued Montana Planned Parenthood and abortionist David Healow for a botched abortion that led to a hysterectomy. Her lawsuit says they failed to inform her of the risks of abortion and that Healow was not a qualified surgeon. Thul is seeking $50,000 damages.
Speaking of Planned Parenthood, the PP Federation of America has appointed its first chaplain who will be a national spokesman to tell us all how abortion can be theologically justified. He is Rev. Ignacio Castuera of the United Methodist church. He has been on the PP Clergy advisory board, led a project for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and has worked with the California Abortion Rights Action League. What will they think of next?
Bad Timing in South Dakota?
A strange battle has been going on in South Dakota. Arlene Sawicki alerts our office that a national right to life organization and its state affiliate sent shock waves through the pro-life movement when they opposed the recent South Dakota bill that had been designed to criminalize abortion. In opposing it, according to Sawicki, these pro-lifers undoubtedly helped doom the bill to defeat.
The bill was sponsored by Republican State Rep. Matt McCaulley and drafted by the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan, with the intention of directly confronting the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision. The national group argued that it did not think the bill was timely.
Chief Counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, Richard Thompson, on the other hand, called the pro-life group’s action a betrayal of the pro-life movement and of the unborn. We have since talked with other pro-lifer spokesmen who, though determined to outlaw abortion, agreed that the timing of this bill was bad considering that it is an election year, the Supreme Court is still mostly pro-abortion and even that the bill itself was flawed.
But Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center said that while it was one thing to disagree with the timing of the bill, it was quite another to help kill it. The bill had passed the state House 54 to 14 but was defeated in the state Senate by a single vote.
Trib Pushes “Morning After” Pill
In a recent editorial the Chicago Tribune urged the Illinois General Assembly to approve selling so-called morning after pills over the counter. The editorial berates the Food and Drug Administration for listening to arguments and bowing to pressure from “conservative and religious groups” and delaying its own decision for 90 days to get more information.
The Tribune doesn’t want any delay in getting this pill on the market in Illinois. Even as the editors write that the pill reduces “abortion procedures,” they admit that the pill can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. In other words, an early abortion prevents a later abortion. Will they ever get it?
