Joe and Ann Scheidler arrived today in Lourdes, France, the first of several days they will spend assisting the sick and infirm pilgrims who visit there. They hope to gain a deeper understanding of the mystery of suffering and to spiritually renew themselves.
At the Lourdes Grotto they will be praying for all of the League’s benefactors and supporters, especially those who have recently offered specific prayer requests. Joe and Ann have also asked for your prayers on their behalf during this time.
Euthenasia Creaping In
Troubling news recently from the Netherlands: The Dutch government and the Groningen University Clinic recently announced an agreement to broaden the country’s already liberal assisted-suicide laws. Since 2002, Dutch law has permitted adults with incurable diseases to requested assisted suicide — and, most alarmingly, children under age 16 have been legally allowed to request assisted suicide with parental approval. A newly proposed law would lower the legal age of “suicide consent” to 12 years, while still allowing younger children to request assisted suicide with parental permission.
This news comes on the heels of the Florida Supreme Court’s decision striking down “Terri’s Law,” which ordered that ordinary medical and physical care continue to be provided to Terri Schiavo against the wishes of her husband Michael, who wants Terri to undergo a painful death by starvation.
Both of these cases highlight yet another ugly face of the culture of death, and remind us of our need to step our efforts to work for a greater respect for the lives of “the least of our brethren.”
Mom Granted Asylum from Chinese Abortion Policy
Most pro-lifers are well aware that Communist China’s nefarious “one-child policy” has forced thousands of Chinese women to undergo abortions, sterilizations, and to have IUDs inserted. What often remains untold is the lengths to which Chinese women will go to evade this evil regulation.
Xia Lin, a mother of two, had sought asylum in the U.S. out of fear that she would be sterilized for violating China’s one-child policy. She had every reason to be fearful. After her daughter was born in 1989, Lin paid a doctor to remove the IUD the Chinese government forced upon her. After she became pregnant, she fled to a relative’s house, but eight “family planning” officials tracked her down at night, took her to a hospital, and forcibly aborted her baby at four months gestation.
The same sequence of events happened again the next time she became pregnant, except this time her baby was forcibly aborted at six months gestation. The next time she became pregnant, she hired smugglers that brought her by way of three countries to the U. S., where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
An immigration judge didn’t believe her testimony about her treatment by the Chinese government, and ordered her to be deported. However, a federal appeals court in Chicago recently overturned that judge’s ruling, and Lin will be allowed to stay in the United States.
Following the decision, Lin remarked through an interpreter, “I am very happy.” All we can add is, “Ditto.”
Breast Cancer Foundation Advisor Resigns over P.P Links
Last week saw a major victory for the pro-life movement’s goal to educate the public about the link between abortion and breast cancer. Eva Sanchez Silver, a charter member of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s National Hispanic/Latina Advisory Council, resigned her position, noting that Komen Foundation affiliates have given nearly half a million dollars to Planned Parenthood chapters across the country.
Silver learned of the Komen/Planned Parenthood connection thanks to a press release from the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. In announcing her resignation, Silver commented, “It makes me wonder what other abortion related agendas SGK may be supporting, like the black-out on the 16 statistically significant epidemiological studies linking abortion to breast cancer. Is one hand washing the other?”
Abortion/Breast Cancer Coalition president Karen Malec remarked:
When cancer walk businesses [such as the Komen Foundation] have such close financial and ideological ties to the abortion industry or other corporations, it compromises their professional judgment. This explains why bias against the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link in the scientific community is rampant. Scientists will be reluctant to recognize the ABC link if the organizations that give them grants are led by hard line feminists.
We couldn’t agree more.
