As I mentioned in the last hotline, Joe Scheidler spoke at a pro-life conference in Dublin, Ireland, this past weekend, and he and his wife, Ann, will return to the US tomorrow. Please offer prayers on their behalf for safe travel.
Good Comes from Terri’s Death
March 31 is the one-year anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death by euthanasia. Please offer prayers for Terri’s soul, as well as for the conversion of her recently remarried husband Michael. Remember also to pray for all disabled persons whose basic human rights are all too frequently trampled upon.
One of the truths of our faith is that God can bring good out of evil. Terri Schiavo’s surviving family members are a testament to this reality. During Terri’s final days, the Schindler family kept saying the intensely trying ordeal was bringing them closer together than ever before.
A year later, parents Bob and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby and sister Suzanne Vitadamo all work together for the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, whose mission is to protect disabled persons, they’re working together on a daily basis. Bobby gave up his job as a science and math teacher at a Tampa Catholic High School and Suzanne quit her position as a stockbroker.
“Unanimously, the first thing that came out of all of our mouths, was ‘We can never let this happen again, what happened to Terri, the way she was starved to death,’ ” Bob Schindler is quoted as saying. The Foundation’s goal is to fight the euthanasia movement, whose evil character was increasingly exposed in the days leading up to Terri’s death.
Eventually the Schindler family hopes to establish a network of Terri Schindler Schiavo centers to provide care for brain injury victims and support for their families.
The Schindlers are doing great work, and our prayers are with them.
Pregnancy Resource Centers Threatened
Today, Democrat Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, along with eleven co-sponsors, introduced a bill entitled: Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women’s Services Act—a bill seeking to impose free speech restrictions on pro-life pregnancy resource centers.
Longtime pro-lifer Chris Slattery, president of Expectant Mother Services, the oldest network of pregnancy centers in New York City, has vowed to launch an immediate nationwide effort to defeat the measure. Slattery issued the following remarks:
This new anti-life Federal Bill is a blatant effort by the abortion lobby to silence and crush their pro-life competition. It is the pro-life pregnancy centers that tell pregnant mothers the truth about abortion and its side effects. By contrast, abortion clinics make their money from not telling pregnant mothers the truth.
This is the first nationwide effort to regulate the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers. Numerous statewide efforts led by abortion clinics have failed to muzzle the free-speech of their only competitors.
It is clear that we have cut into the abortion industry’s business; that is why they are trying to do everything they can to cripple us or shut us down. We will fight this atrocious legislation tooth and nail; in the meantime, we will continue to offer compassionate alternatives to women facing a crisis pregnancy.
Well said, Chris.
