June 2016 Newsletter

Posted By on June 28, 2016

 

Life Affirming News

 

Happy Father’s Day to all Fathers!

“Fathers can do no better work and do nothing more valuable either for God, for Christendom, for all the world, for themselves, and for their children than to bring up their children well…For bringing up their children properly is their shortest road to heaven.”

“Now tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other menial task for his child…God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling-not because that the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.” (Martin Luther)

 

Finding their voice: Men speaking out about Abortion

NRL News Today / by Olivia Gans Turner / June 1, 2016

Editor’s note. Father’s Day is June 19. Over the next two and a half weeks I’ll be running some new stories, some older stories about one of the most neglected subject areas in the entire abortion debate: a father’s role and responsibility. The following appeared in the January 2008 edition of National Right to Life News.

The phrase that has been used by American Victims of Abortion (AVA) since our early days in the 1980s as an outreach mission of NRLC has been, “We are the mothers, the fathers, the families. They were our children.”

What does this recognize? That every abortion is truly a death in the family and, often, of a family. This grim reality is at the forefront of the message shared by those that told their stories.

But to help people understand that there is a ripple effect from every abortion that extends out beyond the mother and her child has been a rough row to hoe. It was not really until this past November that a professional conference met to address the pain fathers of aborted children feel.

Sponsored by the National Office of Post-Abortion Recovery and Healing, the conference in San Francisco, California, brought together some of the outstanding men and women it has been my privilege to work with since I entered the pro life movement back in 1982 as well as new faces. The synergy between the veterans and the newcomers meant there would be a wider, more free-wheeling discussion.

The presenters were for the most part physicians, therapists, and researchers committed to engaging our culture. We must reach beyond the commonplace but tragically mistaken notion that women have the sole voice in deciding what happens to a child who has a father, two grandfathers, uncles, and, often, siblings.

As highlighted in the June and September 2008 editions of NRL News, pro-abortion forces are terrified that men might actually find their voices and then discover that they have a platform in the pro-life movement to share their pain.

Although it was not yet called that at the time, the first person I ever heard speak about Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS) was Dr. Vincent Rue, at the 1982 National Right to Life Convention. He articulated perfectly what women like me were living though.

He was also daring enough to suggest, even then, that men as well as women were likely candidates for post-abortion emotional problems. It only made sense if one looked at the reality of the life-and-death nature of the decision being made and how men were completely shut out.

Now 35 years later Dr. Rue is still ahead of the curve. He explained that since 1973 only three major studies have ever been conducted to try to determine the effects of abortion on men.

Three-and-one-half decades post-Roe, men are still truly the forgotten players in the story of every abortion.

Pro-abortion forces are deeply troubled that men are beginning to find a place at the table of PAS concerns. They have long since tried to discredit efforts to discuss the degree of problems women may have after abortion, whether mental or physical.

The discussion about men and abortion threatens many on the pro-abortion side. If we do prove that abortion is not only deadly for our children but also damages mothers and fathers, then, as a society, we must ask ourselves, “Who is abortion good for?”

There were many, many outstanding speakers at the San Francisco conference. Greg Hasek is director of Misty Mountain Ministries and a frequent guest at NRL Conventions. He explored the lack of connectedness many men have to their own father and how this anticipates and aggravates the loss of fatherhood many men feel after an abortion.

Many women have shared with me how the apparent ambivalence shown by their baby’s father at the news of the pregnancy was viewed by them as abandonment. Yet the message given to several generations of young men has been, “Stand back and let her decide!” The results have been a recipe for disaster.

Dr. Catherine Coyle, another presenter, is committed to getting honest conversations started between men and women after an abortion. The best path to healing brings all parties together as they learn to remember their children rather than grieving alone.

Her book “Men and Abortion: A Path to Healing,” is the result of an online research project she initiated. It is an invaluable resource for those looking to expand or provide PAS support to men in their community.

Tom Golden presented wonderful insights into the different ways that men and women grieve. Men need to do something with their pain, so active grief tools need to be developed for them. Memorial project ideas are a good place to help men do something with the hurt.

This was not an Americans-only conference either. The sad facts are that abortion is a worldwide tragedy. Another presenter, Andrzej Winkler, M.A., is a therapist and president of the pro-life society in Poland.

A memory that I have of working in Poland during the 1990s was how often men approached us to talk about their abortion stories. That was something that surprised both of us.

Years of working alongside of good, committed, and compassionate people such as Mrs. Vicki Thorn, the executive director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Healing and Reconciliation, made me conscious of how hard it is to get the layers of complexity that surround abortion even discussed.

For many of the nearly 200 people in attendance, most of whom were male, some of the most powerful moments came when several fathers gave their own testimonies. The sincerity and courage with which they told their stories was the touchstone for the rest of the conference.

As it turned out, there were many other post-abortive fathers in attendance that had come only to find out what the whole thing was about. The fellowship that arose from the honest comments of their peers was heartwarming.

Our children have been forgotten by too many in our culture. Telling our stories whether told by men or by women is an important witness to their brief lives.

 

Dutch Pediatricians Seek Child Euthanasia

NRL News Today / by Michael Cook / May 2, 2016

The Dutch Health Minister, Edith Schippers, has earmarked almost 400,000 Euros for a study of whether to expand eligibility for euthanasia to children between 1 and 12. At the moment, children under 1 may be killed with the consent of their parents following criteria set out in the Groningen Protocols.

Children older than 12 are already eligible.

After neighboring Belgium passed legislation in 2014 enabling child euthanasia, doctors and activists in the Netherlands are keen to catch up.

The Dutch Pediatric Association (NVK) kicked off a debate on the topic last year. It strongly supports a change.

At the moment euthanasia of a child between 2 and 12 is only possible by invoking the doctrine of “force majeure” in the Dutch criminal code, which means that the doctor feels compelled to do it as an emergency measure. But this still leaves him open to prosecution.

The NVK believes that age is an arbitrary criterion and that euthanasia should be available for anyone with mental competence. Some children, even if they are under 12 and desperately ill, are astonishingly rational.

A roundtable discussion at the Dutch Parliament amongst experts in medical care for children in January showed that there is a range of opinions on the topic, although most of the participants were broadly in favor of a change. The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) is in favor of studying the issue further.

Not all organizations at the roundtable wanted to amend the law. A Christian group, the NPV, pointed out that “the suffering of the parents should not be a justification for a request for termination of life of the child.” Their position was that “A society that does not protect its children loses its dignity. Let us commit to good palliative care and guidance to children – and their parents – in the last phase of life”.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch Association of Educationalists (NRC), Dr. Miriam Vos, raised questions about what “hopeless and unendurable suffering,” the main criteria for euthanasia in the Netherlands, means for children.

“Children younger than 12 rarely or never speak in terms of hopeless and unbearable suffering. Their verbal and nonverbal expressions may suggest this, but this is always interpreted by their doctor, parents and other health care workers.”

 

Euthanasia Advocates Come Up With a Disgusting New Word to Describe Killing People

Opinion / by Wesley Smith / May 26, 2016  

The euthanasia movement has always been about finding words and terms to mask the harshness of killing as a response to suffering.

Indeed, the word “euthanasia”–good death–did not originally refer to killing. Rather, it meant dying peacefully in a state of grace.

Now, the suicide fanatic Faye Girsh–former head of the Hemlock Society–reporting from a convention of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, says the psychiatrist that brought euthanasia to the mentally ill in Netherlands has coined an obscuring word to replace “euthanasia” in the movement’s lexicon.

From her summary:

Boudewijn Chabot (de Einder) disclosed the name of the patient whose death 25 years ago brought him into conflict with the Dutch  Supreme Court and opened the way for help for psychiatric patients. He  is now using the term ”dignicide” (which my spell checker is rejecting)  as the word promoted by some to describe a self-selected rational and  dignified death.

You can call a dung beetle a butterfly–but it is still a dung beetle.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism. Hospital Stops Abortions After Every Single Doctor Signs Pledge Refusing to Do Them

 

International News: Warsaw, Poland

Steven Ertelt / May 31, 2016

A hospital in Poland has stopped doing abortions after every single physician there signed a pledge refusing to do them. This good news is a lesson for the United States and other countries where abortion is legal — that getting doctors to stand up for life and the Hippocratic Oath is a method of protecting women and unborn children even within the confines of legalized abortion.

A hospital in Rzeszów, Poland has stopped doing abortions after its doctors signed a clause that allows them to opt out because of conscience.

The Specialist Hospital Pro-Familia has become notorious for performing abortions when a midwife named Agata Rejman exposed its activities two years ago.

In January 2014, Rejman spoke at a press conference and testified to the abortions that were being done in the hospital. She said she and others working there cited the conscience clause and said that they refused to be involved in abortion, Rzeszow News reported.

The management responded by demanding that Rejman retract her statements, especially those saying that Pro-Familia “kills children.” Rejman was asked to pay 50,000 zlotych for Podkarpackie Hospice for Children and was threatened with a lawsuit if she failed to do this.

In the U.S. regarding doctors and abortions, the Obama Administration looks like it’s on a mission to trample religious and conscience protections and force as many people as it can to promote and pay for abortions.

Breitbart reports the pro-abortion administration issued a new nondiscrimination policy in the name of “equity” on Friday that pressures doctors and hospitals to promote and perform abortions. Those that don’t would not be eligible for federal funds including Medicare and Medicaid, according to the report.

The “Final Rule” on Obamacare Section 1557 came from the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday, and it largely had to do with discrimination and “gender identity.” While the rule summary does not mention abortion specifically, it explains that the rule “requires that women be treated equally with men in the health care they receive and also prohibits the denial of health care or health coverage based on an individual’s sex, including discrimination based on pregnancy, gender identity and sex stereotyping.”

David Christensen, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, told Breitbart that the new rule mandates that federally funded health care providers offer abortion, among other services.

“Despite concerns raised by FRC and others that the proposed rule also included abortion, the administration chose instead not to exclude it,” Christensen said. “This action erodes Americans’ freedom to believe and act in accordance with their beliefs, not only as it relates to the privacy of the bathrooms but also now when it comes to the taking of innocent human life.”

The rule also does not include any new religious exemptions. According to the rule summary, “the final rule on Section 1557 does not include a religious exemption; however, the final rule does not displace existing protections for religious freedom and conscience.”

 

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