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Tuesday November 16, 2004

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Abortion Pill a Danger to Women FDA Admits with New Warning Labels

WASHINGTON, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Federal Food and Drug Administration has ordered changes to the warning labels on the abortion pill Mifeprex, or RU-486, the lethal drug developed in France as a home-abortion kit. The FDA approved the drug in 2000 and despite a number of deaths of women and dangerous complications such as ectopic pregnancies, it had until now declined to change the warning labels.

In a media release the FDA admitted that it had received reports of "serious bacterial infection, bleeding, ectopic pregnancies that have ruptured, and death, including another death from sepsis." The FDA is now 'reminding' health workers that sepsis can occur without the usual signs of infection such as fever and pain. The new warning also says that health workers should "be vigilant for patients with undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies (tubal pregnancies) as this condition may be missed by physical examination and ultrasound."

The FDA has received 676 reports of problems with the drug, including 17 ectopic pregnancies, 72 cases of blood loss so severe that they required transfusions, and seven cases of serious infections

In the last year LifeSiteNews.com has reported three deaths of young mothers who took the abortion drug. In Canada, after the death of a woman involved in a study of the drug which has been called by pro-lifers the 'human pesticide,' Health Canada told LifeSiteNews.com that information on adverse reactions to drugs in clinical trials is not public information even when a death is involved.

In June, 2003 a young Swedish woman, Rebecca Tell Berg, age 16, died after an RU-486 abortion in the west coast city of Uddevalla. In California, 18 year-old Holly Patterson died of septic shock after taking the drug which was prescribed by the local Planned Parenthood office.

Holly Patterson's father, Monty, has campaigned to have the drug banned. He said the FDA's actions are not enough. "I'm not convinced this drug is safe, and I still think it should be banned," Patterson said.

Read the FDA media release:
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01134.html

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United Nations Body Set up to Make Recommendations on Governing Internet

NEW YORK, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United Nations has established a working group on Internet "governance", to prepare for a decision on the issue to be made at the World Summit on the Information Society (second phase), to be held in Tunis in November 2005.

The task of this Working Group is to organize an open dialogue on Internet Governance, and to bring recommendations on this subject to the Summit.

The two documents adopted by the Geneva Summit -- the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action -- asked the Working Group "to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of the Internet by 2005."

Among other things, the Group was requested to identify the public policy issues that are relevant to Internet governance. The Working Group will include 40 members from governments, private sector and civil society, representing all regions.

The two Summit documents call for an "open and inclusive" process and "a mechanism for the full and active participation of governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and developed countries, involving relevant intergovernmental and international organizations and forums."

LifeSiteNews.com director Steve Jalsevac expressed concern over the development. "The Internet community should monitor this process very carefully considering the United Nation's tendency to impose its ideological views on a global basis," he said. "The UN has no respect for the sovereignty of nations regarding its dearly held ideological positions on life and family and thus will have little concern for businesses, organizations and individuals which contravene UN orthodoxy."

See list of the individual members of the working group at:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/041116a.html

Read former LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
United Nations Control of the Internet Rejected Until 2005
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/dec/03120904.html

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Irish Prime Minister and Dublin Catholic Archbishop Back Homosexual Spousal Rights

DUBLIN, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Irish homosexual activists who came to Canada to 'marry' and are currently challenging Ireland to grant them spousal inheritance rights have garnered support from Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and shockingly from Dublin's Catholic Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

Commenting on the case to the Irish state television RTE, Ahern said, "They say: 'We want more equality and we want to be treated fairer.' I agree with that. I totally agree with that. These people who are in relationships which are not illegal, they're not immoral, they're not improper. We should try to deal with some of the issues they have to surmount in their daily lives. And I think that's the fairest, caring and Christian way to deal with this."

Archbishop Martin was questioned by the Irish Independent newspaper on Ahern statements calling granting the spousal rights the "fairest" and "Christian way to deal with this."

Archbishop Martin told the Irish Independent: "I recognise that there are many different kinds of caring relationships and these often create dependencies for those involved. The State may feel in justice that the rights of people in these relationships need to be protected."

He continued: "I have a wide range of relationships in mind. I do not exclude gay relationships but my main concern is with all caring relationships where dependencies have come into being."

He said the rights "would primarily be inheritance and property."

LifeSiteNews.com contacted the Archdiocese of Dublin to confirm the remarks. "The substance of his comments are accurate," Paul Tighe, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Dublin told LifeSiteNews.com.

Other bishops commenting on such situations have expressed opposition to such spousal rights noting that current provisions allow for wills and private legal arrangements to bequeath or share property between individuals.

Pope John Paul II has made statements on the recognition of spousal rights. In his famous November 4, 2000 address to the world's politicians the Pope counseled them, "with regard to all laws which would do harm to the family, striking at its unity and its indissolubility, or which would give legal validity to a union between persons, including those of the same sex, who demand the same rights as the family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman." He warned "Christian legislators may neither contribute to the formulation of such a law nor approve it in parliamentary assembly, although, where such a law already exists, it is licit for them to propose amendments which would diminish its adverse effects."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Gay 'Marriage' Court Challenge Coming to Ireland Courtesy of Canada
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04110902.html

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Canadian Military to Remove Cross from Cap for Chaplains

OTTAWA, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canadian Defence Department announced plans Monday to remove the Christian symbol -- a Maltese cross -- from the caps of its army chaplains. The move is claimed to be because the military's first Moslem chaplain was hired last year.

"We are looking at seeing what developments there could be in that field because, to have a Muslim or to have someone of another faith under that same cap badge -- I think it wouldn't be of service to them," military Chaplain Jean Bourgeois told the Toronto Sun.

Both Conservative MP Jason Kenney and chairman of the Commons defence committee, Liberal MP Pat O'Brien were critical of the move.

"I think that's ridiculous. It's typical political correctness," Kenney said, referring to one suggestion to replace the cross with the branch insignia. "Pluralism doesn't mean you eliminate symbols for every different community. It means you respect all the different symbols, whether it's the Star of David for a Jewish chaplain or a (crescent) for a Muslim chaplain."

O'Brien doesn't believe the legitimacy of the "multi-faith nature of society" reason for the proposed change either. "I think we can carry that a little bit too far. Why shouldn't you be able to embrace your own religious symbols?" he said.

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ACLU Lawsuit Results in Pentagon Order to Halt Military Support for Boy Scouts

CHICAGO, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The U.S. Department of Defence agreed Monday to halt direct support for the Boy Scouts, because of an American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois lawsuit.

The ACLU charged that government funding of the Scouts is unconstitutional because members have to swear an oath to God, which they claim is discriminatory to non-religious people. Because the Scouts do not allow openly gay leaders, the ACLU argues that this additionally infringes on the rights of American children.

The lawsuit was inspired by a similar court decision in 1998, when the ACLU successfully acted on behalf of a law student who sued the city of Chicago, arguing that the city's support of the Boy Scouts was unconstitutional.

The suit affects 422 units out of 120,000 programs, because these chapters were being held on US military bases, according to Irving, Texas-based The Boy Scouts of America spokesman Greg Shields. "We have simply transferred the charters to non-military but supportive organizations like VFWs [veterans of foreign wars]," he said, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report.

Read AP coverage: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1116boyscouts16.html

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Australian Cardinal Pell Calls For "whole new form" of Democracy

"Does democracy need abortion, euthanasia and pornography to be democratic?"

GRAND RAPIDS, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the Acton Institute in October on the eve of the US election, Australia's George Cardinal Pell proposed a complete re-visioning of the direction of western democracies. The Cardinal said that the challenge was to establish a democracy based on, "the transcendent dignity of the human person."

Pell criticized the narrow, rigidly secularized form of democracy that has taken hold in the west. He asks if the inclusion of traditional values cannot be included in a modern democratic state.

"Does democracy need a burgeoning billion-dollar pornography industry to be truly democratic? Does it need an abortion rate in the tens of millions? Does it need high levels of marriage breakdown, with the growing rates of family dysfunction that come with them?"

Cardinal Pell questioned the idea that democracy must support the "pursuit of the individual's absolute autonomy." He asked if it must include legalized euthanasia, assisted reproductive technology, and embryonic stem cell research. He asks rhetorically, "What would democracy look like if you took some of these things out of the picture? Would it cease to be democracy? Or would it actually become more democratic?"

"The alarm with which many treat people in public life who are opposed to these things often implies that that they are a danger to democracy. This over-reaction is of course a bluff, an attempt to silence opposition almost suggesting that these practices are essential to democracy."

Pell shocked editorialists familiar only with the political philosophy of the New York Times editorial pages, when he said, "Democracy is not a good in itself. Its value is instrumental and depends on the vision it serves."

But this idea will not surprise those versed in classical political theory in which any political system is only pursued if it supports the common good. Pell, in reiterating this idea has been accused of proposing a 'theocracy,' but the idea is based on Natural Law philosophy and is not restricted to any particular religion.

Pell proposes the idea of 'Democratic Personalism." He says, "To re-found democracy on our need for others, and our need to make a gift of ourselves to them, is to bring a whole new form of democracy into being. Democratic personalism is perhaps the last alternative to secular democracy still possible within Western culture as it is presently configured."

To read an edited version of Pell's address:
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=222

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Pro-Abortion Legislator Outraged over Priest's Direction to Quit Church Choir

ANDOVER, Massachusetts, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - St. Augustine's Catholic church in Andover has a choir and state Rep. Barbara L'Italien likes to sing. The pro-abortion politician is a cantor and head of the parish youth choir and has refused to quit when asked by Fr. William Cleary, the new priest. She says she will only leave the volunteer post if she receives the request in writing.

While L'Italien has complained to local papers that she is being targeted for being a Democrat, Fr. Cleary has denied that it has anything to do with her party affiliation. "In this particular case, we're dealing with a person who is against the church's position (on abortion)," Cleary said. "I can't allow her to be in a public posture -- to be standing up at the pulpit singing or directing singing."

L'Italien gives the now-standard excuse for supporting abortion as a Catholic legislator, known popularly as the "Cuomoism". She says she has a 'private opinion' about abortion but must represent a broad range of opinions among her constituents and cannot make a decision against abortion for someone else.
Readers may contact Fr. Cleary by e-mail at: StAugCC@comcast.net
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LifeSiteNews.com NewsBytes

Durban high school sued by a pupil after arranging secret abortion
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=...

Hollywood now handles abortion with breezy self-righteousness. It didn't use to.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005887

It's about abortion
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41477

Silenced Arlington priest warns of gay crisis
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041115-124042-2061r.htm

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