LifeNet

March for Life - Monday January 22nd - Rally for Life the same day at noon in White Plains

Reminder that the 34th March for Life will take place on Monday, January 22nd in Washington DC.

If you cannot make the trip, try and get to the Rally for Life in White Plains the same day, from 12-1:00 PM.

More information, reproducible flyers, etc will be forthcoming in our newsletter and online.

The Bishops again speak out on abortion advocacy and the Eucharist

Here is a link regarding the U.S. Catholic Bishops latest statement on being pro-abortion and taking communion.

Catholic Bishops: All Pro-Abortion People Should Refrain From Communion

A new report adopted by the nation's Catholic bishops calls on all people who support abortion to personally refrain from taking communion -- not just politicians. The report says everyone who is out of line with the important church teaching on abortion needs to examine their heart before taking the sacrament.

The bishops adopted the new document on communion on a 201-24 vote with two bishops abstaining from voting.

The document specifically makes reference to its application to all Catholics, not just candidates or elected officials.

The bishops specifically defeated on a voice vote to only prevent pro-abortion politicians from taking communion.

According to a Catholic News Service report, the document says a Catholic who "knowingly and obstinately" rejects "the defined doctrines of the Church" or repudiates "definitive teaching on moral issues" should not take communion.

Right to Life Party & Pro-life Coalition ALERT!

GOT COURAGE?

We need a Black or Hispanic pro-lifer willing to run in the special election for the 16th Legislative District in Westchester County as a Right to Life Party candidate, or as a pro-life candidate from another party.

You must be a U.S. citizen residing in this district - the northwest section of Yonkers.

Please contact Elizabeth Costanzo or Tom Byrne at 914-478-1189 no later than November 28, 2006.

If you are a REGISTERED DEMOCRAT and have the guts to stand against the leaders of your party to give the unborn a voice and expose the organizations by which women are exploited and coerced into abortions, call us.

Right to Life Party Post-election Plans & Review

November 21, 2006

Dear Pro-lifers,

        Westchester and other counties in the State need brave souls to run for County Legislator, County Executive and State Supreme Court positions in 2007. We must plan ahead! Let your local Right to Life Party know by February 2007 if you wish to run (or encourage someone), so together their workers can interview the candidate ASAP. The challenge in New York is daunting, as you know, so see list of contacts below!

        This election gave us some cause for rejoicing despite the fact that Right to Life Party and most other local pro-life candidates did not win seats. Greg Ball did win an eastern Putnam, Westchester & Dutchess Assembly seat with help from Alan Mehldau (Westchester), the McGuigans (Putnam), and other staunch pro-lifers. Greg unseated a pro-abortion Republican, Willis Stevens, whose father voted for the legalization of abortion. This 1970 legislation under the eager sponsorship of liberal Republicans Nelson Rockefeller and U.S. Senator Jacob Javits made New York the abortion capitol of the country – a distinction we’d like to crush.

        Helen Westover, running as a Conservative, received 2,000 votes on the Conservative line in her Dutchess County Asssembly district (despite a mailing from the head of the Conservative party telling conservatives not to vote for her!!) With Richard Bruno’s help, Peter Partridge ran as a pro-life candidate in Rockland County. The Republicans ran no one against the Democrat, so they “cross endorsed by default”. Even so, Peter received 5% of the vote. Another good thing coming out of Rockland was that 9 of the 17 County Legislators refused to allow Planned Parenthood public funding.

        We saved the best for last. The second most powerful pro-abortion Republican in the State - Nicholas Spano - lost his 35^th District New York State Senate seat. We feel his political demise was helped by hundreds of pro-lifers who did not vote for him or for his equally pro-abortion counterpart, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, even as some pro-life strategists differed with this approach. Also, over 130 staunch pro-lifers wrote in Francis J. Bowen, the Right to Life Party candidate in the 35^th District. Unfortunately, many did not write in his name correctly – a simple voting rule we can’t emphasize enough – thus his final legal tally looks much less.

        The Party can run candidates on an independent line if we get enough signatures on a petition. Always try to get 50% more signatures than you need. Countywide candidates (e.g., County Executives) need 1,500 valid signatures (get 2,250).

        God bless you for giving the unborn a voice. Let’s get to work.

        Regina Riely

If you don’t know local Right to Life Party people, contact:

Stacia Vogel--Western New York--716-947-9431

Richard Bruno--Rockland County--845-359-5823

Joseph Carr, Sr.--Putnam County--845-628-4690

Christine Tighe--Orange County--845-496-0391

William Conroy, Jr.,Esq.--Orange County--845-386-9323

Virginia Sutton--Sullivan and Orange--845 733-1038

Elizabeth Costanzo--Westchester County--914-478-1189

Carol O’Hea--Suffolk--631-757-7393

Peter O’Hara--Suffolk--631-862-9370

Paul Driscoll--Nassau--516-747-2476

Marietta Canning--Staten Island--646-662-3914

Carlo Versella--Staten Island--718-448-4024

John Cronin--Queens--516-297-8171

Christea Garifalia--Queens & Brooklyn--347-885-3099

Richard Van Slambrouck--Dutchess--845-297-7930

Anthony Murty--Niagara--716-283-4201

ABC News special on crisis pregnancy centers v. the abortion industry

ABC national nightly news had a three and a half minute feature last night (Thursday) on their "Medicine and the Culture Wars" series. The title is "Clinics Try to Steer Women from Abortions" and besides the usual suspects from Planned Parenthood, it features a crisis pregnancy center in New York and founder Chris Slattery.

On balance it was good publicity, with a relatively sympathetic view of Slattery and his staff. It ends with an interview of a mother who has been aided, and images of her children. Great job Chris and staff!!

Go here to see it:  ABC News

Here's a partial transcript  from the end of the feature:

One woman who spoke with ABC News said she didn't feel misled at all when she entered a pregnancy crisis center.

"When I first went in there, I was thinking that I was too young, that I didn't want a baby," Rachel Acosta said.

She went to one of Slattery's crisis pregnancy centers at age 15. Now she's 21 and is the single mother of three children. She said when she looks at her daughter and thinks about the fact that she nearly aborted her, it makes her "sad.

"It makes me want to cry," Acosta said. "I mean, I did cry when I gave birth to her. I was, like, look at what I almost gave up."

Whatever their critics say about the tactics of crisis pregnancy centers, the people who run them say this is what justifies their work, the children they call "gifts from god."

"Health trumps ethics..." - an essay from Australia

Mercatornet.com is a website based with contributors from Australia and New Zealand. They stand for "Idealism and Ethics."

Here is an excellent essay by their editor, which gets to the heart of the embryonic stem cell issue.

Health Trumps Ethics in Mid-term Elections http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=411

        Why has it proved so difficult to persuade voters that creating human embryos and destroying them for their stem cells is both unscientific and unethical? The case against it has logic, ethics and science on its side. The embryo, no matter how small it is, is clearly a human being. The world's most famous stem cell researcher, South Korean Hwang Woo-suk, faked his results and defrauded his government. There have been no clinical successes with the treatment. Promising ethical alternatives are available which have worked in clinical trials. And, some scientists claim, the basic science of embryonic stem cells suggests that they will never, ever work anyway. With drawbacks like these, a business seeking investors would fail. Why, then, do mainstream voters support it?

       

        Religious bias is one reason. Whether or not to use embryonic stem cells is basically an ethical and human rights issue, despite the fact that there are well-founded scientific and financial reasons for scepticism. Consequently the churches weigh in, especially the Catholic Church, even though only reason, not faith, is required to see that a tiny clump of cells as big as a full stop (or period) is still a human being. In the eyes of some voters, this has tainted the issue as another case of superstition hobbling progress.

       

        Another is three decades of abortion and two decades of in vitro fertilisation. Millions of voters have already acted on the presumption that a foetus, let alone an embryo, does not deserve the protection of the law. It would be inconsistent for them to support life in a Petri dish when they haven't supported it in the womb. No doubt, too, the views many legislators have been shaped by their own experiences. John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in the 2004 election, and his wife Elizabeth had two IVF children, probably with donated eggs. In Australia, coinciding with the vote on therapeutic cloning, a leading opposition Senator revealed that he and his wife had organised donor eggs and a surrogate mother to create their newborn child. They even had to cross borders to do it because it was illegal in the state which he represents in Parliament. The response of the Federal Attorney-General was to propose a change in the law to legalise surrogacy throughout the country.

        But surely the main reason for growing support for this technology is baby-boomers' obsession with their health. Embryonic stem cell science has been surfing an unstoppable tsunami of desperate hope. Its supporters have even managed to frame their lack of clinical success as an argument in their favour. If only we had the resources, they argue, then we would surely deliver the goods. Significantly, the disease which was most often cited in campaign advertisements was Parkinson's disease, which is mostly an ailment of the elderly. Alzheimer's is often mentioned, as well, even though it is too complex to be cured with stem cells. ...

       

        This year American will spend US$14 billion to rejuvenate themselves with cosmetic surgery. If they are willing to spend this much on a war on wrinkles, is it any surprise that they do not scruple to approve destructive embryo research?

Pro-lifer results not bad in November mid-term elections

While some pro-life candidates lost, things were far from all bad - Pro-life Advocates Won Majority of races Against Abortion advocates News From LifeNews.com

In a statement provided to LifeNews.com the National Right to Life Committee said it was involved in 87 highly contested races for the House and Senate and the group won 53 percent of those contests.

"Unfortunately as the races developed almost all of these races involved protecting incumbent pro-life Republicans," Darla St. Martin, the associate executive director of National Right to Life, told LifeNews.com.

With the tenuous political climate for Republicans on other political issues, that made it more difficult to defend their seats.

Another pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, said that, for the fifth consecutive election in a row, more of its candidates own than lost.

The SBA List Candidate Fund won 59% of its federal campaigns this year. Seventeen of 29 SBA Candidate Fund-endorsed candidates were victorious on Tuesday

Recovery Sunday Prayer Request

Friend Terri Engel writes, asking for prayers. The HVCL supports Recovery Sunday each year in New York because of the pain, suffering and social problems alcohol and other drug addictions cause. It is a critical "dignity of life" issue.

According to Terri, "The National Catholic Conference on Alcoholism and other Drug Disorders (NCCA) will be submitting a proposal at the U.S. Bishops Conference in Baltimore next week, November13-16, to ask that Recovery Sunday be a National Prayer day in all dioceses on the second Sunday every September." Here is an intention to say and share with others via email this coming week:

"For the United States Bishops who meet this week that they will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to see all the pain and devastation to inviduals and families incurred by the illness of addiction and approve the proposal to designate RECOVERY SUNDAY as an annual day of prayer in every diocese and archdiocese across the country."

In 1999 Recovery Sunday was inaugurated in the Archdiocese of New York by His Eminence John Cardinal O'Connor working with the late Rev. Daniel Egan, S.A., "the Junkie Priest". Their words:

"There is no other illness that clogs our courts, fills our prisons, devastates families and pains the Mystical Body of Christ, like addiction."

Please pray with us this week. Thank you, and thank you Terri for all your dedicated efforts on behalf of Recovery Sunday.

Respect Life Coordinators meet in Newburgh

The Sisters of Life, responding to requests for several Respect Life Coordinators' meetings, presented a wonderful and educational evening at Sacred Heart Church Parish Center in Newburgh to over thirty participants. A companion session was held in White Plains on October 24. The topic was a follow up to the summer's meeting and ongoing questions about human sexuality issues, the Church's teachings, and Planned Parenthood in the public schools.

Ed Mechmann and Sister Mary Elizabeth, S.V.

Edward T. Mechmann, Esq., spoke on Parents' Rights Under the Law. His one-page outline - a must have for parents with students in public schools - is a great way for parents to get informed about what is being taught, how and by whom. It is vital for all taxpayers who seek to get answers from school administrators, as well. For example: "Schools may not make condoms available to their students without prior parental consent, or after notice to parents that gives them the ability to opt out." Go to the New York Archdiocese website for more info or contact the Sisters of Life at www.sistersoflife.org.

Upcoming events:

Stem Cells: Sunday, November 12, 2006, 7 p.m. at the Villa Maria Guadalupe, 159 Sky Meadow Drive, Stamford, CT 06930 "Current Issues on Stem Cell Research" with Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. Fr. Tad is a phenomenal speaker - a great way to get informed on this important and timely topic.

Marriage Enrichment Day: Saturday, December 2, St. Patrick's, Yorktown Heights, NY. Contact Nancy Rizzi 212-371-1000 X 3190.

Respect Life Institute: Saturday, March 31, 2007, Our Lady of Lourdes High School, Poughkeepsie, Featuring Cathy Cleaver Ruse on Marraige and Abortion; Damon Owens on JPII's Theology of the Body; Georgette Forney on Silent No More Campaign; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V. on Crisis Pregnancy and Adoption; Judy McLane from Generation Life on Reaching the Youth on Chastity and Pro-life; and Peter Knickerbocker on Pro-life media campaign of the Vitae Caring Foundation.

Theology of the Body Seminar with Christopher West, Saturday, June 9, 2007, St. Joseph's Church, Kingston, NY

The Riely Report - New York's Next Governor?

Introducing an occasional column from Ed Riely

            

      NEW YORK’S NEXT GOVERNOR?

*          Eliot Spitzer & family have given over $100,000 to Planned Parenthood since 2001. Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the U.S.

*          Eliot Spitzer personally tried to close down Chris Slattery’s Expectant Mother Care Pregnancy Centers that serve women with medical care before and after childbirth, with referral alternatives to abortion, and with post-abortion healing services. Eliot Spitzer also hired two pro-abortion lawyers to attack the Catholic Church through their adoption and child custodial services.

*          Eliot Spitzer, along with Governor Pataki and the NY DMV Commissioner, was named in suit by The Children First Foundation for the anti-First Amendment stance regarding CFF’s request for an adoption message and logo, “Choose Life”, on their license plates. The NYS DMV specialty plate division was shut down rather than issue this plate. CFF sued all three, while Gov. Pataki vetoed 15 organizations requests for custom plates (including CFFs and 911 plates, to the surprise of lawmakers who passed bills) blaming CFF’s suit for his action! 

*          Eliot Spitzer forced Catholic institutions to pay for and offer through employee medical plans abortifacients and contraceptives against their religious beliefs.

*          Eliot Spitzer’s probable election will challenge all pro-life groups to act in unison to defend the guaranteed assaults on life – political (legislation); legal (court judgments); public relations (print news, internet, and TV). His reputation for being “vindictive” is known. His treatment of TV/radio personality Sean Hannity, one example.

*          New York State aborts 50,000 pre-born children per year… X 10 years of Attorney General Spitzer = Eliot Spitzer failed to protect 500,000 NYS women.

            

The importance of Sidewalk Counseling

Sidewalk Counseling is a generic term for peer counseling outside of abortion "clinics", as a last ditch effort to persuade abortion-bound Mom's to choose life.

Abortion clinics and abortion advocates despise counselors and protestors at "clinics". It's the main reason that The Pro-Life Action League was sued in Chicago (see the prior post about Joe Scheidler), with the case finally reaching the Supreme Court. 

Go to Dawn Eden's weblog for a great story, as a young woman holding her son talks to the Waco, Texas City Council about sidewalk counselors!

The Dawn Patrol

A change of heart outside the abortion mill is rare, but it does happen. And each of those lives is precious.

Pro-lifers rally for Spencer

Wednesday evening Westchester, Putnam and Bronx pro-lifers heard longtime activist Joseph Scheidler (founder of the Pro-Life Action League) speak in Yonkers and then attended the adjacent fundraiser for John Spencer. Spencer is the New York Republican, Conservative, and Right to Life Party nominee for U.S. Senate, running against Hillary Clinton as she preps for her expected Presidential run in 2008.

Scheidler and Spencer

Joe Schiedler is the founder of the Chicago-based Pro-life Action League, and fought a 15 year legal case involving pro-abortion groups (NOW and NARAL) seeking to convict him and his organization of violations under RICO, as they aimed to curtail his group's abortion clinic presence and protests. In other words, they claimed he and his group were racketeers. The case was finally settled unanmiously in favor of Scheidler by the Supreme Court, but only after years of painful and expensive battles.

Introduced by Chris Slattery of Expectant Mother Care, Joe is an inspiring speaker who reminds us what we are all about in defense of life. He spoke of the history of abortion, closing with the stirring "abortion will collapse." He spoke of 34 years of the mortal sin of abortion; and offered numerous amusing anecdotes, including one about converting the IRS man who was there to shut the Pro-life Action League. His book is "99 Ways to Stop Abortion", and we believe him. "We are the Church militant," he said. Government exists only to help the people and our Constitution speaks of our "Creator". The 1973 Supremem Court decision was tantamount to committing treason - a travesty of pre-meditated murder of our government!

He humbly told of Mgr. Reilly's miraculous clinic presence, handing out rosaries and turning around 35 out of 70 women seeking abortions. He spoke of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's position that "we are accustomed to abortion." He said moral law is connected to State law and that we need good leaders for democracy to work.

Joe asked us to teach by words and actions. He compared the Wedding of Cana to the role of pro-lifers: we supply the water - Jesus will turn it into wine. We must only "keep the faith, hope in God, and love others." "We have a call, a vocation, mission. We are not a large army, so we need to work together, go to the clinics, possess zeal and determination."

After moving to the fundraiser, and being introduced by Stan Tomkiel, the attendees listened to John Spencer talk of his vision of what he would like to accomplish. He acknowledged that the upcoming election was David v. Goliath (Tomkeil had made the same analogy, pointing out that David won!) and thanked the attendees for their steadfast support. Spencer assured the group that win or lose, he was right on the issues and would keep up the battle, without compromising his principles.

John Spencer

Dorila Misquero and Elizabeth Rex

Judy Anderson, Tom Faranda, Joe Scheidler, and Lorraine Simmons

Fr. Joseph Irwin of Most Holy Trinity Church gave the opening invocation before the Scheidler talk