LifeNet

Students for Life of America got a good response in NY City

Perhaps surprising?

Here's an excerpt from their note to us.

Thanks to your support our Missionaries for Life were able to hand out hundreds of flyers educating people on the true facts about President Obama’s abortion record this Sunday.

And you want to hear the most interesting part of their trip?  Our Missionaries didn’t get a whole lot of opposition…in New York City!!!

In fact, the response they got the most was disbelief as many people they talked to had no idea that President Obama’s abortion record was radical and many said they planned to do more research when they got home.

Here is the Students for Life website - Students for Life of America

Assisted Suicide - aka euthanasia - proposals running amok among academics

Problem - they can't find enough doctors willing to kill their patients.

Wesley Smith, in his blog on FirstThings - excerpt below, but hit the link for the whole story. The quotes are from one of the world's leading medical journals - the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Death Panels on Steroids"

Rita Marker and I are on the case over at the Daily Caller. From, “Death Panels on Steroids:”

Now, the NEJM has given a platform for Dr. Lisa Lehmann, director of  the Center for Bioethics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and  researcher Julian Prokopetz to lay out a proposal for facilitating what they  call “assisted dying.” In their article, “Redefining Physicians’ Role in Assisted  Dying,” the authors address what they see as a real problem: There aren’t enough doctors willing to participate in assisted suicide. As the authors state, “Many medical professionals are uncomfortable with the idea of physicians playing an active role in ending patient’s lives.” Furthermore, they explain that the American Medical Association and various state medical groups oppose legalization.

Oh dear, oh dear!  What to do?

“We believe there is a compelling case for legalizing assisted dying, but assisted dying need not be physician-assisted.” And how do they suggest that this hurdle between diagnosis and prescription be overcome? Simple. Take the doctor out of doctor-prescribed suicide by setting up a  government-facilitated process that will make it easier for patients to cross the River Styx. As they explain:

We envision the development of a central state or federal mechanism to confirm the authenticity and eligibility of patients’ requests, dispense  medication, and monitor demand and use. Such a mechanism would obviate physician involvement beyond usual care.

PP insider in Texas: on-site prayer works

From STOPP -

The insider confirmed what we have long known and have heard from Planned Parenthood workers across the country—that peaceful, prayerful presence outside the facility makes a profound impact on lowering abortion numbers.

Westchester Putnam Right to Life PAC Autumn Breakfast - October 13, 2012! Honoree Westchester County Exec Rob Astorino; Guest Speaker Gregory Baylor, senior counsel Alliance Defense Fund

Contact the Westchester Putnam Right to Life PAC and take an ad NOW in their very important fundraising journal. Mark your calendars, too!

This year instead of dinner, the highly anticipated Autumn Breakfast will be held at 9 a.m. at the Brynwood Golf and Country Club, 566 Bedford Road in Armonk, NY. The very special honoree is Westchester County Executive, the Honorable Rob Astorino. Distinguished guest speaker is Gregory Baylor, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. According to the PAC, the annual event will "further our mission to protect the Right to Life of all human beings, born and unborn, and to promote civic, political and social reforms necessary to ensure this right."

WPRTLPAC journal director Joy Dechiario reminds us,"Proceeds from our Journal will greatly assist us in our work. We rely entirely onthe generosity of friends like you. Sponsoring an advertisement, a message of support, a memorial, a business card or adding your name as a booster are all ways to be included."

The very reasonable 8-1/2 X 11 Journal fees: Outside rear cover $1,000; Inside front or rear cover $500; Full page $200; Half page $100; Quarter page $50; Business Cards $25; Boosters $10.

Please indicate WPRTL on Ad submission. Include your name, address, telephone, ad size and amount. Checks payable to: Westchester Putnam Right to Life PAC and ad should be mailed to:

WPRTLPAC, P.O. Box 157, Katonah, NY 10536.

Deadline is September 24th. Call Joy with questions at 914.803.0057.

 

Bob McKeon, co-founder NYS Right to Life Party and Westchester County RTL

After a long illness. He was 82. A true activist.

A personal reflection from Elizabeth Costanzo of the Westchester Right to Life Party and from the HVCL:

Robert D. McKeon was one of the founders of Westchester Right to Life and the Right to Life Party. He was on the Board of New York State Right to Life for many years. He devoted much of his time in the defense of the unborn, even using his vacation days from work to educate the young with pro-life slides about life in the womb. He was politically astute and helped to put many pro-life candidates in office.

Words alone can never fully capture some individuals and the impact they have on others, in this case, in and out of the pro-life community. Bob's unique presence and generous gift of self will be missed by all who knew him. Rest in peace, good and faithful servant.

 

Robert D. "Bob" McKeon (1930 - 2012)

Robert D. "Bob" McKeon, of Crestwood, NY on July 18, 2012. Born in the Bronx, NY on May 1, 1930 to the late John and Jenny(nee Pushnitha) McKeon. Beloved husband of Mary (nee Devine) for 60 years. Loving father of MaryEllen Herzog, Robert, Timothy, Noreen, Michael and Patrick, grandfather of 20, great grandfather of 4. Brother of Grace, Dorothy, Sally, Rose, Lillian, Maryann, Joseph and Dennis and the late Lavinia, Genevieve and John. Uncle to 68 nieces and nephews. He was a graduate of Cardinal Hayes H.S., Manhattan College and earned his Master's from NYU. Served in the US Army, from 1951 to 1953, as part of the counter intelligence unit. Retired executive from IBM after 35 years. He also coached the Hillcrest Lakers for 15 years, highlighted by coaching the First Hillcrest team to win the City wide Baseball Championship in 1967. Proudly served as an usher for the 11:30 Sunday Mass at Annunciation Church. He was the co-founder of the New York State Right to Life Party in 1978 and served as Westchester County RTL Chairman for 30 years. Calling hours at the Fred H. McGrath & Son, Funeral Home uin Bronxville between the hours of 5 to 8 pm Thursday and 4 to 8 pm Friday. Mass of Christian Burial Annunciation Church, Crestwood, on Saturday July 21 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers contributions may be made in his memory to Right to Life, Box 263 Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.

 

Two Canadian women carry on with Operation Rescue

From the ALL monthly Celebrate Life Magazine.

Excerpts - hit the link for the entire article.

Canada's pro-life heroines

Two Canadian pro-life activists, one a frail 63-year-old great-grandmother and the other a lively, 38-year-old former postulant to a religious order, spent some time together in August 2011—in jail. Both were imprisoned in the Vanier Centre for Women in Milton, Ontario, for offering counsel to clients of Toronto abortion facilities. They were both in the prison’s maximum security wing for a month and a half.

For Linda Gibbons, mother of four (counting a baby she aborted before becoming a Christian), grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of two, it was familiar territory. She had already been behind bars for nine years for counseling near abortion facilities.

Previously, Mary Wagner spent four months in Vanier in 2010 before being acquitted of mischief. To be in the same prison population with Linda is “a joy,” Mary told Celebrate Life from Vanier. “She has become like a mom to many of the women.”

Similarly, when speaking to Celebrate Life from the same prison, Linda said of Mary, “She’s a diehard; she’s an evangelical Catholic, whereas I’m an evangelical Protestant. She’s like Mother Teresa, a little Mother Mary.” To have Mary with her is “a blessing, a mutual fellowship.”

In early November 2011, when both were free, Linda passed out literature and prayed outside while Mary entered an abortion facility and was re-arrested. Later that month, Linda watched Mary’s arraignment.

Women's Equality Day Reformed - Noon, Friday, August 10, 2012 - White Plains!

Just an early LifeNet post to alert our readers to the upcoming 11th Annual Women's Equality Day Reformed ceremony in White Plains, New York marking the Ratification of the 19th Amendment and the granting of  voting rights to women 92 years ago.

Always a great event, we will gather again at 11:30 a.m. for a 12 Noon to 1 p.m. event at the County Board of Legislators' Michaelian Building, 148 Martine Avenue (Court Street). Light refreshments follow. Security check, photo ID required.

This year's theme: Women's Leadership Voices: Helping or Hurting Women?

Our 2012 Honoree is Dr. Candace de Russy, nationally and internationally known writer and speaker on education and cultural issues. Impressive resume aside, her professional outreach to the public through her leadership roles in education and through various online media sites has enlivened discussions and debates, while challenging strongly-held beliefs on both sides of the aisle throughout her professional career. She will receive the Mott-Stanton-Anthony Award for exemplifying the spirit and virtues of our beloved feminist foremothers who championed life-affirming values.

Susan Moga, manager for thirteen years at the Westchester County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation Farm at Muscoot, will be our keynote speaker. Susan will speak on women's unique and demanding role and voice of influence in public service today.

We will also remember in prayer and reflection our former 2008 Honoree, the Rev. Geneva Patterson, who died this past January at the too-young age of 59.

Contact Judith at 914-329-5163 or Regina at 914-319-7491. E-mail us at [email protected] or [email protected] 

Bring a friend.

Fr. Rutler: "Post Comfortable Christianity and the Election of 2012"

George Rutler's analysis - typically angular and requires some thought ... but worth the effort. Ten paragrpahs with St. Paul prominent.

This new period is not “Post-Christian” because nothing comes after Christ. We can, however, call it “Post-Comfortable Christian.” Niebuhr, looking out from New York’s Neo-Athens on Morningside Heights with its Modernist Christian seminaries and highly endowed preaching palaces and office towers of denominational bureaucracies, caricatured the Messiah of mainline religiosity: ”A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

 

Major Economics study: Parental involvement laws lower suicide rates among teenage girls

Parental involvement laws not only save the lives of babies, they also lower the suicide rate of teenage girls. We are posting the entire email we received from the National Prolife Alliance, with the links to the articles. The study is published in Economic Inquiry, the official journal of the Western Economic Association International, a California based economics think tank. 

Yet more proof that sidewalk counseling saves lives and helps women!

You and I constantly hear pro-abortion extremists scream that the supposed mental health of the mother is somehow more important than the life of an unborn baby.

Psychological mumbo jumbo vs. death?

Frankly, this shows there must be something wrong with their minds.

But now there's a new study that shows even this rationalization excusing abortion-on-demand is false.

The fact is, not only do parental intervention laws save the lives of unborn babies and give parents back the right to stop an abortion from being performed on their minor daughter. . .

. . . but they also reduce suicide rates among teen girls by as much as 11 to 21 percent.

These findings, released in the spring journal of Economic Inquiry demonstrate the fact that abortion decisions by pregnant teens lead to feelings of overwhelming guilt.

If you have time to take a look at this study on the dual life-saving results of parental intervention laws, I encourage you to click on this link to read the article.

But the bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of unborn babies die as a result of wrongheaded decisions, and one out of five abortions is performed on a minor.

And it's evident that a parent's intervention to stop an abortion can save not only the unborn baby's life but in many cases save two lives -- both the unborn baby and the teenage mother.

For Life,

Martin Fox, President
National Pro-Life Alliance

Notre Dame gives an excellent explanation of its HHS lawsuit

Thanks to Ed Mechmann from bringing this to our attention.

Notre Dame joined 42 other Catholic religious institutions in a lawsuit "challenging the legality of a federal rule requiring most religious employers to provide coverage for “preventive services,” including FDA-approved contraceptives, sterilization procedures and abortion-causing drugs."

The essay by a Dean at the ND law school is a short - 13 paragraphs - and clear explanation of the rationale for the suit.

Understanding the HHS lawsuits

"This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives,” Father Jenkins wrote in a May 21 open message explaining the University’s decision to sue. “For if we concede that the Government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions.”

ND president emeritus Father Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, stated succinctly, in a recent interview, the lawsuit’s central claim: The government has “overreached” and “has to be brought up short.”

Managed Care, British-style

From the Telegraph (UK).

Don't think it can't/won't happen here. Obamacare is fiscally unsustainable without "dramatic cost savings."

Hit the link for the whole article.

Hospitals may be depriving elderly patients of food and drink to hasten their deaths as part of cost-cutting measures to free up bed space, leading doctors warn.

Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are placed on a “death pathway” to help end their lives every year. However, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, six doctors warn that hospitals may be using the controversial scheme to reduce strain on hospital resources.

Supporters of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which allows medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs in a patient’s final days, claim it is the kindest way of letting them slip away. But the experts say in their letter that natural deaths are often freer of pain and distress.

Informed consent is not always being sought by doctors, who fail to ask patients about their wishes while they are still in control of their faculties, warn the six. This has led to an increase in patients carrying cards informing doctors that they do not wish to be put on the pathway in the last few days of their lives.

The six doctors are experts in elderly care and wrote the letter in conjunction with the Medical Ethics Alliance, a Christian medical organisation. They say that many members of the public have contacted them with examples of inappropriate use of the pathway, which is implemented in up to 29 per cent of hospital deaths.

They warn that there is no “scientific way of diagnosing imminent death.” They write: “It is essentially a prediction, and it is possible that other considerations may come into reaching such a decision, not excluding the availability of resources.”

A physician writes (in the NYT!) on government officials soon to be in the examination room

Yes, she's writing in the NY Times! Are you surprised they published it?

Of course, Abigail Zuger makes the point that insurance companies also have regulations and protocols.

But now it's your "Uncle."

Hit the link below for the short feature - the link has the last line in her essay.

It’s enough to make you wish for another option.  

Our comments on the Obamacare Supreme Court ruling

This will be in the coming hardcopy of our newsletter, LifeNet.

                SCOTUS’ CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS “RESCUES” OBAMACARE!

So what does “from bad to worse” look like? Like this Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare.

Our task is clearly evident. We now know that we absolutely cannot count on the Courts to turn back the pro-abortion elements of Obamacare, or the Administration's attack on conscience and religious freedom. The law is an abomination without even considering the financial mess that it will produce.

The only sure way to stop Obamacare’s implementation is to defeat him in the November elections. There is simply no other way to put it. No appeals to “social justice” or other figments of the imagination of well-intentioned people will change that. We must launch a a massive information campaign these months prior to the election.

The ruling was handed down on June 28, 2012, with Chief Justice Roberts the universally unanticipated swing vote. Shockwaves could be felt in Reykjavik as this ruling invites even more overreach from an already out-of-control federal government that can now tax us on what we won’t do. Constitutional arguments will be made for and against the Chief Justice’s inexplicable non- derailment reasoning, including personal pressure regarding the Court’s identity in history, but this decision definitely creates more problems than it solves. It chops away at the clear role of the Court and the original intent of our exceptionally unambiguous (and brilliant) founding documents on the limited role of the federal government. Sadly, personal freedoms and liberties were eroded yet again with this ruling, no matter the election result in November.

Our nation fought a war of independence to limit government’s involvement in our lives. The Founding Fathers authored the Declaration of Independence with the intent that this new government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” succeeds because they were aware of where alternatives lead.

Your personal role of prayer and action is vital!

Excerpts from a recent Marjorie Dannenfelser Susan B Anthony op ed:

“Governor Romney has made firm commitments to protect the unborn, their mothers, and pro-life American taxpayers…After last week’s ruling upholding Obamacare, which includes the largest expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion since Roe, it is clearer than ever how important it is that the president appoint strict constitutionalist justices. Governor Romney has pledged to “only appoint judges who adhere to the Constitution and the laws as they are written, not as they want them to be written.”

The Manhattan Declaration is a non-partisan statement of conscience in defense of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom. Visit us online at www.manhattandeclaration.org

“Though the ruling does indeed provide the final word on the constitutionality of certain provisions of the law, including the crucial “individual mandate,” we must remember what it does not say. [It] says nothing about the contraception mandate, nor does it address the question of abortion funding. Lawsuits on these specific questions continue to make their way through the justice system.”

“Had the law been struck down these questions would be moot. But now, more than ever, advocates of life and the rights of religious conscience must pray for justice and support our partners in the legal battle.”

Reminder: July 4th Rockland County Adoration & Mass

The annual event at the Marian Shrine in Stony Point. Always a beautiful event!

 

A Morning of Prayer for America.

Marian Shrine      Filors Lane, Stony Point, NY

10am. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

11:15am Rosary

12 noon Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Directions to Marian Shrine

Palisades Pkwy. northbound to exit 14. Make a right, go to stop sign. Shrine is on the right approximately 3/4 mile.

Or;

Rte 9W northbound and make a left onto Filors Lane. The shrine is approximately a mile on the left.

For more information: 845-429-2077