PO Box 20203, Washington, D.C. 20041
2008 February
PNCI Commends Pro-Life Action in Brazil
PNCI congratulates the pro-life fronts in Brazil for their vision, encouragement, and support for pro-life elected officials from states and cities. The actions and work of the Parliamentary Front in Defense of Life- Against Abortion and the Parliamentary Front Against the Legalization of Abortion, is an excellent model and one that PNCI recommends to other countries to help ensure protection of unborn children and their mothers from the violence of abortion at all levels of government.
First Brazilian Congress of Parliamentarians and Governors for Life
Pro-life parliamentarians in Brazil are leading an effort to build pro-life unity, support, and action throughout the populous country, the largest in Latin America. Two federal pro-life caucuses, the Parliamentary Front in Defense of Life- Against Abortion and the Parliamentary Front Against the Legalization of Abortion, organized a day long event for elected officials of all political parties from throughout Brazil.
The First Brazilian Congress of Parliamentarians and Governors for Life developed in response to a bill to legalize abortion that is currently in being considered by a committee in the Chamber of Deputies, and soon the entire Chamber. Federal Deputy Luiz Bassuma, president of the Parliamentary Front in Defense of the Life - Against Abortion and a member President Luiz Lula's socialist Worker's Party "criticized the politicians who are on the fence regarding the legalization of abortion and called on them to take a position against or in favor," according to the Chamber of Deputies press agency. Bassuma's message is strong and personal as he has suffered persecution and threatened expulsion from the Worker's Party for his steadfast and courageous stand for life.
Discussions in the historic meeting centered on activities of international organizations and UN agencies that seek to change Brazil's strict laws against abortion, which include tightly regulated life of the mother and rape exceptions. Deputy Iris de Araújo affirmed that the birth of a child is to be celebrated and that all members of society must unite to stop the approval of legalized abortion. Bassuma also quoted a September 2007 survey carried out by the Brazilian institute Datafolha, which showed that 87% of the Brazilian population is against abortion.
Speaking about the US experience of over 35 years of abortion on demand, US Rep. Chris Smith strongly encouraged the lawmakers and urged them to be resolute in defense of life. He cautioned Brazil not to follow the path of legal abortion which has resulted in the death of nearly 50 million unborn children in the US.
The congress concluded by issuing a proclamation - calling on the government to "make a great effort focused on maternity, placing all of the necessary aids at the disposal of pregnant women so that they can have a quality gestation from the medical point of view."
The proclamation will be delivered to the nation's Supreme Court, as well as to Brazilian President Lula and the presidents of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. The parliamentarians also rejected the use of the "Morning After Pill" and voiced opposition to destructive embryonic stem cell experimentation. Source: Life Site
Legislative News
Israel Considers Bill to Limit Abortions
Pro-life legislators in Israel have introduced legislation to stop abortions after the 22nd week of pregnancy. Discussion has begun in the Knesset and the first hearing is scheduled for early March. Parliamentarian Shas MK Nissim Zeev introduced the legislation stating: ""What goes on in Israel amounts to lawlessness. Fetuses are being murdered on a daily basis." Vocal opposition to abortion is growing and the Chief Rabbinic Council recently stated that abortion is a "grave sin" and established a committee to look at ways to reduce the abortion rate. The present government however, is opposed to the bill. Source: Life News
South Africa Votes to Increase Abortion Access
The South African parliament passed a bill this month that will permit nurses and midwives to perform abortions. The legislation further increases access to abortion by removing requirements, including the requirement that abortions be performed in hospitals. Pro-life groups strongly opposed and campaigned against this bill, arguing that it will allow 12 year old girls to obtain abortions up to 20 weeks without any limits, and further, that the bill fails to include any conscience protection for doctors and nurses. The legislation has been sent to President Thabo Mbeki for final approval. Source: Life News
Uruguay: Bill to Legalize Abortion Stalled in Committee
Uruguay legislators are debating bringing a bill to legalize abortion up for a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. This past November, the Uruguayan Senate passed the legislation and it is now pending in the Chamber's Public Health Committee. The Committee's president does not want to advance the legislation without the support of President Tabaré Vázquez, who has promised to veto any attempts to legalize abortion. If considered, the bill is expected to pass. Source: Life Site
Jamaica: Government Considering Legalizing Abortion
A Jamaican government committee is considering the legalization of abortion on demand up to 22 weeks of pregnancy in the Caribbean nation. A working group created by the Jamaican House of Representatives last month, the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group, bases its support to legalize abortion on a false belief that legalizing abortion will make it safe. Pro-life supporters refute this argument, highlighting the inaccuracy of the figures used to support this claim. Rather, they note, the government should focus on providing real solutions such as improved medical care and resources for pregnant women. Source: Life News
Australia and Luxembourg: Legislation Advances to Legalize Euthanasia
Two Australian governments are considering legislation to allow euthanasia. The federal Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in the Northern Territory and the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Act 2008 in the state of Victoria would both permit assisted suicide for terminal patients. Right to Life Association's Margaret Tighe noted these types of policies are just the beginning, and that they are "the most dangerous public policy for any government to be embracing, or to allow it to be embraced". Tighe said the law simply "leads to legalised patient killing". The Labour Party, which took the majority this past December, is expected to advance a liberal social agenda this year.
Similarly, this month Luxembourg became the third country in the EU to pass legislation legalizing euthanasia. Despite strong opposition from the Social Christian Party, the Catholic Church, and the majority of the medical community, the bill passed and is on track to become law, unless it fails to pass the second reading this summer. It will join the Netherlands and Belgium in allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide.
In a Vatican conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life this month, Pope Benedict XVI emphasized that the growing pressure for euthanasia is a result of population control which often leaves the elderly with little or no family members to care for them in their final days. Condemning euthanasia in all its forms, he emphasized that all society "is called to respect the life and dignity of the seriously ill and the dying."
End of life ethicist Wesley Smith warns about this growing trend and points to the International Palliative Care Initiative of Open Society Institute as promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide worldwide with funding by billionaire George Soros. Smith states, "Toward this end, Soros has donated millions to groups promoting the cause—which I believe to be an ultimately abandoning policy that implicitly tells people with terminal illnesses and other serious conditions that their lives are not as valuable or worth protecting as those of other people."
Executive News
Peru: Legalizing Abortion Through a "Protocol"
The Regional Health Management of the southern region of Arequipa, Peru has approved a "protocol" that will essentially legalize abortion without debate or vote by the legislature. Under this protocol, doctors can perform abortions without penalty under a broad definition of a woman's "health," which includes 24 various medical conditions as exemptions to the penal code and a broad mental health exemption that will lead to abortion on demand.
This "back door" approach to legalizing abortion under the guise of therapeutic abortion is advanced by US NGOs including Planned Parenthood Federation and Ipas, and is of great concern as a strategy for introducing legalized abortion in pro-life countries around the world. Source: LifeSite
Judicial News
Mexico Sees First Death from Legal Abortion as Court Decision Nears
A fifteen year old girl died this month from hemorrhaging after a legal abortion at Balbuena Hospital in Mexico City. This is the first death from an abortion following its legalization in Mexico City last year, and it heightens calls for a reversal of the law as the Mexican Supreme Court prepares to review its constitutionality. Ipas, along with other pro-abortion groups are preparing for public hearings the Court will hold in support of or opposition to the new law.
Issues
Ending the Life of a Newborn: "Prestigious" Bioethics Journal Supports Infanticide
A recent report published in the prestigious bioethics journal The Hastings Center Report promotes the killing of infants born with disabilities. Authors Hilde Lindemann and Marian Verk defend the controversial Dutch protocol known The Groningen Protocol for Euthanasia in Newborns that laid out guidelines for infanticide, and justify the killing of newborns based on the criteria of current or future pain and suffering, and overall quality of life. They write, "The whole point of the protocol is to help physicians end the lives of newborns who are so severely afflicted that neither their dying nor their living should be prolonged."
Conservative bioethicist Wesley Smith responded to the report, condemning it for placing infanticide in the mainstream saying, "With personhood theory and the 'quality of life' ethic increasingly permeating the highest levels of the medical and bioethical intelligentsia, we are moving toward a medical system in which babies are put down like dogs and killing is redefined as compassion."
Reaction to the report has been swift with disability activists taking great exception to the guidelines. The authors do not agree with those who recommend the use of pre-natal screening to detect disabilities in the unborn child followed by abortion. Rather, they suggest it is wiser to destroy the child after birth if it is determined that the child has poor prospects of a "satisfactory" life. Lindemann and Verkerk also explain that the newborn can be killed if it is determined that he or she will suffer in the future even if there is no suffering in the present. Source: Life Site
Film Demographic Winter Profiles International Underpopulation Crisis
Pro-life groups including the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council, World Congress of Families, and the Latin American Alliance for the Family have released a documentary profiling the world's underpopulation crisis. Entitled Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family, the documentary highlights the declining birthrates across Europe, Russia, and Japan. According to the film's sponsors, "There are now 59 nations, with 44% of the world's population, with below replacement birthrates." This catastrophic decline in the birthrate will result in a significant shortfall in the workforce unable to support a growing elderly population. Source: Life News
************************************
The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI) is committed to networking members of democratically-elected legislatures in efforts to advance respect for the inherent value, worth, and inviolable dignity of every human being from the first moment of existence. PNCI issues the Parliamentary Network E-News to provide lawmakers, and those who work with them, news from various sources on the international threat to pro-life laws and current legislative and judicial actions on critical life issues challenging parliamentarians around the world. PNCI is a project of Life Issues Institute.
All news articles include links to original source. PNCI cannot verify that the information contained in the news articles is accurate. info@pncius.org
