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International
Right to Life Federation, Inc.
Vol.
14 No. 6
(November/December, 2003)
UN Vote on Cloning Delayed
The big day was 6 November 2003. The final vote was
to be taken. On one side was the Costa Rican resolution
now being supported by a majority of the nations in
the UN. On the other side were the proponents of a
partial ban on cloning that would allow "clone
and kill" i.e. creation of living humans for
research purposes, who then would be killed. Coming
from the sidelines was a coalition of Islamic nations
stating that they really didn't yet have a firm position
and that they wanted more time to study it. Apparently
reading the tea leaves, the clone and kill group,
headed by Britain, France and Germany, saw that they
were going to lose. So at the last moment, they threw
their support to the Islamic resolution, which passed
80 to 79. What this does is simply postpone the entire
debate for two more years. Our hope is that by that
time, enough information will have been accumulated
that the side for life will then prevail.
UNICEF-Good Guys or Bad Guys?
This used to be a major United Nations effort to help
children and to improve child survival. In recent
years it has moved steadily in the direction of radical
anti-life and anti-family policies. Recently a high-ranking
UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) official called for the
legalization of prostitution. Urban Jonsson also called
for UNICEF to "make condoms available for everybody,
everywhere and at all times." Specifically, he
urged UNICEF to take actions to "decriminalize
sex work and facilitate the organization of sex workers."
He stated that such moves must be made in the near
future if we are to win the war against HIV/AIDS.
In many countries a major fundraising event has been
their Christmas collection. If your country is one
of these, best you think twice before contributing.
UNESCO Strongly Pro-Abortion
A UNESCO (UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization)
document entitled, "Unwanted Pregnancy and Unsafe
Abortion" has just been revealed. It specifically
states, "governments should make abortion legal,
safe and affordable." Further, "Legislature
should remove legal restrictions to access of abortion
and family planning services to adolescents."
And further, "Wherever the law allows, government
should guarantee the privacy of those seeking abortion
services, especially adolescent women." It also
states, "It is common to require adolescents
to obtain parental consent for abortion…this
alone can dissuade an adolescent from seeking a proper
medical procedure…" In an accompanying document
entitled, "Review of International Standards
for Rights of the Child and Adolescent Rights,"
UNESCO describes how to pressure a nation that has
not embraced this "adolescent reproductive rights"
revolution. It states that it is now possible "to
hold countries accountable on the basis of human rights
violations at the UN office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights and through its Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women. For further detailed information, consult C-FAM
at c-fam@c-fam.org.
Partial-Birth Abortion Forbidden
In November, President George Bush signed into law
a ban on partial-birth abortion. Such a ban had been
passed twice before by the U.S. Congress but President
Clinton had vetoed both laws. Not unexpectedly, pro-abortion
forces challenged this new ban in court. Preliminary
injunctions were issued to prevent it from being enforced.
Pleadings in court are to be held in March.
Canada Close to Allowing Clone and Kill
On 29 October, the lower house of the Canadian Parliament
passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act by a vote
of 149 to 109. This bans human cloning for reproduction.
It still allows human cloning for research, which
would mean that these new humans could be killed in
their first days of life. It bans the creation of
animal-human hybrids. It prohibits the sale of human
sperm or ovum. It forbids paying a fee for surrogate
mothers and sets some limits on in-vitro fertilization
and embryonic research. A liberal member of parliament,
Tom Wappel, said "It strikes me as utterly macabre
to be legislating permission to experiment on humans."
That's exactly what this bill does.
Kentucky Success Story
In 1991, in the State of Kentucky, 9,590 abortions
were reported. They have been steadily declining.
In 2002, 3,502 preborn babies lost their lives. As
has been the experience in other states, almost 50%
were repeat abortions.
Another success in Kentucky was the recent election
of pro-life Ernie Fletcher as governor.
More United Nations Law-Making
Some years ago, the United States refused to sign
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every
nation in the world except the U.S. and Sudan has
since signed this international treaty. The U.S.'s
reason for not signing was that it feared that it
would surrender its national sovereignty and ability
to control its own laws. This has now been clearly
shown once again in Canada. This UN committee has
just instructed Canada to "adopt legislation
to remove the existing authorization of the use of
'reasonable force' in disciplining children."
It says Canada should "explicitly prohibit all
forms of violence against children, however light,
within the family, in schools and in other institutions
where children might be placed." Translating
this fancy language, what it says is that this international
body has now interfered with Canada's sovereignty
and is telling them that they must pass a law to make
spanking of a child a crime.
Japan-Birthrate Lowest Ever
According to its Ministry of Health there were 1,153,000
infants born in 2002, a decrease of 17,000 from the
previous year. The health ministry said that this
is due to women waiting longer to have children, late
marriages and fewer marriages. There were 43,000 fewer
marriages in 2002 than the previous year. There were
also 4,000 more divorces than the previous year. It
noted that Japan's total population is expected to
peak in 2005 and that this "casts doubt on whether
future generations will be able to support the swelling
ranks of elderly people." Policy makers are considering
publicly funding fertility treatments and matchmaker
services to increase the birthrate. One simple move
that they have not mentioned is to quit killing babies
in abortion. Why not give this a try?
Manual Vacuum Aspiration Abortions
As all international workers know, Johns Hopkins University
is the epicenter of a significant percent of the pro-abortion
aid and propaganda from the United States to underdeveloped
nations. It is no surprise then that they have published,
in the October issue of the International Journal
of Gynecology and Obstetrics, a report recommending
the use of this "low-tech" device. They
claim that it is "safe and effective, and can
be taught to doctors in developing nations to help
reduce unsafe abortions and their complications."
It was a small study, using this manual method on
only 73 women and the standard suction machine on
37 more. "No complications were reported in either
group." This is far too small a study to offer
any significant generalization for general public
use. Further, the manual method was done in the sterile
atmosphere of this extremely sophisticated medical
center. This bears almost no relationship to the conditions
under which it had been being used in third world
countries and certainly would continue to be used.
A procedure tested within such a sterile environment
will yield totally different results than that same
procedure used in a mud hut or primitive clinic in
a third world country. Our suggestion is that you
disregard these results as being a transparent attempt
at propaganda.
An RU 486 Death
We've previously reported that 18-year-old Holly Patterson
died as a result of complications from taking the
abortion drug, RU 486. The Alameda County, California,
coroner's office has now released his official autopsy
report. It states that she died because the drugs
did not produce a complete abortion. This caused a
massive systemic infection, septic shock, and her
death. She obtained this dangerous drug from a Planned
Parenthood office several days earlier. Despite her
death, this Planned Parenthood abortion mill is still
giving this drug to women.
EU-Embryonic Stem Cell Research
On 19 November, the European Parliament voted to support
embryonic stem cell research. Assuming this proposal
is confirmed, this means that the European Union will
fund research that will involve the direct killing
of four-day-old human embryos. The vote passed 298
to 241. Many EU member states, including Italy, Germany,
Austria, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg,
opposed this.
Career Women Have Fewer Pregnancies
The new book, Creating A New Life: Professional Women
and the Quest for Children, by Sylvia Hewletd, includes
information from surveys of over 1,000 professional
women between the ages of 28 and 55. All of these
women worked full-time or were self-employed and earned
incomes in the top 10% of their age group. One third
of these women were childless at age 40, but only
seven to eight percent of them preferred this. Among
those earning more than $100,000 per year, almost
half had no children, although one third of these
still said they wanted a child. On a sad note, 90%
of the women felt confident that they could get pregnant
after age 40. The New York Post, however, reports
that by age 40, half of a woman's eggs are abnormal,
and this increases to 90% by age 42. The risk of miscarriage
rises from 10% to 35% by age 40. What about assisted
reproductive technology? After age 40, only 3% to
5% undergoing ART successfully bear a child.
New York Times-Incredible Bias
Among pro-life activists, it is fully accepted that
the New York Times is the most biased pro-abortion,
major newspaper in America. A good example of this
was in their editorial following President Bush's
signing of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. They called
the bill a "stealthy attempt to roll back Roe
v. Wade." Stealthy? It's only been debated in
the public arena for the last six years. But let's
take apart their first paragraph.
"In lieu of the constitutionally required
exception for health" (No, it's not in the
Constitution. It's only there by a majority vote
of the Supreme Court), "the law substitutes
weakly supported legislative 'findings'" (Many,
many pages of medical documentation are attached
to the bill), "Unsurprisingly, this audacious
and medically and constitutionally suspect tactic
failed to persuade the judge." It goes on to
repeat the totally false charge that "the imprecise
wording would in fact outlaw common methods of abortion…before
fetal viability." The wording of the version
struck down by the Supreme Court several years ago
could be stretched to be called vague. Under no
stretch of legal imagination could the wording in
this bill be confused with other methods of abortion.
It was titled "Challenging a Mendacious Law."
According to Webster's Dictionary, "mendacious"
is defined as "lying, not truthful."
For our European friends, it should be noted that
the commonly read New York Herald Tribune is literally
the European edition of the New York Times, wholly
owned and written by it. So when you read it, read
it with the understanding that you might as well be
reading a newspaper published by Planned Parenthood.
Smoking and Cleft Palate
The Courier (22 September) has published a new study
by a Dundee University professor, Peter Mossey, who
has reported that 70% of 16-19 year old mothers with
children who had cleft palate, had been smokers. Cause
and effect?-not necessarily, but certainly a very
sobering association. Quit smoking ladies.
Tubal Pregnancy Common in IVF
Startling results were just announced at the annual
conference of the American Society for Reproductive
Medicine. Dr. David Keefe et al, from Brown University
in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, reported that 31%
of the women who had In Vitro Fertilization treatment
using frozen embryos developed tubal or ectopic pregnancies.
This was compared to 2% of women who underwent IVF
with fresh embryos. This amounted to "nearly
one-third of frozen embryo transfer pregnancies, 17
times more frequent than those seen with fresh IVF
cycles." The researchers were unable to give
a reason for this startling increase. But they did
say, "This study raises serious concerns and
needs to be investigated." The Times in London
(14 October) suggested that there was evidence that
freezing could alter the functioning of certain genes.
Bush Again Denies UNFPA Funds
At President Bush's request, U.S. Secretary of State,
Colin Powell, on 30 September, denied the UNFPA $25
million US in taxpayer funds. This is yet one more
cut in money for this strongly pro-abortion UN agency,
which supports China's coercive population control
program of forced abortions and sterilizations. Instead,
Bush announced that the money would be routed to groups
that provide basic health care assistance to impoverished
people-notably for child survival and maternal health
programs.
Defrocked?
According to Covenantnews.com, 10-10-03, a Russian
Orthodox Priest, Vladimir Enert has been defrocked.
The reason was that he allowed his church building
to be used for a homosexual marriage of two monks.
Church officials in Nizhninovgord, Russia said that
the chapel in which the men were married had been
so desecrated that it was then destroyed by a bulldozer
and the wreckage burned
Two Sets of Twins
An eighteen-year-old woman, Amanda Davis, in Dallas,
gave birth to quadruplets, but with an extraordinarily
rare twist. These were two sets of identical twins,
two boys and two girls. Odds for such an occurrence
are more than 1 in 35 million births. Her first doctor
urged her to kill two of them in the womb. She fiercely
resisted and now says "I hope he sees this in
the news." They weighed between one pound fourteen
ounces (1350 gm) and two pounds nine ounces (900 gm)
and are doing well.
International Outreach
Dr. and Mrs. Willke and Mr. Bert Dorenbos recently
attended and spoke at a major meeting in Budapest.
The largest delegations were from Ukraine, Russia,
Hungary and Romania. Additional countries represented
included Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,
The Czech Republic, Moldova, Belarus, Austria, Italy,
Israel, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Croatia,
Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland, Canada and the
United States. Besides an educational purpose, the
major thrust of the meeting was focused on establishing,
enlarging, and maintaining pregnancy help centers,
particularly in Eastern Europe.
From Budapest the Willkes went to Timisoara Romania
for several days of speaking and radio and TV appearances.
Australian Suicide Machine
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Queensland, Australia,
recently held a workshop to teach people about this
new machine. It is made from plastic containers, costs
about $20 US for materials and can be assembled in
thirty minutes. They state that it delivers a lethal
dose of carbon monoxide. A similar machine by the
Australian "Dr. Death" (Philip Nitschke)
was recently confiscated by authorities when he attempted
to bring one from Australia to San Diego. The U.S.
Hemlock Society gave him a grant of $20,000 to develop
his suicide machine.
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