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12-Year-Old Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, She Has No Regrets 23 Years Later
Lianna Rebolledo was only 12-years-old when she was brutally raped by two men near her home. At the hospital, doctors told her she was pregnant and advised her to have an abortion. However, Lianna decided to keep her baby after she asked the doctor if abortion would ease her pain and he replied ‘no.’
She said, “If abortion wasn’t going to heal anything, I didn’t see the point. I just knew that I had somebody inside my body. I never thought about who her biological father was. She was my kid. She was inside of me.”
Read more on Lifenews.com
On defective babies, defective choices by Marie Benoit
On October 1995, the Daily Mail ran a pair of articles on the same day jointly entitled “Should Melanie destroy her twins?” Columnist Polly Toynbee, said yes. No, said Dominic Lawson, then editor of The Spectator, whose wife had given birth to a Down’s syndrome child. Melanie and her husband, columnist Brian Astbury had conceived Siamese twins. The Astburys said no to abortion. “Our babies will be born out of love and into love. Everything else rests with fate and the surgeon’s skills.’“ The twins were born prematurely and joined from the breastbone to the navel. There was heartbreak of course for both children could not live as Siamese twins.
They were, operated and seemed to be doing well However, in the end the twins died.
Anyone who has seen the film The Elephant Man will never forget the moving portrayal of John Merrick, played so sensitively by John Hurt. It is the true story of a man in Victorian England who became known as the Elephant Man because of his terrible deformities.
Merrick was discovered in a circus freak show by Dr Frederick Treves, a surgeon at London Hospital. Dr Treves also a lecturer in anatomy, initially took a professional interest in Merrick’s grotesquely enlarged skull, abnormal curvature of the spine, and the elephant-like fibrous growth which covered 90 percent of his body. Treves’ professional interest soon developed into a warm and compassionate friendship with this very special individual.
Merrick had been abandoned by his mother ‘who had the face of an angel’
‘I must have been a great disappointment for her. If only I could find her so she could see me with such lovely friends as I now have. Perhaps she could love me as l am. I’ve tried so hard to be good.’ says Merrick at one point. Merrick had yet to convince others that his life was worth living. As if in response to their characterization of him as a worthless freak of nature Merrick cries out: ‘I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being!’ Merrick cannot be cured of his ailments but
Dr. Treves tells him: ‘We can care for you!’ Resigned to his fate, Merrick reassures the physician and friend: ‘l am happy every hour of the day. My life is full because I know that I am loved.’
The Elephant Man gently but resoundingly rebukes society which has come to accept the so-called eugenic abortions of deformed foetuses, and in some cases even the death of new-borns found to be handicapped.
His is the story of we so poorly misjudge the quality of human life – how we judge people by their package. His is the story of how we make such indefensible moral choices. For it’s not how we decide in individual cases whether life is ‘worth living’, but it is the very fact that we presume to make such a decision about people which strips us of our own humanity.
The argument that women must have the right to choose an abortion because they might be faced with a deformed foetus is morally bankrupt because it wrongly assumes that the handicapped are not worthy of living.
Although genetic testing has its positive side and leads to the diagnosis of diseases that cause pain disability and death, technology is rapidly becoming available to produce designer babies. There will always be parents who out of ego or some perverse view of children as a perfect product, want to pick and choose genes according to a master plan. Should society encourage that or even allow it?
The problem, of course, is the prenatal test. Abortion naturally follows as what is seen as to be a benign, humanitarian test. It is the test that women are now taking for granted.
They have the test in order to determine whether to paint the nursery pink or blue, or in the alternative, whether to kill the child, who, but for the test, would have slept in nursery. Can that make any sense at all? The natural concern of parents that a much-wanted child should be healthy has been translated into killing children who are not healthy.
When death is the foregone conclusion for those foetuses who don’t measure up, how can we possibly say that we have benefited from the test – apart from allaying anxiety of expectant parents with healthy foetuses?
Moreover the test, like everything else, are subject to human error. How many babies have been aborted following an erroneously interpreted result?
In years past, families did not discover the child’s disability until she or he was born. Nor was there disappointment accompanied by medical possibility of ending that life before birth. But now the option made available to the family are soul –wrenching.
It’s all well and good that those of us who have never been in their shoes can see a silver lining to the dark cloud of disability, but for the family the dark cloud remains.
In light of the obvious burden to the parents, we must ask ourselves we are being when we argue for abortion on the basis of the child’s suffering, if he or she is allowed to live.
Honesty would compel the parents to admit that it is their hardship that they wish to avoid. And while no one would blame them for wanting to avoid that hardship, we are entitled to ask whether the killing of an unborn child can be justified fairly on that basis.
If there are parents of handicapped children who possibly say to themselves, ‘I wish that my child had never been born, they are not alone. There are parents of dangerous criminals, drug addicts and merely insolent or disrespectful children who would join me in that chorus.
But rarely will you ever hear the disabled themselves telling us that they wish they had never been born. Family hardship simply cannot outweigh the sanctity of human life itself. What is needed is a
society that offers the family of a disabled child the financial support and round-the-clock assistance with care. Can any parental hardship justify the killing of an innocent human being?
No matter our religious beliefs, the idea of saving the weakest is fundamental to the moral order of society.
And now the anonymous Pro-Choice Malta is calling lawmakers to give women the right to choose to have an abortion even when the child is healthy. Of course abortion has been going on in our country for ages. I recall interviewing Fr. Charles Vella, then of the Cana Movement, for The Sunday Times of Malta in the early seventies about abortion in Malta. Women who want an abortion have been going abroad for ages. But if we legislate, we will open the gates of hell and make abortion easier.
It is heartening to know the the President of Malta told a delegation of Pro-Life advocates that her government would never legalise abortion and as president she would never sign such legislation.
Virtually every piece of abortion legislation throughout the Western world permits termination of a pregnancy where the life of the mother is threatened. The principle is based on the choice of the evil between two possible victims, both of whom are innocent. In such a case, the life of the mother with her already existing relationships, and possibly other children to take care of – prevails over the nascent life of the unborn. So clear is the principle that virtually no pro-life advocate would dispute it. On this point, pro-choice and pro-life advocates are in agreement.
Yet pro-choice advocates attempt to capitalise on this one obvious exception in order to justify abortion for any cause. But cases when a choice has to be made between the life of the mother or the life of the baby are a rare exception perhaps no more than one-tenth of one percent of all abortions. Even when a mother’s life is threatened, the baby can typically be delivered sufficiently early to avoid fatal consequences to either the child or the mother.
Abortion attacks the very weakest, whether they are disabled or not. Those whom Matthew’s Gospel called ‘The least of these.’ Our business is not to eliminate them for whatever reason. We have to make sure that abortion is not legalised in Malta. Abortion is murder.
Il-Konfuzjoni ta’ l-Identita tal-Generu fit-tlett minuti
Humanity of human embryo
The Health Parliamentary Secretariat has announced it will be “evaluating IVF legislation within the context of outcomes of current regulations, new local legislation involving various sectors of the Maltese community and recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights”.
The statement is in itself already misleading, because it should be referring to the Embryo Protection Act and not, in a general, sweeping manner, to IVF legislation. The title of the law enshrines the protection of the embryo in the law itself. It acknowledges the human right of the human embryo, who is none other than the pre-born child, to life. Any amendments proposed need to be loyal to this.
The title of the law enacted three years ago speaks for itself and should remain so, no matter what proposals are made.
The scope of the Embryo Protection Act is the protection of the human embryo and not access to IVF. Hence, although it provides a framework to regulating assisted procreation, it does so with the rights of the human embryo in mind.
It safeguards the human embryo from abuse, manipulation, selection and freezing. It is limited to couples, based on natural law, which, in itself, provides that a male and female are required for new life to ensue. Hence, the law does not de facto discriminate against gay couples because, by the same law, single people are also excluded from access to IVF.
The scope of the Embryo Protection Act is the protection of the human embryo and not access to IVF
Who, on the ad hoc Legislation Review Working Committee, is voicing the concerns of the unborn child and defending its human rights to be treated as a human being and not just as a commodity to be made use of, scrapped, used for experiments or thrown away on a decision taken by a few individuals?
It is pertinent to ask what the role of the Embryo Protection Authority, established three years ago as regulator, is in this legislation review.
The preservation of the female egg, instead of the embryo, considered to be the first cell of a new human being, eliminates legal and ethical problems of ownership. The female gamete (unfertilised egg) belongs to the female, as opposed to the embryo, which belongs to both partners.
The ethical and legal issues involved during the process of embryo freezing, which no court is comfortable with when deciding on the matter of who owns the frozen embryo, are eliminated when oocyte (egg) vitrification is opted for.
Complex problems of a legal nature result when split couples enter into acrimonious battles over ownership of the embryo, due to the negative aspects of embryo freezing.
The increasing lucrative business practices by groups that are making money out of surrogate mothers cannot be ignored either.
What about the consequences to individuals conceived through an IVF donor?
As has been already indicated in the local media, many adults aged 18 to 45 conceived in this manner struggle deeply with their identity as a result of not knowing their biological father and the lack of human dignity in the manner in which they have been conceived.
Besides these, there are other consequences, including depression, delinquency and substance abuse, among other problems, once they are aware that they exist only as a commodity for adults at the expense of their basic human needs.
Adoption should be an alternative that can offer a win-win situation respecting the dignity of the child if it provides the necessary environment for a child to be brought up in a stable environment, where there is no manipulation of nature and where the child’s basic need for love for his or her own sake are paramount.
This moves beyond the selfish needs of the adoptive parents, whether they are of the same sex or heterosexual.
It must be emphasised that the law, as it stands, respects the dignity of the human embryo.
It treats the unborn child with the respect that he or she deserves. Today, in Malta, we have a lot of children that have been born through IVF and they are themselves testimony to the humanity of the human embryo.
We have a law that works, that is giving great results without abusing the nascent human life.
It should not be changed to satisfy the whims of any ideology or individual if it is to remain true to its name and protect the human embryo as its primary prerogative.
Grace Attard is a member of Pro-life Network.
Press Release – Pro-Life Malta
“Without entering into any controversies of a civil, political or religious nature, any person who is embedded with right reason, the reason which is written in the hearts of man, and who believes in the intrinsic and basic value of life, knows that life starts at natural conception and ends with natural death. This is the belief of LifeNetwork Foundation – endorsing value to every life, which has been established last year in order to promote and protect life. We invite you to celebrate Life, not the culture of death which is currently being proposed, and to visit and express your Life views on our website www.staging-lifenetwork.stagingcloud.co and www.facebook.com/lifenetworkeu page ……………….”
Does The Contraceptive “Pill” Affect Brain Functioning?
A recent research study has found that women taking oral contraceptives are attracted to faces that look less masculine. Anthony Little and colleagues found that after about three months on the “pill”, women started to prefer men who look more feminine. The figure below shows the face of a man (top row) and a woman (bottom row). The women on the “pill” preferred the man’s face on the left to the one on the right. They did not have any specific preference between the women’s faces however. The faces below are digitally altered so the right images look more masculine than the left ones.
Dr Craig Roberts of the University of Stirling and others have recently reviewed a growing body of research showing that the choice of partner a woman makes changes through the menstrual cycle. At the time of ovulation, when a woman is most fertile, she prefers a more masculine and genetically unrelated man. The “pill“ removes this natural preference and women on the pill show instead a preference for men with more feminine facial appearance and voice. Craig Roberts says that these studies taken together show that oral contraceptives alter women’s mate preference judgments. They have the potential to influence the partner that a single woman chooses. If a woman stops using oral contraceptives her attraction to her partner may also alter. A further factor that could affect the stability of marriage is that partnered women report higher levels of jealousy when on the “pill”. This was recently reported in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior by Kelly Cobey and colleagues. Oral contraceptive use could ultimately affect the stability of relationships.
It is possible that these factors could explain a link between the contraceptive pill and divorce. The contraceptive pill was first marketed in 1960 and by 1965, 26% of married women in the USA had used it. The divorce rate started to increase about 5 years later and doubled from 25% to 50%, between 1965 and 1975 (see figure). In 1978, Robert Michael of Stanford University showed that contraceptive use accounted for 45% of this increase in divorce. These new data make further research on the link between divorce and the “pill” essential and urgent. (Figure from http://www.thatmarriedcouple.com/2013/02/contraception-correlations.html)
Neurobiological research is beginning to reveal that oral contraceptives produce alterations in several fundamental brain processes. For example, combined oral contraceptives alter sexual desire in 23% of users (15% decreased and 8% increased). Also about 10% of women on the pill have disturbances of mood, like depression, and it was found that in these women, the normal response to emotion is decreased in some brain areas on functional brain imaging.
We are increasingly finding out that oral contraceptives have widespread effects on brain pathways, quite apart from their direct effects on the body. The fact that the pill is taken regularly on a daily basis for a long period of time, means that a woman’s behaviour is effectively altered over a very important part of their lives emotionally, a time when they are making choices about a lifelong partner. Since the brain pathways affected include those that are central to mate preference and emotional learning there is a danger that use of the “pill” may negatively influence the choice of partner. It is important that women are fully educated about these effects of the oral contraceptive and the potentially devastating effects they could have on their lives.
Dr Patrick Pullicino
Values and rights
It has become increasingly obvious that society is going to face very serious problems due to the manner in which values and rights are being reinterpreted to suit all and sundry as political parties jettison principles in a mad scramble for votes.
The recent referendum on gay ‘marriage’ in Ireland and the decision of the US Supreme Court are an indication of how laws legalising new rights are decided either through a majority vote or by the judiciary or, as in the recent cases of France and England, by parliamentary majorities.
Malta now remains the only European country that bans abortion, yet advocates for its legalisation are becoming more open, brazen and vocal.
A perfect example of the corruption of the real meaning of human rights is illustrated by the history of Amnesty International. This organisation was founded in the early 1960s by a Catholic convert, Peter Benenson. It disseminated the names of prisoners of conscience and the addresses of their captors. In this manner, over the years, it mobilised professional people, students, housewives and people from all walks of life to become not only benefactors but direct participants by writing letters in an effort to free victims of brutal regimes.
Sadly, this NGO, which had won such widespread support and been so effective in targeting human rights abuses, has decided to adopt what it considers a new right, the right to abortion. Until not so long ago, the right to life was universally recognised. Yet abortion has been legalised in most countries, even in European countries that had a long Christian tradition.
This should not be so surprising. One has only to look at not-so-distant history to see how the pagan, racist philosophy of Nazism that grew so rapidly to corrupt the democratic process in Germany, justified the killing of the unfit and handicapped, the brutal extermination of its opponents and finally widespread genocide that led to the infamous Holocaust.
Apparently, we have not learnt any lessons from history and seem convinced that democracy will inevitably guarantee basic values. Yet democracy, which rests on the will of the majority, is showing again and again that human dignity and human rights are no longer guaranteed, and that the rights of the most vulnerable are at risk.
Democracy has been reduced to giving a carte blanche to those in power, the stronger, those who have the skills, the money and the right influential connections to win the majority over to their own views. As long as the majority of people are assured that their self-interest is secured and that they are free to pursue their desires of self-gratification, a government is assured of votes and power. And power has a very intoxicating allure.
We have seen how majority decisions have led to the legislation of divorce, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and abortion in many countries. It has also allowed the right to scorn with impunity what many people regard as holy. All this, of course, is permitted in the name of freedom of expression. But unfettered freedom, without responsibility and an accepted framework of clear ethical principles, is spawning a new regime of injustice and igniting a powder keg of callousness and hatred.
Amnesty International is already openly campaigning for liberalising abortion in Ireland after the recent referendum result on same-sex marriage. Malta now remains the only European country that bans abortion, yet advocates for abortion legislation are becoming more open, brazen and vocal. This all follows similar patterns and strategies that were adopted elsewhere.
Supposedly, the right to life is a universally recognised human right, and our understanding of unborn life is no longer what it was in the Middle Ages. We all have children, or children of friends and relatives whose first photos were taken in utero. There is no longer any doubt that abortion is killing.
But the electorate, like the mob, may just as well crucify an innocent man like Jesus and free a hardened criminal like Barabbas. That was a perfect example of how a very democratic decision could still be frightfully wrong.
We must make ourselves aware that it is crucial to have reference points that are not determined by politics and majority votes. It is undeniable that the State is there to safeguard the rights of each individual and the welfare of all without distinction. Yet it is painfully clear that even the majority of people are not aware what human rights are or what human dignity implies.
As Plato once reflected, truth is not a product of politics. Will our politicians have the integrity and humility to attempt to return to our Christian tradition and tap the wellsprings of its rational wisdom? Serious reflection on the values that underpin authentic human flourishing is an exercise we neglect at our peril. Sooner or later, our society will suffer the consequences.
Klaus Vella Bardon
Press Release
Life Network Foundation is very concerned with the recent declaration by one of the members of the youth executive section of the Nationalist Party, MZPN, whereas he expressed himself in favour of ABORTION. It transpires that this is not in line with the principles and values that the said Party has always believed in, based on Christian values which value the dignity of the person from its inception until natural death. It is of note that a similar declaration has recently been made by a high level exponent of the Labour Party.
Life Network Foundation believes that this declaration is another step in the attack on Christian values that Malta has always believed in, considering the recent legislation on gay adoptions and the Gender Identity Act that has seen unanimous approval in Parliament, and which implications of the Gender Identity Act have not been sufficiently explained to the Maltese people.
It appears that now an attack is being mounted on the silent life in the womb, which life must continue to be protected.