Children Asked About Abortion – OnlineForLife.org
What do you think children would say when asked about the reality of abortion? We asked, they responded.
Thanks to onlineforlife.org
EU Parliament to vote on the “right to abortion”
This campaign is a continuation of the campaign against the Tarabella report which was released last January 15, and managed to attract 60,413 signatures.
The European Parliament is about to vote on two reports that contain paragraphs that promote a so-called “right to abortion”. If these paragraphs are adopted, the European Parliament would both express support for abortion on behalf of the EU and overstep the competence of the EU, thereby treading on the principle of subsidiarity.
On 10 December 2013 the European Parliament rejected the so-called Estrela Report on “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” (SRHR). In its place, the Members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution that reaffirmed the principle of subsidiarity and clearly stated that “the formulation and implementation of policies on SRHR and on sexual education in schools is a competence of the Member States”.
The message is clear: the EU is not competent to decide on issues such as abortion or sexual education in schools. These are national competences and, by no means, issues to be decided on in Brussels.
Hundreds of thousands citizens opposed the Estrela Report in 2013! An important victory in favour of human dignity, subsidiarity and popular expression!
Important ground was won through this victory: thanks to the mobilisation of citizens across the European continent the European Parliament rejected a major attempt to promote a “right to abortion” at the EU level.
However, two reports are currently challenging the principle of subsidiarity as regards “SRHR” by pushing one of the Estrela report’s main points, namely a “right to abortion”.
The “Tarabella Report”: Mr Tarabella is the rapporteur of the annual European Parliament report on the equality between women and men in the European Union. A similar annual report was rejected in 2014, then known as the “Zuber report”. That report: “Maintains that women must have control over their sexual and reproductive health and rights, not least by having ready access to contraception and abortion” (paragraph 45).
Dr Deo Debattista – Pro-Life Practical Suggestions in Parliament
As an NGO committed to upholding and promoting life and human dignity, we welcome wholeheartedly the proposal made in Parliament for a pro-life clinic by the back bencher Dr. Deo Debattista on the 24th of February.
Anyone who loves peace and the common good cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life. We, therefore endorse and support any programmes that safeguard life, especially when it is at its most vulnerable.
For his practical suggestion of providing assistance to expectant mothers in distress who consider abortion, Dr. Debattista deserves unreserved admiration and gets our full backing.
Dr. Miriam SCIBERRAS
Chairman Life Network
42nd anniversary since Roe vs Wade
Since 22nd January, 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand through Roe v. Wade, abortion has been responsible for the deaths of over 53 million innocent American lives. It is estimated that the ongoing abortion genocide is the equivalent of five world wars running at the same time. Around 800 abortions are carried out every working day in the UK .Besides, for every child who dies in an abortion there is at least one other victim–the mother of that child. Most post abortive women find they have not only allowed the destruction of the lives of their unborn children but also damage to their own lives.
On this anniversary, a day written in the black history of humankind, Malta pays tribute to the victims of abortion worldwide and honours the children that others so fit to call “trash.” Life Network honours all the courageous pro-lifers worldwide who work to expose the brutality of abortion, for it is only in exposing abortion for what it really is that people can see the inhumane, barbaric procedures that slaughter the innocent babies in the womb in the name of “choice”.
As a newly registered pro-life, pro-family movement, Life Network, will endeavour to work towards promoting a culture of life in Malta. Malta has to withstand the increasing pressures from the other EU countries promoting abortion .We must also dare to be proactive and work towards reversing the tide outside our shores. Our European unborn brothers and sisters depend on us!
Dr Miriam Sciberras
Chairman Life Network
Polish bishops blast directive ordering all EU states to allow abortion-causing drugs
European Commission’s directive mandating that the ellaOne morning-after pill be made available over the counter in all EU member states cannot be followed in Poland because it violates the Criminal Code, Poland’s bishops have warned.
The statement prepared by the Polish Episcopate’s Bioethics Panel of Experts points out that there are “several fundamental distortions” about both the function of the drug and the legality of the EU directive.
The directive authorizes the prescription-free sale of ellaOne, a pill containing the drug ulipristal acetate. The pill is marketed as an emergency contraceptive, but can also act as an abortifacient. It currently requires a doctor’s prescription in Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, and Greece.
The bishops’ statement explains that the drug has “a dual mechanism” in that it is “similar to the formulation used in medical abortion (mifepristone), which modifies the functions of the progesterone receptor … resulting in the expulsion of the human embryo from the mother and his death,” which is effectively an abortion rather than contraception.
“Secondly, of course, is a potential blocking of ovulation. Both mechanisms destroy the physiological processes that allow the proper maintenance of the pregnancy or its creation.”
“With regard to the legal aspect,” the bishops state, “it should be emphasized that the assertion of the existence of a Polish obligation [to follow this directive] is completely untrue.”
“It should also be noted that the use of the product, which results in the death of the embryo, can without doubt be considered illegal and punishable behavior in the light of the Polish Criminal Code, and unacceptable in the light of the principle of the protection of human dignity, a declaration of article 30 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, from which act no exceptions are allowed.”
Healing the Wounds of the Culture of Death
Every January our attention is turned in a particular way to the pro-life message. It is the time when we recall in a particular way the tragic anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy for virtually any reason. Contemplating this blight on the American soul can be pretty staggering.
Approximately 57 million abortions have occurred over the past 42 years, a number that is difficult to fathom. How can we picture these numbers? One way is to think of it as one-in-three. In speaking to high school students, for example, they are often impacted by the notion that for every three of them in the classroom, there is a missing person: one-third of their potential classmates that they will never get to know in this life.
It’s also been said that if we were to look out at our congregation on a Sunday morning, there might be, on average, one person in every pew who has somehow been affected by abortion – whether themselves directly, or a friend or loved one who has suffered so much pain.
Baby Screamed During Live-Birth Abortion, We Can’t Forget This Baby’s Cries
Members of Congress next week have an opportunity to right a travesty of injustice. Every day in the United States, babies are silently screaming in late-term abortions that deprive them of their right to life.
As Congressman Trent Franks told LifeNews.com recently, “More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who can not only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia.”
“Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them,” he said.
Not all babies scream silently during abortions. The cries of some babies are hear loud and clear.
A former employee at the abortion clinic Kermit Gosnell ran in Philadelphia described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion. Abortion clinic employee Sherry West described an incident which “really freaked (her) out” and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion.
West remembered how she referred to the dead children killed in these gruesome abortion procedures as “specimens” so she could avoid the mental trauma associated with knowing how they died. As local media reported:
Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.”
When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.
“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.
West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.
Congress has an opportunity next week to hear the screams of aborted babies and take action. Republicans in the House of Representatives will hold a vote on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade late this month on a marquee bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because unborn children feel intense pain in abortions.
This Mother of Four Was Fired From a Catholic Hospital Because of Her Pro-Life Views
In July 2013, Montserrat Balselles was dismissed from her job at a Catholic hospital because she didn’t want to participate in abortions and openly expressed her pro-life views. The medical facility she worked at, Hospital de la Santa Creu, is located in Spain and hired Balselles as an X-ray technician.
At the time of her dismissal, Ballsells had worked at the hospital for five years and had good relationships with her coworkers. However, when she started shared her pro-life views they began making fun of her faith and convictions.
Ballsells said,” They always joked and taunted me. They laughed at the church and said really offensive things to annoy me.”
Balselles, who describes herself as a Catholic activist, said she couldn’t believe that after five years at the hospital she was facing discrimination because of her views on abortion. She also explained that before the incident she hadn’t received any complaints about her work because of her willingness to do everything. Unfortunately, because of the loss of employment, Balselles and her four children were forced to move out of their home and onto the streets.
Read more here…
Pope’s Address at Meeting of Families in Manila
The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm. Be attentive, be attentive with the new ideological colonization.
[In Spanish] There is an ideological colonization that we have to be careful of that tries to destroy the family. It’s not born of the dream that we have with God from prayer and from the mission that God gives us. It comes outside. And that’s why I say it’s colonization. Let us not lose the freedom to take that mission forward that God has given us. And just as our peoples in a moment in their history were able to say no to the period of colonization, as families we have to be very wise and very strong with fortitude to these initiatives of ideological colonization that could destroy the families and to ask the intercession of St. Joseph, who is a friend of the angel, to know when to say yes and when to say no.
The pressures on family life today are many. Here in the Philippines, countless families are still suffering from the effects of natural disasters. The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration and the search for employment, and financial problems strain many households. While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality. This is the ideological colonization. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.
[In Spanish] I think of Blessed Paul VI, in a moment of that challenge of the growth of populations, he had the strength to defend openness to life. He knew the difficulties that families experienced and that’s why in his encyclical, he expressed compassion for particular cases. And he taught professors to be particularly compassionate with particular cases. But he went further. He looked to the peoples beyond. He saw the lack and the problem it could cause families in the future.
Paul VI was courageous, he was a good pastor and he warned his sheep about the wolves that were approaching. And from the heavens, he blesses us today.
Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines needs holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of the family in God’s plan and to be a support and example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as Saint John Paul II often said, passes through the family (cf.Familiaris Consortio, 85). The future passes through the family! So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you.
Finally, the Gospel we have heard reminds us of our Christian duty to be prophetic voices in the midst of our communities. Joseph listened to the angel of the Lord and responded to God’s call to care for Jesus and Mary. In this way he played his part in God’s plan, and became a blessing not only for the Holy Family, but a blessing for all of humanity. With Mary, Joseph served as a model for the boy Jesus as he grew in wisdom, age and grace (cf. Lk 2:52). When families bring children into the world, train them in faith and sound values, and teach them to contribute to society, they become a blessing in our world. A family can become a blessing to the world. God’s love becomes present and active by the way of love and by the good works that we do. We extend Christ’s kingdom in this world. And in doing this, we prove faithful to the prophetic mission which we have received in baptism.
During this year which your bishops have set aside as the Year of the Poor, I would ask you, as families, to be especially mindful of our call to be missionary disciples of Jesus. This means being ready to go beyond your homes and to care for our brothers and sisters who are most in need. I ask you especially to show concern for those who do not have a family of their own, in particular those who are elderly and children without parents. Never let them feel isolated, alone and abandoned, but help them to know that God has not forgotten them.
[In Spanish]: I was very moved by the Mass today, when I visited that that home for children who had no parents. How many people in the Church work so that that house can become a home, a family! This is what it means to take forward prophetically the mission of the family.
You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his Church. Do not hide your faith, do not hide Jesus, but carry him into the world and offer the witness of your family life!
Dear friends in Christ, know that I pray for you always! I pray today for the families. I do it! I pray that the Lord may continue to deepen your love for him, and that this love may manifest itself in your love for one another and for the Church. Don’t forget Jesus sleeping, don’t forget Joseph sleeping. Jesus slept under the protection of Joseph. Don’t forget to sleep is the prayer. Don’t forget the prayer of the family.
Pray often and take the fruits of your prayer into the world, that all may know Jesus Christ and his merciful love. Please, sleep also for me, pray also for me, for I truly need your prayers and will depend on them always!
Thank you very much!
[Original text: English]
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