re: "Conservatives Need Time To Rebuild" (Bulletin, 11/7/08) & "Shoring Up Conservatism" (Times of Trenton, 11/14/08)

(printed in the Times of Trenton as "A Better Choice for Help with Infertility" (12/22/08))

As per Gregory J. Sullivan, "Conservatives need to rebuild, and any worthwhile rebuilding must begin with a return to an emphasis on the cornerstone of American liberty: namely, the federal principle." At the deepest level of each of us - whether we call ourselves conservatives or progressives - there is an ingrained awe at the magnificence of the human creature. While some anesthetize themselves to this awareness, it remains the cornerstone to which we must call each other back. Absolute respect for each human being is what constitutes the true "line in the sand", over which we must not tred.

Though obscured by many, awareness that each human being is a magnificent work of art has been sensed throughout time and across cultures. Who is not moved to learn of the triumph of human will over adversity? Who but the most anesthetized is not moved by a young child's laughter or tears? As explained by the Judeo-Christian tradition, each of use was made in the very image and likeness of God!
Mr. Sullivan describes some of what has occurred in our time, through our failure to recognize each human life as a magnificent work of art: "The veritable explosion in reproductive technologies - for example, in vitro fertilization - has taken place with no debate about whether their use is a good or bad idea....advances in prenatal testing are increasing rapidly....babies determined to have a genetic deformity are often killed in abortions....The eugenic alternative, toward which we are relentlessly moving at present, is a world of custom-designed offspring valued not for their intrinsic worth but for their genetic superiority."

There are numerous moral objections to IVF, not least of which are its involvement of selective abortions of what seem to be weaker embryos and that "spare" embryos are set aside and frozen. Just in terms of helping infertile married couples to conceive, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System <http://www.fertilitycarefriends.org/> (aka NaPro Technology) boasts far greater success, without resorting to any immoral methodologies. It completely respects the magnificent works of art which is each wife, each husband, and each offspring.

‘Win-win’ for Planned Parenthood a Lose-Lose for Taxpayers (B.C. Courier Times, 12/12/08)

According to Jo Ciavaglia, Pennsylvania's new SelectPlan for Women "covers all forms of contraception and other reproductive care." The Department of Public Welfare maintains that this Medicaid waiver program does NOT finance abortions. Yet anyone with a basic understanding of biology has to acknowledge that certain "contraceptives" can work in abortifacient manners. For example, the "pill" can prevent implantation of a new embryo in her mom's uterus. Only a "Brave New World" use of language refers to this as "contraception", when it is obviously an early abortion.

Since Planned Parenthood doubles as the nation's largest abortion provider, its credibility is immediately suspect when it tries to sell the tired notion that still greater availability of contraceptives will reduce the number of abortions. Anyone breathing over the past four decades has seen that the astronomical increase in contraceptive availability has gone hand in hand with an astronomical increase in the demand for abortion. A sex-as-recreation attitude has become entrenched, which demands abortion as a backup for contraceptive failures.

The manufacture and distribution of contraceptives constitutes a multi-billion dollar, international industry. When Ms. Ciavaglia cites the Allen Guttmacher Institute to claim that "Cost is a major reason some women say they cannot use birth control consistently or at all," she fails to identify Allen Guttmacher as Planned Parenthood's research wing. For the year ending June 30, 2007, Planned Parenthood reported that 38% of its $356.9 million in health center income came from contraceptives. Planned Parenthood is not a disinterested bystander.

We are told that the marketing representative for Bucks County Planned Parenthood calls Select Plan a "win-win for the state." In Bucks County, all five "community partners" for SelectPlan sign-ups are Planned Parenthood facilities. Now, let's see how that works:

Planned Parenthood promotes an alleged need,

Planned Parenthood markets a product,

Planned Parenthood signs women up for government funding of the product, &

Planned Parenthood sells the product.

This cushy arrangement is a "win-win" only for Planned Parenthood! Forcing taxpayers to be complicit in promoting abortifacients is abolutely unjust. I strenuosly object to Planned Parenthood receiving any more of my tax money - not one more dime.

There are pro life crisis pregnancy centers for helping our fellow citizens, the first of which has just opened in Philadelphia. As reported by Erin Maguire in the Philadelphia Bulletin, "Former Philadelphia Eagle, Rev. Herb H. Lusk II opened The HOPE Center....[which will] provide referrals to organizations that can help women and men with medical, economic and social needs and offer post-abortion support. Future plans include in-house medical services with ultra sound....'We're living in a culture of death....[The HOPE Center] gives people options. We have the positive alternative.'

Methods of Natural Family Planning can be easily learned and utilized. As they involve no foreign objects or chemicals, these methods are absolutely safe for wife, husband, and pre-born child. No one can even try to make that claim for contraceptives! In my opinion, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System <http://www.fertilitycarefriends.org/> constitutes the best of the Natural Family Planning methods.

Revisions to Pa Catholic Conf’s “Guidelines for Catholic Hospitals Treating Victims of Sexual Assault” & # 36 of the USCCB's "Ethical Directives"?

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"When Answers are Nuanced, You’re Getting Snowed" (B.C. Courier Times, 11/6/08)

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A Look at the Vatican's Compendium of Social Doctrine

"Truth? What is Truth?" takes a look at authentic Catholic Social Teaching (CST). While there have been attempts to use CST to downplay sanctity of life concerns, the Vatican's "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" offers absolutely no support for such!

As per Pope John Paul II, "The inviolability of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination" (The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church & in the World, 1988).