Pro-Life World View

This week on the Pro-Life World View, we bring you interesting articles discussing medical abortion, assisted suicide, and the undermining of freedom of conscience, and much more.

Woman learns she might have 700 siblings due to sperm donor’s deception
Cassy Fiano-Chesser – LiveAction

Australian sperm donor may have fathered over 1,000 children
Cassy Fiano-Chesser – LiveAction

Woman learns she might have 700 siblings due to sperm donor’s deception

Australian woman Katherine Dawson knew she was conceived “in a Petri dish” and had thought it ‘cool’ until she learned she might have around 700 siblings. Now she is horrified! Dawson’s biological father had deliberately used false identities to circumvent the donor registration system. Unfortunately, this is not the first time such deception has occurred. Last year in Queensland, it was discovered that the sperm of a single donor with a single registration number may have been used in over 1,000 IVF-conceived babies.

We have noted previously that IVF technologies necessarily involve multiple moral issues, treating the conception of human babies like a manufacturing process separate from the marital act, and routinely killing unwanted embryos who are living human beings. Cases like those reported in the linked stories reveal the potential for people conceived via IVF to become involved in incestuous relationships with their siblings without foreknowledge. The idea that a sperm donor ‘fathered’ multiple children by sperm donation is truly abhorrent.

Britain’s anti-family revolution will continue under its new government
Liam Gibson – Voice of the Family Digest

With Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street, assisted dying is on the way
Michael Cook – Mercator

Britain’s anti-family revolution will continue under its new government

Governments may change, but the trajectory society is hurtling down seems beyond the power or at least the will of politicians to change. The linked article does a great job of bringing us up to date with the political landscape in Britain, providing startlingly clear evidence of the similarities between Britain and New Zealand in the way attacks on the natural family, Christian marriage, and life itself have played out and how they continue to build momentum. The final lines are a universally important call to a heroic living out of our Faith in our family lives:

“Politics cannot provide a solution to the problems facing the family in Britain or across the globe. The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family. If Christian civilisation is to be rebuilt, it will be by the family, through the family and for the family.”

Also linked is another article that suggests that in the face of many other issues demanding the attention of the incoming Government, there will be a push to extend the reign of an anti-life culture in the form of euthanasia and assisted suicide within UK society “very soon.”

Berlin court undermines freedom of conscience in “morning-after pill” judgment
Press release – ADF International

Berlin court undermines freedom of conscience in morning-after pill judgment

Andreas Kersten, a pharmacist who refused to supply a potentially abortifacient drug (colloquially known as the morning-after pill}, was taken to the Court of Appeal by his own professional body for breaching professional duty. Thankfully, the Appeal was dismissed, and he was acquitted.

However, in Kersten’s own words:

“Even though I have been acquitted, I am dismayed by the reasoning rejecting our freedom of conscience. Now pharmacists could be forced to give up their beloved profession simply for staying true to their convictions.“

In the oral judgement, the presiding judge has said that the duty to provide drugs, including the morning-after-pill, overrides freedom of conscience, a position clearly at odds with the international human rights law protecting conscience. This case serves as a stark reminder that New Zealand is not immune from such thinking and the potential fallout for individuals in our healthcare system who hold to the premise of “first do no harm.”

European Court Upholds Hungary’s Ban on ‘Assisted Suicide’
Jean-Paul Van De Walle – The European Conservative

European Court Upholds Hungary’s Ban on Assisted Suicide

Mr Karsai, who lives with advanced ALS, wants to claim a right under the European Convention on Human Rights to commit suicide with medical assistance. However, the European Court of Human Rights struck down his claim, holding that Hungary was under no obligation to allow him to end his life by way of assisted suicide. Although the Court decision affirms Hungary’s nation-state rights to protect the life of its citizens, it still allows for individual nations to legislate in favour of physicians assisting patients to die, stating:

“… the European Convention on Human Rights neither obliges nor prevents states from legalizing assisted death, as long as ‘appropriate and sufficient safeguards’ are in place.”

SCOTUS rules on the abortion pill
Fr. John Flader – Mercator

SCOTUS rules on the abortion pill

A group of emergency room doctors brought a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the sale of Mifepristone and Misoprostol had been “arbitrary and capricious”. As the doctors who deal with trauma resulting from the use of Mifepristone (RU486), their concern was inadequate safeguards, no requirement for physician prescriptions and availability by mail order. Alongside the doctors’ case was an amicus brief, signed and submitted by 2,743 women who had suffered adverse effects reactions. The result? The Supreme Court rejected the case on technical grounds … deciding that the doctors did not have standing before the Court to bring the case. If the doctors do not have standing, who does?

Why are such cases important? Easy access supply of Mifepristone (and its companion drug, Misoprostol) without the requirement for medical examination and without a full informed consent process is now widespread and growing. New Zealand, for example, allows access via an 0800 DECIDE phone line, as well as through abortion providers and some pharmacies, physicians, and midwives. As a consequence, even more babies are being aborted, and medical trauma cases involving abortion drugs are also on the rise.

John-Paul Who?
Fr. Jeffrey Kirby – The Catholic Thing

John Paul Who?

St. John Paul II gave the Church a treasury of teaching for our time:

the rapport between faith and reason
the splendour of truth
the theology of the body
a catechesis of charity

Yet, too many of the younger generations know nothing (or very little) of this great Saint and his contribution to the life and faith of the Church.

“At a time when freedom has forgotten truth, and love has been redefined to circumvent goodness, we need the skillful teachings of a believer who lived and knew how to navigate under regimes and ideologies that manipulated language, degraded humanity’s spiritual identity, and sought to convince us that life is only about utility, pleasure, or power.”

Given the rampant and aggressive secularism and even hedonism of our time, these teachings are ever more relevant and necessary, argues the linked article.

Pediatric Gender Medicine Is Led by Activism, Not Science, New Documents Show
Christina Buttons – Reality’s Last Stand

Paediatric Gender Medicine Is Led by Activism, Not Science

Subpoenaed documents from within the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) show that political goals were prioritised over medical evidence when they developed treatment guidelines for gender dysphoria. This matters because WPATH’s guidelines have become the gold standard internationally, and several reviews of such approaches, such as the Cass Review in the UK, have raised serious questions about them. An extract from one of WPATH’s internal documents makes their intent shockingly clear:

“Our concerns, echoed by the social justice lawyers we spoke with, is that evidence-based review reveals little or no evidence and puts us in an untenable position in terms of affecting policy or winning lawsuits.”