This week on the Pro-Life World View, we bring you articles on the possible implications for pro-life prayer of plans to legislation on stalking, on a US bishop’s refusal to stand by in silence as children are abused with so-called sex “change” treatment, including in Catholic hospitals, on attempts to normalise same-sex activity through advertising campaigns, and on the promotion of a new test kit for mothers to check if their chemical abortion has been a “success”.
Stalking to become illegal punishable by up to five years jail
NZ Herald
Justice Minister – Time to make stalking illegal New Zealand
NZ Herald
Stalking to become illegal – but could a prayerful witness near abortion clinics be considered stalking?
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is responding to growing public concern by announcing plans to introduce legislation that would make stalking illegal and punishable by up to five years in jail.
How would stalking be defined in such legislation? Could the regular presence of pro-life prayer participants near abortion facilities be interpreted as “stalking”? Minister Goldsmith has commented that the petition makes a “great starting point,“ so consider one example definition: “a pattern of unwanted repetitive and persistent intrusions into a person’s life.” Could the staff of an abortion facility view a pro-life prayer presence through this lens?
National Director for Family Life International Michelle Kaufman has observed that inroads have been made into denying religious freedoms in the way “Safe Areas” exclusion zone regulations around many abortion facilities are being interpreted. Given this, how stalking laws are policed might also become problematic for those who simply want to be a peaceful, prayerful presence close to where innocent pre-born children are unjustly aborted.
Catholic hospitals must protect children from gender ideology
Bishop James D. Conley – The Catholic Thing
The Most Rev. James D. Conley is Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, National Episcopal Advisor to the Catholic Medical Association, and Chair of the Episcopal Advisory Board of the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance.
Catholic hospitals must protect children from gender ideology, says bishop
According to a U.S. bishop, a group called Stop the Harm has assembled data showing the extent of the abuse of minors in U.S. hospitals, “poisoning them with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and mutilating them with ghastly surgeries that forever alter their bodies”. Records show nearly 14,000 “treatments” relating to so-called sex “changes”, including in 150 Catholic hospitals that appear to have been involved in such procedures. Bishop James D. Conley, the U.S. National Episcopal Advisor to the Catholic Medical Association, says he “cannot stand by in silence” while Catholic medical institutions ignore Catholic teaching and harm and abuse children through surgeries and hormone treatments.
Noting many Catholic hospitals participate “in this ugly evil,” he is calling for “full investigations to be done with the same vigour with which we have investigated other abuse of children.“ Bishop Conley, who has authored the linked article, remarks on the growing European awareness of the harm caused by such treatments and their rejection as a consequence. He also points to evidence that around 80% of children with confusion about sex and gender grow out of it – calling instead for “watchful waiting,” which involves sound psychological counselling and loving children “in the fullness of their God-given realities.”
Aids Foundation told to remove gay sex education ad
Jeremy Wilkinson – NZ Herald
Burnett Foundation told to remove homosexual sex education ads
Complaints about an advertisement commissioned by the Burnett Foundation (previously known as the New Zealand Aids Foundation) resulted in the Advertising Standards Authority ruling that the advertising must not be used. The Authority noted that the advertisements contained “sexually explicit text and imagery” likely to cause serious offence.
Burnett’s Chief Executive Joe Rich has accused complainants of homophobia, saying the advertisement was intended to be educational and not to promote male same-sex activity. Complainants saw it differently – for example, one complaint read, “I want the posters promoting anal sex … taken down immediately. This is a disgusting advert to have in a prime location where young children come.”
Mr Rich also said, “We must normalise sex positivity in the public sphere.” Such sentiments starkly highlight the challenge for followers of Christ in a post-Christian world – called as we are to show love for mankind at the same time as having hatred for sins (including our own). By contrast, the world demands acceptance and affirmation, as I am and do.
Pharmac to fund at-home testing kit to check on whether abortion has been “successful”
Taxpayer-funded agency Pharmac has announced it is funding a new testing kit for home use to check on the “success” of so-called “medical” abortions, in other words, to check that the baby has been expelled and the induced abortion is complete. Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa, formerly named Family Planning and a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the biggest abortion-providing organization in the world, said, “This is a great decision … This demedicalizes the process.”
Family Life International (FLI) says:
“The comment from Sexual Wellbeing New Zealand that Pharmac’s abortion-testing kit demedicalizes the process” is both unintentionally revealing and deeply deceptive.
“Firstly, they are admitting what the pro-life movement has always said: Abortion has nothing to do with medicine; it is not health care. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines medicine as “a substance or preparation used in treating disease” – but a baby and a pregnancy are not diseases. The purpose of the drugs used in chemical abortion (Early “Medical” Abortion) is to block the naturally occurring hormone progesterone, causing the womb lining to break down and end the life of the baby as it does so.
“Secondly, Sexual Wellbeing’s claim that the testing kit demedicalizes the abortion process is deeply deceptive because chemical abortion is associated with various risks to a mother’s health. The most common clinically significant adverse events are hospital admission, blood transfusion, emergency room treatment, IV antibiotics administration, infection and, rarely, death. Clinically significant outcomes are ongoing intrauterine pregnancy and ectopic pregnancy diagnosed after medical abortion treatment. Yet research by abortion providers without exception describes the procedures as safe and effective.”1
FOOTNOTES:
1 Cleland K, Creinin MD, Nucatola D, Nshom M & Trussell J (2013) Significant adverse events and outcomes after medical abortion. Obstet Gynecol 121(1):166-171; and Trussell J, Nucatola D, Fjerstad M & Lichtenberg ES (2014) Reduction in infection-related mortality since modifications in the regimen of medical abortion. Contraception 89(3):193-196.
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