With thoughts during the holidays elsewhere, here are some pro-life stories that didn’t get the attention they might have deserved:
Susan Boyle: my mother was advised to abort me
International singing sensation Susan Boyle has revealed that she could have been aborted as a baby in her mother’s womb if her mum had followed doctors’ advice.
But to her mother, a devout Roman Catholic, an abortion was unthinkable and she went through with the pregnancy.
Miss Boyle said doctors had told Bridget Boyle, then a 45-year-old mother of eight, that having another baby could kill her. More . . .
NOTE: Good thing the ACLU wasn’t working for the hospital Mrs. Boyle was in
ACLU Asks Obama Admin to Force Catholic Hospitals to Do Abortions
by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 12/23/10 2:36 PM
The ACLU has again asked the Obama administration to force Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals to do abortions in cases where the mother’s life is supposedly in danger.
The new letter to the federal government is the second the pro-abortion legal group has sent and this one concerns the debate over the controversial abortion a Phoenix-based Catholic hospital did. The abortion earned the medical center condemnation from Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who decided this week to revoke the Catholic status of the hospital. More . . .
NOTE II: Also a good thing this nun wasn’t there as well
ABC News Calls Nun Who Approved Abortion “Saintly,” Hits Catholic Bishop
by Matthew Balan | New York, NY | LifeNews.com | 12/23/10 12:41 PM
ABC’s Dan Harris gave a slanted report on Wednesday’s GMA about the Catholic bishop of Phoenix, Arizona stripping a hospital there of its Catholic status: “This is a story that involves a nun, described as saintly; a Catholic bishop; a world-class hospital; and a controversy now being discussed across the country.”
Harris unnecessarily introduced the priestly sex scandal into his report, and played a sound bite from a doctor who thought religion should be kept out of medical decisions involving crisis pregnancies. More . . .
By Diane Dietz, The Register-Guard, Published: Tuesday, Dec 28, 2010 05:00AM
The Catholic Community Services Board has decided to immediately forswear the use of United Way dollars for its charity work because United Way of Lane County gives money to Planned Parenthood. . . .The visit came just before Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon began its first-time offering of the abortion pill, RU-486, which some church leaders regard as the moral equivalent of surgical abortion.
The archbishop advised Catholic Community Services to contact United Way and explain its objections to Planned Parenthood, said Bud Bunce, archdiocese spokesman.
“If there was going to be no changes made, his recommendation was they (Catholic Community Services) would need to withdraw from United Way,” Bunce said. “Planned Parenthood is now offering abortion services in Lane County. Abortions are contrary to Catholic moral teachings.” More . . .
by Joseph O’Brien, 12/30/10, Knights of Columbus
Born three years apart, Peyton and Kayla Hadley began their lives as normal, healthy children. For their first seven years, both progressed normally as they began elementary school, scoring high on tests with excellent reading skills. Then, when Peyton turned 8, things began to change.
One of the first signs that something wasn’t right began with Peyton’s tendency to cock his head while reading.
“It was gradual at first,” said Bryan Hadley, Peyton and Kayla’s father and a member of Rogue River Council 1594 in Medford, Ore. “We’d notice that he was having a harder and harder time tracking down or up with his eyes.”
After a battery of tests administered by medical doctors, eye doctors and physical therapists, the Hadley family finally received an explanation of their son’s problems on Nov. 9, 2007. Peyton had a neurodegenerative disease known as Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC). It is almost always fatal, and it has no cure. . . .Kayla was also diagnosed with NPC about a year later. . . Once they knew what they were up against, the Hadleys created a non-profit organization, Hadley Hope (hadleyhope.com), to help find a cure. In addition to raising awareness about NPC, which often goes undiagnosed, the organization has raised more than $211,000 in research funds since 2007. “The only way to do anything about the disease was to come up with the money for research,” Laura explained.
The Hadleys believe that adult stem cells not only offer an ethical basis for research, but also hold one of the greatest hopes for finding a cure.
Most credible estimates, they said, put any real cure about 10 years away, but they are working to revise that forecast with help from groups such as the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute in Iowa City, Iowa. Dr. Alan Moy founded the institute in 2006 in part to make up for the lack of ethical stem-cell research at secular institutes and the poor government funding that is typically directed toward adult stem cells. . . Ultimately, by working with other patients who have orphan diseases, the scientists at the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute plan to create a bank of disease-specific stem cells and provide hope for many other families like the Hadleys. More. . .